If the movie Alien was as quick as the script, it would be 4 minutes long.

There's no denying that a lot of excess time was spent on making shots long and boring, especially in the first half. It picks up after the dinner scene, but watching everything before that more than once is really a chore if you know what's coming.

Oh dear I thought it was Dan O'Bannon too.

Story credit goes to O'Bannon absolutely. But Hill is a genious :)
The Warriors rocks.
Every movie he's made/written is very good. At least every one I've seen ;)

I think Hill said in that interview that was posted on the blog, that the haiku-style might have been a little pretentious. Maybe. But it fits so perfectly. But like like you said, you might not want to apply it when you write romantic comedies.

Another trait of that style is that it's writing "down the page," vs across the page. Since one page in a script = one minute on screen, that style can help correlate space on page to time on screen. I've seen similar style used when a script describes long fight sequences.

I don't like the haiku style. Reading it is like looking at a series of stills.

Reading the conventional style action description is like watching a movie.