TALK John Carpenter

[trailergod]

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Date of birth (location)
16 January 1948
Carthage, New York, USA

So who is John Carpenter to you?
Do you like his movies?
What is your favorite movie that he directed?

Trade mark
Uses dark cinematography.

The "bad guys" are depicted as zombie-like, mindless, lacking a personality or emotion.

Tries to make empty spaces look full, and full spaces look empty.

Uses keyboard/synthesizer based soundtracks which he himself composed.

Though many people die in his films, with few exceptions, he usually avoids showing gore.

Likes to name characters after real life people: directors, etc [names]

Is known for an unofficial "Carpenter's Repertory Group" of actors who he enjoys working with including, Kurt Russell, 'Sam Neil', Peter Jason, 'George 'Buck' Flower', and various crew members.

Also reuses character names from classic movies e.g. John T Chance is John Wayne's character in Río Bravo and Donald Pleasance's character in Halloween, Sam Loomis is also the name of Janet Leigh's boyfriend in Psycho.

Includes at least one scene inside an automobile in nearly all his films. Likes to include helicopters in his films, many times doing a cameo as a pilot.

His lead male characters are anti-heroes.

Uses the character names Tramer and Baxter frequently in different films

Shoots all of his movies in Panavision.

The words "John Carpenter's" appear before the film titles.

he directed 26 movies...

i like
THE THING
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0084787

:big grin:

[carl]

There's no yahoo biography on him. so here's his directors filmography.

Director
• John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars (2001)

• John Carpenter's Vampires (1998)

• Vampires (1998)

• Escape From L.A. (1996)

• In the Mouth of Madness (1995)

• Village of the Damned (1995)

• Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)

• They Live (1988)

• Prince of Darkness (1987)

• Big Trouble in Little China (1986)

• Starman (1984)

• Christine (1983)

• The Thing (1982)

• Escape From New York - Director's Special Edition (1981)

• Escape from New York (1981)

• Elvis - The Movie (1979)

• The Fog (1979)

• Halloween (1978)

• Assault on Precinct 13 (1976)

• Dark Star (1974)

His early work contains a lot of classics, but unfortunately he has gone downhill fast, and while some of his new films make decent popcorn munchers he hasn't had a 5 star classic in ages.

• John Carpenter's Vampires (1998) ***(this film sounds familiar)

• Vampires (1998) ***

• Escape From L.A. (1996) **

• Village of the Damned (1995) *

• Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992) **

• They Live (1988) ***half

• Big Trouble in Little China (1986) ***half

• Starman (1984) ***

• The Thing (1982) ***** see my top 20

• Escape from New York (1981) ****

• The Fog (1979) ****

• Halloween (1978) *****

• Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) *****

• Dark Star (1974)
I really want to see Dark Star, something about a space ship full of people being terrorized by an insane planet destroying beachball that really intrigues me.

[Gaumont]

was very long since I was Escape from Ney York, but I remember i thought it was a good action flick. But escape from LA was just embaresng.

Big Trouble in Little China is amusing =) Ghost of mars and vamipres are total crap. I never really likes horror movies, they tend to be so stupid. So carpenter is not really a director in my liking.

[ZUBi]

>So who is John Carpenter to you?

The Godfather of B-horror-movies

>Do you like his movies?

sure, some of them (mainly earlier stuff)

>What is your favorite movie that he directed?

The Thing (The Fog & Assault on Precinct 13 comes next)

BTW i found this BTS page about The Thing movie
http://www.outpost31.com/movie/behindscenes.html

[Jake]

I just loved how the thing didn't depict gore

I'm somewhat dissapointed with his more recent films

[Lafce]

'The Thing' & 'The Fog' are one of my all-time favourite movies. 'The Fog' is perhaps the movie that scared me the most and one of the reasons why I love horrors. I remember hiding behind a chair when I watched it a long time ago. I also love 'Big Trouble In Little China'. I must have seen that movie 5-6 times and I think I can watch it again and again...I can't explain why, but it's always interesting to me .