We've been through this already on the V1 forums, but as far as I'm concerned Dark Fate does not do much different from T3. What unique ideas that has, it doesn't do much with it . The same shit over and over.
Discuss and Rate the Last Film You Watched
- Thread starter Th3Ch33s3Cak3
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Reportedly he was going to retire after Vampires if he didn't have any fun making it. And evidently he did, though unfortunately that got us Ghosts of Mars. Haven't seen The Ward. I'll venture this though - Vampires and In the Mouth of Madness are the closest to good movies he made post 1980s.
His best being in my opinion The Thing, Escape From NY, They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, Halloween and Christine.
In the Mouth of Madness is awesome. A fitting end to Carpenter's Apocalypse trilogy. Prince of Darkness is great too.
I enjoy it but I just think it pales against his better movies.
Haven't seen Prince of Darkness.
Speak for yourself. I find it just as great as his films from the 80s.
I do recommend that you do see Prince of Darkness at least once. The second film in his Apocalypse trilogy.
I'm gonna go ahead and be That Guy and say that the book was much better. John Carpetnter's Vampires was based off of/ adapted from the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley.
The Muppet Movie(1979)
So we decided to put this on as a family movie this weekend(mostly for my daughter who'd never seen a muppet movie before) and I'd forgotten I hadn't seen it since I was a child. I'd also forgotten just how weird it comes across, despite the fact most of the pop culture references feel really dated at this point(even to me, who was born in the early 80's).
I mean, I get it that the 70's had their fair share of weird movies and then there's the inherent wierdness of the whole Muppet thing itself. It's not even the fact it's a road movie with some musical numbers and like everyone who was remotely famous in the 70's made a cameo appearance. It's more that the driving force of the plot(besides everyone wanting to go to Hollywood to get famous) is a crazy-ass "Fried Frog Legs" Fast Food magnate who becomes obsessed with the idea of Kermit being his spokesfrog and refuses to take no for an answer. To the point he chases him personally across the country and even hires a hitman(and a posse) to kill him if he refuses, because he literally has nothing better to do, it seems(Guess that restaurant empire will have to run itself). It's basically if Colonel Sanders was evil( mean, he might have been evil and I just haven't gotten the memo yet) and decided to hunt people on a road trip for shits and giggles.
Songs are catchy though and it's a fun 90 min. My kid enjoyed it a lot.
So we decided to put this on as a family movie this weekend(mostly for my daughter who'd never seen a muppet movie before) and I'd forgotten I hadn't seen it since I was a child. I'd also forgotten just how weird it comes across, despite the fact most of the pop culture references feel really dated at this point(even to me, who was born in the early 80's).
I mean, I get it that the 70's had their fair share of weird movies and then there's the inherent wierdness of the whole Muppet thing itself. It's not even the fact it's a road movie with some musical numbers and like everyone who was remotely famous in the 70's made a cameo appearance. It's more that the driving force of the plot(besides everyone wanting to go to Hollywood to get famous) is a crazy-ass "Fried Frog Legs" Fast Food magnate who becomes obsessed with the idea of Kermit being his spokesfrog and refuses to take no for an answer. To the point he chases him personally across the country and even hires a hitman(and a posse) to kill him if he refuses, because he literally has nothing better to do, it seems(Guess that restaurant empire will have to run itself). It's basically if Colonel Sanders was evil( mean, he might have been evil and I just haven't gotten the memo yet) and decided to hunt people on a road trip for shits and giggles.
Songs are catchy though and it's a fun 90 min. My kid enjoyed it a lot.
My favorite Muppet film has always been the Treasure Island version. Such a bad ass intro:
More partial to Christmas Carol myself("There goes Mr. Humbug, there go Mr. Grimm!") but Treasure island is also good.
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I think one thing I get from a lot of John Carpenter movies is how similar a lot of them are. If you take the basic idea of an isolated group under siege, usually led by someone who's gotta do what a man's gotta do (frequently an anti-hero), that sums up a lot of his films. In a sense, you could imagine that having made Assault On Precinct 13, he carried on remaking Assault On Precinct 13 over, and over, and over again. And even then, Assault On Precinct 13 is effectively a remake of a famous Western, although I forget which one as I'm not well up on Westerns. High Noon, Rio Bravo, something like that.
The Thing is an utter classic. I actually play the defibrillator scene in one of my lectures: always fun for the student reaction. Escape from NY, definitely. I probably prefer The Fog over Halloween, although perhaps partly because Halloween is diluted by all the sequels and stalker slasher imitations. Assault On Precinct 13 is taut, efficient, brutal, but perhaps lacks a bit of art and polish. Starman and Christine I don't remember well enough. Dark Star is a basically a student movie, and mixed.
I find a lot of his movies like In The Mouth Of Madness, They Live, Big Trouble In Little China, Prince of Darkness etc. frustrating because there's something good and interesting about them (and I broadly more enjoyed them than not), but somehow they all ultimately go wrong in ways that leave them slightly disappointing. By the time it gets to Vampires and Ghosts Of Mars they're more disappointing than good. Ghosts of Mars is surely his worst. I frustratingly don't remember Vampires well - I only remember I saw it in the cinema and thought overall it was okay.
The Muppet's Treasure Island is, IMHO, the definitive adaptation. Being serious there, but that is saying a lot about other adaptations I've seen.
Muppet's Christmas Carol has competition from other good adaptations, IIRC, but is still up there.
Watched that the other day and noticed that the arms are severed above where they are bitten.
Big Trouble in Little China has the advantage of I've only got a vague idea about what's going on, and it works.
I'm not sure, but I suspect his main problem is that he can't cope with more than a shoestring budget. Escape from New York was very good, Escape from LA had much more money but just looks cheap.
I saw The New Mutants a solid B+ film which considering all the reshoots / re-edits it's had is pretty impressive. Sure it has a lead in to things that may never end up in the Marvel Xmen film universe now but other than that the rest of it feels like a fairly solid more character focussed film rather than big Marvel films running round the globe /chasing things through environments and big fights etc.
Not that I'm a massive fan of that particular Dickens story but the Muppet one is the only version I'd actually go out of my way to watch if it were on, and I've seen a few of them.
They're actually the only Muppet films I've seen myself.
That said, I also put Christmas Carol above Treasure Island. I find that Treasure Island peters out, paradoxically, close to the moment they arrive on the island itself. In contrast, Christmas Carol remains pretty consistent in quality throughout the entire run.
I recall watching that film with commentary, and I think it was John and Kurt, if I recall correctly. And John commented about how he was trying to frame the story with Jack thinking he's the hero, but he's really the comic relief. That the REAL hero, is Wang, he's the gifted fighter, trying to Live the American Dream, he's the one with the Distressed Damsel, and who is now Highly Motivated to fight the bad guy to rescue True Love. All the cliches of an action hero. But, we're seeing it all from Jack's viewpoint. Which was just fantastic. And I think the fact, that the POV character, also had only a vague idea about what was going on, is one reason why it hits so well with audiences. Jack kind of asks for the highlights reel of current events, so he has at least a framework to hold onto about what's going on. Beyond that, he doesn't really care. Friend in trouble, girl needs rescuing, truck needs rescuing too, ok got it, let's go.
Correcto mundo. Jack basically thinks he's a John Wayne type character, when he is really the sidekick.
And what I like, and thinking about it, it's a reason I like the Van Helsing film with Hugh Jackman, but, the thing I like, is that he's not a useless sidekick. He actually contributes on multiple levels. He's not doing a kung fu battle, and in fact, removes himself before the fight even starts (by knocking himself out), but he spots the gang members trying to abduct Miao Yin, and tries (but fails) to stop them, but he at least brought them to Wang's attention in time to chase them. He provided the vehicle to help them escape and to chase the kidnappers. Tons of stuff that was super useful to facilitate the Hero on his journey.
It's why I liked the sidekick Friar character in Van Helsing so much. Yeah he was basically comic relief, but he was also USEFUL! He always had the item Van Helsing needed to fight whatever monster was in front of them *Van Helsing runs by as chaos happens in the manor* Friar: "What's going on?" Van Helsing "Werewolf!" *rushing by* Friar: "Oh here!" *tosses pouch* "Silver!" He has a dramatic, swinging across a bridge during the climactic thunderstorm at midnight, to catch the last vial of anti-werewolf syrum to give to Helsing to save the day. Hell HE is the one that ends up "getting the girl" and actually gets laid by the end of it. Just, tons of little things that he did that just made that movie (which I already found entertaining for how eagerly they embraced the campiness of it), that much more fun.
Yes
But it's amazing how easy that is to miss on first view.
BTiLC is a mess. But a fun one.
I'd be inclined to agree that big budgets don't suit some film-makers, and Carpenter was one. I suspect in many cases they don't really know what to do with the money, because it's not their thing. At the other end, despite their frequent mediocrity in key ways, James Cameron's films usually look amazing because he really knows how to burn through money on them. I wonder if inability to use a budget might be a component of a wider problem for Carpenter: I'm not sure he grew as a film-maker. What was there in 1995 was little more than what was there in 1975, except out of date and with much of the creativity used up.