Aliens

"Game over, man! Game over!" With panicky Bill Paxton and the rest of his military squad quaking in fear around her, leave it to Sigourney Weaver to again save the day in James Cameron's flat-out brilliant 1986 sci-fi/feminist/monster movie Aliens. It's a showdown between mothers: Weaver's Ripley, returning to the now-colonized planet where she battled the lone alien in '79, versus the alien queen and her burgeoning brood of acid-fanged, rip-ya-apart, double-jawed spawn. I don't care how big a jerk Cameron may be post-Titanic; he shows top-of-the-world form here, impeccably constructing action sequences that are by turns terrifying, funny, and terrifying again. (R) BRIAN MILLER
Fri., July 18, 11:59 p.m.; Sat., July 19, 11:59 p.m., 2008