Every week this summer, we’ll be taking an historical tour of the Hollywood blockbuster by examining an older film that is in some way a spiritual precursor to one of the weekend’s wide releases. This week: Baz Luhrmann directs his first feature in nine years, Elvis. Elvis being Elvis, this isn’t even the first film […]

A second review requested by Kent H, with thanks for contributing twice to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. For a while there at the start of his career, John Carpenter was making some truly admirable choices. After directing the most profitable movie in history in the form of 1978’s ur-slasher Halloween, he […]

A review requested by Kent H, with thanks for donating to the Second Quinquennial Antagony & Ecstasy ACS Fundraiser. Obviously, 1981’s Escape from New York is a transitional film in the career of director John Carpenter: his fifth feature (seventh if we include his television movies) is the one that finds him starting to really […]

Considering how much its visceral, rubbery gore effects, electronic score, the niceties of its lighting and film stock, and especially its position in the center of a maelstrom of controversy about these goddamn violence-driven horror pictures with no characterisations beyond “this guy dies then that guy dies” all mark it out as a quintessential product […]

And now I must admit that I really have absolutely nothing to say. The third feature made by director John Carpenter, 1978’s Halloween has been pulled apart and analysed from every conceivable angle in the 30 years since it set the record as the most profitable film in history ($47 million on a $320,000 budget, […]