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Carpenter

1. Big Trouble in Little China
2. In the Mouth of Madness
3. The Thing
4. They Live
5. Vampires
6. Halloween
7. Assault on Precinct 13
8. The Fog
9. Escape from NY
10. Christine
11. Ghosts of Mars
 
Carpenter

1. Big Trouble in Little China
2. In the Mouth of Madness
3. The Thing
4. They Live
5. Vampires
6. Halloween
7. Assault on Precinct 13
8. The Fog
9. Escape from NY
10. Christine
11. Ghosts of Mars

Put these glasses on:

Big Trouble in Little China
The Thing
Halloween
Assault on Precinct 13
Escape from New York
Starman
They Live
Prince of Darkness
The Fog
Memoirs of an Invisible Man
Escape from L.A.
 
Holy fuck you haven't seen In the Mouth of Madness?

Also, I completely forgot about Starman. That would be somewhat high on mine.
 
Shitty in general really. Vampires also might be the most purely goofy fun of all of them personally, aside from Big Trouble.

Is Prince of Darkness worth checking out at all then?
 
Shitty in general really. Vampires also might be the most purely goofy fun of all of them personally, aside from Big Trouble.

Is Prince of Darkness worth checking out at all then?

I'm in.

Prince of Darkness is a fun haunted house movie that's in this strange tonal blend between Big Trouble and They Live. There's a ton of wacky pseudoscience, psuedotheology and amazing bits of scenery chewing from Donald Pleasance and Egg-Shen.
 
Prince of Darkness is my fav, personally. Some very interesting stuff regarding shared dreams and utilizing video in a creative way. And it's legitimately creepy and scary.

I think The Thing is probably the best made out of all of them.

Also, you have Escape From New York pretty damned low, Lance. Below Vampires??

And I also rate In The Mouth Of Madness damned high. That film is scary as shit.
 
Escape from NY has never really clicked with me for some reason, and I've given it plenty of chances.
 
Something else I was thinking about while I couldn't sleep last night:

Ten Favorite Screen Performances

1. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Maggie Cheung - In The Mood for Love (2000)
3. Warren Oates - Two-Lane Blacktop (1971)
4. Ben Gazzara - Husbands (1970)
5. James Gandolfini - The Sopranos (1999)
6. Juliette Binoche - Flight of the Red Balloon (2007)
7. Delphine Seyrig - Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (1975)
8. Isaac De Bankole - Ne Fear, No Die (1990)
9. Julianne Moore - Safe (1995)
10. Vincent Gallo - Buffalo '66 (1998)

All from very interesting actors, if not all the ones most would jump to for having given traditionally essential top 10-esque performances, aside from possibly my top picks. Also happy that only one of the represented films would fall within my top 10, though obviously they're all films I have great adoration for as well. Also surprisingly few Asian performances perhaps, but I could have easily included any of a dozen other Tony Leung roles, or Lee Kang-sheng from Vive L'Amour, Banlop Lomnoi in Tropical Malady, Leslie Cheung in Days of Being Wild, any number of Setsuko Hara's turns in Ozu films, Tadanobu Asano in Last Life in the Universe, one of many Beat Kitano performances, Chang Chen in Three Times etc.

Some others that are right up there would be Q'orianka Kilcher in The New World (actually probably does deserve to be on the list), Kyle MacLachlan in Twin Peaks, Homayoun Ershadi in Taste of Cherry, Daniel Day-Lewis for Gangs of New York, probably so many more it was extremely hard to narrow this down.
 
I still need to see Ghosts of Mars and Vampires, and I haven't seen Christine in so long I barely remember it.

Also, despite YLB's low ranking, you should check out Memoirs of an Invisible Man, just to see the man working in a slightly different tone (same thing with Chevy Chase). It doesn't completely work, but I liked it a lot nonetheless.

I really don't think the man has a bad film, but that's partially why I'm afraid to watch those two mentioned above.
 
Lance, this list is mostly a quick reaction to yours above; I'm sure I'm going to miss something I feel strongly about:

1. Brando, Last Tango in Paris

(the gulf between the above and everything else is very, very wide)

2. Daniel Day-Lewis, Gangs of New York
3. Juliette Binoche, Trois Coleurs: Blue
4. Cate Blanchett, Heaven
5. De Niro, Raging Bull
6. Katharine Hepburn, Long Day's Journey Into Night
7. Jo Van Fleet, Wild River*
8. Jack Lemmon, Glengarry Glen Ross (I originally had Denzel in Malcolm X as the best of the year here, but I think this tops it)
9. Oprah Winfrey, Beloved
10. Jack Nicholson, Reds*

(* these are supporting perfs but I find them to be amazing)

Mine is American-centric as well, but I feel confident in saying that because of the Method (and the people influenced by iconic Method actors) we're pretty far ahead of the rest of the world in the thespian department. As much as I enjoy certain Asian Cinema performances (I'd probably put Tony Leung in 2046 near the top, same with Ziyi Zhang from the same film), for me they just don't compare to the best from our shores. There are a lot of great European ones as well, but nothing that particularly stands out as towering other than Binoche. To be honest, I could probably make a list just with work from her and Brando alone.
 
I hear you. Though I wouldn't quite agree our actors craft is quite as big a gulf ahead of the rest of the globe as you, though as evidenced enough by my list, I obviously do favor domestic performances to an certain extent, outside of my top picks - Tony Leung being my favorite actor by a fairly wide margin, as Brando is yours. Excellent, fascinating list though. Hope a few more people feel like putting ones together.

Also, I'm not sure you'll enjoy Vampires all that much (my ranking isn't even informed by a particular recent viewing so much as the memory of pure enjoyment form watching it on television more times than is likely reasonable), but I can't imagine you'll think it's all that bad. Ghosts of Mars on the other hand... yeah. Not good. Also watching his Masters of Horror short, Cigarette Burns right now. Some interesting moments... but also kind of notsogood.
 
For some reason, it seems like Carpenter forgot how to use the widescreen format. I've only seen clips from Vampires and Ghosts of Mars but the compositions seemed arbitrary for someone who really was a master of the form.

His craft was still in evidence with In The Mouth Of Madness, so I guess he just got lazy.
 
Entirely likely. Lazy would be a good word to describe the aesthetics of the later films at the very least, though at least Vampires is a fun enough ride to make up for things.
 
I still need to see Ghosts of Mars and Vampires, and I haven't seen Christine in so long I barely remember it.

Also, despite YLB's low ranking, you should check out Memoirs of an Invisible Man, just to see the man working in a slightly different tone (same thing with Chevy Chase). It doesn't completely work, but I liked it a lot nonetheless.

I really don't think the man has a bad film, but that's partially why I'm afraid to watch those two mentioned above.

I would qualify Memoirs as a noble failure, at best. It's a fine film, but doesn't play at all to Carpenter's strengths. At least with Starman, it's a commercial project along those lines but the unconventional nature of both Bridges' performance and the Bridges/Allen relationship strikes up a unique enough tone to where you're able to identify Carpenter's POV.

The 10 Performances question is extremely tough. Here's what's grabbing me at the moment:

James Stewart - Vertigo
James Mason - Bigger Than Life
Daniel Day-Lewis - Gangs of New York
Robert De Niro - Raging Bull
Gena Rowlands - A Woman Under the Influence
Robert Mitchum - The Night of the Hunter
Jack Nicholson - Five Easy Pieces
Peter Sellers - Dr. Strangelove...
Anton Walbrook - The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Katharine Hepburn - Bringing Up Baby

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In the Mouth of Madness was fucking terrifying. The social satire at play is about as playful and awesome as what's in Escape from NY or They Live.
 
So what's your De Palma rankings looking like right now, Lance?

1. Blow Out
2. Phantom of the Paradise
3. Femme Fatale
4. Carlito's Way
5. The Fury
6. Sisters
7. Raising Cain
8. Body Double
9. Carrie
10. Scarface
11. Dressed to Kill
12. Mission: Impossible
13. The Untouchables
14. Obsession
15. Snake Eyes
 
Uh, let's see:

1. Carlito's Way
2. Sisters
3. The Fury
4. Mission to Mars
5. Femme Fatale
6. Dressed to Kill
7. Mission: Impossible
8. The Untouchables
9. Snake Eyes
10. Carrie
11. Scarface
12. The Black Dahlia

Obviously I still have a handful of essential ones to get to, which I'm really excited about.
 
Mission to Mars that high?

I've heard nothing but bad reviews for that one.

Also, I think Mission: Impossible is superbly-crafted entertainment, even if it's not a personal work.
 
I saw Mission to Mars when it first came out. I was sort of young, but I recall having found it a bit boring, but the ending pretty awesome.
 
One of the most intelligent (if at times more than a bit hokey) and cinematically vibrant sci-fi films of the new century. Obviously not without its (many) problems, but they're easy to overlook. Friend of mine wrote a nice piece on the film once. Will ask for a link.
 
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