JOHN CARPENTER

Started by modage, June 19, 2003, 02:13:35 PM

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socketlevel

i'm not one to give these types of lists, but if anyone out there hasn't seen carpenter's films this is the order i would recommend seeing them in:

1.  "the thing" - the best bar none, well...
1.  "they live" - tied
3.  "halloween" - classic
4.  "big trouble in little china"
5.  "assult on precinct 13"
6.  "escape from New York"
7.  "prince of darkness"
8.  "star man"
9.  "christine"
10."in the mouth of madness"
11."dark star"
12."the fog"

middle ground

13."memoirs of an invisible man"
14."ghosts of mars"
15."escape from LA"

just plain horrible

16."vampires"
17."village of the damned"

what do you think?  taste is subjective.

-sl-
the one last hit that spent you...

Just Withnail

I just finished Dark Star. Too many funny moments to transcribe them all. Highlights: The suicidal bomb #20...Pinback's diary...Pinback trying to tell his story...Pinback with the eyball glasses (actually, pretty much everything Pinback does)...Pinback stuck in the elevator...Man, there's just too many moments...Talking philosophy with the bomb...intro credits over "Benson Arizona"...all communication with Earth lagging behind ten years...

MacGuffin

If there's any new ideas left in John Carpenter's head, could you please come out with your hands up!!
Source: Film Rotation



When asked recently about his comments regarding the Assault on Precinct 13 remake going ahead with Ethan Hawke and Laurence Fishburne, original director John Carpenter replied "I should take it as flattery I guess but it only reconfirms what I've said all along - Hollywood has no new ideas left!" Hmmm... even though Assault itself was a semi-remake of Rio Bravo?

Carpenter was on Radio 2 here in the UK this week, discussing his icon Sergio Leone:

He revealed that he is discussions to helm a remake of his early 80s near-classic The Fog stating that, like George Lucas and the original Star Wars movies, time and the advancement of technology has left him able to do things with the original premise that he could never have done. Cue suggestions of more psycho pirate action ("...it worked wonders for Pirates of the Caribbean in a PG-13 sort of way" he told the host) and more fog-induced gore.

Maybe Carpenter is clutching at straws now that he's finding it hard to get studios to return his calls but in the last 12 months the man has talked up the following:

* His Big Trouble in Little China sequel that "the fans are crying out for" which has a wealth of "creative opportunities available to it in the wake of The Matrix movies!"

* His ultimate tribute/conclusion to the Halloween trilogy - directing a potential closing Chapter 10 in which "the fans will shit themselves when they see what I'm gonna do!"

* His sequel to The Thing which - although had a brilliant script attached a few years back - Universal will do without him but he won't let go off.

and...

* His follow-up chapter to They Live which he said "could star The Rock, after all Roddy Piper did a great job!"

It so pains me to say this - being a big fan and all - but it sounds to me like a director holding up his past-glories in hope that someone at the studio will look his way. He could quite easily slide off and make that "Howard Hawks and Sergio Leone tribute western" that he has talked about for the last ten years independently with European money and win major kudos as a result... instead he's hanging around the fringes and potentially belittling himself with suggestions of helming Michael Myers Vs Pinhead.

"I should take it as flattery I guess but it only reconfirms what I've said all along - Hollywood has no new ideas left!"

Indeed!
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

grand theft sparrow

That post brought a tear to my eye.  He sounds like a 50 year old fat guy who was captain of the football team in high school and blew his ride to Notre Dame by rupturing his Achilles tendon and now he runs an auto body shop in his hometown.

mutinyco

He's very cool. Very plainspoken and self-depracating. Smokes a lot of cigarettes.
"I believe in this, and it's been tested by research: he who fucks nuns will later join the church."

-St. Joe

MacGuffin

'Fog' cleared for remake at Revolution

Revolution Studios is mounting a remake of the 1980 horror-thriller "The Fog," with Debra Hill, David Foster and John Carpenter producing. But Carpenter, who co-wrote the original with Hill and also directed it, will not be returning to the director's chair.

"I have done it once, and I don't want to do it again," Carpenter said. "I did my 'Fog,' and now it's someone else's time. It's very flattering. It's terrific that they want to make it. We have been thinking of doing 'The Fog' over for some time, as maybe a sequel. But now is the season of the remake."

Cooper Layne, whose credits include "The Core" and "The Emperor's Club," is penning the remake of the horror classic, set in a Northern California town where 100 years ago a ship sank off the coast under mysterious circumstances during a thick, eerie fog. Ghosts of the long-dead mariners return from their watery graves to exact their revenge.

Shane Riches is involved in producing the feature, which is headed for a February production start. Derek Dauchy will oversee for the studio.

"We are extremely excited to be involved with this film and these filmmakers, as John Carpenter's 'The Fog' is one of the cornerstones of the horror genre," said Revolution Studios partner Todd Garner, who brought the project to the company. "Debra and I have known each other for 20 years. She is an extreme talent, and I am thrilled to finally be working with her."
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

grand theft sparrow

Quote from: MacGuffin'Fog' cleared for remake at Revolution

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

modage

Quote from: themodernage02REMAKE REMAKE, FUCKING REMAKE
Christopher Nolan's directive was clear to everyone in the cast and crew: Use CGI only as a last resort.

Alethia

Quote from: MacGuffinas John Carpenter's 'The Fog' is one of the cornerstones of the horror genre,"

ummmmmm no.

socketlevel

Quote from: MacGuffin
* His Big Trouble in Little China sequel that "the fans are crying out for" which has a wealth of "creative opportunities available to it in the wake of The Matrix movies!"

* His ultimate tribute/conclusion to the Halloween trilogy - directing a potential closing Chapter 10 in which "the fans will shit themselves when they see what I'm gonna do!"

* His sequel to The Thing which - although had a brilliant script attached a few years back - Universal will do without him but he won't let go off.

and...

* His follow-up chapter to They Live which he said "could star The Rock, after all Roddy Piper did a great job!"

It so pains me to say this - being a big fan and all - but it sounds to me like a director holding up his past-glories in hope that someone at the studio will look his way...

"I should take it as flattery I guess but it only reconfirms what I've said all along - Hollywood has no new ideas left!"

Indeed!

I agree, but with his last five or so films it almost makes me think he should do one of these sequels.   his new projects are pretty fucking bad  (i especially like the idea of "they live," "the thing," and "Big Trouble in littel China."  These all have future possibilities, but Halloween is just played out, tired)

-sl-

does anyone know where i could get any of these scripts, are they online?  i'd love to read them.  Maybe the big trouble and the they live sequels don't exist, but reading the thing sequel would be interesting.
the one last hit that spent you...

MacGuffin

Carpenter returns to directing with 'Apostle'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

John Carpenter is returning to the director's seat with the indie thriller "The 13th Apostle," his first feature since 2001's "Ghosts of Mars."

The story follows the investigation of a series of gruesome murders that force a Pittsburgh detective to exorcise his own demons while uncovering an Internet-based serial killers club. Averse to technology, he teams up with a stockbroker, and together the duo tackles the investigation.

The project came to the attention of the "Halloween" helmer by way of his "John Carpenter Presents" program, through which he executive produces and mentors up-and-coming directors and writers. The "Apostle" script, from Paul Margolis, was one of the projects submitted for the program.

Carpenter is producing a remake of his classic feature "The Fog" for Sony-based Revolution Studios. His credits include the original "Assault on Precinct 13" and "The Thing"
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

MacGuffin

Interview: John Carpenter
IGN FilmForce speaks with the horror legend on the set of The Fog remake.
 
From his low budget beginnings on through to his 1978 classic that unleashed the modern slasher film as we know it, Halloween, John Carpenter's name has become synonymous with horror. A short list of his acclaimed horror works include Christine, In the Mouth of Madness and The Thing. He's done action with Assault on Precinct 13 and Escape from New York and even dabbled in camp with Big Trouble in Little China and straight-up comedy with Memoirs of an Invisible Man.

More than just a director, Carpenter has served as writer, producer and composer on the majority of his films. He's even acted in a few of them. Most recently, Carpenter's films have become the basis of remakes. Earlier this year, French director Jean-Francois Richet remade Assault on Precinct 13 and now Rupert Wainwright (Stigmata) is directing a remake of The Fog, on which Carpenter is also serving as an executive producer.

Starring Tom Welling, Maggie Grace and Selma Blair, The Fog recently wrapped production in Vancouver, Canada. IGN FilmForce spent some time on the sets and spoke to the cast and crew about the project. We'll have a full set report in the coming weeks as well as quotes from the three stars and the director. During the course of our travels, we also sat down to talk to horror maestro John Carpenter. Here's the interview that went down.

Q: Why remake The Fog?

JOHN CARPENTER: Why not? If everybody else is making remakes and they want to pay me money to make a remake of an old movie of mine, why not? It's a good idea… Seriously… That's part of the answer, but my ex-partner Debra Hill, who just recently died, has been trying to get this off the ground. We hooked up with David here, who finally did get it off the ground, and it was kind of nice for her to see this being made.

Q: Can you talk about the key differences between this version of The Fog and the 1980s version?

CARPENTER: Well, the styles are different; the actors are different; the director's different. It's essentially the same story with some basic changes in it's but it's fog and ghosts.

Q: Any of the changes you can talk about?

CARPENTER: I have been sworn to secrecy in that matter.

Q: Why did you decide to hand this over to another director instead of remaking it yourself?

CARPENTER: I don't want to remake this. I mean, I did it once. This was not my favorite experience of my own career making The Fog. It was difficult. We had to go back and fix it once we shot it. I've done this once. Let some younger person do it.

Q: What's your role in this production?

CARPENTER: Well, I am a producer, but I come in and say hello to everybody. Go home… I'm just a f***ing bum, OK?

(Laughs)

Q: What's going on with Masters of Horror?

CARPENTER: Well, it's a little series that we're doing for Showtime. We have an hour – each of us has an hour to shoot in 10 days. And the first director they got was John Landis. He's now way over budget and way over schedule. So there may not be any more Masters of Horror. He may do them in. Dario Argento starts next week. They pushed me later on the schedule because they're going to take all the money out of my show and put it into everybody else's.

Q: Given the inconsistent success of recent remakes of horror movies, was there anything that you were insistent remain in the original or insistent that they change to update it or potentially improve it?

CARPENTER: It depends on how you look at it… In the case of The Fog, it's a pretty fireproof idea in terms of what happens. It's an old ghost story. The idea in this case is to freshen it up. And as a cultural mindset these days, it says if anything's over 15 years old, it's old fashion and old school… [The] thing to do is to take it out and prop it up and put some, a fresh coat of paint on it, and see how it goes.
 
Q: Speaking about the younger cast, the original Fog with Jamie Lee Curtis wasn't skewing younger. What do you think has changed?

CARPENTER: That's a different era. That was 1979 when we made that. It's just a whole different time now. We didn't have the Internet. Thank god we didn't have computer generated graphics, and the whole celebrity showbiz thing was different then. It's a different time and horror movies and science fiction used to be, used to be portrayed with older folk in them, a little more mature I should say… But no more.

Q: I love the score on the original Fog and I was wondering if you have anything to do with the score on this one, and if not, if you think it will be similar?

CARPENTER: Well, first of all, no one's really asked me to do it yet… I think the easiest thing for all of this is to take the first score and have someone freshen it up. Everybody's getting freshened up, so why not? I'd love to. It'd be great. On the other hand, there are a lot of really interesting composers right now doing movies for low budget, high budget. It's really an interesting time. So it'd be also fun to see what somebody else's take on it would be.

Q: You mentioned something, a comment a couple of minutes ago about "thank god we didn't have CGI back in the day." So that begs the question, for this particular outing, are you going to employing CGI to help recreate The Fog, or are you going to be using a combination of things with CGI?

CARPENTER: Well, The Fog is going to be dealt with in a couple of different ways, practically and with computer graphics.. But see, I don't, this is my own opinion. I don't think CGI in it of itself is very scary. Creatures don't look too scary. [They] look fake. Things don't move. They move too fast. There's no inertia… I shudder to think what The Thing would look like if we had to do it with computers. Honestly... It wouldn't work.
 
Q: You all talked about sort of getting a younger cast, appealing to the younger moviegoers. We're talking about some potential for some fairly graphic stuff going on?

CARPENTER: I'm just a producer on this. I sit at home and watch basketball games on TV. These guys go out and make this movie, all right? It's designed to be a PG-13 film… You know, horror's really changed a lot. It used to be much more hardcore. Today is drifting towards PG-13 and you know, getting girls in, and girls don't like yucky stuff. You know what I mean? Soft-core horror.

Q: Did you have any final say on the script? I mean, from what we saw down there today, did you approve that, put your stamp on it?

CARPENTER: I read it. I liked it. But you know, the script has evolved. It keeps changing as you make a movie. Look, my own philosophy is it's a director's film. It's not my film anymore. I made my film back then when I was young and happy. This is a new director and he's bringing his point of view and his sensibility to this film. And I have a real hard time telling anybody else what to do or interfering with their vision. You know, it's his movie now.

Q: But doesn't it concern you with your name attached to it that it might taint what you did with the original?

CARPENTER: Nothing worries me anymore. Nothing. No, what are you going to do? What are you going to worry about? Why worry?

Q: For people like George Romero, he had nothing to do with the Dawn of the Dead remake, so if it stunk, it wasn't his problem. Nobody cursed him for it, you know?

CARPENTER: You're treating the original like it's – the original is not one of my favorites of my own movies. It's OK. It's OK. No matter what he does, it's great. It's great.

Q: How does the budget of this one compare with what you had for the original, and where is the money going?

CARPENTER: We had $1 million and they have a whole lot more than we did, a whole lot more.

Q: Before I came out here, I asked a cross-section of your fans what they would most like to ask you. Big Trouble in Little China was the film they most talked about. Is there any idea of thought in your mind of doing a sequel or building on that?

CARPENTER: Since that movie tanked, I don't think they'll ever do a sequel.

Q: But knowing that it has reached a cult status since and that there is a market there, there is an audience for it, would you consider doing it on a smaller budget or something, on a smaller scale that would definitely, 100 percent be profitable?

CARPENTER: That's another one of those things. I've done that once... Let somebody else do it. Plus, I don't own it. You know, I don't have any stake in that…

Q: What does Rupert Wainwright bring to this creatively that you thought he was the right person to tackle this?

CARPENTER: Energy. His style is vastly different from mine... I don't know how to put this, [but] he uses inserts and close-ups to add texture and energy to it, to his movies, which is totally different from the way I work. That would be an interesting try on this film. See what we do.

Q: I was just curious if there was a remake you have seen that you thought was better than the original? I mean, the only one that always comes to mind to me is The Thing, as far as being superior to the original.

CARPENTER: I don't know about that. The Thing. The original Thing is pretty great. That was a great film. I liked the American version of The Ring better than the Japanese version. I thought they actually improved on it. It still doesn't make any sense. It's not a sensible plot, but there were some things about the American version… The timing, the tempos, the style was a little bit better, I thought.

Q: Did you have anything to do at all with the Thing videogame that came out?

CARPENTER: I'm in the Thing videogame. I'm a character in it. You didn't realize that? I'm Dr. Faraday and I get killed. That pissed me off, OK?

(Laughs)

Q: With the trend of directors lately going back and tinkering with their work, re-editing, re-imagining, not actually remaking, but just doing re-releases, is that something that interests you?

CARPENTER: God no. If I've finished a movie, that's my movie. I don't want to f**k with it. These guys don't have enough to do? They want to remake their film? See, I don't understand it. It's insane.

Q: You mentioned that The Fog wasn't particularly one of your favorite of your films. What is your favorite film?

CARPENTER: I think probably The Thing. That was one of my real favorites, you know, just because. I don't know why. Just because. It's the darkest…
"Don't think about making art, just get it done. Let everyone else decide if it's good or bad, whether they love it or hate it. While they are deciding, make even more art." - Andy Warhol


Skeleton FilmWorks

SHAFTR

Quote from: eward
Quote from: MacGuffinas John Carpenter's 'The Fog' is one of the cornerstones of the horror genre,"

ummmmmm no.

You know, I would say it's one of my favorite Horror films and I've seen many.  I'm a big Halloween fan and I just watched The Fog.  My expectations were pretty neutral and I thought it was a really great movie.  It takes it's times setting up the scares and I think it really works all the way through.  I'm very unexcited for the remake.
"Talking shit about a pretty sunset
Blanketing opinions that i'll probably regret soon"

socketlevel

i think this is one of my least favorite carpenter films.  i think they should do a sequel to they live.

-sl-
the one last hit that spent you...

Alethia

the fog is a big piece of shit, not even worth seeing once.