Review: Halloween
[Originally published in Movietone News 60-61, February 1979] A thing that bugs me about the vast majority of contemporary films is, they rarely give the feeling anyone cared much about framing them....
View ArticleReview: Eyes of Laura Mars
[Originally published in Movietone News 58-59, August 1978] Give Jon Peters full credit, he’s honest with his audience. At the beginning of A Star Is Born a voice called out advising “all you assholes...
View ArticleSummer of ’86: Big Trouble in Little China
John Carpenter famously commented, “In France, I’m an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain, a genre director; and in the USA, a bum.” Or as another J.C. put it, a prophet is never without honor,...
View ArticleBlu-ray Election Day Special: ‘They Live’ all over again!
You can argue that They Live: Collector’s Edition (Shout! Factory) would have been a perfect Halloween week release. And you’d be right, of course. John Carpenter’s skewed invasion movie is witty and...
View ArticleBlu-ray: ‘They Live’
A year after Oliver Stone elevated the phrase “Greed is good” to a satirical double-edged mantra in “Wall Street,” John Carpenter put it more bluntly in a scruffy little genre movie with a subversive...
View ArticleBlu-ray / DVD: ‘The Fog’
The Fog (Shout Factory), John Carpenter’s follow-up to his breakthrough hit Halloween, isn’t among the director’s best films, but it is one of his most gorgeous. Carpenter and his producer / co-writer...
View ArticleWhy John Carpenter Is the Most Underrated Filmmaker Of Our Time
About a decade ago while I was attending the Vancouver International Film Festival, I ended the screening day over beers with a small group of critics. By the end of the evening, we came around to...
View ArticleBlu-ray: John Carpenter’s ‘Prince of Darkness’ and ‘Halloween’
Two from John Carpenter arrive this week in newly remastered editions. Prince of Darkness: Collector’s Edition (Shout Factory) gives the Blu-ray debut and deluxe treatment to what is perhaps the most...
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