28 Film Discussion Threads Later

[Winston*]

Carpenter is one of those weird directors who is justly ignored by most middle-of-the-road movie watchers but inexplicably celebrated by cineastes without any apparent ironical distance. He's a really poor director who every now and then stumbles across an entertaining B-movie script.

You think Halloween and The Thing's strengths are in the script?

[Rowland]

Kitamura unsurprisingly squandered most of the potential inherent to The Midnight Meat Train's source material, but it's almost passable for exuberantly stylized slasher mayhem and an admirable courage of conviction in its brazenly fatalistic final reel. Still, a more convincingly omnipresent sense of existential dread would have been preferable to the gimmicky murders and camera trickery, which results in tonal schizophrenia, and it feels padded even at 90 minutes. This either needed to be played straighter, requiring more fleshed out writing and disciplined direction, or goofier, in which case Kitamura could have made the sort of movie I suspect he wanted to.

[transmogrifier]

You think Halloween and The Thing's strengths are in the script?

Not really a fan of Halloween, so that's moot, and The Thing has a good premise and a script that doesn't get in the way of that. Carpenter keeps out of the way as well.

[The Mike]

1.Halloween
2. Assault on Precinct 13
3. Escape from New York
4. The Thing
5. Prince of Darkness
6. Big Trouble in Little China
7. They Live
8. Christine
9. The Fog
10. Starman
11. Vampires
12. Dark Star
13. In the Mouth of Madness
14. Ghosts of Mars
15. Escape from L.A.
16. Cigarette Burns
17. Pro-Life
18. Village of the Damned
19. Someone's Watching Me!
20. Body Bags
21. Memoirs of an Invisible Man

Love the Top 8, Like the next 8, Not a fan of the rest. Need to find Elvis.

[Qrazy]

That doesn't look like 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen to me.

Sizing aside, the positioning of the characters in the frame and the general layout of objects in the frame remains the same.

[Rowland]

Oh yeah, and I nearly forgot that I watched Sex Drive two days ago. That about says it all.

[Qrazy]

Why is that shot weakly composed?

Because it's off-kilter and somewhat flattened but to no apparent end. The placement of the characters side by side like that is visually monotonous. Staggering them or opting in favor of greater symmetry would make for a more striking composition.

[Qrazy]

Carpenter is one of those weird directors who is justly ignored by most middle-of-the-road movie watchers but inexplicably celebrated by cineastes without any apparent ironical distance. He's a really poor director who every now and then stumbles across an entertaining B-movie script.

I find his films are almost always entertaining but his strengths are pacing and finding dread in the mundane. His best films are also terrifically shot.

[Bosco B Thug]

There were a few creative and/or lovely little moments, but I need more than that. Call me selfish.

No no, TDH definitely is lacking. No disagreement here. Multi-color light tinting acting as literal manifestation of the creature attack is a nice, thoughtful Lovecraftian conceptualization, but in execution, Daniel Haller definitely fails.

lolololol

Maybe it has been too long since I first saw the film, but I remember The Fog being pretty damn elegant, visually and tonally. I've always assumed there was consensus that The Fog was Carpenter going for unabashed polish and class, even if it is weightless in any other aspect. But again, maybe it's really been too long since I first saw it.

Carpenter is one of those weird directors who is justly ignored by most middle-of-the-road movie watchers but inexplicably celebrated by cineastes without any apparent ironical distance. He's a really poor director who every now and then stumbles across an entertaining B-movie script.

Really? There are tons of should-be-a-blast B-movie-type films out there that are complete duds. It's Carpenter's mastery of directing that gives his films their thrills and affects that's given him such a critical and popular following.

Not really a fan of Halloween, so that's moot, and The Thing has a good premise and a script that doesn't get in the way of that. Carpenter keeps out of the way as well.

So what makes his films so revered? Ironical distance only goes so far.

In any case, I'm actually a bit lukewarm on Carpenter myself, so I'm not meaning to argue your negative feelings on Carpenter as a director, but even if he's not a tantalizingly think-outside-the-box filmmaker, you make it sound like he's a schlockmeister who just lucked out when it's actually very hard (I've tried) to argue that Halloween (or Christine) doesn't prove quite the contrary.

My take on him: Carpenter's cool and all, my favorite being 'Assault' and my least favorite (of what I've seen) being 'In the Mouth of Madness,' but I've always considered him a master craftsman - but little more. I've never felt compelled to go back and dig deeper underneath one of his films. My recent viewing of Christine, though, tempers that ambivalence - I was surprised by that film's dramatic verve, and I did gather a caustic sensibility behind it. But Halloween, while awesomely unnerving, I struggle to extract much meaning from the film outside its function as a slick, well-oiled machine-type film. Same with The Thing, whose pessimism and bleakness is a sensibility, but one which just sort of sits on the surface. Those two films just benefit from being so epic and ambitious (technically). Even what I could label "striking imagery" in those two watermark films (e.g. dogs brutally splitting open, hellish creatures in a dank mess hall, etc.) seem merely mechanical and indebted to the plot, and its hard to pinpoint any emotional prerogative behind his films.

Anyway, my unreliable rankings:

1. Assault on Precinct 13 - 8.5
2. Halloween - 8
4. Christine - 7
5. The Thing - 7
6. The Fog - 7
7. Big Trouble in Little China - 6.5
8. Escape from New York - 6
9. In the Mouth of Madness - 4.5

Because it's off-kilter and somewhat flattened but to no apparent end. The placement of the characters side by side like that is visually monotonous. Staggering them or opting in favor of greater symmetry would make for a more striking composition.

I see... I was confused as well; you make it seem like there's some definitive way a shot should be composed without context of the film, taking a shot that seems likely to have been given some considerable effort and thought by the director to tear apart. But your critiques are valid, even if it deprives Carpenter of the benefit of the doubt (which I think he deserves), that he did in fact consider staggering to ghosts, or being more symmetrical (it looks pretty symmetrical to me...). If I think of what the problems might be with the overall film, your critiques do gain even more ground. E.g., the film is an inconsequential, innocuous "ghosts on the prowl" horror flick, I can definitely see how any alleged flatness and banality in shot compositions could make the villains look like men in bad Halloween costumes, which I kind of get from that single still picture.

[Amnesiac]

Because it's off-kilter and somewhat flattened but to no apparent end. The placement of the characters side by side like that is visually monotonous. Staggering them or opting in favor of greater symmetry would make for a more striking composition.

I haven't seen the film, but I would think that purposively "off-kilter and somewhat flattened" or "visually monotonous" compositions can work given the right circumstances. In fact, I can see how in the right circumstances, a shot like the one above may not be "striking" in the sense that you prefer but perhaps effectively disconcerting. But, you think this kind of composition isn't going for any deliberate affect or aim, so, I guess that's your criticism.

[Bosco B Thug]

His best films are also terrifically shot.

Right! Although I'm off-put by the fact that I may have put The Fog under this grouping of "his best (terrifically shot!)" for a good number of years and be actually well off-the-mark.

The Fog's opening credits. I remember being wowed by the opening credits in the ghostly empty city streets. Everyone agrees those opening credits are awesome, right? No?

[Winston*]

Maybe it has been too long since I first saw the film, but I remember The Fog being pretty damn elegant, visually and tonally. I've always assumed there was consensus that The Fog was Carpenter going for unabashed polish and class, even if it is weightless in any other aspect. But again, maybe it's really been too long since I first saw it.

My prior "lolololol" was referring to Rowland's inadvertent atmospheric pun when discussing The Fog.

[Ezee E]

Watched Twilight Zone: The Movie, and while the Lithgow on a Plane segment was the best before, I never really remembered the others.

All are great.

[Rowland]

Maybe it has been too long since I first saw the film, but I remember The Fog being pretty damn elegant, visually and tonally. I've always assumed there was consensus that The Fog was Carpenter going for unabashed polish and class, even if it is weightless in any other aspect. But again, maybe it's really been too long since I first saw it.

Nah, you're right, and that is the general critical consensus. Carpenter was shooting for a horror movie more along the lines of a classical ghost story with an extra heaping of pulp. It's gorgeously evocative from beginning to end as far as I'm concerned, and the score isn't as immediately unsettling as Halloween's, but just as haunted in its appropriately low-key way.

[Rowland]

The Fog's opening credits. I remember being wowed by the opening credits in the ghostly empty city streets. Everyone agrees those opening credits are awesome, right? No?

[Bosco B Thug]

My prior "lolololol" was referring to Rowland's inadvertent atmospheric pun when discussing The Fog.

Ooh yeah, way too subtle for me, apparently. It really is pretty funny looking at it now (despite it also being a respectably not-humorous use of critical descriptors, of course).

lolololol

[Qrazy]

I see... I was confused as well; you make it seem like there's some definitive way a shot should be composed without context of the film, taking a shot that seems likely to have been given some considerable effort and thought by the director to tear apart. But your critiques are valid, even if it deprives Carpenter of the benefit of the doubt (which I think he deserves), that he did in fact consider staggering to ghosts, or being more symmetrical (it looks pretty symmetrical to me...). If I think of what the problems might be with the overall film, your critiques do gain even more ground. E.g., the film is an inconsequential, innocuous "ghosts on the prowl" horror flick, I can definitely see how any alleged flatness and banality in shot compositions could make the villains look like men in bad Halloween costumes, which I kind of get from that single still picture.

No of course there isn't a single way a shot should be composed, but I find it odd how strikingly uneven Carpenter's cinematography can be from film to film. What elevates Assault on Precinct 13 for me personally is the lighting. Carpenter's use of shadows in many of the interior shots creates some absolutely masterful minimal imagery. Contrast that work with something like Vampires and the laziness of the visual execution in the latter film sticks out like a sore thumb.

The Fog isn't all bad on a visual level but I just remember being repeatedly underwhelmed by much of what I saw. Even if I gave Carpenter the benefit of the doubt in terms of thematic justifications for such imagery the image still does not work on an aesthetic level. Obviously that is a very contentious issue and arguing aesthetics is akin to arguing taste in food. Beyond form/content comparisons I can only speak to that which I find aesthetically pleasing. Someone asked me once why I love Andrei Rublev. There are many reasons but foremost among them is that I find it to be stunningly visually beautiful. Sometimes I try to articulate what it is about the composition or lighting of an image that seems to work so well, but ultimately I find aesthetic judgments are something which hit you in the gut.

[Bosco B Thug]

Nah, you're right, and that is the general critical consensus. Carpenter was shooting for a horror movie more along the lines of a classical ghost story with an extra heaping of pulp. It's gorgeously evocative from beginning to end as far as I'm concerned, and the score isn't as immediately unsettling as Halloween's, but just as haunted in its appropriately low-key way.

Ooh, so The Fog not being classy enough for Match-Cut is the conclusion we're all headed toward.

[Qrazy]

I haven't seen the film, but I would think that purposively "off-kilter and somewhat flattened" or "visually monotonous" compositions can work given the right circumstances. In fact, I can see how in the right circumstances, a shot like the one above may not be "striking" in the sense that you prefer but perhaps effectively disconcerting. But, you think this kind of composition isn't going for any deliberate affect or aim, so, I guess that's your criticism.

Yeah Bosco summed it up for me in that the banality of the composition gave the scene a hokey vibe. Carpenter works hard at building atmosphere in other ways to preserve an ominous sentiment but the shot framing really isn't helping anything.

[Derek]

Mark me down as a fan of The Fog. I agree with Rowland that it's incredibly atmospheric and outside of The Thing, it's his most impressive visual achievement. How anyone can watch these films and see poor compositions or the absence of a directorial stamp is beyond me.

1) The Thing
2) Assault on Precinct 13
3) They Live
4) Christine
5) The Fog
6) Halloween
7) Vampires
8) Escape from New York
9) Dark Star

[Bosco B Thug]

No of course there isn't a single way a shot should be composed, but I find it odd how strikingly uneven Carpenter's cinematography can be from film to film. What elevates Assault on Precinct 13 for me personally is the lighting. Carpenter's use of shadows in many of the interior shots creates some absolutely masterful minimal imagery. Contrast that work with something like Vampires and the laziness of the visual execution in the latter film sticks out like a sore thumb.

The Fog isn't all bad on a visual level but I just remember being repeatedly underwhelmed by much of what I saw. Even if I gave Carpenter the benefit of the doubt in terms of thematic justifications for such imagery the image still does not work on an aesthetic level. Obviously that is a very contentious issue and arguing aesthetics is akin to arguing taste in food. Beyond form/content comparisons I can only speak to that which I find aesthetically pleasing. Someone asked me once why I love Andrei Rublev. There are many reasons but foremost among them is that I find it to be stunningly visually beautiful. Sometimes I try to articulate what it is about the composition or lighting of an image that seems to work so well, but ultimately I find aesthetic judgments are something which hit you in the gut.

Got it. I can relate, in that my attachments to many genre-trapped films lessens when viewing them, say, in the midst of a viewing-spree of Tarkovsky, or Godard, etc.

[Ezee E]

Going back to Twilight Zone, I'll say that what Spielberg does here is ten times better than what he tries to do over again in Hook. Maybe it's the Scatman Crothers.

All four are wonderful though on their own. It might be the best "multi-director" movie I can think of.

[Rowland]

Flight of the Red Balloon (Hou Hsiao-hsien, 2008) 78

The best I've seen by Hou, this is a gorgeously impressionistic ode to the power of art as a balm for the drudgery of the mundane, a means of expression for the physically/emotionally dislocated, and a universal source of communication that defies cultural and generational rifts, anchored by Juliette Binoche's impassioned performance and Hou's breathtakingly calibrated formal mastery, all reflective surfaces and a deceptively straightforward technique that proves slyly expressive, so that every movement and cut feels ripe with meaning. I could just watch lovely footage of the red balloon, itself an obvious but elegant metaphor, floating all about Paris, the contrast between its stark red and the earthly color scheme of the city a sight to behold, but this is a thematically loaded picture that I imagine offering something new with each viewing, as every work of art as multi-faceted and generous as this one does. Hell, Hou somehow manages to make the mere discovery of a heretofore hidden room of the apartment that most of the film resides in feel profound with a single elegant motion of his camera. And best of all, there isn't a single malicious bone in its body, purely humanistic without ever condescending to the audience. Just fantastic... writing about this in retrospect, I'm tempted now to raise my score even higher, but another viewing is warranted just to be safe. There was a scene or two I felt could have been condensed or excised entirely, and I was split about the blatantly surrogate function of the Chinese nanny character, however appropriate given the nature of the project.

[dreamdead]

Took in Quarantine, and I think my threshold for stories told blatantly through the use of a subjective, documentary-style camera has hit its peak. Between this and fare like The Zombie Diaries, which similarly aims for verisimilitude, it's becoming too rote to shock anymore. The film does play with our knowledge of the shock scare without exploiting it cheaply too much, but this whole tradition of the nihilistic ending, where our last character is pulled away from the camera, is dead to me and holds no impact. While the finale nicely exploits our sense of primal survival, the last frame, done in the stereotypical night-vision green-tinting, is too cheap and simplistic for the story's arc. If I wasn't totally tired of this trend, I'd be curious to see how Rec. finishes up to see its handling...

[megladon8]

Took in Quarantine, and I think my threshold for stories told blatantly through the use of a subjective, documentary-style camera has hit its peak. Between this and fare like The Zombie Diaries, which similarly aims for verisimilitude, it's becoming too rote to shock anymore. The film does play with our knowledge of the shock scare without exploiting it cheaply too much, but this whole tradition of the nihilistic ending, where our last character is pulled away from the camera, is dead to me and holds no impact. While the finale nicely exploits our sense of primal survival, the last frame, done in the stereotypical night-vision green-tinting, is too cheap and simplistic for the story's arc. If I wasn't totally tired of this trend, I'd be curious to see how Rec. finishes up to see its handling...

Apparently [REC] is very much worth seeing, even if one hates this trend in horror and/or hated Quarantine.

Some people are calling it a new horror classic, like The Descent.

I'll let you know how it is in a couple of days