Ranking Every John Carpenter Movie (part 3 of 3) - re:View
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- Опубликовано: 28 ноя 2024
- PART 1: • Ranking Every John Car...
PART 2: • Ranking Every John Car...
Despite having very different tastes, Jay and Rich both love John Carpenter movies. Just maybe not the same John Carpenter movies. We decided to do a ranking of every single one of them. Disaster ensues.
Halloween commentary track: redlettermedia...
Escape From New York re:View: • Escape from New York -...
The Thing re:View: • John Carpenter's The T...
In the Mouth of Madness re:View: • In the Mouth of Madnes...
More of this "one director" series, please. These are great to have an outlook at the director's material over the years.
I second this
Agreed. Wes Craven would be a good candidate
john waters
@@jasong8085 Dude, this.
@@mikeg4691 Good god why?! And yes I’d watch it 😆🤙
Jay watching They Live "all the time" as a kid explains a lot.
The Nerd Crew owes its success to They Live
I first saw it when Joe Bob did a Monstervision episode with it.
I can relate. They Live is a masterpiece.
Is that what turned him into a weirdo sex pervert?
That and Return of the Living Dead.
In the earlier episode they jokingly note how Adrienne Barbeau's last screen appearance in a Carpenter film is possibly due to a completely conjectural affair. I think it's worth adding that in her uncredited scene in The Thing, all Kurt Russel says is "cheating bitch."
More evidence for the national inquirer! Also is that the only bit of comedy in the Thing? Because most of John Carpenter’s movies have some comedy elements like They Live, Big Trouble in Little China, and even Halloween.
I know this comment is 5 months old but I never get to quote one of my favorite lines from the movie:
"Gentlemen: We're under a lot of stress... but if you don't mind, I'd rather not spend the entire winter... TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!"
It's not completely humorless. The scene where the head grows legs and walks away is funny too. There's little moments and one-liners, just not entire comedy scenes. It never breaks the oppressive atmosphere.
@@lorddevilfish5868 "You gotta be f***ing kidding!"
@@gughunterx437 Fair point that’s super dark humor though
@@lorddevilfish5868 I would argue The Thing has a lot of comedic moments and one-liners in the midst of a very tense atmosphere. "Imma a real light sleeper, Childs" and "Mac wants the flamethrower!" "Mac wants the WHAT?!" are two of my favorite quotes. Not to mention Wilford Brimley's whole freakout scene... I practically have that whole part memorized.
"They live" being Jay's childhood comfort movie somehow says more about him than his childhood of unrated slasher films, and I love that.
I had a similar experience with Army of Darkness
Mine was Big Trouble in Little China
Terminator 2 for me.
Mine was Predator
In My case was Terminator 2 lol
The Thing also has the greatest performance ever given by a dog.
The Chihuahua Movie wants a word with you...
I can't believe you've done this to Air Bud.
The dog in Bad Moon was great too
Yes, this. Absolutely inspired canine performance.
How about the one in the Road Warrior ? (Mad Max 2)
Out of everything said in this three-part series the most important thing we need to remember is that Rich Evans hates John Carpenter's Halloween
If a movie relies on lore Rich and Mike will dismiss it.
@@spillanegottleib1681 It only relies on lore for those who grew up on movies with 1990s (or later) pacing. For those of us who grew up in the '70s, Halloween was (and still is) a masterpiece of suspense.
That dirty dog, hating Halloween so much he made it into a three part video that I had to watch.
@@Beery1962 okay boomer
People who grew up in the 70s aren't boomers you dolt
The Thing is Carpenter's masterpiece. I can watch that film over and over and still get creeped out in certain scenes.
Plus, Kurt Russell is the man. Lol
Not really. Its great however, John Carpenter cannot write an ending to ANY film to save his fucking life...All of his movies have garbage endings. The Thing, just ends decades later he had to admit that neither were infected. Big Trouble in China just ends, Starman just ends. The closest thing to a decent ending in a John Carpenter film is Escape from New York and Halloween just ending works for that story.
@@lutherheggs451 you are entitled to your wrong opinion, but the ending to the thing was perfect. As mentioned in the video, the entire theme of the movie was paranoia, and I don't know why anyone would choose a different ending to the thing. It was sublime.
The Thing is the greatest horror film of all time. I watch it probably 2-3 times a year
Kurt Russell is the epitome of a real man, I love him so much
The 'blood test' jump scare gets me *every single time* I watch the movie lol
To clear up the mystery of why Big Trouble bombed; Fox didn't get it - panicked - and decided to cut their losses by not advertising it and quietly killing it in theaters. When it hit home video, and the pressure was off, it was an instant hit. Pretty much the same story with The Thing.
To this day, no mater what the context is, Carpenter is so bitter that he refuses to talk about either Fox or BTLC.
I saw this twice as a teenager at Leicester Square (central London where big releases happen in the UK if you didn't know), and had no idea it bombed. Loved it.
@@gsesquire3441 in all fairness would that be a great thing? For all their resources Speilberg and Lucas never really made anything great that wasn't an immense struggle against their own restrictions. Seems like half of filmmaking is being trapped inside the confines of a budget and overcoming it. Obviously it would have been nice if he'd gotten more money and I don't want to fetishize low resources but he's made a far more interesting body of work without the money they had.
Fox? Fucking up a good thing because they had no idea what to do with it and in their confusion wished it would just go away? Strains credulity imho.
@@wyrmh0le almost as much as amber heard being a horrible monster
Big Trouble In Little China was described to me as "A movie where the Comic Relief Sidekick thinks he's the Main Character and lives in an Eastern D&D fantasy world where he rolls only 1's or 20's."
that sounds about right yeah
Well, you sold it to me. I'm gonna check it out.
Indeed!
This is one of the most amazing things I've ever read
@Kara Paupus He can be smart and still raucously unlucky and lucky.
That prolonged fight scene always felt like how it is arguing with someone to believe something they really don’t want to see. Waking up is hard to do.
Exactly!
"Convictions are a greater enemy of truth than lies" - Nietzsche
The extended fight scene in "They Live" is genius. It's a representation of the misdirected anger that people feel when they know they are being wronged by the system but point the finger at their fellow citizens instead.
The full movie is on RUclips
Zizek take?
Nah, they just wanted to show a really long and ridiculous fight scene lol
I interpret that scene as "if you try to help somebody, explain something to them, they will fight hard to keep their ignorance and self esteem"
It's boring as hell is what it is.
I still can't believe they could say this film "isn't heavy handed" with a straight face.
Carpenter might as well have personally walked into the theater with iron gloves.
I'm a chess player and I just had to put up the position from 27:53 on my chess analysis tool to see if the position was real or just some random chess position. I turns out they got someone who really knows chess to set up the position. It's checkmate in two moves from black (the computer). if Kurt gives up his queen it's checkmate in four. Either way, he's getting checkmated.
Really nice touch. My favorite Carpenter movie is Big Trouble In Little China.
That is very interesting. I think the chess game is also relevant in the foreshadowing as Russell hands over the whisky glass to drink which he defeated the chess machine with to David at the end too.
Hey, I'm a big fan of your channel. 👍
Were you able to tell if the computer took an illegal action to get to that point?
"It's all in the reflexes" 🙆🇺🇲🛠️🇷🇺
What would the price of that computer have been at that time? Not to mention wasting that drink.
That cut to Xtro as Rich was describing the much needed epilogue to Starman, was golden.
His laugh in response to Rich is actually him thinking about editing in Xtro later.
I wonder if Jay edited this video
@@Marcelo_DBZ_Music surely he did!
Rich has given me a newfound appreciation for Christine. I’ve always enjoyed the movie but when he describes how she’s “felt up” and checked out by a factory worker and she responds to it like a woman that’s been disrespected like
I’ve never even thought about that and I love that her personality is so evident even in the first few moments of the film
Personally, I guffawed at Jay's, "It's a Stephen King story with the stupid shit taken out."
@@justinamerican8200 as much as I enjoy Stephen king and his stupid shit sometimes you gotta do some serious sifting if you want a decent movie
The movies can be questionable, but the books tend to be solid character studies, with the fantastical thrown in.
@@fordprefect679 That's the thing, if you aren't down for a character study, then I guess stick to his short stories? 'Cause otherwise you're about to crawl into the head of half a dozen people.
@@blarghchan Literally. I got halfway through IT before giving up. Haven't picked it back up for almost two years now
"It's equally relevant because NOTHING CHANGES"
The mask slips and Cynical Jay becomes Profound Jay.
PUNISHED JAY
But Cynical Jay and Profound Jay are always the same person
Like gandolf the white
Is this not already obvious to most people?
Plenty of art, and that includes film, speaks of a future time accurately. What else would it be, but more relevant at that later time than when it was first created.
Is Jay saying that a financial document that accurately predicts inflation in 10 years is equally relevant the moment it was written, before the inflation starts, and in that future 10 years later?
To paraphrase the character in "Things", "What the fook is Jay talkin aboot"
A swing and a miss.
Well Jay pretty much summed up my world view with the “It’s not more relevant now, it’s just that nothing ever changes” part…
It's depressing because it's true
Except the world constantly changes and has consistently improved. If you're a cynic looking for ways to stay cynical and you ignore all the nuance to the ways things have improved and the ways problems today are different from old problems then of course you'll find general comparisons like the one Jay mentions
Totally
Which isn't true. Plenty of things have changed since the movie came out. Things have gotten worse and worse due entirely to the efforts of the bourgeoisie--the "aliens"--and every attempt to reverse all these awful changes, from the anti-war movements of the early 2000s, the Fight for 15, attempts at implementing universal healthcare, moves to curtail the fossil fuel industries, Occupy Wall Street, The Arab Spring, The Pink Wave in Latin America, etc, etc, etc, have all been brutally crushed by the bourgeoisie and the sell out defenders of Capitalism.
@@MisterMacross Right. Things have happened in regards to the power dynamic, yet that dynamic hasn't effectively changed since then. You can say its getting worse and that's why its more relevant, yet it isn't like they've figured out how to dig in to their foothold. They've just adapted like they always have, and nothings changed because they constantly are.
I love the singular joke that, outside of killing the bad guy, Jack Burton is the most useless hero ever created. I remember John Carpenter on radio's Joey Reynold's show when Big Trouble in Little China opened and almost every critic and audience member didn't get the joke. In fact, he received a lot of flack for Christine by a caller. I felt so sorry for him that day.
The moment you realize that Burton is actually the comedy sidekick to the real hero, that movie clicks in such a spectacular way. Absolutely my favorite carpenter film and I will not change that.
I had the same reaction as Rich when watching this movie as a kid. I thought "jeeze, did Kurt Russel have to be so dumb and hammy?" but learning this now, all I want to do is rewatch it.
That Jack burton shooting the roof and getting knocked out is gold. It made me belly laugh like a mf when I first saw it.
I at least thought that the chinese guy was cool... Really didn't get the joke.
@@VashdaCrash you have to be more specific.
Rich doesn't realize he loves Christine so much because it's his relationship with Mike.
As to why Big Trouble bombed so badly, Carpenter and Russell talk about that in the commentary track. They talk about how the studio completely fucked up the marketing, even after it tested through the roof.
How to snatch defeat from the Jaws of victory: An introductory guide to the wild world of film financing in the studio system
This fucking city can kill anybody!
BTILC has hands down the best commentary track that I've seen. The spend a good amount of the time talking about everything but the movie, you you don't really mind. Also I think they were kind of buzzed I cant remember, Great I have to go back and watch it again
Honorable Commentary mentions:
Snatch
Superbad
Love that commentary track. Used to put it on to fall asleep too.
It's basically the same story with... all his movies, really. Either the studio didn't care or, which was usually far worse, the studio did care... and mismanaged things in active way, rather than being just bunch of hacks.
I would love to see more ranked director lists! If Josh and Jay did one on David Lynch films that would be wonderful. I really love this format!
This would be amazing.
Impossible to chose a favorite
@@medievaldad9537 Mulholland Drive, of course. Or "Fire Walk With Me". Or "Blue Velvet." Fuck it, you're right.
I feel like David Cronenberg would work well for this format too.
Yeah they could do famous director George Lucas next.
Bored at work earlier so I decided to rank their combined scores with the average total included:
1. The Thing (1.5)
2. Big Trouble (2.5)
3. Escape NY (4)
4(tie) Starman (5)
4(tie) They Live (5)
6. Christine (6)
7. Halloween (7.5)
8(tie) Assault on Pre 13 (9.5)
8(tie) Memories of an Inv Man (9.5)
10(tie) Vampires (11)
10(tie) In the Mouth of Madness (11)
10(tie) Prince of Darkness (11)
10(tie) The Fog (11)
14. Village of the Damned (13)
15. The Ward (13.5)
16(tie) Dark Star (16.5)
16(tie) Escape from LA (16.5)
18. Ghosts of Mars (17)
This is cool, thank you
Nice list. I always found Ghosts Of Mars to be pretty entertaining in a shlocky way, certainly a guilty pleasure of mine. I'd swap it with The Ward and it's really close to my list.
I love you
Halloween should be top 2 at worst.
Back in 2013 I attended a screening of They Live at the Trocadero Theater in Philly for the film's 25th anniversary. Rowdy Roddy Piper was in the audience and came on stage after the end of the movie. He said he had never experienced something like that before and felt awed, because all throughout the film everyone was cheering and shouting at their favorite parts, particularly the suplex at the end of the fistfight. Then they brought out a special cake for him complete with the sunglasses. It was such a great night, and I know he had a blast, too.
Fast forward to 2019, and I was working for an urban forest management company in California, doing inventories of trees for LA County. There's a street in West Rancho Dominguez that I was surveying, and on both sides of the street from end to end were campers and RV's that people were living in, a very common sight out there, as I learned from that job. The cost of living is just so high, it's ridiculous. People have to live somewhere.
Anyway, I was approached by a few people who thought I was an undercover cop or something scoping out the area. Very nice people, and I explained what I was doing, and to this day I'm not sure they believed me. But they pointed to some posters that said that the county was going to do cleaning along the street within the next few days.
The following week I bumped into them again on a different street I was surveying. They said that the county came in and bulldozed or towed anything that hadn't been moved. So many of those vehicles were broken down and couldn't be moved in time. One of them said that she lost her camper, and of course she wasn't the only one. I asked them what the people who lost their homes were going to do now and got a shrug in return.
I understand feeling like that scene is hyperbole or totally fictitious, because that's exactly what I thought until that day. But no, turns out that actually happens. It's a messed up world we live in.
2 great stories(one up lifting, another sad). Thanks for sharing them.
This is also the perfect example of ordinary people blaming the wrong people for their problems. California has had massive population growth (largely from illegal immigration) and it's a nightmare to try to build new housing there, but somehow Republicans get blamed.
@@tartrazine5 I missed the part where I said anything about Republicans.
They Live has only grown more and more real and less and less ham-handed with time. The idea that anyone can watch it now and go “what a crazy cautionary tale that is not representative of our current world at all” is nuts to me.
I'm not saying this to be argumentative but the part you're leaving out about these nice people is that the vast majority of them are in the throes of addiction and/or mental crisis not to mention criminals hiding out. Most functioning people who lose their job or find they don't earn enough to maintain their home and life move to a place that is more suited to them...hell we hear daily about how many are FLEEING Cali (for whatever reason). These people don't just find a place to park so they can just "be"...they destroy every area they're in hording piles and piles of garbage discarding their paraphernalia everywhere and literally sh*tting in the streets. The days of shoeless Joe traveling in empty boxcars asking for a quarter for a cup of coffee are LONG GONE...these people are the product of a broken health care system that can't make money off of them and that issue will not be fixed during the lifetime of anyone alive today. Sorry but your sympathies are not for the people on Nada's hill...they're for the crazies in the sewers in Escape from NY.
please do more director focused videos, as someone who isn't a big film head personally, i like seeing you guys get enough time on one creator to really explore what makes them tick for you guys. I've heard so often about how great John Carpenter is, but with this series I feel like I actually understand why a bit better.
Some contemporaries of carpenters like Cronenberg and lynch would be the dream
I feel like 2/3 of his movies they thought sucked but I agree.
Stanley kubrick and david lynch overviews would be so interesting
Never do Micheal Bay. Ranking garbage tier trash fires is a drag for everyone.
PLEASE!!!!!
I'm really looking forward to Rich apologetically defending his stance on Halloween whenever it's brought up in the future, like Mike has to defend his belief in ghosts.
He can just refer them back here where he explains in detail at length.
And guilty for ruining Start Wars too.
Are people not allowed to have subjective preferences and opinions on films?
@@nebularain3338 No.
I never really stopped to think about it when I was a kid but John Carpenter is single handedly responsible for my love of slasher, synth, Keith David and Kurt Russell. Thank you JC
JC is back, and this time he won't die.
I didn't realize how much I love John Carpenter until seeing all his works discussed in a single conversation. I am just like "that's right, he did the one movie! And the other one!" The guy is a legend and I never really grasped it
"Don't panic, it's only me: [full name]."
How I enter every room from now on
Complete with superhero pose, for added effect.
@@roguebantha7324 I will mimic the Sailor Moon pose while doing the same. (*｀･ω･)ゞ
I'm so glad they brought up that line, for some reason I remembered the unnatural way she delivered it too.
People have to call you "Full Name"? That must get awkward.
@@spillanegottleib1681 DON'T PANIC
There's a really wholesome energy to this 3 part series. I love every time Jay just politely accepts that Rich hates his some of his favorite movies lmao
Super healthy response that allows for a fun discussion. Take notes, humanity!
Fun Idea: The Thing's Alien is the exact same species as Starman, but their ship crashed landed in the arctic with no initial template to acclimate to the environment, went insane and unstable.
That's fantastic! I love it.
It's all part of the John Carpinter Cinematic Universe.
@@valkyllias It's like poetry. It rhymes.
no balls though
IT BROKE NEW GROUND
I love the drawn out fight scene in They Live, in my opinion it drags on for a thematic reason. The stubborn struggle by Keith David’s character represents just how far people will fight to cling on to the reality they know and understand. This quote from The Matrix sums it up well: “You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”
It was clear that it was the intention, but it was a little too much.
The point was evident about halfway through, the rest of it honestly felt like padding for a film that doesn't have much of a plot.
Makes me think about how Galileo couldn't even get a lot of his colleagues to look through his telescope.
GOD DAMN I love seeing some well written class analysis of They Live and The Matrix
Reminds me of a lazy person that will not take stand for anything, but when their laziness is challenged they will stand to defend it.
I think Slavoj Zizek said something similar yeah
Jay is so right on when he says Big Trouble in a Little China is the best movie ever while watching it. It's obviously not, but it's just such a joy to watch.
I think Big Trouble (which is amazing by the way) flopped at the box office is because it was released two days after Top Gun which destroyed everything in 1986. Carpenter’s best movies always had the crappiest timing.
@@TheWaynos73 I only just read that John Carpenter turned down the job for Top Gun, so it must have been a double kick in the nuts. What a shame.
I'd like to see Paul Verhoeven covered this way. Starting with his early Dutch films. Partly because Mike seems to really like his directing.
Hard to grasp the idea that Turkish Delight, Robocop and Showgirls were all directed by the same person would be interesting to hear them talk about his career, watching all of them back to back surely would give them some major tonal whiplash.
I'd love this, if for no other reason than to watch them realize that Starship Troopers is basically a RoboCop sequel (and better than all the official ones)
Total Recall (1990) is one of the best movies ever.
Flesh + Blood better be #1. lol
Paul Verhoeven is basically a more successful version of John Carpenter. He also makes weird off beat movies, but they are somehow way more successful.
That moment in the They Live alley fight with the board, and Roddy going "oh shit" and realizing it went too far -- that's EXACTLY the vibe that makes the whole fight so enjoyable, despite it's length. It's like two close brothers fighting -- not to _KILL_ -- and with each one being equally matched in stubbornness and strength. And just when you think, yep, that's it, they wore each other out... BOOM, explodes all over again. It's hysterical and fun. And if it wasn't THESE TWO actors, in THIS movie, I don't know if it could have worked. It shouldn't. But it does. And I love it. Such a great film. :)
Keith David has stated it's the gentlest fight he's ever been in, due to Piper's background in Pro Wrestling.
It is also a good metaphor for the struggle it takes to change someone's world view when they refuse to see the reality of it all.
Holy shit, this is accurate. My brother is 3 years younger than me and when we were little this is EXACTLY what happens lol. Fortunately, we're older and (a little bit) wiser and we get along much more now.
I always liked how Southpark made an almost direct reference to that fight scene by recreating it in the older episode where Jimmy first shows up.
That fight proves that They Live would absolutely work as a TV show. Dave Bautista would kill as Nada and Carpenter should get a second crack on the soundtrack.
00:20 They Live
10:32 Starman
19:11 Christine
24:39 The Thing
31:05 Big Trouble in Little China
“It’s equally relevant because nothing changes”. Best quote. 👏🏻
Just wanted to say that Rich Evans has been as good as he's ever been in this series. Fantastic work.
I think that Rich and Jay are one of the better pairings... Anyone and Jay, all shows need Jay.
@@billm4449 Must keep appealing to the Jay demographic.
@@billm4449 Jay is the key... To all of this.
The actor playing Rich Evans deserves an award.
I was lucky enough to see The Thing at an indie theater last week. Watching my favorite John Carpenter film on the big screen with a live audience 39 years after its release was amazing!
There was a double feature one or two years ago with They Live and The Thing in a theater in my city. Awesome time (and you could go and buy beers at the convenience store next door between the two 😊)
A lot of They Live was inspired by this 60's short story called "Eight O'Clock in the Morning", which I believe had a main character conveniently named "Nada". It was a much more straightforward "typical" story about an alien invasion that disguises themselves as humans. It was just a really convenient name for Carpenter to use since he wanted an "everyman". Another fun note: he told Roddy that Nada has a back story... "but you go home and write it yourself. Don't tell any of the cast it, never tell me it." Roddy did indicate he did his homework, he did exactly that, and he died being the only person who knew Nada's back story. Ah, what a beautiful approach to directing, isn't it?
Also, how don't they know that Kurt's "phone repairman" scheme is lifted straight out of Bruce Lee's "Fist of Fury"? That's the whole point of his character, he's blundering around acting out action roles, doing action-y things he's seen people in movies do.
You see, he "is" the hero! That's why he keeps acting out that role!
(Big Trouble is _such_ a great movie, love it so much...)
@@ULTRAOutdoorsman Honestly that's how Bruce acts in Fist of Fury, awkward and nerdy like that -- maybe Bruce was acting out Deckard and Jack was acting out Bruce!
Yup. Also check out Stephen King's short story "10 O'clock in the Morning". It's about people who quit smoking and this allows them to see the alien menace.
@@Flayne009 I Googled it and it's actually The Ten O'clock People. Just to make it easier to find.
@@william4996 It's cool. Thanks man.
This ranking is even more relevant now than when it was made!
Lol
The reason the fight in They Live goes on for so long is it's a metaphor for changing someone's mind. I can't remember what documentary I saw (I think it was one about John Milius) and they talk about all Piper wants is to show Keith David the truth but he wants none of it and takes for freaking ever to convince someone like that.
The theory I kind of love about They Live is that after the end of the movie, when the world knows the aliens exist and are in charge, nothing changes. People would grumble and protest, but things would just quickly go back to the status quo with the understanding that aliens are in charge. As long as most people wouldn't have to change their comfortable life they aren't going to put up a fuss
That's pretty much how things are today. The powers that be have stripped away virtually all rights the citizenry is supposed to have, but all we do is grumble a bit then go back to our daily distractions.
@@mr.battle20 Yeah look at Australia. They're happily embracing a fascist takeover
@@mr.battle20 bruh you have no idea what you're talking about
@@TheDilden bruh bruh
@@badlaamaurukehu bruh bruh bruh
Keith David is so underutilized. My favorite character in nearly every film he's in.
He owns Platoon. The three leads are white but the heart of that film is Keith David’s character. Every second he has onscreen he’s adding heaping doses of quality to the film.
Hes great in "marked for death".
He smashes it in the old Halo games too.
Weird thing about Keith in platoon is he's gone for like the whole 2nd act. Then shows up right before the climax just to leave lmao but he does leave Charlie Sheen with some guidance with a few lines just before @mattcarpenter318
I actually love the prologue for Big Trouble in Little China precisely because it sets up the joke that Jack Burton is, in the end, the goofy sidekick of the story.
Like, it builds him up as if he's this legendary hero, and then the whiplash you get from him constantly fumbling about like an idiot for the rest of the film makes everything more hilarious.
The wording Egg Shen uses even makes more sense. He doesn’t say “Jack Burton saved us all!” or anything like that, he just says “He showed great courage”
Which he did. He just wasn’t very useful with that courage.
@@TehSEOULMAN
And he never plugged a guy before.
He killed LoPan. Don’t forget that.
It’s all in the reflexes.
i watched this movie again recently and that is the impression i got as well
I’m glad I’m not the only one who finds the “this movie/show is more relevant now than when it was made” comments annoying. Thank you, Jay “the cat strangler” Bauman
This comment is so beautiful.
Yep and what they said perfectly encompassed my feelings about it.
I find Jay's dumb "Everybody on the internet is this, but _I'm_ that" comments annoying. The worst was probably Prometheus: "what's the problem?" - and then they proceeded to make more videos about "the problem" lmao
Jay "i can get even more hipster" bauman
@@LordSathar don't hate on Jay just cause he's a hipster, he strangles cats!
About that guitar: It's just a clean guitar playing a blues lick, but they put an octave pedal in the signal chain, so the lower octave is dubbed. Makes it fat and eery. Could be a single bass guitar, too, but i doubt it. Octave pedals were quite the rage in the 80ies.
I thought it might be a sampled electric base guitar, played on on of his synthesizers.
@@jens256 Could well be the case, but that lick is such a standard blues guitar lick, it never occured to me he might have played it on keys. 🙂
I thought it was a baritone guitar, but I'm probably wrong.
@@HughMansonMD Could be both. Add some tremolo and we're driving to Twin Peaks 😉.
Here I thought it was a Dobro
I don't think I'll ever get tired watching all these guys discuss the movies they love.
"You realize it's the greatest movie ever made... while watching it."
That explains the movie so perfectly!
I know there are probably better movies out there for any number of reasons, but when watching Big Trouble in Little China, it really feels amazing.
The only movie I watched back to back to back to back...(I watched it for 24 hrs straight with my childhood best friend).
I disagree. I watched it and its dated as fuck. Over rated as hell
@@ranjamha8202 you must be like 12 years old 🤣
@@21DaHoagie12 You must be a 12 year old to even find this movie funny. The Thing is light years above it.
@@ranjamha8202 ...not a whole lot of humor in The Thing; I would argue Big Trouble is wayyyy funnier...
Christine played the 2nd best car character next to Low Blow's car.
Christine and Low Blow's car team up for a buddy cop action comedy
@@janeeyre1990 Christine vs Low Blow's car.
With K.A.R.R from Knight Rider in 3rd. "I do not wish to go back to the slammer!"
Low Blow's car is just an inferior version of Columbo's car.
Low Blow should drive Christine.
Very unique placements. I gotta respect the high rank for Starman, it’s one of the most beautiful movie’s I’ve ever seen.
Its insane how badly carpenter did in cinemas, he has like 10 absolute bangers that have never really left the zeitgeist its surprising he didn't get jaded sooner.
Imagine making the Thing and it bombing. Like what the fuck.
This has been a great excuse for me to introduce my wife to John Carpenter. She watched The Thing for the first time last night and loved it. Tonight, They Live, and tomorrow, In The Mouth of Madness.
Throw in Little China as well.
Liar.
@@Caffeine_Club Lotta hurt butts all over the comments.
as someone who was three years old when Big Trouble came out, it was an inherently accepted piece of pop culture amongst kids, like Candyman would be a few years later. BTILC was as popular among the kids I grew up around as Ghostbusters was, we just immediately understood that it was awesome and it was a huge part of our lives. Sleepaway Camp was also like that, but BTILC was a BIG deal. it bombing must've just been parents' fault somehow.
Older people usually have more set expectations i would say because seeing a movie is a comitment with jobs etc goin on, so not getting what you expect might have soured their experience
Definitely. I, as an awkward totally unathletic nerd forced to play sports by my dipshit parents, casually mentioned it to my friend on our Little League team one day while riding the bench. The popular star athlete child trapped in a man's body teammate got a huge grin on his face and excitedly shrieked at me, "That movie is AWESOME." We nerded out the rest of the game discussing our favorite parts.
Same here. Also Buckaroo Banzai 😊
I’ve only seen two of his movies but I could hear these guys talk John Carpenter for hours
same, I could hear RLM talk about anything really
Rich and Jay deserve to be in a documentary about John Carpenter.
What two were they?
Watch more
@@D00dman I’ve seen Halloween and big trouble in little China. I saw them both in high school though so it’s definitely time i rewatched them
Seeing Rich recommend a Peter Watts short story was wild. The man has impeccable taste. The Things is fantastic.
Just don't watch "Things". Not without weed and Joe Bob Briggs anyway.
Because he's the hero RUclips deserves, but not the one it needs right now
did not realize that was a Peter Watts story, I will have to check it out. Peter Watts is an amazing sci fi author, dude has a phd in biology and it shows in his writing. Blindsight was one of the best books I read during lockdown and I have since tried to find everything else by this dude and read it all
@@rwo23 Peter Watts wrote an improbably good novelization for Crysis 2 called Crysis: Legion, and it has no business being as good as it is. Highly recommended.
Blindsight is so good.
On Rich’s point about The Thing and the chess wizard foreshadowing: Not only does the computer checkmate him unexpectedly, under closer inspection apparently the computer made an illegal move and actually did cheat, which is a cool detail.
1: Christine was a haunted car in the book. The car itself was not sentient. Roland LeBay, his wife and his daughter all died in that car. Arnie was possessed by LeBay. That's why his attitude changed, and whenever school or work took Arnie out of town, LeBay would leave Arnie's body, and use Christine to kill Arnie's bullies.
2: The Thing was the inspiration for Odo and The Founders on DS9. There's even an episode where the cast is stranded on a ship with a changeling. They do blood tests, they mistrust each other... It's very reminiscent of the movie.
You're pulling my leg about the founders? I didn't know that.
I was literally thinking about the founders when Rich floated the idea that the thing could've just wanted to get home and that we don't know its motivation.
@@noplace4akitty047 I looked it up. The episode I'm referring to is S03E26 The Adversary.
@@bradleyj.fortner2203 thank you. Now i can stay lazy lol.
There's an XFiles episode that is an homage to The Thing. It was done when the show was still monster-of-the-week style and the 'monster' this time was based on a fungus that infects ants in the rain forest. Basically, the real life fungus spores are ingested by these big ants that live on the forest floor. They never crawl up trees, always on the ground...until the spore starts to eat on the ant and makes it climb slowly up a tree and apparently in pain as the ants can be heard 'screaming' and also normally live full life without making so much as a single squeak. So while the ant's innards are being digested by the growing fungus, it climbs up as high as it can and then just sits out on a branch and waits to die, at which point, a stalk from the fungus shoots out of the ant that releases spores that float back down to the forest floor to restart the cycle all over again.
The Xfiles episode that used this concept takes place in antartica or something where a volcano has erupted and is being studied. Mulder and Scully are there for some reason I forget, but after some of the team visit the volcano to study it for science reasons, one of the guys starts acting funny, being really angry and aggressive until suddenly a weird thing busts out of his neck and he dies. Well, it's a fungus that was trapped under the ice and was released by the volcano. And no one knows who's infected and who isn't until it's usually too late.
Of course, I suspect, too, everyone realizes that Hateful 8 is Tarrantino's remake of The Thing...so that's a...thing.
Having read "The Things" short story, I enthusiastically urge everyone to go read it, it's so good!
So nice to hear some positives about Christine I've loved this film since i first saw it. But it's not often spoken about which is a shame as its one of Carpenter's more underated movies
Like every Stephen King adaptation the fans of the book always talk shit about it.
One of my favourites. Totally underappreciated.
i find it strange how his movies didn't make money when they are some of the most entertaining, fun and best films I've seen in my life.. the thing is a legit masterpiece as well imo.
He was ahead of his time and misunderstood. He is like the Nikola Tesla of Film Directors
Sublime talent isn't always recognised during a genius' time.
@@gsesquire3441 My dad took me to many a restricted flick at our local cinema, so it's not impossible.
I remember watching The Thing like 10 years ago when it was underrated...now it's overrated.
That is what is called a cult director. People who love his movies REALLY love them and we almost love him because he is underrated. But his stuff never connected with a large crowd because they are cheesy and low rent(yes even The Thing). Personally It's like I love Carpenter more for his body of work than his films individualy.
The short story rich mentioned "the things" is written by peter watts. He's written quite a few hard sci fi books i highly recommend :
The rift trilogy ( starfish, malestrom, and behemoth
Firefall series
-Blindsight & echopraxia
Blindsight is really good
Huh, no shit? I'll give those a look.
"Whenever I find my will to live grow too strong, I read Peter Watts." -- James Nicoll.
He wrote Blindsight? Interesting.
I read Blindsight and some random horror novel I don't quite remember, and my impression was that the horror novel was more uplifting and hopeful than Blindsight. I'd still recommend Blindsight.
Honestly one of my favourite series on RLM, it helped me to find what John Carpenter was missing and what I was missing from JC. He's one of my favourite directors of all time and the fact he walked his own path and is still indisputably one of the most influential horror directors of all time, if not THE most, brought so much joy into my life. Thank you Jay and Rich
Why doesn’t Rich make connections between these films and TNG, is he really a Star Trek fan
Rich is able to separate the art from the barely tangential TNG reference similarity, unlike mike
One thing! Just one thing! Please tell IT to me: WHY tf do I have so many fans even though no RUclipsr is unprettier than I am? WORLDWIDE!!!! WHY??? Tell me, dear n
"I like The Thing because it reminds me of Season 6, Episode 13 of TNG called Aquiel, a shapeshifting alien causes a lot of paranoia. That's a good one." - Mike
Mike is the true Treky
this is not a Mike episode
When I was living in Boston we went and saw "The Thing" at a midnight showing during a blizzard. One of my best movie memories.
Jay and Rich is a pretty underrated duo
If Jamie Lee Curtis doesn't have that knife superglued and duct-taped to her hand in Halloween Kills, I swear to Christ...
She's gonna go "Dangerous Men" and hold it with her butt cheeks.
I thought that part was great! People do illogical & thoughtless things in fear.
That's one reason why I appreciated how tightly she held that damn axe in H20.
GO. AWAY.
@@LeonSKennedy7777 Reminds me of that Geico horror movie commercial: "Why can't we just get in the running car?" "Are you crazy? Let's hide behind the chainsaws!" & "Head for the cemetery!" I always chuckle when that's on.
John Carpenter has made some of the most rewatchable films in the history of film.
You mean great movies?
I agree, “that scene” in They Live is one of the single best dystopian future/revelation/realisation scenes this side of the Matrix!
Rich is 100% correct in that the ending of "They Live" really breaks from the allegory. You can't just "destroy a satellite" to change political, socio-economic class structures.
@@ULTRAOutdoorsman what a shame
One crack in the shell to get things started.
@@ULTRAOutdoorsman ngl though that endings pretty badass with the synth music and jc running away from an explosion like a boss. However unrealistic it is I always end up choosing it.
I see it as him knocking over the first domino to start a chain reaction that can't be stopped. We don't see the aftermath of Nadas actions but we're left knowing that society has collectively woken up.
Studio interfered in maybe
That short story Rich recommended... Holy shit. One of the most chilling final lines I have ever read.
I never thought about it before, but Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China kind of works like a point-of-view character for the audience. Not just in asking expected questions, but in hoping to be brave in terrifying situations and also failing since we'd be completely out of our element (with the occasional success too).
They Live is great. RIP Rowdy Roddy Piper.
Hate to break it to you boys, but The Thing actually does have an official sequel, that John Carpenter himself said was canon.
The Thing The Video Game on PS2, Xbox and Windows :)
You'll probably never see this comment, but i thought i should just put it out there for people to see.
Damn good game too btw, true paranoia is playing the experience and not just watching it.
Ah yes... Fuse Boxes: The Game.
Source?
"While you are watching it, it is the best movie ever made."
Truer words were never spoken
"It's entirely on accident" Sorry Rich, but it's all in the reflexes.
He can see obscure foreshadowing in "The Thing" with the chess game, but can't point out the obvious callback/saying that Jack Burton lives by. Perhaps he thought it was obvious? Yessir, checks in the mail.
Didn't he do a knife trick at the start of the movie when he was first talking to his friend?
@@patheticpear2897 And that's not to mention the first time we hear Jack say "Its all in the reflexes" is in his opening monologue.
I'd love a "Ranking every Kubrick film" series if you're looking for ideas :)
Barry Lyndon is a visual masterpiece far beyond 2001.
Love these guys, but they're not up to that task really.
They Live: The film with the fight scene South Park cribbed for their iconic "Cripple Fight". Also responsible for one Duke Nukem's most iconic quotes.
supposedly Roddy Pipper came up with that line himself, what a legend
@@newflesh666 I mean you can't just force a good one liner or catchphrase. When you do well you get something David Chronenberg-esqu that needs to killed with fire.
@@larrylaffer3246 just wanted to say that i appreciate your name and pfp, I am currently playing through the most recent LSL
@@newflesh666 Thanks.
They Live is responsible for Saints Row 4's entire plot and its glorious.
One of the things I love about "Starman" is how nice the ordinary people they run into on their cross country journey. Especially the guys at the hotel who tell them there's some cops trying to jigger the lock on their car.
I love the guy who gives Starman a ride and they talk about map making.
The fight scene in they live is absolutely perfect. Its the perfect embodiment of how it feels to try and wake somebody up to a harsh reality they don't want to accept
You and I just posted the same comment😅
"Colin and I did the Thing" I couldn't help but chuckle.
"Big Trouble in Little China" is definitely my favorite John Carpenter movie. When Jack Burton sees that little eyeball monster and goes "Oh God no please what is that thing" it kills me every time.
"Shut up Mr. Burton you weren't brought upon this earth to 'get it' "!
INDEED i also love Jack's reactions to the weird shit that happens in the movie
"What!? Huh!? What will come out no more"!? 🤣
@@idiopathictendencies8453 "you mean oil?" "No , I mean Black Blood of the Earth"
The flaws with They Live can be chalked up to it being adapted from a 1986, 7 page comic called "NADA" that was itself adapted from a 1963 short story called "Eight O'Clock In the Morning." Piper dying at the end is a slight twist on same ultimate outcome of the protagonist's fate. The short story also leans a bit more in the Total Recall and Fight Club (novel) direction leaving it more ambiguous as to whether or not what Nada was seeing was real or just in Nada's head. In the movie, he's betrayed and murdered. In the story, he just dies after he was told that his heart would stop at 8am the next day before he goes on a one man crusade to "wake up" the masses.
Fun Fact: The Things was written by Peter Watts, who wrote the equally excellent sci-fi masterpiece *Blindsight*. The man's a goddamn genius.
Yo I have a copy of Blindsight on my desk as we speak. What a fuckin' book! I'm definitely reading The Things now.
I was just checking the comments to see if anyone had mentioned this. Seconded Blindsight, amazing bit of work that deserves more recognition. Starfish is also really good if you like bleak sci-fi.
The Thing Tag Line: “It just wants to go home”.
It had just one day left till retirement
Now with a new soundtrack, here is the leaked lyrics; "Show me the way to fly home, I am cold and I wanna go to bed, Kurt Russel had a little drink about an hour ago and... " In storms Kurt Russel and sings "I have a little flame thrower to keep you warm and nice.." The Thing goes "WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT????"
The End
Rich is 100% about the Starman ending. That movie is oddly powerful & affecting. It's probably the best non-horror alien encounter movie ever; Arrival is great but requires time-travelling/prescience in the plot. Starman is a far simpler story, like ET for adults.
The ending of Starman is my favorite ending of any movie ever for a well shot meaningful ending. Focusing in Karen Allen and her eyes and that last "goodbye" is so great. A lesser director would have focused on the ship. A wife saying afinal goodbye to her husband was what Carpenter focused on. That was the much better shot.
And then they made a TV show about their child.
"Put on the glasses!" Keith David: "No."
This 3-part series is one of my favorites you guys have ever done. It's one of my go-to background noise videos about one of my favorite directors. I'd love to see a Sam Raimi retrospective.
You know what's weird about Big Trouble in Little China is that EVERYONE in my elementary school was talking about it when it originally came out. EVERYONE! So when I learned later that it was a catastrophic failure, I was very confused.
Did you actually see it in theaters or on VHS/TV? Might have something to with it. I wasn't born yet when it came out but saw it many many times on tv during the early/mid 90s.
@@stephensporman8206 I actually DIDN'T see it until it hit cable because my family didn't go to the movies when I was a kid (I'm 44 now). But all of my friends were quoting it when I was in 4th grade. I came from a small town so maybe it was just more families there went to the movies because there wasn't much to do?
@@thelonelydirector Even movies that bombed may have been "hits" at specific regions. The numbers in the big cities tend to decide the film's commercial success.
I remember it bombing because it was up against Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Karate Kid II and Top Gun. My brother and I had a chance to watch BTILC in the theater but picked FBDO because it had a line up and using kid logic, felt that FBDO must have been a better movie because of that.
My brother and I didn't end up watching BTILC until it hit video about a year later and ended up watching it at least 10 times over a weekend. Had never seen a movie like it before and is still my favourite movie of all time.
Same here. We all saw it in the theater and everyone was talking about it. Weird that it is considered a box office bomb
The first time I watched Big Trouble In Little China I was high. I didn't know anything about the movie beforehand. I was extremely confused but extremely entertained. It didn't dawn on me that he was the side character until the rocks knocking him out. And I had a holy shit moment. The best part is that after the movie ended, I immediately watched it again sober.
I thought the best part was watching it high
Lol
As a kid I never understood why he got knocked out, but I liked Wang Chi so much that never bothered me that much (because I was pretty much a kid that was really into martial arts movies).
I watched Big Trouble in Little China with my brother stone sober and we both felt high so...
@@SammEater Same here, I remember as a kid telling my mom I wish the movie focused on him more because he knew how to fight.
Big Trouble In Little China was one of my favorite movies as a kid, and it still is pretty high on the list.
They Live has arguably the greatest fight scene in any movie ever. All over a man just trying to get another man to wear some glasses. R.I.P. Roddy Piper
Nah
I legitimately dislike that scene. Its so out of place and long. Really brings the movie to a halt
“Cmon Tim Tim where the hat”
He was also amazing in Hell Comes to Frogtown
@@myhatelect The scene fits because John Carpenter wanted it in there, and wanted it that long. And that's why it's the most memorable scene in the movie.
Rich: “…keeps getting weirder, and keeps getting progressively weirder”.
He could be describing the trajectory of RLM.
I know it feels like I’m watching some progress with Alzheimer’s
Big Trouble in Little China is probably my all-time favorite movie. It's just perfect from start to finish.
Now I need Jay and Josh to go through Argento's entire catalogue just like this. Maybe throw Rich into the mix because we know how much he loves Italian cinema
That would get so depressing post Trauma and Sleepless...
Half of his career would be covered in a Re:View episode the rest in a Best of Worst episode because the stuff he started directing after the mid 90s is just pure trash.
@@g.sergiusfidenas6650 Exactly! 70 to 93 are all one big review amd everything after that is an episode of Best Of The Worst. Perfect Harmony
“It figures it’d be something like this.” -Nada
This was good, now i need to watch Christine. Everyone talks about Rich's laugh but his process of explaining a movie in so under rated. Thanks guys.
The only thing I would change about The Thing would be getting rid of that stupid flying saucer at the start. It spoils so much tension when you know its an alien from space. Without that scene, it really could be absolutely anything, and the reveal of the saucer is so cool. That has always felt like studio meddling, and I skip that scene when I show the movie to people.
When I was a kid and watched Predator a million times, the recording my parents made did not have the opening with the UFO flying to Earth (for whatever reason they must've forgotten to tape that part). So for my entire childhood and teens (until we got the film on DVD), I always thought the film opened with the helicopters landing and Arnold and his team arriving at the shore. Seeing that UFO as an adult does make me feel it takes away a bit of the Predator's mystique. And since "The Thing" opens the exact same way, I must mirror your sentiments from real life experience.
I dont think it matters that much. Its a pre-title kitsch bit that's like a 50s homage to the Thing from Another World, which Carpenter was a fan of. When that music kicks in and it says Antarctica, Winter 1982, its already forgotten about
I love the fact that the moment that pipper goes "i've gone too far" in they live is the same as in the fight he has with brett hart in wrestlemania 8
That freaking bell...
Never noticed that, good catch!
This list has been incredible, and has driven me to rewatch many of these. Thank you Red Letter.
The alley fight scene in They Live going on for 15-20 minutes is a _PERFECT_ metaphor for how long and arduous and difficult it can be to change someone's mind about a topic and help them see from a new perspective. It *needed* to be that long and difficult and ridiculous to reflect reality. Those are the kinds of strange yet brilliant touches that makes John Carpenter such an amazing director.
So a struggle session. Thanks for your contribution.
Philosopher Slavoj Zizek has an interesting analysis of the movie where the glasses scene is explored in detail.
It's also a refrence to how the poor whites and blacks in America are pitted against eachother by capital so they don't unite and improve their circumstances
@@crunchbuttsteak8741 Great point!
First off: love these three eps. Do more of this please, it was just amazingly fun and interesting the whole way through. Especially love the dichotomy of Rich and Jay, which is a pairing we don't get as much of, but their very different way of watching movies makes them super interesting together.
Secondly: Christine is, weirdly enough, not just one of the best movies that happens to be a Stephen King adaptation, but its actually one of the most faithful adaptations too. Carpenter and company knew what parts to focus on, and what to leave more quiet in the background, but almost every single thing in the book is also in the movie.