I get Halloween in the same way I get The French Connection, i.e. it was an innovator which has been so subsequently cannibalized that it loses much of its latter-day impact. I can appreciate its influence and place in horror history, it's just that my eyes kinda glaze over when it's on.
― Independent Living Ass (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:22 (five years ago) link
And specifically wrt the thread topic, it's lacking much of the random batshittery and goofiness that makes so many other Carpenter films so appealing to me.
― Independent Living Ass (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:23 (five years ago) link
Good slasher pics off the top of my head: OG Texas Chainsaw, Tourist Trap, Pieces. I'm sure there are others. Even Black Christmas, though, doesn't do a lot for me.
― Independent Living Ass (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:24 (five years ago) link
It hasn't been mentioned quite enough times on this thread how utterly terrible Vampires is. I remember Kent Jones writing something around the time it came out that John Carpenter has never made a movie he should feel embarrassed over and thinking, "Um, right here!"
― zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:26 (five years ago) link
I like Vampires. It's dumb as shit, but it's fun.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:32 (five years ago) link
And it looks really good. Carpenter hadn't lost his eye yet.
― shared unit of analysis (unperson), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:33 (five years ago) link
My only enduring memory of that movie is James Woods saying "f*gg**" as much as he could get away with.
― zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:34 (five years ago) link
I'm kinda curious to watch his Masters of Horror episodes but also...not that curious?
― Independent Living Ass (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:35 (five years ago) link
I kinda feel like, independent of the actual quality of the films in question, it might be difficult to watch any movie starring James Woods these days.
― Independent Living Ass (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:36 (five years ago) link
Videodrome aside, yes.
― zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:36 (five years ago) link
"Cigarette Burns" is about as good as the show got, I'd say. Not his best work, but at least he showed up the rest of them. "Pro-Life" is less good and more grisly.
― zama roma ding dong (Eric H.), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:37 (five years ago) link
oh wait shit i forgot to mention this:
my wife has been dealing with her folks' financial stuff for several years now, and the guy who is the financial advisor she's worked with is Richie Castle, all grown up
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/headhuntershorrorhouse/images/8/8f/Richie_meets_the_Shape.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20141001142055
― omar little, Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:42 (five years ago) link
He doesn't appear to have grown up all that much tbh.
― Independent Living Ass (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:47 (five years ago) link
They Live gets deserved credit for a honest depiction of Reagan's America, it's worthwhile for that alone
They Live is worthwhile as a big dumb goofy fun genre movie, but I always thought it gets waayyyyy too much credit as political/social commentary. It was 1988 after all - like yes, at last, a piece of culture that's finally brave enough to critique the greed and excess of Reagan's America, only a mere 8 years into Reagan's presidency. It's fun to see people fight weird gross monsters or w/e, but the idea of it as a piece of Serious Subversive Commentary always seemed a little rich to me. Would have worked just as well or better as a music video or an episode of Amazing Stories or something imho
I always thought of The Thing as the quintessential 80's/"Reagan's America" movie in Carpenter's filmography.
― One Eye Open, Wednesday, 15 May 2019 18:52 (five years ago) link
I assume that you mean that the Thing was the brave conservative simply trying to survive an assault on its values by a bunch of godless beardo hippie liberals who refused to conform to its dream of uniformity through assimilation.
― Independent Living Ass (Old Lunch), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 19:00 (five years ago) link
xp to Eric
I personally like to think James Woods died five minutes after the release of Videodrome. Tragic.
― mh, Wednesday, 15 May 2019 19:06 (five years ago) link
xp Old Lunch, plus theres the obvious reference to the time that William Casey's stomach opened up and bit the arms off Ed Meese
― One Eye Open, Wednesday, 15 May 2019 19:09 (five years ago) link
woods is good in salvador
― mark s, Wednesday, 15 May 2019 19:11 (five years ago) link
I think the credit it gets is for the on-screen depiction of Reagan's America, not necessarily the critique
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Wednesday, 15 May 2019 19:12 (five years ago) link
Love this pic of Dario Argento and John Carpenter at Cannes this year:
https://scontent.fman2-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/60197465_2348460075235529_5242926505905881088_n.jpg?_nc_cat=105&_nc_ht=scontent.fman2-1.fna&oh=ce89c4adecbbd30560327fc7abb37a3a&oe=5D71C203
― Ward Fowler, Wednesday, 15 May 2019 19:35 (five years ago) link
they live
― mark s, Wednesday, 15 May 2019 19:36 (five years ago) link
id never seen precinct 13
its bad
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Tuesday, 20 August 2019 20:41 (five years ago) link
no movie which features a kid getting shot dead in the first couple of minutes can be entirely bad iirc
― Andy Jones, Earth-Born Angel of Love (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, 20 August 2019 20:42 (five years ago) link
Nah, it's good, just kind of formative.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 20 August 2019 20:43 (five years ago) link
i promise you ive just seen it, its bad
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Tuesday, 20 August 2019 20:48 (five years ago) link
Great score at least.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 20 August 2019 21:19 (five years ago) link
yep
and girl moment and slow setup are good
performances are shockin tho
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Tuesday, 20 August 2019 21:29 (five years ago) link
dun-diddle-dun-dun a-dun-diddle-dun-dun dun-diddle-dun-dun dun-DUN-diddle-dun-dun
― And according to some websites, there were “sexcapades.” (James Morrison), Friday, 23 August 2019 01:51 (five years ago) link
‘Assault.. ‘ is great! What a movie! I always loved the story of how it did nothing in the States but then became a big hit in Britain at festivals where everyone went crazy over it. I hated Dark Star which is about as funny as a pin through the eye, so it tickles me that his co-writer on that hated ‘Assault..’. Interesting to note it currently has 98% on Rotten tomatoes.
It was a cast of as-good-as-unknowns so that explains the unpolished acting I suppose.
― piscesx, Friday, 23 August 2019 04:08 (five years ago) link
feel i normally align with darragh on films but Assault on Precinct 13 is good and James Morrison makes an excellent point.
― Fizzles, Friday, 23 August 2019 05:24 (five years ago) link
oh deems is talking about the *performances* lol.
― Fizzles, Friday, 23 August 2019 05:25 (five years ago) link
ha, develop that
i love any other carpenter ive seen, and was really looking forward to this so am willing to be talked round a bit.
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Friday, 23 August 2019 08:18 (five years ago) link
well i’m ion a train but yes i don’t think the performances are v good but probably don’t need to be. saw this when i was 15 and that’s where it’s status for me comes from. but if i give it a bit of thought i’d say the escalation of violence, from initial incident to gradually coalescing threat is v well managed. that threat coalesces into the specific impacts of bullets etc on the claustrophobic precinct but they’re only ever loosely linked to that brooding presence just beyond the visible iirc. in that respect it’s much like the early parts of the fog.
― Fizzles, Friday, 23 August 2019 08:44 (five years ago) link
hmm this is all fair tbh
i hate to be that person doing that thing where youve seen a genuinely bold and influential effort after all the movies that have done it since (and tbf often better, which of course given budget and a template is easy done) and therefore seeing mainly the faults...but i think im that person this time
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Friday, 23 August 2019 09:13 (five years ago) link
As I'm sure has been mentioned somewhere on this thread already, Assault is basically Hawks' Rio Bravo transplanted to an urban modern-day setting - but I think knowledge of that actually makes the Carpenter seem more ingenious!
IIRC ex-ilxor Enrique tried to argue somewhere (again, maybe here) that the remake of Assault is better than the original, but he may have been provoking us complacent auteurist at the time.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 23 August 2019 09:21 (five years ago) link
i’ve only seen the remake once, back when it was released, but i remember it being pretty good
― Andy Jones, Earth-Born Angel of Love (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 23 August 2019 10:43 (five years ago) link
Obviously Carpenter loved Hawks and siege movies, and he would go to that well a lot - even Halloween is ultimately kind of a one-person siege movie - but Assault is also kind of a riff on zombie movies (minus the zombies).
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 23 August 2019 11:49 (five years ago) link
right down to the weather/lubar radio reports at the start
― phil neville jacket (darraghmac), Friday, 23 August 2019 13:02 (five years ago) link
lunar
― quelle sprocket damage (sic), Friday, 23 August 2019 19:28 (five years ago) link
AOP13 is good but it's certainly this (relative to expectations) really understated and bleak and dim movie which i think works effectively as a mood flick more than a kinetic action movie, which is to its credit. i do remember the performances being blatant in terms of the lack of charisma happening onscreen, everything taken away from the performances but the words and the gestures. I mean practically Bressonian in a way tbh.
― omar little, Friday, 23 August 2019 19:47 (five years ago) link
There's a quote from Simon Pegg on the wiki that sums that up, sort of:
"You wouldn't really call it an action film," claims Pegg, "because it was pre- the evolution of that kind of film. And yet it is kind of an action film in a way."
Which is party why it works as a kind of link between Night of the Living Dead and, I dunno, Die Hard.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 23 August 2019 19:58 (five years ago) link
Wikipedia says "Assault ... was shot in only 20 days, including Thanksgiving, on a budget of $100,000."
and you can see every dollar on the screen
― Brad C., Saturday, 24 August 2019 18:51 (five years ago) link
Carpenter only ever makes siege movies, just sometimes the protagonists are under siege (they live, the fog, prince of darkness), and sometimes they're the ones conducting the siege (big trouble in little china, escape from new york, vampires). His is a world of fortresses.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Saturday, 24 August 2019 22:19 (five years ago) link
in dark star the protagonists are under siege by their own bomb
― El Tomboto, Saturday, 24 August 2019 23:07 (five years ago) link
Embarrassingly, I must confess that I only saw Escape From New York for the first time last night. Solid flick! Although not quite what I expected. I figured it would have the brash swagger of his mid-'80s action-oriented material, but falling as it does between The Fog and The Thing it makes sense in hindsight that it's actually a moodier and more meditative film than I'd imagined. Wanna see LA now even though I'm sure it isn't the sequel this thing deserved.
― McGrief the Crying Dog (Old Lunch), Sunday, 25 August 2019 00:47 (five years ago) link
LA is bad
― Οὖτις, Sunday, 25 August 2019 00:48 (five years ago) link
What's the word on Black Moon Rising? I was first alerted to its existence via a trailer compilation I own and thought 'THIS LOOKS AMAZING' even before I learned that there was a Carpenter connection.
Also need to get around to watching Somebody's Watching Me! so the title stops seeming like an indictment of my continued negligence.
― McGrief the Crying Dog (Old Lunch), Sunday, 25 August 2019 00:51 (five years ago) link
FTR, I seem to enjoy Carpenter even when he is bad (eg Vampires and Ghosts of Mars).
Oh right, the other one I haven't seen and always forget he did: Memoirs of a See-Through Chevy Chase. Is there any point?
― McGrief the Crying Dog (Old Lunch), Sunday, 25 August 2019 00:54 (five years ago) link
Nah, Carpenter didn't write it or do the soundtrack... it's pretty bad.
― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Sunday, 25 August 2019 02:43 (five years ago) link