Aliens

How many alien-invasion movies do you see where you root for the aliens to win? Except for one splendidly bizarre scene, “Aliens in the Attic’’ is conveyor-belt family product, an action/adventure/sci-fi/comedy made from the bland corporate DNA of Nickelodeon and the Disney Channel. It appears designed for families who never leave the mall. That one scene, though - it’s a honey. See, the nasty little ETs who have invaded the vacation home of the Pearson clan shoot darts that turn grown-ups into zombies controlled by a video-game-style joystick.

A Chinese immigrant who beheaded and cannibalized a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus in western Canada four years ago thought he was attacking an alien, according to a mental health advocate who interviewed him. In 2009, Vince Li was found not criminally responsible due to mental illness for the death of Tim McLean, a 22-year-old carnival worker who was sitting next to him on a bus traveling near Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. McLean had his eyes closed and was listening to music on his headphones when Li suddenly stood up and started stabbing him. As the bus stopped and horrified...

If you have to see "Monsters vs. Aliens" - and if you're a parent, you will have to - make sure it's the 3-D version. The film's opening scenes deposit the audience somewhere in the middle of the rings of Saturn with a parsecs-wide vastness that is out of this world. Every kid in the screening I attended blurted out a stunned "Whoa," and so did most of the grown-ups: We were witnessing not just the beginning of a film but the start of the next phase of blockbuster-movie technology, like it or not. The rest of "Monsters vs. Aliens," unfortunately, brings us slowly back to Earth.

Fifteen years into their relationship, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones are like an old married couple, intimately familiar with each other's habits and quirks. So much so that when this Hollywood odd couple sits down together in an interview for "Men in Black 3," the affable Smith plays it like couples counseling, launching into whiny-wife mode about Jones, his sometimes curmudgeonly cast mate. "He doesn't compliment me when I get dressed," Smith whimpers on a sofa alongside Jones.

By Sara Brown, Town Correspondent After an alien attack, the fate of the world--or at least, a Boston suburb--will be in the hands of Tom Mason: Boston University history professor. This is the plot of TNT's new science-fiction series "Falling Skies," in which Noah Wyle (best known for his role as Dr. John Carter on NBC's "ER") portrays Mason, the history-professor-turned-alien-fighter who has to fend off aliens who have killed his wife and abducted one of his sons.

The Central European Journal of Engineering may not be the most widely read publication in the world, but an essay published in it earlier this year contained the nugget of an idea that could very well alter the course of human history. The author’s name is Brent Sherwood, and his article — titled “Inhabiting the Solar System” — will have been heavy going for people unfamiliar with Whipple bumpers and solar proton events. Behind the arcane language, though, was a rallying cry every bit as ambitious as President John F. Kennedy’s famous 1962 Space Race speech, in which the...

A mysterious force has descended on Moscow, terrifying the populace and sucking up all the power. No, not Vladimir Putin. In "The Darkest Hour," a bunch of invisible flying alien electrical jellyfish thingies rain down from the sky to drink all the juice out of the world's power grid, or possibly steal the earth's electrical-conductor minerals, or . . . something. Our knowledge of the situation is limited because we're seeing it through the eyes of four young Americans who meet up at a bar in Moscow for vodka shots just in time for the extraterrestrial invasion.

Plenty of historical plaques in this region mark spots where English settlers encountered Native Americans or Colonial troops encountered the British, but New Hampshire deserves points for originality in marking a close encounter of the third kind. Back in 1961, Granite State residents Betty and Barney Hill reported being abducted by aliens while driving near Lincoln, N.H. With the 50th anniversary of the event nearing, the state's Division of Historical Resources has put up a plaque that - to the consternation of some skeptics - declares matter-of-factly that the Hills "experienced a...

Afghan Star (unrated), 8 Séraphine (unrated), 10 Eldorado (unrated), 13 Died Young, Stayed Pretty (unrated), 14 Funny People (R), 6 Shrink (R), 12 Note: “The Collector’’ and “Aliens in the Attic,’’ which open today, were not screened in advance. Reviews will appear later today at www.boston.com/films.

The problem with the "Alien vs. Predator" series is that the humans keep getting in the way. "Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem" is the second movie ripped off from the best-selling video game which in turn was ripped off from separate Reagan-era monster-movie franchises. That's not necessarily a bad thing; an effective B-movie doesn't have to be original, just well-crafted. 2004's "AVP: Alien vs. Predator," for instance, was proficient sci-fi/action snack food, nothing more or less.

PLACE By Jorie Graham Ecco, 96 pp. $15.99 ALIEN VS. PREDATOR By Michael Robbins Penguin, 71 pp. $18 As titles go, "Place" offers a useful conceptual center of gravity for Jorie Graham's new collection. It's full of poems that wrangle with where we find ourselves — in time, in the space of our bodies (or the space of the cosmos), and most urgently, in the experience of our own experience. "Place" is unstable, breathtakingly fleeting.

A mysterious force has descended on Moscow, terrifying the populace and sucking up all the power. No, not Vladimir Putin. In "The Darkest Hour," a bunch of invisible flying alien electrical jellyfish thingies rain down from the sky to drink all the juice out of the world's power grid, or possibly steal the earth's electrical-conductor minerals, or . . . something. Our knowledge of the situation is limited because we're seeing it through the eyes of four young Americans who meet up at a bar in Moscow for vodka shots just in time for the extraterrestrial invasion.

PRISCILLA DREAMS THE ANSWER Play by Walt McGough Directed by: Melanie Garber. Set, Andrea VanDenBroeke. Lights, Michael Clark Wonson. Costumes, Vivian Yee. Presented by Fresh Ink Theatre Company. At: Factory Theatre, 791 Tremont St., through Dec. 17. Tickets: $16. 866-811-4111, www.freshinktheatre.com Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by three spirits in Charles Dickens's "A Christmas Carol. " George Bailey spent Christmas Eve with the angel Clarence in the Frank Capra film "It's a Wonderful Life.

PICK OF THE DAY Rededication The Abolition church, black Faneuil Hall, beacon on the hill, center for civil disobedience, school, rallying point for the first blacks from the North to serve in the Civil War, sanctuary, synagogue, and museum. These names have described the African Meeting House , a National Historic Landmark on Beacon Hill which reopens to the public for the first time in six years after a restoration project. The rededication celebration features guided tours, music, and a photo exhibit by Don West.

**½ ATTACK THE BLOCK Written and directed by: Joe Cornish Starring: John Boyega, Jodie Whittaker, Luke Treadaway, Jumayn Hunter, and Nick Frost At: Kendall Square Running time: 88 minutes Rated: R (monsters, drugs, profanity, violence, blood, guns) There's a smart moment in the new alien-invasion action-comedy "Attack the Block" in which a young black hood named Moses (John Boyega) speculates that the monsters roving around his South London high-rise apartment complex must have been sent from the government to kill black people.

If you were to visit the moon today, in the neighborhood of the Apennine mountain range, you would find a small figurine, about the same size and shape as a Lego minifigure, lying facedown in the lunar dust. Unauthorized by NASA, this "Fallen Astronaut" sculpture was placed there exactly 40 years ago this past week by astronauts David Scott and James Irwin of Apollo 15, and sits alongside a tiny plaque listing the names of 14 astronauts and cosmonauts who had died during their time in their respective space programs.

You may recognize Patrick Somerville as the author of “The Cradle,’’ a realistic and often comical exploration of contemporary fatherhood. Little in that novel would prepare for you the amazing stories in Somerville’s second story collection, “The Universe in Miniature in Miniature.’’ These tales are mostly speculative fiction-science fiction, surrealism, absurdism, and fantasy blended into a metafictional continuum. In his linked sketches, vignettes, and full-blown stories, Somerville’s characters like to quote or allude to Bilbo and Frodo Baggins, characters straight...

PICK OF THE DAY Rededication The Abolition church, black Faneuil Hall, beacon on the hill, center for civil disobedience, school, rallying point for the first blacks from the North to serve in the Civil War, sanctuary, synagogue, and museum. These names have described the African Meeting House , a National Historic Landmark on Beacon Hill which reopens to the public for the first time in six years after a restoration project. The rededication celebration features guided tours, music, and a photo exhibit by Don West.

"Cowboys & Aliens" has beaten back "The Smurfs" to win a squeaker at the weekend box office. According to final studio counts Monday, the sci-fi Western took the No. 1 spot on the domestic charts with a $36.4 million debut. That puts Universal Pictures' "Cowboys & Aliens" $800,000 ahead of Sony's family adventure "The Smurfs," which finished at No. 2 with $35.6 million over opening weekend. Sunday estimates had the two movies in a tie for the No. 1 spot at $36.2 million each.

Plenty of historical plaques in this region mark spots where English settlers encountered Native Americans or Colonial troops encountered the British, but New Hampshire deserves points for originality in marking a close encounter of the third kind. Back in 1961, Granite State residents Betty and Barney Hill reported being abducted by aliens while driving near Lincoln, N.H. With the 50th anniversary of the event nearing, the state's Division of Historical Resources has put up a plaque that - to the consternation of some skeptics - declares matter-of-factly that the Hills "experienced a close...