“The Great Escape” is mostly known these days for the iconic imagery of Steve McQueen riding his motorbike trying to escape the clutches of German soldiers. As a hardcore McQueen fan, I am all for giving him his due, but “The Great Escape” offers so much more than McQueen on a motorbike telling Nazis to fuck off as he desperately attempts escaping their forces. “The Great Escape” is a classic man film about a group of soldiers bonding to escape their prison, and garners an immense cast of acting heavyweights.
Tag Archives: Masterpiece
The Getaway (1972)
“The Getaway” was the film that turned me on to McQueen and introduced me to a new form of coolness, McQueen, who was a bad-ass as an action star as much he was an actor. Steve McQueen is just about larger than life in anything he was in, and with “The Getaway” he manages to elevate himself above the crime thriller, and helps Ali McGraw become his ultimate assailant in crime.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Before it was re-branded “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark,” it was simply titled “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Though the title promised great adventure, director Steven Spielberg and writer Lawrence Kasdan managed to deliver a hero every audience member could watch and relate to, no matter what the circumstance. Harrison Ford managed to depict a ruthless space pirate in “Star Wars” and brings that same charisma and enthusiasm to Indiana Jones, a big screen hero who is dashing and cunning, but just as average as anyone else venturing in to his world.
Cargo (2013)
Yolanda Ramke and Ben Howling’s short zombie film is a masterpiece. It’s mature, beautifully told, and I was teary eyed by the final scenes. “Cargo” is set during a zombie apocalypse, and both directors only garner eight minutes to tell a story teeming with epic potential. It could be a feature film, but as a short glimpse at a world of the undead, it’s a slice of humanity set amidst monsters in a rapidly decaying land.
My Top 5 John Carpenter Films
This year, director John Carpenter and the horror community are celebrating the 35th anniversary of the 1978 horror masterpiece “Halloween.” The immortal slasher film that inspired dozens of rip offs and wannabes, horror fans get their reward this year with a new edition of the film that would help close out the seventies. In honor of Carpenter, and “Halloween,” here are our five favorite John Carpenter directed films.
What are you favorites from Carpenter?
5. In the Mouth of Madness (1995)
One of the most interesting and demented explorations of rabid fandom, “In the Mouth of Madness” takes on a world where a popular author has bred a legion of fans so anxious for his work they’ll murder to get to it. John Carpenter creates the sentient villain Sutter Cane in homage of Stephen King whose based most of his works around Lovecraftian novels that have garnered an immense and violent fan base. When a book agent is sent to a mysterious town to meet Cane, he learns that Cane himself is not just a creator of his world, but most likely lost complete control and now has invented our world. There may be two realities, one of which Cane’s, and it’s the one we see in “In the Mouth of Madness.”
And in essence Cane likely invented himself. Things go from bad to worse when studios decide to begin turning his novels in to movies. Filled with an array of Easter eggs, wonderful in-jokes, subtle meta-jokes that only the keen observer will notice and an array of excellent performances from people like Sam Neill and Jürgen Prochnow, “In the Mouth of Madness” is an excellent meta horror film that builds a world within a world within a world to where we can never be sure if anything on-screen is human or just the cognizant creation of their God also known as the author. Do you read Sutter Cane?
4. Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)
Carpenter’s version of a contemporary Western that doubles as a remake of “Rio Bravo,” the 1976 action thriller is a frantic and relentless roller coaster that is never lets up in its energy. When a man’s young daughter is murdered in the middle of a crime infested neighborhood he strikes down the gang that left her to die. Retreating from them, he ends up at a local precinct about to be closed down, and the shit hits the fan. Caught in the crossfire, literally everyone in the precinct are marked by an endless horde of violent gang members, all of whom want in to the precinct and intend on murdering the civilians as horribly as possible.
Now a few beat cops, a secretary, and a ruthless convict have to fend off against the gang members using their wits, their endurance, and only a few fire arms at hand. It’s a ridiculously exciting and fantastic action picture, that Carpenter could never quite duplicate again. And he tried with “Ghosts of Mars.” Speaking of which, let’s be honest: It’s not that bad a film.
3. Halloween (1978)
Originally known as the Babysitter Murders, “Halloween” is the metaphorical gun that started the marathon of a thousand slasher films that would storm theaters in the eighties in search of the almighty dollar. Carpenter’s film is a slasher masterpiece second only to Bob Clark’s “Black Christmas.” Set years after a baffling murder conducted by a young boy named Michael Myers, his therapist travels to his mental asylum horrified to discover Michael has broken out. Now on the way back to his old town of Haddonfield, he builds an odd obsession with local teen Laurie, and seeks to destroy everything around her.
Viciously murdering her friends, Michael is a merciless and shapeless monster who meets his match with young Laurie on Halloween night. “Halloween” is still a very effective and engrossing slasher thriller that introduces an iconic new monster that would haunt the holiday as long as he lived. Ending on the horrifying breaths of its maniac, “Halloween” is a spooky horror film that makes you proud to be a horror fanatic.
2. John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982)
Initially a flop and critically lambasted, John Carpenter treats his audience with his own version of the short story “Who Goes There?” Considered a remake of Howard Hawk’s “The Thing,” John Carpenter side steps the monster movie and offers up a cerebral and deeply horrifying tale of survival as he creates a faceless, formless, and grotesque alien capable of becoming us. It will do anything to survive, even taking on the perverse and gruesome forms of its victims.
Kurt Russell leads a cast of seasoned veterans as RJ MacReady, a helicopter pilot who save a stray dog after thwarting its owners attempts to murder it. When they take it in, they realize too late that they’ve invited in an alien presence that uses humans as a vessel for safety. Soon begins the fight for survival as RJ struggles to find out who is the Thing. As the crew’s numbers dwindle, the blood soaked fight for dominance balances action, horror, science fiction and dark comedy, all topped off with a brilliant and immortal eerie closing scene. “The Thing” is the remake to end all remakes.
1. They Live (1988)
John Carpenter’s science fiction actioner is a brilliant and still widely relevant alien invasion film that sets its sights on society. The aliens are the yuppies and consumers, while the bad guys are the lower class and working man. The aliens, in an effort to gradually destroy the common man, subliminally program them to consume, reproduce, buy, and watch television. Oblivious to their pre-destined world that’s now under rule of the bug eyed aliens that camouflage as normal humans, the only hope is Nada.
A mysterious drifter seeking work, he ends up the only chance mankind has of re-gaining control as he infiltrates the alien operation thanks to enigmatic black shades that help him see through the alien facade. Roddy Piper is unconventional casting as the film’s hero who is at first a reluctant bystander, and then decides he has to spearhead this take down of this sentient alien society or else life as we know it will continues to be owned by our alien overlords.
Featuring a great supporting performance by Carpenter regular Keith David, “They Live” packs a punch with intellect, humor, social commentary, great action set pieces, and a kick ass hero we can get behind. Piper is at his best under the wing of Carpenter and really goes to town on the alien establishment. “They Live” is a consistent favorite and one of the films that will achieve immortality from Carpenter’s repertoire.
The Lion King (1994)
Whether Disney did or didn’t plagiarize Osamu Tezuka’s “Kimba the White Lion,” we’ll never truly know. What I do know for certain is that “The Lion King” is still one of the best cinematic experiences I’ve ever had, and my number two animated film of all time. It’s a bold mixture of 2D animation, and amazing CGI that combines to tell a rather adult and complex tale about revenge and destiny.
Ordinary People (1980)
Guilt is a complex anomaly in the human psyche. It’s remorseless, it’s unbiased, it lingers for decades, and many times it takes on different forms. It can take on the form of blame, and it can form into blame of the most unlikely people, just to make sense of the senseless in our lives. In the face of tragedy some people just need to point fingers and blame the innocent just to help us cope with a horrible trauma, and the same can be said for the characters featured in one of my favorite dramas of all time.