The Slumber Party Massacre (Amy Holden Jones, 1982). Released in the heady days after John Carpenter’s Halloween made studios decide that the surest bet for quick cash was conveyor-belting out films featuring weapon-wielding maniac picking off teens one by one, … Continue reading Then Playing — The Slumber Party Massacre; The Fog; Barbarian
#18 — Kurt Russell as R.J. MacReady in The Thing (John Carpenter, 1982) Kurt Russell’s best performances are usually in characters that skew towards the everyman. Though I think some overly celebrate his self-consciously cool, tough guy roles in films … Continue reading Greatish Performances #18
#42 — Halloween (John Carpenter, 1978) The influence of John Carpenter’s Halloween exacted a lot of damage to the horror genre, at least for those who valued a certain amount of imagination in such fare. Made for a miniscule budget–half of … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Forty-Two
#47 — Assault on Precinct 13 (John Carpenter, 1976) By most assessments, the glory of American cinema in the nineteen-seventies was largely a result of major studios turning over significant dollars to daring directors who then spun that money into edgy … Continue reading Top Fifty Films of the 70s — Number Forty-Seven
Hanna (Joe Wright, 2011). Well, I’ll say this for director Joe Wright: He’s not going to be pinned down. He made his feature debut with a Jane Austen adaptation and followed that with a prestige picture based on a Ian McEwan novel. Then came a fairly drab issues picture largely about the homeless community in Los Angeles. The bank shot away from that reunites him with Atonement Oscar nominee Saoirse Ronan for a bizarre action film about a teenage girl who was raised in isolation to be an unstoppable assassin. The film is balanced awkwardly between stylish action and moody … Continue reading Carpenter, Cronenberg, Ford, Truffaut, Wright
Coffee for Two 