ALAN HAIL

Like all sensible lovers of great acting, I was saddened by the death of Alan Rickman, way too young at 69, earlier this month.

Here in the Valley, Harkins Theatres is paying a very cool tribute to Rickman with a mini-festival of his films today only at the Valley Art in downtown Tempe: Love Actually (11 a.m.); Galaxy Quest (1:50 p.m.); Truly, Madly, Deeply (4:10 p.m.) and Die Hard (8:45 p.m.). (They’re also showing Labyrinth at 6:30 p.m., as a David Bowie tribute.) Tickets are only $5, and proceeds benefit Save the Children.

Great choices, but I would have included Sense and Sensibility, and one of my sisters always raves about a TV movie Rickman starred in called Something the Lord Made.

Anyway…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week our honoree is General Sarris, the menacing reptile-arthropod-whatever played by Robin Sachs in Galaxy Quest…

He was insultingly named, by the way, after the late auteurist critic Andrew Sarris.

AGING MR. BOWIE

RIP, obviously, to the unforgettable David Bowie.

In his honor…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week the nod goes to John Blaylock, the glam vampire Bowie plays in Tony Scott’s 1983 The Hunger…

That film’s wittiest scene comes when John ages, courtesy brilliant Dick Smith makeup, from a sexy New York Goth-club hipster into a grumpy old man, all while sitting in a doctor’s office waiting room…

 
Who hasn’t felt this way waiting for a doctor’s appointment?

FilmBar Phoenix shows The Hunger Friday evening, January 15, at 9:50 p.m. It’s an uneven movie, but worth catching if you’ve never seen it. They’re showing another Bowie fave, 1986’s Labyrinth, on Saturday, and maybe Bowie’s best film, Nicolas Roeg’s sad sci-fi tale The Man Who Fell to Earth, on Sunday and Monday.