Last Week Was a Movie: Sep 23 - 29, 2024
Film Vomit's weekly recap: What we watched, what we recommend, and what to avoid.
It was a busy week at the multiplex with Francis Ford Coppola's long-awaited passion project Megalopolis, DreamWorks' Best Animated Feature contender The Wild Robot, and Megan Park's Sundance hit My Old Ass all hitting theaters. Still, David somehow found the time to finish watching all of John Carpenter's '80s output. Here’s everything we at Film Vomit watched last week:
David: 8/10
One of two Stephen King adaptations that the legendary novelist hates, John Carpenter’s Christine squeezes the maximum amount of cinematic horror from a premise as admittedly silly as a haunted car. The titular cherry red 1958 Plymouth Fury revs up a staggering amount of off-putting personality as it attaches itself to young Arnie Cunningham, a nerdy, frequently bullied high schooler who undergoes a complete personality transformation under the car’s influence. Despite the concerned pleas of his best friend, popular high school football star Dennis, and his post-Christine-makeover girlfriend Leigh, Arnie’s obsession with his car grows increasingly strange and cruel. The car, in turn, begins to exhibit a possessive jealousy regarding its owner.
The fact that Christine is often referred to as “lesser Carpenter” is ridiculous, because this film is packed with ideas, style, and strong performances. Whether taken as a rejection of '50s greaser nostalgia, an indictment of consumerism and car culture, an ahead-of-its-time examination of high school prey becoming the predator, or simply a really cool B-movie with mind-blowing special effects (the car deconstruction/reconstruction scenes are still insane), Christine delivers. Its iconic cinematography, particularly the image of “Christine” chasing one of Arnie’s bullies down the street, fully engulfed in flames, is one of Carpenter’s most staggering visual moments.
From Julia Ducournau’s Titane to Michael Bay’s Transformers films, many movies have retreaded the roads that this cult classic burned up in the '80s, further cementing Carpenter as one of the most important and influential filmmakers of his era. Stephen King may be the "King of Horror" on the page, but Carpenter is the "Master of Horror" on the screen—whether King likes his movies or not.
Engage with its themes or just shut your brain off with a horror movie about a killer car – either way, Christine is a delight.
David: 7.75/10
Starman is, even by today’s standards, probably the most commercial film John Carpenter has ever made. Looking to break away from his reputation as an exploitation filmmaker, Carpenter took on the task of directing what is ultimately a schmaltzy, albeit more adult, rendition of E.T., where the alien looks like Jeff Bridges instead of a wrinkly testicle. The logistics of how and why the alien looks like Jeff Bridges are a bit melancholic, as Karen Allen plays Jenny Hayden, a grieving widow who has recently lost her husband, Scott (Bridges). Early in the film, we’re treated to one of the few fleeting reminders that this is a John Carpenter picture, as the incorporeal extraterrestrial scouts Jenny’s home after its ship is shot down by the U.S. military. Carpenter returns to the POV style of shooting he employed in Halloween, as the alien darts around the house, inspecting the life this couple shared, before finally discovering a strand of the deceased Scott’s hair and using the DNA to create a body for itself. With tremendously creepy special effects, we witness the alien grow from a baby to a boy and then into a fully formed man, as Jeff Bridges’ Oscar-nominated, fish-out-of-water performance begins.
I can think of no premise more nihilistically horrifying than a hostile alien lifeform coming to Earth and assuming the likeness of your most cherished, departed loved one to torment you. You’d be forgiven for assuming that’s where this Carpenter film was headed, but what starts out as unnerving quickly settles into a low-key road trip movie. Jenny helps her husband's alien doppelgänger reach a rendezvous with his people before the U.S. government, hot on their trail, captures him. An odd romance begins to blossom between the two as Jenny teaches “Star Man” about life on Earth, the meaning of love, and the wonders of apple pie. It’s all very saccharine, as though someone took The Thing, sanded off the edges, and pitched it as an odd-couple rom-com. But someone didn’t make Starman—John Carpenter did—and as such, there’s a degree of competence that cannot be ignored. There are little hints of Carpenter’s horror and action impulses sprinkled throughout, and the ending—especially the final shot—delivers a rallying finish to what is otherwise a bit of an odd duck of a movie.
If you’re willing to let yourself get swept up in the romance of Starman, it’s probably quite moving. But even if you’re dead inside like me, it’s still an engaging sci-fi drama.
David: 8.25/10
If Starman was Carpenter at his most buttoned-up, conformist, and commercial, then Big Trouble in Little China swings the pendulum in the opposite direction—silly, subversive, and delightfully unhinged. Carpenter stealthily deploys frequent collaborator Kurt Russell as Jack Burton, priming audiences for the typical white savior narrative that was—and largely (and sadly) still is—expected. But Jack Burton is not the hero; he just thinks he is. It’s refreshing to see a movie star of Russell’s caliber be completely fine with being made to look utterly ridiculous in a film that fully embraces this. Jack doesn’t take it upon himself to save the Chinese community of San Francisco; he merely stumbles into a decades-long feud in an attempt to secure payment from a bet he won with his friend. Jack bumbles his way through the story like he's in a Three Stooges movie, remaining just competent enough to evade certain death at every turn, while his friend Wang Chi (Dennis Dun) is the epitome of calm, cool, and collected. Jack positions himself as "The Guy," but he’s a sidekick at best, who just doesn’t realize it—and by structuring the narrative this way, the film not only becomes hilarious but also avoids the typical pitfalls of movies where an outsider comes in to "solve" the problems of an entire culture.
That said, it’s crucial that Jack remains our POV character, as Big Trouble in Little China is paced within an inch of its life and throws so much information at the viewer that Jack’s bewilderment mirrors the audience’s experience. Carpenter thrusts the audience almost immediately into the action and maintains an incredible pace throughout its 100-minute runtime. You almost feel like you need to catch your breath while watching the film, but you’re usually laughing too hard to do so.
Big Trouble in Little China is a rip-roaring good time—a delightfully strange action-comedy that delivers on every front. I’d recommend this film to everyone, and order a brain scan for anyone who didn’t like it.
David: 5.5/10
You can read my full review of Megalopolis here.
Coppola's latest is more of a mess than a masterpiece, but I deeply admire its ambition. Megalopolis isn't for the casual viewer, but for staunch cinephiles willing to indulge one of the medium's greatest artists experimenting on a grand canvas, it's a singular experience you won't find anywhere else.
David: 8.5/10
You can read my full review of The Wild Robot here.
Equally moving and entertaining for audiences of all ages, The Wild Robot stands as the pinnacle of western animation in 2024.
David: 7.5/10
Like most teenagers, Elliott would rather spend her 18th birthday getting high with her friends than spending time with her family. To celebrate her official entry into adulthood, she embarks on a mushroom trip in the woods with her two best friends. During the trip, Elliott hallucinates an encounter with an older woman who claims to be her, but 21 years in the future. This older version of Elliott, portrayed by universal internet crush Aubrey Plaza, imparts three pieces of "wisdom" to her younger self: be nice to mom, spend time with your brothers, and avoid any boys named Chad. Elliott dismisses the experience, assuming it was just a bad trip, and returns to counting down the days until she can escape the family’s cranberry farm and head off to the University of Toronto. However, when Elliott meets the “summer boy” the family hires to help on the farm—named (you guessed it) Chad—she realizes her older self wasn’t merely a psilocybin-induced illusion after all.
In just her second feature, writer-director Megan Park has crafted a delightful throwback to fantasy-tinged comedies like 13 Going on 30, Big, and Freaky Friday. My Old Ass isn’t quite a body swap movie and not exactly a time travel film either. Instead, it cleverly sidesteps the usual intricacies of its premise to focus on the heartfelt emotion that emerges from it. While the film offers many endearing and moving moments, Park’s sophomore effort avoids being overly sentimental, finding a perfect tonal balance between comedy and drama. Like all comedy, some jokes land better than others, depending on personal taste. Although My Old Ass didn’t have me rolling in the aisles, I was touched by its story of a young person meeting their older self and teaching them just as much as they learn in return. This is not a film that condescends to its youthful characters but rather celebrates the value of being young and naïve—even, and perhaps especially, when you know what the future holds.
My Old Ass is a charming coming-of-age dramedy that proudly announces Maisy Stella, in her film debut, as a star to watch.
David: 8/10
Having successfully distilled the embodiment of evil into a slasher villain icon, conjured a small-town folk horror mystery, crafted the definitive Lovecraftian cosmic horror masterpiece, and even spun a campy commercial yarn about a possessed car for fun, it makes sense that Carpenter would eventually tackle spiritual horror with Prince of Darkness. The second film in his thematic “Apocalypse Trilogy,” following The Thing, Carpenter dials the nihilism up to unprecedented heights, as both science and religion fail to explain or defeat a primordial evil festering in a Los Angeles monastery. A Catholic priest from “The Brotherhood of Sleep” (played by Dr. Loomis himself, Donald Pleasance) teams up with a quantum physicist (Egg Shen from Big Trouble in Little China, Victor Wong) and his group of extra-credit-seeking students to investigate why an ancient vial of green ooze—hidden away as the Roman Catholic Church’s dirty little secret—has awoken. Even when he’s not trying to, Carpenter proves as prescient as always.
In many ways, Prince of Darkness plays like a Carpenter compendium: a troupe of frequent collaborators unites for a story that distills the themes and motifs permeating the filmmaker’s filmography—intellectualizing the abstraction of evil, interior communities decaying through distrust, a besieging exterior forming a barrier between the characters and the outside world, and metaphysical musings about humanity’s place in the universe. In the end, science and religion are two sides of the same coin in Carpenter’s view—both seeking to explain something that cannot, or perhaps need not, be explained. The only thing capable of conquering evil is love, plain and simple.
Prince of Darkness may not be Carpenter’s best film, but it certainly feels like his deepest and most thematically rich, and it's damn entertaining even on a surface level.
David: 9.25/10
In what might sound like damning a film with faint praise, I adore Carpenter’s unambitious approach to They Live. So many other directors would tackle this story with massive scope and scale, but Carpenter methodically crafts a small world of drifters and loners who stumble upon the conspiracy of the century: our world has been colonized by interdimensional free enterprisers, treating Earth as their third-world resource hub and pacifying the “livestock” (us) with subliminal, mass-marketed messages to consume, reproduce, and conform to the status quo.
The heroes who “wake up” from this mass delusion aren’t special—they're the outsiders society looks down upon, and thus the only ones capable of accepting the cracks in the grand façade. With his trademark sense of humor, Carpenter eviscerates yuppie culture and unchecked capitalism in 90 minutes of action-packed camp, filled with instantly iconic lines. Of all the quippy badasses Carpenter has created over the years, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper’s catchphrase-spewing Nada may be my favorite. Piper is incredible in the film, nailing the dramatic beats with as much reverence as he handles the physical demands of the role, and his legendary six-minute alleyway fight with Keith David’s character remains one of the best scenes in Carpenter’s entire catalog.
To say that They Live has aged perfectly would downplay just how prescient the film was, and how terrible the world still is. The rampant commercialization of culture has only grown exponentially since the film’s release, turning this once-maligned masterpiece into a pop-culturally reclaimed cult hit that is now, rightly, recognized as one of Carpenter’s best. A schlocky B-movie on the surface, brimming with some of his best genre thrills, They Live stands as a crowning achievement in Carpenter’s ability to subversively lace his films with thematic depth and searing satire. He is cinema’s Epeius, and They Live is his sturdiest Trojan horse.
If you only ever watch one John Carpenter film in your life, it should probably be The Thing. If you watch two, they should be The Thing and Halloween. But if you watch a third John Carpenter film—and really, why would you stop at three?—then They Live deserves that bronze medal, as it is undoubtedly one of the director’s most entertaining and thought-provoking movies.
So, that’s everything we watched last week, but we want to know what you’ve been watching! Jump into the Discord and let us know if you’ve seen anything good lately.
David Lee
Published September 30, 2024