Am watching Starman. Yes, yes I know – it’s not a good movie, (the way Carpenter directs the ‘chase team’ actors – I know he’s reaching for commercial gold – yet the broadness is oh so grating).
Yet watching it am consistently struck by something. Though the film is made in the pre-CGI age it’s not the cheesiness of the ‘glowing space ball’ effects that get me – it’s the fact that, in what is a road movie, the actors are actually on the road. In the frame capture below it’s clear that Karen Allen is actually driving a real car on a real road into a real gas station.
If the movie were made today the actors wouldn’t leave the studio. It’d be all ‘green-screen up in this b*tch.’ I get the feeling something’s being lost.
(P.S. The other thing that’s striking about Starman of course is how much the film, made a couple of years earlier, resembles The Terminator: Woman is captured, forced on the run by stranger with superior knowledge, they fall in love, she gets pregnant, he goes away…of course The Terminator is the gift that keeps on giving in that regard – there’s the Harlan Ellison lawsuit…and…well, just watch Night of the Hunter – Robert Mitchum pursues without conscience, (“nothing will stop him – he’ll keep on coming”), a young girl and boy – notice how dogs bark when he approaches).
posted in forum Miscellaneous by zad1138
posted in forum Miscellaneous by seanpdudley
posted in forum General Movie Stuff by seanpdudley
posted in forum General Movie Stuff by Jett Loe
posted in forum General Movie Stuff by prawnman
There's almost no such thing as “car scenes” anymore – like the old Steve McQueen movies, for example — sure there are still car chases, but by and large they involve some sort of CGI to them (Matrix Trilogy, Transformers, etc…..even the last James Bond film couldn't even have a shot of his car driving down a winding road…it was fake!).
And I contend the original “Terminator” was none other than Steve Austin.
Car scenes
[...] – this sense of the real makes even average pics of the 80’s far more invigorating. Starman for example – not the best John Carpenter movie by a long shot – yet watch it today and it’s [...]