By Grabthar’s hammer, Sigourney is 60

Thanks to IMDB.com for letting me know that Sigourney Weaver turns 60 today. There aren’t too many actors who can earn top spots on my favorite films list in genres as different as sci-fi/horror and sci-fi/comedy, but Weaver is one.

The latter is composed of the “Alien” quartet, of which only the first two are really worth wasting time on, being directed, respectively, by Ridley Scott (the 1979 original) and James Cameron (1986’s “Aliens”). David Fincher’s 1992 “Alien3” and Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 1997 “Alien: Resurrection” are pale copies.

In all those films, Weaver plays Warrant Officer Ellen Ripley, one of the most kick-ass woman characters in film history. We watch as she starts out as a somewhat officious, if ultimately correct, member of the Nostromo’s crew whose diffidence allows her to be manipulated, a fact that lead to disaster.

But Ripley grows, so much so that she survives and ends up accompanying the members of the second mission. And ends up that mission’s leader. Her battle with the queen alien, hydraulic loader vs. the alien’s massive bulk, is one of the great fight scenes ever filmed.

The sci/fi comedy is “Galaxy Quest,” which is one of those rare entities: a funny Tim Allen movie. Allen, Weaver, Alan Rickman, Tony Shalhoub, Daryl Mitchell and Sam Rockwell play the main cast members of a “Star Trek” type show who now make their livings doing dinner theater, commercials and making the rounds of “Trek” festivals.

Then they get spirited off by a band of aliens who take them for the real thing. Weaver, as Gwen DeMarco, plays the Uhura equivalent, appropriately named Lt. Tawny Madison, the sexy computer officer whose breasts threaten always to burst forth but whose blond head hides a competent, brave soul.

The roles are complementary, two sides of the same fictional soul. But each is an essential part of its respective movie. And the movies themselves – at least those directed by Scott and Cameron, plus Dean Parisot’s “Galaxy Quest” – are some of the best movie watches ever.

And remember: “Never give up. Never surrender.”