Blank Check with Griffin & David - Ghosts of Mars with Dave Schilling & Jonah Ray

Episode Date: November 28, 2021

Contrary to popular belief (and Wikipedia), this film was NOT supposed to be another installment in the Snake Plissken series - John Carpenter just thought it would be cool to make a movie about Mars “because it’s red.” Galaxy Brain’s Dave Schilling and Jonah Ray join us to dissect Carpenter’s take on that dusty red planet, his obsession with crossfades, and his lackluster deployment of Pam Grier. Why *is* Mars a matriarchal society in this movie? We thought Mars needed moms… Join our Patreon at patreon.com/blankcheck Follow us @blankcheckpod on Twitter and Instagram! Buy some real nerdy merch at shopblankcheckpod.myshopify.com

Let me put it this way. Maybe I'd podcast with you if you were the last man on Earth. But we're not on Earth. Burn. Because you see, the phrase is usually... They're on Mars! Exactly. Yes.

So the whole last man on Earth thing doesn't really apply here because the planet they are on is Mars. And the wrinkle is that also on this planet with them are ghosts. Ghosts! Also a matriarchal society, Griffin. I think this movie rips. I'm just going to say that right off the bat. I support you. I don't know if that's a contrarian opinion.

Well, I will say that I think this movie is a lot of fun. I think it's a lot of fun. That's all I mean by the fact that it rips. I think it's a lot of fun. I think that it would be a very contrarian opinion 20 years ago, but it does seem this movie has a bit of a cult happening following now. But thanks for throwing down your marker. But do you want to introduce the show and our guests and all that first?

Sure, sure. No, look, I'm blazing into it because i'm eager to talk about this movie on this podcast called blank check with griffin and david i'm griffin i'm david you were a little slow that time you've gotten fast and that time you were a little bit slow it's a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their career and are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

Sometimes those checks clear, and sometimes they bounce on Mars, baby. Sometimes they take that train to Mars. Gotta take that train to Mars, that midnight train to Mars. Choo-choo. Choo-choo, more like boo-boo with these ghosts on Mars. I don't know.

That's a fair point and our and our guests can weigh in at any time on any time feel free to weigh in on i was hoping absolute goal to get a proper introduction but you will you will you will you will we just like and i'm gonna shut my mouth and i'm gonna wait no no because here's the twist i'm gonna wait my turn here's the twist we like giving proper introductions after people have spoken so now you can be introduced oh thank god okay i don't have to wait anymore i'm an impatient guy this is a mini series on the films of john carpenter it's called they podcast today we're talking ghosts of mars and with us are the hosts of the polygon podcast podcast Galaxy Brains. One of them is Dave Schilling.

The other one hasn't spoken yet, so I can't introduce him. Say something, Jonah. Boo, boo, boo. Jesus. Chicka, chicka, chicka, chicka. Boo, boo. I love that joke. I'm going to say that from now on.

It's good. Jonah Ray is the other guest. Thank you guys both for being here. Thank you for having us. I'm going to be the contrarian today i bet and i'm gonna say i don't like this movie i think that's the popular opinion i i think that's i don't think it is anymore no i think the people who really care who really locked in to the carpenter canon are like oh this is one of his misunderstood masterpieces and i'm i'm gonna

say no thank you i i will say i think of all, he has so many misunderstood masterpieces that on the list of misunderstood masterpieces, even the people who defend this one put it at the bottom, where you're like, this is his 10th most misunderstood film, and I struggle to even call it a masterpiece. But we're of the generation. Our ages are, I think, all kind of on a similar side. We were around when this came.

We were aware of him when it came out. Absolutely. And I think it's, so for us, it's it's like it's like, no, it's not. It's not very good. But then I'm sure there was fans of his that saw Big Trouble, Little China and then maybe didn't pick up on it. If you read reviews of Big Trouble, Little China, they say very many of the same things that they said about Ghosts of Mars. That's the thing. I mean, we've been doing all of these movies in chronological order we've

been spending months living in in carpenter valley and our listeners have been doing the same and some of them go ahead of us and i've been seeing people on our like reddit and such saying like i finally watched ghost of mars i was ready to like this one even i can't go with this like i still think people go like this is a breaking point this is just too fucking silly and i certainly remember when it came out and i understood john carpenter must be somebody because his name is at the top of the fucking title but i probably hadn't seen any of his movies at the time it was just the commonly accepted line was this movie is fucking stupid bullshit like everyone was clowning on this fucking movie.

For a good reason. I think it's gained a little bit of a defense since then, but I still think most people, even most Carpenter fans, are like, that's when the guy lost his touch. I was surprised when I enjoyed it as much as I did. I mean, it was vampires for me, but... Which I think... See, David just fucks hard. I i think i think it slaps and i think

it's got some great gore and stuff like that i think here my take on the uh on ghost of mars not being good is because uh there was a lot it was a large budget it was of its time uh and i and i think the um the acting i think the the the casting on it was it terrible. I think it shouldn't have been that. I'm glad you brought up the high budget, the large budget for this movie. Because it looks like a Sci-Fi Channel original movie directed by somebody's second cousin. I'm sorry, but this is a terrible movie. Look at it like a Doctor Who episode. If this was a Doctor Who episode, it would be legendary.

It's like a Star Trek episode. They go down to the planet, there are ghosts, and then they got to figure it out. It just looks like a rust-colored tumor, and I can't stand it. But everyone is using CGI. Everyone's using CGI at this time. This was two years after The Matrix. Yeah. Two years after The Matrix, and it looks like it came out a decade before the matrix

and he refused he was he wanted to have a tactile he wanted to have practical effects he wanted models and miniatures and that is like what it all shot at night with no stars in the sky where it looks like they're inside of a warehouse that's what he chose to do you're not gonna see any stars on mars is there's too dusty in the air how dare you think it was been in los angeles it was pure black yeah there's a lot of dust on that planet let's it look just like it looked just like the second act motorcycle chase and escape from la that's what it looks like i i keep forgetting which one has the the bike that pops a wheelie in it and it's escape from la because it looks like the same set there's just weird fighters everywhere for no reason what's going on in this movie well do you guys know i assume you might that this movie was intended to be the third snake plus skin

exactly no it wasn't it wasn't i looked it up all last night what i spent hours googling this david common misconception and is not true it was not intended to be a sequel to escape from new york nor was it reworked from the screenplay titled escape from earth for some reason this has become a whatever wikipedia level fact that is not true oh it's because you know why you know why it's because there's all these articles that come out that stated as fact because the people who write them don't do any fact checking they're just like oh i saw it in the these five articles in the guardian and on something awful or whatever and they just okay that's true but it's been denied publicly as jj puts it in our dossier what seems to have

happened is carpenter fans take the rumors of this escape from earth movie which was this sort of snake okay that was its own space okay uh movie and combo it with a movie called ghosts of mars that john carpenter ended up making and just figure they must have been related but they are not interesting at all uh it's just except for john carpenter of course it is fascinating though they must have been related, but they are not. Interesting. At all. Except for John Carpenter, of course. It is fascinating, though, that Desolation Williams is dressed almost identical to Snake Plissken. And he's got snake vibes. He is, but he's got the camo pants.

He's like a softer snake. He's a soft snake. He's got the camo pants, he's got the black tank top, and then he's got the leather jacket over it. He's got the exact same outfit in slightly different colors. But does he have a snake tattoo on his belly that possibly goes down? We don't know.

We don't see. There's a big difference though in these two characters in that Snake is never going to show you that he has any emotions. He's kind of sad when Valeria Galino dies in escape from la when they're like oh maybe we could go off and live on an island together she gets shot like right after

he's kind of like oh that's too bad but he's never sad really and desolation in this movie he his brother dies and so he's got like a connection to the world that Snake never had. He didn't really care that much, though. He didn't care? Yeah. I think he cared. He had a little monologue where he's like, yeah, my brother had been through some shit and it was tough for us and it's a shame that he's gone now. But that's more than Snake would ever give you.

He cared more about when Trace died. Sure. Trace was probably my favorite guy. So let me give you guys a little bit of what this movie actually was um it's supposed to start rowdy roddy piper it's supposed to start statham statham was who carpenter wanted oh wait let's i by the way i have to get this out right away statham in this movie it's sort of a jeremy piven thing he somehow looks younger now yeah it was because he just figured out what to do with his hair and like that's all he he's barely aged otherwise

right he basically just looks like statham but his hair is kind of dorky also he's rich transporter's the following year is it really that geez yeah that's how long it's been yeah jason's been in our lives good for him right because transporter is the first time that they're like we present to you leading man jason statham he is the guy in the movie and it's it's truly the difference is he shaves what little hair he has left in this movie and he becomes a movie star like becomes a bullet-headed man and you look at him in this and you're like do you not see at this point that your skull is perfectly shaped that that it's a good skull that the hair is

actually fucking your bone structure up right it's like you don't know it until you you take the plunge it's a white guys have a hard time shaving their head because it could go totally wrong i mean there's a lot of white guys that love it. Sure. Sure. Sure. I don't know any of them, Joda. Do you? Some of the wrong.

No, I don't go down to Orange County. I don't know them. Some of the wrong white guys. But it is. For most of the beach. You look at very many of those gentlemen, and you're like, you do not have the skull shape to be able to rock this style. And Statham, it's just, it's right there.

And he looks weird in this. This is 2001, too. So this is prime Stone Cold Steve Austin territory. And Goldberg. Yeah, yeah, Goldberg, The Rock. Old muscle guys were all the rage back then. And Bruce has finally started just letting it be totally bald. Like not every movie, but every other movie maybe.

Yeah. Matt Smith, that's an actor that should not shave his head. Sure, I don't really right his hair is really doing a lot of work for him there yes yes he's got a very specific cube head matt smith i love the man i love great actor jimadi though bald let that motherfucker be bald um this movie i don't know the generation of it is not as exciting as, you know, whatever. Like, Snake Plissken Mars movie turns into something else. I'm just seeing here, he just pitched it?

He just pitched it at Cannes to some, you know, Euro producer type who was like, yeah, you want to make some movie about Mars? Sounds good. And then he writes it with Larry Sulcus, who's the co-writer of this movie. And then they look at their screenplay and they're like, this is straightforward. What if we move it all around and tell it in this weird kind of like nested flashback style with this kind of weird, tricky plot where it's sort of like unfold, which is I feel like the interesting little gambit of this movie. You think that the crossfade had just been invented in that year.

700 times he does this. Guys, pin in this. Pin in this. I'm coming back to it. I got a grand thesis on this movie. It's not a full defense of it, but it's why I think this film is such a weird object, and we're going to circle back to this.

I think it's important, because I think your perspective, whatever it will be, and I'm excited. I'm excited to reveal the pin. But I think it's important because I think what your that your perspective whatever it will be and I'm excited I'm excited to reveal the pin but like I think that's this is a movie that a lot of sort of genre film fans that I know are like it's straight up good like I know that movie has a horrible reputation it doesn't deserve it David sounds like you didn't like it that much Jonah I'm not sure I totally got your take like are you pro or anti-ghosts oh I you know I I'm fine with I like it it was I had a good time watching it in theaters I was confused uh and then I didn't really think of it much and then I you know re-watched it before this and I was like

I had a good time isn't that what you want in a movie like you know it's uh not to basically this not to dip into these hot waters but like you know i had a blast at halloween kills and i had a blast watching ghost of mars do i need to does it need to be super heavy and good all the time no i could just have a good time here and there i agree with you on that i am interested in the fact it sounds like jonah you are the only one of us that saw this in theaters did you see in theaters dave i did not oh no sorry that i'm dave you're david okay no but i'm the two birds one color dave um no i did not see it in theaters but i do remember very well the trailer uh and seeing it all the time and thinking it looked like garbage it was up it's time too it was the new metal era of horror yes right absolutely i remember being 12 or 13 in this coming out and

i would go see any garbage and and my friends and I were like, I mean, we're obviously not seeing Ghosts of Mars, right? Like, it was just, there's no consideration towards it. I had no, like, I did not have enough Carpenter reverence at the age of, like, 15 or whatever, and, like, Ice Cube and Natasha Hentridge were not enough to grab me. Like, that wasn't going to drag me to the theater. Mars I like.

I liked Mars, but once you put ghosts on there and then you have fucking ice cube and tasha hendrix do not make sense together almost and then the fact that this is presented as being highfalutin enough that john carpenter has to take credit above the title i was like what, what the fuck is this bullshit? You know? I mean, I remember Escape from L.A. and all that stuff. So I liked John Carpenter. So I was fine with the John Carpenter. I mean, I saw this movie right when I moved to Los Angeles. And I saw it the same week I saw Wet Hot American Summer.

You know, I was just excited. I mean, it was just because it was an exciting time in my life. I just kind kind of saw and i was like hey movies get made can't can't wait to get started um yes that i mean i 2001 it's a good time uh nothing bad happened hey this is august this is august this is like good times a whole life more weeks of good times baby yeah but i just i do think it's funny that john carpenter pitches you know mars to some euro guy who's like yeah i'll pony up the money and he writes the script and he's like it's kind of a western about like you know sort of unleashing native spirits like he just can't help but no This is what we come up against every single week, guys, is he's like, but secretly the movie's a Western.

He's the original James Mangold. He's selling you Logan and then telling you that secretly it's a Western. Every single film. He's just kind of making Assault on Precinct 13 again, just with a more complicated structure, and it's set on Mars. I think that's why people do like it.

He added in a lot of the things he likes in his other movies and then kind of all shoved it into this stuff yeah it's like it's like a summation of his career in a lot of ways it feels like someone doing a john carpenter homage more than a john carpenter film itself and i think part of the problem why this movie like rubs people the wrong way is it doesn't have i i don't know uh the self-knowing quality if someone was making a tribute to carpenter movies so if the waynes brothers made uh a carpenter movie this would have been it allegory movie this would have been mel brooks's high anxiety well Well, I even feel like if Adam Wingard made this movie, people would be like, I totally get it. I get what he's doing.

You know? Yeah, but you need some distance from that stuff. You need some distance from the thing. Look, that's the other big thing. It's like he's saying, you know, at the time of this film, like, I wanted to make a stripped down sort of 80s action movie. And when he's referencing the things that he's trying to follow the model of it's like predator he's not quoting his own movies but it's like he's making an homage to the movies at the time that he was making his best films but there isn't enough distance for those to now have this sort of like pastiche charge around them it just feels kind of antiquated

i don't think so though because at the time like in 2000 this is 2001 he was making this uh last action hero had already come out which was like uh you know very self-referential last boy scout um all the last movies uh but like it's like there was already that turn i believe in in pop culture of like the making fun of the 80s action movies. So he might have just been thinking like, yeah, this is a good time to take a little jab at it. It wasn't really funny, though. But it was done straight. It was done straight.

If you watch Re-Animator as a high drama with a bunch of horror in it, it's going to seem unfunny. It's going to seem not funny on purpose. But there are jokes. There are clear jokes in Re-Animator. There are clear moments where it's like, we know we've gone really far and we're doing something outrageous. And it kind of brings you back to, okay, this is meant to be camp or Starship Troopers or Robocop. I just don't know what people are expecting when they go see a movie called Ghosts of Mars. I just don't know what people are expecting when they go see a movie called Ghosts of Mars. everything had become how every genre movie had to be like super self-aware calling out the frame uh he turned down scream to do vampires instead and was like kind of resentful he turned down

halloween h2o but he turned down oh i'm sorry yes i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm sorry yes he turned out kevin williamson because of the distaste for the for the scream thing uh and all of that and uh so that's part one of it and part two is he was like i want this to be sort of tongue-in-cheek and that it's like a throwback to an era of like sillier drive-in movies but he himself agrees with you uh dave that he fucked up by not putting more jokes in it so So the thing he said was like, he wanted to make a Commando Rambo 2 Predator style movie where quote, the universe allows its characters and plot points to be silly

without becoming full-fledged comedies. Like that was the thing he wanted rather than making something that was like self-parodic. But then he said like, people treat it like it was a badly executed serious horror film. And he he said, like, people treat it like it was a badly executed, serious horror film. And and he he himself said, I should have made the film more openly comedic and in on the joke. I have no power over what critics say.

But when people complain about the movie being campy and not scary, the name of the movie is Ghosts of Mars. I figured the campiness. I have to monologue for one second. It's what you said. He's like, I fucked up i i have i have to monologue for one second it's what you said he's like i fucked up i probably should have put more jokes in it i thought they'd know from the title it was stupid you can get lost in the parody let me just say this really quickly and get it out there i think the reason why he didn't go too far is because one of the complaints of escape from la is that it was too ridiculous and too silly. When you've got Snake surfboarding through on Wilshire Boulevard and like all this stuff.

Yeah, dude, it's L.A. Yeah. I mean, all of that stuff is so far removed from Escape from New York and from other things of that nature. And he'd also been burned by Big Trouble and Big Trouble being too funny and too campy and outlandish so i feel like he might have been a little gun shy about going too far he's been burned by everything at this point i mean he's he's he's very burnt but i also griff i also think it's what you're talking not only the sort of ironic filmmaking but like i was watching this being like this is 2001 this

is like the sort of height of like kind of Rob Cohen, MTV-esque filmmaking. This is sort of my big thesis. Which, to be clear, I don't mind that this movie is not like cut into a million pieces and does not have like a super flashy soundtrack and like really, really buzzy visuals. But, you know, like that was the style of the moment. But that was the style of the moment. And I do feel like people must have been going to theaters being like, you know, what the hell?

Why is this so slow? Why are people having whole conversations? Does that make sense? Absolutely. This is my whole take. I think a big thing to consider is that what? This movie is August 2001 2001 uh yes correct and uh resident evil comes out march or april i believe 2002 absolutely yes paul ws anderson's resident evil and i march 2002 yeah

i think that becomes a big turning point in terms of that is how you execute a john carpenter style movie in the 2000s that audiences will accept while knowing it's a little bit silly and the whole tone and the visual style becomes very different of how you sell that where it looks like a fucking music video and it's all sort of like cold antiseptic and super shiny and turn that contrast up crunch those blacks right right like he's still going a little classical here for as bug nuts as this movie is down to like as you said his biggest effect is the crossfade right like he uses that like it's a revelation and when david said there was cut there was all these cuts in the movie i was like there was no cuts there should be cuts but there's

also like there's like an iris wipe and there's like a fucking like like swipe at it and like it's bizarre. And you threw out Schilling Matrix in 99. Like you cannot release this movie two years after the Matrix. No, I think that's the other part of this is a certain the types of films that Carpenter made split into two essentially at the exact point in time that his career was really slowing down, right? So one trajectory is like shit like Independence Day and The Matrix and Men in Black become huge A movies. They become movies that now cost so much fucking money, are global blockbusters, and star actual major stars at the peaks of their careers, you know, people coming off of Oscar wins and shit and nominations. And then like the thing that's formalizing, that's crystallizing here is the other track of what Screen Gems is going to become with like

Paul W.S. Anderson movies. Paul W.S. Anderson has just come off of like doing Soldier, which was his Kurt Russell carpenter riff that cost way too much fucking money and bombed really hard and the next thing you know he drops down to like a much smaller budget and finds his zone and then as we said the next year is also transporter like the luke bassan produced europa corp thing is starting to formalize and there's this whole new like how do you make a movie like this for under $20 million, starring someone who's kind of a movie star,

but not really, that's a little bit ridiculous, but you play it totally straight, and it's just about putting badass shit on screen. And all of them have a pretty fucking similar tone and look that this movie is like the last film holding onto the vestiges of how these things used to be. And so when you watch it now, the thing this feels like is, as you said, sci-fi channel original

movies, asylum mock busters, like any of these things that we now see where you're just like, does anyone know that this thing's ridiculous? You know, because the lack of self-awareness is just palpable. It doesn't have that, um, the whatchamacallit, the sort of slick, showmanship, gloss, kind of badass vibe to it. And I do think the fundamental problem with this movie, if I'm going to ding anything, is the casting is wrong. He did not find actors who knew how to toe the lines in the way. You compare this cast to the cast of escape from new york which obviously it's going to suffer in comparison but i think that's a similar one of just like varied character actors playing different flashy people who pop up and you immediately know

that's who they are what this is right yeah yeah anxiety and david i don't know if you know this but if you've never donated to giveWell's recommended charities before, you can have your donation matched up to $1,000 before the end of the year or as long as your matching funds last. Wow. So to claim that match, go to GiveWell.org and pick podcast and enter blank check at checkout. That's two words, blank check. Make sure they know you heard about GiveWell from blank check to get your donation matched. Up to $1,000.

That's pretty cool. So I just want to remind people they go to givewell.org, then you pick your favorite character from Ghostbusters Afterlife, and you enter your favorite 90s Disney comedy in which a little boy makes out

with a government agent woman? Blank check. I think the only actor in this movie who's actually totally keyed into what the film is is Joanna Cassidy. I think Joanna Cassidy has it down. Yes, she does.

But every time she does the monologues. She's been doing it for decades. Right, she just gets it. She knows. But it hurts to see like pam greer wasted like when like she she rules right you know what i mean like and i like ice cube in lots of movies i enjoy ice cube as an actor but it's sort of what we talked about with village of the damn griff where it does kind of feel like carpenters like hey you know what you're doing right you know

and like maybe there needs to be a little more like no you should be bigger here or you should be like tapping into this personality kind of director that's like gonna like uh go okay i think we're not hitting the emotional uh uh moment here right it doesn't seem like that kind of director no yeah he's very much like a blue collar get it done guy yeah i think you know what you're doing i read something about why it's it's set at night is because he didn't want to be filming during the day and he wanted to go home and watch sports or smoke weed or something. He's just like, I don't need this right now.

I'll get up at six. Especially late in his career like this. And as much as he pitched, these quotes about Griff, about Mission to Mars. So Mission to Mars, the De Palma movie, had come out the year before and flopped. Red Planet had flopped. Right.

Mission to Mars and, excuse me, Red Planet, both had been delayed for a while, had big stars, cost too much money, come out, and both flop really hard.

And Ghosts of Mars goes into production right after they had been released. Carpenter's got this great quote, which is, the studio studio is probably worried about it but what are you going to have ghosts of pluto people know mars but then you know he talks about it he's like i'd always wanted to film mars but i didn't have a story and after vampires came out i went and thought about mars again i thought i could do something with it and make it different. But then he also says the primary reason that it's set on Mars is that the color is red. I thought that was cool.

I don't know that he actually has a big Mars take here. He's just kind of doing a sci-fi Western thing. Well, he was doing... I mean, Vampires is a Vampires Western. Yes. It's a Vampire Western. And it also takes place in a lot of desert-y kind of stuff. So maybe he was kind of tinkering around in his head like oh this could this desert climate could look like mars you know maybe yeah he also uh as as sort of pointed out he said

mars is really not a red planet during the daylight hours it's pink i didn't think i could do a horror movie on a pink set that's why the film takes place at night so he wanted to be scientifically accurate so it's like it'll be nighttime there's only one great mars movie and it's it's total recall and that is the for hovins needs moms what the fuck are you going on about oh sorry bud sorry i forgot your favorite movie of all time that's that's the tone that this movie should have hit is Verhoeven, outrageous violence, and comedic circumstances that remind you, oh, I know. There's a joke here. There are some moments that really do hit that, though.

Every single time someone gets decapitated, I laugh because it's always like a medium shot, and you see their face, and they make like like a grimace and then the head just goes flying in exactly the right way. I love all the shots. The limbs coming off and the heads coming off are great. Yes. It's not the kills. It is just the tone of 90% of the movie and the fact that it looks like garbage. For me, the thing that threw me off the most was the crossfades. And I'm going to be – because as someone that's had arguments and edit bays with people where i go and maybe a crossfade here and then a guy go no

no cross every editor hates a crossfade so i'm wondering who was in there doing that because every editor i've ever known hates crossfades i just think that's a carpenter thing i do and i yeah i think like uh where was it here uh ice cube had this quote where he's like he said this in Hustler magazine in 2008 I remember this I have that one still under my bed he said I mean I don't think I should have done Ghosts of Mars

I don't like that movie I'm a big fan of John Carpenter the only reason I did it was because John Carpenter directed but they really didn't have the money to pull the special effects off it was a movie that should have been done in 1979. So like you look at the crossfades in this movie and you're like, this feels like something I would discover in a busted VHS from 1979. And like the crossfades would be part of the charm in it. And there's a cognitive dissonance to watching it with actors who you know that's that person in 2001 like even

now 20 years on the movie is locked into the time it came out and you're like that's the wrong editing style for this era yeah i will say that this is interesting apparently ice cube turned john carpenter onto using pro tools using this griffin he and then carpenter's excitedly like yeah you can see the waveforms and you can chop them up like he's just describing pro tools it's like i got a movie all at home fuck that no ice cube got carpenter into like a new level of of basic of synthesizing i mean that i guess that's that's why carpenter keeps making music to this day is is thanks to ice cube that's and then courtney courtney love griffin was supposed to be the female lead of this movie music to this day is thanks to Ice Cube. That's fun. And then Courtney Love

Griffin was supposed to be the female lead of this movie. I don't know if that's better. I like Courtney Love in some movies but Natasha Hinstridge is not good in this. Natasha Hinstridge is not good in this. I mean that's like a fundamental

thing for me. His three top choices were apparently Michelle Yeoh, Franco Patente, Famke Jensen. Sure, sure. She could do the action, but like... All three of those make a lot of sense. And then they cast Courtney Love. And what I read here is that... I'm just going to read this verbatim as it says on the Wikipedia.

So who knows if this is accurate or not? She, she left the project after her then boyfriend's ex-wife ran over her foot in her car while she was in training. I read that. That is accurate. Uh, she ran over Courtney loves foot with a Volvo.

Uh, so Natasha Henstridge, how do you say her last name? Henstridge. Henstridge. Henstridge. Yeah. I watched species a lot as Henstridge? Henstridge. Henstridge. Yeah, I watched Species a lot as a kid, so I know how to say her name.

Well, I don't want to be mean about her because she's... You can be mean about her. I'm sure she's not. But with Ice Cube, I'm like, look, if you use that guy right, he can actually be a terrific actor. He's a really fun movie presence. I don't think there's anything Natasha Henstridge has done

where I'm like that's that stands out like that's you know like she's just sort of like a c-list kind of ice queen type i was gonna say okay i swear it's not just horniness talking but she is very effective in species but it's one of those things where it's like this is the exact thing you can hire her to do well species is also just like glorious 90s trash it's one of those things where it's like, this is the exact thing you can hire her to do. Well, Species is also just like glorious 90s trash. It's a very lovable, stupid thing. She is who you go to if you cannot get Sharon Stone. That's a fact. Yeah, she's got sort of a Sharon Stone thing.

Yeah, absolutely. And also, Species, you're surrounding her with like five of the best actors alive at that moment. It is wild how stacked the species cast ben kingsley alfred molina forest whitaker michelle williams yeah plays the young natasha henstridge she does uh species is fun i guess but like is it it's a last minute thing carpenter is clearly he he speaks very highly of her he says she's my kind of actor she's in the vein of kurt russell sam neill and jeff bridges which apparently that's carpenter's top three collaborator list wow that's fair that's fair um and then you know like she's fine

they did the blu-ray commentary together they had the commentary together for the home video release they clearly like each other she's fine is about as strong as i could possibly be about her in this movie she's bad to find she's she's fine uh but you need someone who's like electric in this and she's sort of doing the bare minimum to pull this movie off which it needs a really kind of like firecracker star performance i think um or at least someone very steady because in theory desolation jones is going to be your sort of like wild card character and he's not sort of going big enough maybe he's got a real steady hand yeah he's whispering a lot of the movie like i want to see ice cube scream at somebody with a lot of expletives or something but he goes he's doing

snake he's doing snake plissken he kind of is i want to see are we there yet ice cube yelling like that's what you want to jump street but no but that was my exact thought if he was in this movie with 21 jump street energy it would work like he hadn't totally figured out how to harness everything in his power and obviously he has good performances before 21 jump street many of them kings or whatever but then fucking Friday and Friday and all the but like do you think it's just Boys in the Hood obviously but like do you think it's just that he's in a Carpenter movie and he's like I should be serious like this is like this is the master of horror like I should not be goofy I should go for serious I just I don't know yeah I think styles of acting had changed and i think you're

dealing with sure your two main characters are people who don't have formal acting backgrounds right like a rapper turned actor and a model turned out yeah think of uh think of jeff bridges and kurt russell were both child actors yeah right right both people who knew everything inside it right right and were very savvy and canny like he had people who understood that control the dial i think the key thing with Carpenter actors is people need to know exactly what movie they're in. Because I think you're right, Jonah. He probably is not someone who's getting

particularly granular in his direction with actors, right? It's like he's casting and he's giving the basic outline of, like, this is the kind of guy I want here. But he might not be finessing it take by take. And think ice cube and hensridge just are still a little bit too green and i think the movies in which both of them have been good up until this point are like perfect fits working with good directors or things that a fucking ice cube wrote himself right yeah i mean and also let's not forget i mean this is statham's basically his first non guy ritchie movie like he's pretty green uh you know this is gets it enough though like he does

i think he's fine he's fine he doesn't have much to do i mean career obviously gets it in her limited screen time but then their damn heads on a spike yeah i also feel like because watching this you're like the second she shows up you're like fucking yes like fucking ghosts of mars and she's the boss absolutely not only does she die disappointingly fast but i also think there's a little bit of energy to her performance of like really i'm back to doing this shit again? Like, Tarantino just saved me. I was a legitimate lead actress. No one knew what to do with me. And now she's in 2001 doing the type of movie

she would have done in 1979. You know? I'm also a little bit bothered by these, at least the two most memorable performances that she has in Carpenter movies, from my perspective. In Escape from L.A., he makes her a trans woman who we're supposed to laugh at. Like, isn't it funny that she was a guy?

Like, okay. Bummer. And then this, the joke is she's a lesbian. And so he's doing this weird thing where he takes maybe the sexiest woman ever to live and he both desexualizes her in in ways contemporary 2001 ways of like oh she's trans that's she can't be a sex object because she's trans or he makes her a lesbian and turns that into a joke and it's just odd to me and i don't like it i don't like it in both cases i think that is an incredibly good call dave i do think

i mean escape from la is the year before jackie brown right and then this now comes four years after jackie brown and you look at the other stuff that happens in that time and it's like you know jane campion puts her in holy smoke you know she's in into deep uh a jawbreaker but then by like 2000 she's already playing like chevy chase's boss at the news station in snow day you know and then this year is ghosts of Mars. No offense to producer Ben. Also Bones, a movie he's currently wearing a t-shirt from. Hell yeah.

Saw that. You know, the year after that's Adventures of Pluto Nash. Like, the thing that Tarantino tapped into, I think, in terms of figuring out how to use her dramatic actress outside of genre movies is, like, this is the fucking toughest woman in the world right and he turned that into like emotional fortitude in jackie brown and most people just turn that into she's a badass and i think carpenter unfortunately turned too literally into she's like a man yep you know like both of the things you describe are just like well the

joke is she acts like a man and one of them it's because she was assigned male at birth and the other one's because she wants to fuck women but like no one knew how to use her the way that tarantino did where it's like she is fundamentally a woman and she is like so much tougher than anyone else on screen just in terms of her like uh emotional strength i i will say that she speaks very highly, both of this experience and of Carpenter. I like this quote from her where she's basically like, I have no aversions to doing movies like Ghosts of Mars.

It's the type of movie that put food on my table 30 years ago, and I'm lucky to still be able to do action films. I mean, she seems fairly unpretentious in terms of her career, because whatever whatever she's kind of done it all over the years let me just say one thing from from a perspective of a black person because i think it's important to note that when you have been marginalized in a career field you are going to be grateful naturally do i think that she loved doing these? Probably not. But maybe she did. Maybe she did. Maybe she did. But either way, it is incumbent upon you to never do anything to possibly risk your livelihood because it can so easily be taken from you. And you think about her career and what you described, Griffin,

her career and her choices, what she had to do after that huge success where somebody from the top of the Hollywood food chain says, you have talent, you have ability, I'm going to write a movie for you to do. And then after that, nothing. Why is that? Well, it's because we don't get those opportunities. We never will unless we are willing to take the shit that people throw at us. And I think on top of that, Dave, there are other black actors like Samuel Jackson, who's like, I'm so grateful that I get to work. I don't turn my nose down at anything. Right. Like, I'll take any job. You know, I like movies. I have no pretension about

it. And then there are other black actors who are maybe in a Pam Grier position where it's like, I got the big role. I worked with the big director. I got an Oscar nomination or a win, or I had the Oscar buzz. And then like, no one gave me the good parts. Why didn't this happen? And they openly talk about that. And they very quickly get pegged as difficult and unhirable. Monique. Monique's unhirable. Monique. Monique's a perfect example. Monique's a great example. Lou Gossett Jr. is another one who always talks about,

like, why the fuck did I not get the parts I should have gotten? Why was I doing Iron Eagles after I won an Oscar? You know? And then, right, quickly, Hollywood's like, okay, Mr. and Mrs. Lou. Yeah. All true. I mean, also, I mean, how old is pam trying i'm trying to distract now so she's right so she's early 50s which is yeah the funniest thing about these quotes i mean

she the jj i can't read all these quotes because they're so long but they're so good she's a very very very entertaining public speaker is is how i will put it um but she clearly kind of pumped carpenter on the like matriarchy stuff because she's like what's going on i love this idea but what are you talking about like how has how has it evolved this way like why is mars a matriarchy is it because women were sent there away from earth for some specific reason and he wouldn't really commit to an answer um but she was just sort of like i need more to understand for my character like you know so she just kind of comes up with ideas for herself but uh i do it's something that i want to know more i'm like pam creed i'd like to know more about what is going on in his

wider universe here and i don't know if he is that interested or just doesn't have the time because he's making a very specific tale i don't really know i i read a quote where he said that the reason why he did a matriarchal society in this movie is so he didn't have to explain why women were tough which is an interesting thing sure um i'm not blaming him for for how weird that sounds because it was 2001 and there are there were still a lot of people who found uh a reason to object to women being tough in movies um but it doesn't really it seems like a completely unnecessary world building detail but it is one of the things to flash it on screen yeah it's one of the reasons why people come back to the movie though i think well if he's got the script it's a

lot of a lot of tough female leads and like it's like notes start coming in from the studio and it's like i don't understand why all these women he's like i don't know it's a matriarchal society that's why they're tough i guess and like they're like yeah oh oh wow yes yes yes and so it's like you never know what the process getting that's exactly what it feels like good survival technique absolutely it does end up being i mean i i kind of am inclined to believe that he sort of fell into it not by accident but as like you know a way to absorb the notes as you're saying jonah but it is this rare example of like i feel like most carpenter films a thing a thing we have been lauding about them david is or lauding them for is um like man he just keeps it so basic and stripped

down you don't need to explain stuff more here's all you need to get the setup of the movie out of the way right and this is one of the only movies if not the only movie where he accidentally made a world where you keep on wanting to go like wait can we circle back to that thing what's going on there that's maybe more interesting than what this movie is about i mean i just want to read like verbatim because it's maybe why i was just jazzed on this way because it's hard for me to to lose faith in a movie that starts this strongly but you have your like fucking opening credits right then the narrator says for weeks rumors have spread across mars which is for me a perfect opening line that's exactly how i want every movie to open reading what's on the screen

and also listening to the vo almost simultaneously was a hit trip. Right. And then the title cards on screen are Mars 2176 AD, terraforming 84% complete, Earth-like atmosphere, population 640,000 colonists, society, colon, matriarchal. I love all of this. Earth law enforced by Mars police force like just incredible incredible that's just how all movies should begin there's a line at the end after the hearing has concluded where someone says something like the cartel won't believe this and i'm like what cartel cartel of what what are they cartelling here drugs or money or what is happening mars dust jesus delicious mars dust the spice must flow

yes the irony is like when zach snyder does army of the dead right which i like like a fair amount and had certain issues with and most of my issues were tied to this sort of front loading of expanded universe shit where it's like that for me should be a lean ass 90 to 100 minute carpenter style movie where you just get maximum fucking impact out of that premise and those characters and instead he's setting up all these other tendrils because it's like well they're doing a netflix anime series and there's gonna be comic books and there's a prequel movie coming out next month and all this sort of shit. And I'm like, just give me the fucking army of the dead bank heist, casino heist, zombie movie. And then this one I'm like, I want fucking 15 spinoffs. I want to know about all these. What was the cartel? Tell me about that.

Give me the adventures of young desolation Williams. That's the thing about like what the army of the dead thing, just real quick. It's quick it's like it's like yeah he has all this like world building stuff that you don't really need uh but uh but like train to busan that which also has a has a manga uh and uh and you know in an anime and all this stuff it's like and i didn't know you don't you don't know you don't need that shit and it's like in carpenter's so good at doing that but then like when he gives you a little hint and you're like but what about over there what's through that door don't mind that door it's just you just have to know that that does it all the time escape from new york and escape from la do this constantly where it's like fresno bob did this thing or

what happened in cleveland or you know what happened to the u.s government why are they crazy christian fascists now like all of that stuff is cool in the context of a very tight, clear narrative. It's fun to get the world building when you know I am going from point A to point C by the end of this thing. I think a good example of like world building just established without just like you get little hints of how it was Daybreakers, that vampire movie. Oh, yeah. It's Daybreakers, that vampire movie. Oh, yeah. I think it's like, you know, it's like, it's like, it's like, did they take time to go?

And this is how we built the subwalks. So people could be walking around during the day and not get hurt because they're vampires. It's like, no, you just go. It's like, hey, take the subwalk over. It's like, you just know. That's how it should be. Right. I like that Mars has choo-choo trains. David loves trains.

We should acknowledge here thatid is a big train fan i almost wanted the whole movie to take place on a train which feels like what happens if this movie has a 10 million dollar budget or whatever where they're like we're on mars the mars train right and then like yeah you just sort of see mars going by in the windows or whatever i worry that it is a budget thing with carpenter where the more money he, the more he is able to do things that are outside of his comfort zone. And if this movie was as stripped down as you said, where it was like it's just on the train or it's just in a building or whatever, then I think he'd be forced to tell a really tight narrative. But when he's got all this money and he's like, well, I guess I could just do these weird flashbacks and stuff and we can have fire and all these why the crossfades even within people walking down a hallway because he won't give up his bag of tricks i mean his whole thing is he's like i'm

a classicist even when he was at his peak in the 70s and 80s he was like people don't like me because i'm still doing things the way howard hawks did them i don't care about the tricks these kids are doing and so not only is he like not catching up with his contemporaries but he's staying back at his previous throwback style that he's like doubling down right yeah he is doubling down i think to sort of like make a statement there it also is this weird like we're saying like oh he has too much money for this movie but too much money for him is 28 million dollars which i think it might be his third highest budget i think so too escape from la is obviously number one i think

invisible man is probably number two and this is right behind those two yeah yeah and i i think it's like he's in this zone now where carpenter style movies are frequently costing over 100 million dollars so you're watching this and you're like, this needs to either cost over $70 or under $15. Like, either it needs to be really contained and low stakes and sort of like bootstrappy or it needs to be like Carpenter's

finally getting all the tools in the toolbox. Although, if Escape from L.A. proves us anything, Carpenter seems very at ease with CGI and more modern special effects. Well, I think that we should dub this the Carpenter zone, this budget range where someone who doesn't have the grasp on technology can make a tight, taut thriller, a fun genre movie. And he simply can't do it any higher than what that zone is if you look at the movies he made that were real studio pictures like big budget studio pictures at least for the time

they just don't click the way that a story even as even big trouble is a story that even though it's got a lot of hoo-hahs and dickity-doos on top of it, is linear. Like, they have to go into the palace. They have to go underground. They have to rescue Kim Cattrall, and they have to leave. Like, that's perfect. This is what John Carpenter does so well, is tell a classic story in a classical fashion. And unfortunately, you can't tell a wild story with a bunch of wide shots and a bunch of guys in goofy costumes. And also like the times he does choose to go into

close ups during conversations was very off putting as well. It happens, I think, three different conversations where you're like, wow, now all of a sudden we're just right up on their face. Yeah, leave me alone. Get off me, Natasha Henstridge. Good grief. All right. I just reverse engineered a way for me to be okay with the crossfades. So the whole movie takes place with Natasha Henstridge's character telling the story of what happened. We haven't even talked about the weird nesting doll structure.

And she's on some sort of narcotic, too. And she's on some sort of narcotic too and she's on some sort of narcotic so this is like so what we're seeing is her point of view and memory is a bit uh you know uh wibbly wobbly and so that's like so when she's thinking about it remembering it we're seeing it from her brain's perspective which is a bit crossfady like kind of combining times and sliding around and stuff like that therefore i think the crossfading is a great use in this film. I love you film schooled your way into this being a good movie.

You don't see the crossfades at the thing when they're just talking to the board. Touche. It's more bizarre than that because it's like, okay, she's under questioning, right? She's like drugged up. Then she's telling you her interpretation

or her memory. You don't know how reliable it is, of what happened. And then so often in that story, she says to someone, what happened here? And you get the flashback of their perception of what happened. So it's like he's not going full Rashomon with it. But it is interesting how much this movie forgoes uh narrative propulsion for this sort of like i don't know what's happening here kind of like diffusion of of truth just even the idea too of

like uh since it is her memory and they're like did the did the ghosts of mars speak she's like yes i couldn't really hear him it's really loud but it sounded like or something like that. I don't know. It was another kind of language. I'm pretty sure it was something Martian like that. That voice was a choice as well. This is another thing we literally have not even touched on once yet this episode,

which is the hook of this movie is that there are ghosts. I don't think they're ghosts. No, they're ghosts. They're called ghosts of mars yeah they were the original the natives of mars who died and their souls got trapped in the planet yep after we colonized it they discovered you know the sort of abandoned we mine too deep it's a classic we mind too deep type thing open the door we shouldn have opened. Perhaps ghost is the best way for our feeble human minds to interpret them.

What if that was, what if those are the Martians? They're not going to have human bodies or any kind of physical body like that. They're just these, almost like Invasion of the Body Snatchers. They're just these things that float. Jonah, did they say that in the movie? Did they say that

in the movie, Jonah? No, they did not. They're ghosts. They call them. I like asking these questions. They call them ghosts. Yeah. But you're saying what if they never had a physical form? This is always the state they existed in.

Yeah. Right. Cause they do have a sort of evolutionary survival thing where like, if you kill the body they're in, they can just move to another body. It does almost, could they be like symbiotic creatures? That's what I'm thinking.

That's how they live. Yeah, maybe. We're going to have Dan Aykroyd on our podcast in a couple weeks. So we'll just ask Dan what he thinks. Perfect. Well, here's my question then. Okay, so there's, what's his name? Big Daddy Mars?

Big Daddy Mars, yeah. Big Daddy Mars, who's sort of the character looming over the poster. The Glenn Danzig of it all. Like this. Right. Like this. Very Danzig-like. I interpreted him to be like what the pure Martian form was once.

Because once these people become possessed with the quote unquote ghost of Mars. They just like scar their faces up and go crazy. Carve up their faces and they make weapons and it sort of looks like they're doing it in tribute to this guy whereas his weird like ridges on his face seem to be baked into his his physical form it's not a it's not a scarring it's his actual skin texture i don't know i mean i just i do like the premise of there are these things floating around and they possess your body. And if you kill the possessed person, then they jump into a different body.

Like, I think that's a fun carpenter problem. They kill so many of them. How often does that even that possession even happen? They kill hundreds of these guys. And there's only maybe three or four possessions. And the first one we see is the one where they kill the prisoner and then Natasha Hinstridge gets possessed. And then she spits it out

because she's on that drug. It happens like an hour and 15 minutes into the movie. Yes. I was unclear about the rules of the ghost possession. Wait, but I kind of love that. Like, I think there's something to that like the idea of being possessed but then you trip on acid and it fucks with the ghost and i really feel like it's a pro-drug movie well kind of but i feel like i wanted to see them all sort of have to

take the drugs in order to not be possessed like there's something there i think that's an interesting idea i've never seen before yeah yeah and there's i mean who is it is it dose or trace who starts huffing that inhaler oh the one that cuts his hand off yeah right he's just doing whippets right and that was a super funny moment that's a great joke that's a great thing yeah uh it's it's just there is something interesting in this movie's argument that like the most effective way to combat these ghosts are to fuck with your own brain i almost wish there was more of that i if you know it's a little bit of a problem that the movie has to kind of turn into a shootout at the end when we're like, we kind of know that doesn't work. Yeah.

We maybe should just throw the guns away at a certain point. Like if they just started eating spicy food or something, you know what I mean? Extreme heartburn knocks them right out. Yeah, exactly. I guess I'm confused. If this is a metaphor for colonization, how the drug thing then fits into that elaborate metaphor about destroying a native culture.

I don't get that part. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, Carpenter has never been one to get too worked up about those kinds of deep, right? You know what I mean? Like, he's like, well, that's where the story goes. I don't know. Yeah, why not? Yeah, I don't know you know it's that's cool um so i guess that is this far but yeah i mean it's what's griffin saying like i don't object to anything uh about the sort of like fringy details of this movie i just want more and i understand

that that can't fit into a 90 minute genre movie. That's fine. Like, but I, I, it is one of those movies where I'm like, well, I'd like to think about all of these ideas you're throwing at me.

Uh, yeah. I almost want everyone to calm down a little bit, but there's no time to calm down. We got to fight the ghost of Mars. Like, you know, so it goes,

but I do think of a failing of his, I mean, yes, there's, there's the thing with him where it's like almost always these movies start from him having some kind of vaguely sociopolitical idea right and then from there he just comes up with what he thinks is an entertaining genre film and he doesn't really worry about tracking whatever the starting metaphor was onto every

beat of it because he's like, his whole attitude has been like, I'm not here to yell at people or teach them anything. I want them entertained, but maybe there's a germ of the thing that, that makes them think a little bit. I do think he hasn't solved some of the basic, how to make this movie entertaining questions where it's like, you do get into that problem in the last half hour that it's like,

so wait, how do they stop these things? Well, here's an action sequence where they all load up on guns and bombs and go in and try to fight them in a way that you know is futile. And that whole sequence just feels like a waste of 10 minutes. The nuke thing was like, come on. What's with the nuke? There's no way you can nuke a ghost.

What is this? Right, you just know that this is a waste of time. But they're not ghosts, Dave, so you can nuke them. what is this right you just know that this is a waste of time we just mentioned not ghost dave so you can nuke them they're organized all right we're gonna have a fight about this you just you're taking the title literally we are humans with their very ghost they call them ghosts because they're humans they don't know their brother it's like did you notice that those people when the things go inside of them the ghosts as you call them they do not speak any kind of english maybe it's just our human brains. All we know are like, this seems like possession, seems like ghosts.

That's what we're calling them. They just float out of that fucking place and then just start going inside of everybody. I don't know. They're just organisms. All I'm saying is that I'm going based on the text and you are extrapolating based on your own desire for these not to be ghosts. And I don't know why you're so anti-ghost.

At any point, does any of those people go, are the ghosts of mars none of them fucking they don't self-identify as ghosts okay well then it's not up to me to identify them as ghosts fine you win jonah hooray that's how many points do i get now i'm not sure how this show works hashtag points do you get 10 ghost points. That's cool. They were trapped beyond a cursed door. I'd like to see the movie where you have to corral these spirits and somehow kind of drive them back beyond some ancient door and then close the door behind them.

That'd be fun. I don't know. There's got to be rules to supernatural stuff in any movie movie but especially in a horror where i don't have to wait this was hard sci-fi yeah again hard i enjoyed this movie my wife's sitting next to me while i'm watching and every five minutes you just look up and be like wait what did they just say like if you just kind of like glancingly observe this movie, it just throws a lot of ideas out there. That's all.

That's my thing. I'm like, this movie has a thousand problems. I think it's a weird curio. It's stuck in between like a lot of different phases of film culture. It's sort of neither fish nor fowl. I find it entertaining. I just find it enjoyable to watch. And I sort of would fish nor fowl i find it entertaining i just find it enjoyable to watch

and i sort of would love to see more movies be this uh thoroughly uh silly like films of this ill malignant is the new ghost of mars absolutely yes well i think i think that's that's the sad thing about this film and about carpenter and where he is now in his in his life and his career is that if he was going uh you know 110 right now making movies people would eat that shit up because we do have this hankering for we've talked about we have silliness and just solid filmmaking yeah he just churned out what for him or six out of ten movies you know he's old but he's not like ancient like we would all be hooting and hollering for them now and instead he's just kind of like whatever Lynch could make Twin Peaks

season three and he's old like there's still people working god Clint Eastwood is 90 years old that he's acting I mean also Carpenter does go on tour he does he does he's doing stuff I don't begrudge that I do it does seem as griff we've been covering these new 90s movies in every interview he's a little more embittered he's a

little more like i don't know why i keep doing this like he it's you can feel it piling up with him and clearly i'm looking forward to see what happens what would you guys find when you find interviews of the ward when he's promoting that one we'll'll get there. I mean, he said after this movie, he was like, I think this is it. I think I'm retired. And he came out of this movie, especially after it bombed and was trashed so hard,

being like, yeah, I'm done. I'm done. And then he does a couple TV episodes of Masters of Horror, as we know, right? And then the ward is the one where I'm like, why did he do that? I don't know. We'll find out, I suppose.

We'll find out. Do you know, Griff? I don't know. I don't. Hopefully our guests will have some insight. I don't know we'll find out we'll find out do you know griff i don't know uh i don't i don't hopefully our guests will have some insight i don't really know but um yeah this is the one i mean where's this there was a good quote that uh jj uh pulled up here um i mean he's he's like you know talking about just uh uh where where was it They asked him in 2001, his thoughts about retiring, right? And he said, I've been trying to do that for a year. Sure. I'd love to retire. I think there's a time when you

just have to lay down when it becomes too hard. It's just fighting the same problem over and over. If you make the films I want to make, I'm just stubborn, I guess, but there may come a time where I'll think, yeah, it's just not worth it anymore. And he says that in September, 2001. And then like a couple months after that, he's like, yeah, no, I not worth it anymore. And he says that in September 2001. And then like a couple months after that, he's like, yeah, no, I think that's right. What's wild about that 2001 interview was it was September 12th. I mean, why was he even talking about it?

He called them up. You got to cancel. Show some respect. I have some things to say. I have some things to get off my chest. And this is an interview he does with the AV Club in 2011. He he said it hit me when i was looking at the extras for the dvd of ghosts of mars it showed me at the beginning of the process

on the set i looked okay and then showed me at the very end of the process doing the music i was like a dead man dead man walking and i thought okay it's like being president or whatever you just like aged yeah okay all right i can't do this for a while. I just can't. I thought it was a good time to stop. Wow. Yeah. So I saw a bloody disgusting piece he did or an interview he did where he says the Ward script came to him at the right time right after Masters of Horror where he was kind of like jazzed again.

So I feel like he's one of those people sort of similar to when you get divorced and you see your ex-wife in the right light and you're like, well, maybe. What if? What if? Hey. And then something horrible happens where you're like, oh, we hate each other. That's right. I mean, you are the only divorced man on this episode right now. But that sounds like a very good analogy and is certainly a thing we found in covering

these movies week to week is like everyone he's like and i decide i'm never making a studio movie ever again life's too short i'm never working with these fuckers ever again and then the next episode is universal came back around to me and i thought it's been a little while i should give it another shot that should make a movie why not and you were like it's been 18 months like he just feels like we've both grown since then right he. He flips between this steadfast, like, I don't care. I can walk away. Life's too short. I don't want to do this.

And being like, I don't know. I want to see if I could make it work this time. Well, I think there are some people like a David Lynch or a John Carpenter who have other passions. You know, David Lynch is a painter and he made music and all that stuff that he does. And Carpenter is a very talented musician himself and has other interests. Let's play video games. Yeah, let's play video games.

Basketball. There's the rare director who's struggled in Hollywood who can walk away without having another passion. Like Albert Brooks. I don't know if you guys have done an albert brooks one yet there's not a ton of movies but we've not but he just broke news but we never made it yeah we should do a brooks yeah he just walked away you know after looking for comedy in the muslim world and he didn't do anything else he wrote one book and he's like okay i'm good i'm done see ya i'm

going back to my house in the palisades and you're not gonna see or hear from me and unless i do I do drive or something. That was because he's from a time in showbiz. He's from a time of showbiz where you got residuals and he could just kind of look at like what's going to come in and speculate on that and, and then just go, all right, I'm good. I can walk away. But then no ego either. Like there's still the ego and I'm sure every single person on this podcast right now has one. I certainly do. And so when you're sitting around at home and you're watching TV and baseball or whatever, and you say, I just saw this commercial for this movie that looks like crap. I could do a better job than that. I should win an Oscar. I'm the most talented person of all time. That drive, that feeling doesn't just go away. of all time that drive that feeling doesn't just go away um so i'm not surprised that carpenter looks at the world of filmmaking and says i can still do it but at some point he is able to walk away because he does have other passions yeah i do think it's also just like every movie was a fucking battle for him and most of them flopped and were disliked when they came out

and i think he's enjoying his victory lap of how much he is beloved and how much almost every single one of his films has been reclaimed save for very few at this point in time you know when he does interviews now he's like i'm old i want to stay home i want to play video games i don't care i don't want to make another movie and then this thing we keep on coming back to is there was this point where there was a rumor going around that he had pitched a new movie to Blumhouse and then it didn't happen. And he's producer on all the David Gordon Green Halloween movies, which is slightly more than an honorific title, but I don't think he's deeply creatively involved. He's making music for it, too. He's making music for them and. He's making music for them and he sort of has like godfather status over the things.

But you do question like, why aren't they just saying, here's your $10 million? Like write a premise that can fit into $10 million or 15 or whatever it is. Right. The old deal he had in the 80s. Yeah.

Why not just let Carpe work? But he may not want to. He might not want to. I do imagine that if he wanted to, could probably make it happen yeah i think he's he's better off than terry gilliam he's way better off than terry gilliam who will will scramble to make money from 700 european arms dealers and then make a terrible movie and then say something about cancel culture that makes everybody hate him again like i would rather what we're getting from carpenter where he says this is my filmography this is my canon i made some really troubling movies at a time when people didn't want to see

those and now i'm i'm loved terry gilliam could have walked away but no i gotta make my stupid don quixote movie hey i like that movie all right i'm sure you did but for the most part people found it not good yeah the thing i didn't even hate the donkey hoodie movie the thing about that movie was like oh my god after 20 years he finally made and i watched and i was like that was okay yeah that's my exact stance as well we've talked the weirdest thing about that movie is that it's neither a disaster nor a masterpiece. The fact that it took Kay somehow is the most disappointing. Like we would have done Gilliam. Obviously, he's a sort of classic blank check guy.

Right. I feel like Griffin, you and I are probably both less interested in doing him these days because he's become such a pain in the ass. Yes. But it's also that he, like Dave is saying, kind of made like this run of 10 fascinating movies. Then he was like and four more that you know yeah he can't help diminishing returns zero theorem no zero theorem fans in the house nah nah that's the thing for like even if his career ended in 2005 right and you have like brothers is this like horrible studio filmmaking compromised experience and

then tideland is this passion project that's like fucking demented that would be sort of an interesting series and then pernassus zero theorem and quixote are all three like no i'm gonna come back and do the kind of movie you loved from and there's three more at bats where he's like i got one more brazil in me and we keep on going like do you how you don't yeah you have right you have you have sold your soul to these sleazy people that you constantly have to sue over profits because you can't just say i'm not gonna make it just i won't it's not the right situation i'm not gonna make it and carpenter to his credit says i'm good i'm good

that's the thing it is simultaneously both depressing and frustrating that there have only been two john carpenter movies in the 21st century period like he makes this film in 2001 and he makes the ward in 2011 and he's done right on the other hand i do think it has been great for his reputation it has frozen everything he made before the year 2000 in amber. And it makes it so there is not sort of like, well, but then, of course, obviously, diminishing returns fall off. It's like the diminishing return fall off for him was arguably only five movies after such a stellar run. And of those five, most people have like a soft spot for at least one or two of them.

It's been great for his legacy. But not a lot of directors are thinking about that. They're thinking about how do I get back to Cannes? How do I get that Oscar? How do I get that next big check? How do I get back into magazines?

And how do I compete with my peers? Like you have to retire at some point. You have to say enough is enough. I think in any profession, but especially in an artistic one where your fastball does get slower every single year. It's true. That's another thing with him, too, is that like I don't think he ever has had that itch of like, I'd love to fucking finally win an Oscar and be taken seriously.

has had that itch of like i'd love to fucking finally win an oscar and be taken seriously like he he seems to be somewhat resentful and constantly in interviews like throw shade at david cronenberg kind of selling out by going legitimate like he's like i don't know why david cronenberg tries to disown the fact that he was a horror filmmaker now he wants to make these intellectual movies i think also he i read this one fucking i wouldn't even read it was a video i watched some interview with him where he talked about that all the horror directors used to have like a regular dinner that they would do a couple times a year the master and that right and then cronenberg stopped going to them and then he ran into him at some other thing and cronenberg kind of gave him the brush off and he felt that cr Cronenberg was kind of like going like, no, I make like Freud movies now.

Yeah, go fuck a car, dude. Yeah, but Crony, man, I'm like, he's still doing wild stuff. His new movie sounds bonkers. I love Cronenberg. I love Cronenberg. And I think it's fine that he swerved, that he pivoted. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me too.

And he's pivoted well. It wasn't just like a hollow attempt for you know uh legitimacy or hardware or whatever but he he did shift and i think carpenter doesn't have that shift in him i think if he were to come back and make another movie his goal would be i'd like to fucking scare people or i'd like to make something that's just really fun but this the shift is what allows you to prolong your career. And I'm sure you guys have seen it a hundred times as you've been doing this podcast that there is a point where there is either a tonal shift or an attempt to go to the next level or raise the bar, do something wacky. Or there isn't.

Or the director is just like, I'm good. I'm going to keep making the same movie. Or there isn't, you know, or the director is just like, I'm good. I'm going to keep making the same movie. Dario Argento had, you know, maybe two phases of his career and then circled back to the end, you know, before the end of his life. But most people don't have any shifts and they just are workmen or work people. I think you need to have that desire to continue pushing the envelope and doing new stuff because that's what allows you to evolve and grow as an artist

and have a longer career. Also, you know Dario Argento is still alive, right? I thought he died. No. Oh, Dario Nicolodi is dead. Okay. Dario Argento is still alive. Okay, good for him.

I hope he never makes another movie because he hasn't made a good one in a long time that is a great full circle point though shilling because that's what this movie is this movie is an r an odd object of a guy who fundamentally refuses to adapt to the times right as you said you cannot make this film at this budget level with this cast two years after the matrix you can't do it and he's just like why would i do anything differently i don't care what the fucking kids want right and his his greatest respect was always for the filmmakers in like the 40 studio system where

it's like i don't know you just make four movies a year like it's a job it's a job get the movies done right rather than needing to sort of evolve and push himself in that way. A lot of it was sort of like traveling showman, like, well, we'll get the people into the tent this week. And I think partly the reaction to this movie, but also like the last four movies leading up to this point being increasingly out of favor. He's just like, they don't want what I'm selling anymore. I don't necessarily want to make something else it's fine we can part ways here a guy you look at who for me is a great example of what i would love to see carpenter do is uh verhoeven where it's like he backed away for a while he felt fucking burnout on hollywood you know and then he came back really fucking strong now the way he's come back is making you know three european art house movies each spaced about 10 years apart i just saw the latest one at beyond fest i can't fucking wait yeah me too uh benedetta yeah yes but i don't know if like that felt like he took enough time away that people came back and appreciated him and then he found a way to evolve a little bit as an artist and do something that's very much in his wheelhouse

but something he could not have made in his younger days um but that's how his career started like he's going back to square one in a weird way his big hollywood films were the sidetrack from that absolutely whereas carpenter doesn't have a sidetrack. Carpenter always was just making movies like this. Griffin, are you saying that millennials are killing the John Carpenter industry? I think millennials are maybe willing to bring the John Carpenter industry back.

I think the two things millennials will pay for are avocado on toast and John Carpenter movies. There's just a John Carpenter shortage. You know, you could own a home if you didn't Toast and John Carpenter movies. There's just a John Carpenter shortage. You know, you could own a home if you didn't want to have John Carpenter keep on making movies you gotta go see. If you stopped buying these special colorway John Carpenter soundtrack

vinyl releases. I simply can't. I am addicted. Another anthology? Come on, you don't need that on vinyl. Lost Themes Part 3? another anthology come on you don't need that on vinyl lost themes part three but yeah man he's got one he's got one pitch he's a pitcher with one pitch and it's a great pitch and i love to watch him throw it but he might not be able to throw it so hard anymore and you're right if he doesn't want to make another movie then i'd rather he doesn't that come back and

make something and make something disappointing. Yeah, then make something tired or whatever. Yeah, like those kids that made Argento finish his trilogy. Like, no! Just leave him alone! What if he wants to just smoke cigarettes and drink rosé all day in Italy? Like, leave this man alone.

Yeah, let's leave Carpenter alone. And neither of us have seen the word yet. We will watch it for next week's episode as we alone and neither of us have seen the word yet we will watch it for next week's episode as we finish this out but i have not heard a single person ever defend that movie and that feels like well everyone spent nine years after ghost of mars going like john come on and then he did this movie and then it wasn't what they wanted it john we were wrong right right it's like what if What if we like the ward? You don't know. Maybe we love the ward.

Who's on the show next week? We don't reveal that stuff. Oh, I didn't realize it was a secret, even though you guys released an entire calendar with all the... I guess you didn't release a guest. We don't release the guest. And the other thing is that we have made the mistake in the past of announcing

a guest and then having a major scheduling kerfuffle and then having no reason we don't say it it's happened a couple times i i wouldn't know what that was like absolutely not we have we have a guest super easy yes go ahead we have a guest next we have a guest next week who is great and is very excited to do it and i think is a perfect person and the Carpenter series on and I find it unlikely that anything will go awry in making that episode happen but you never know you never know because M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening with James Urbaniak

is an episode that fundamentally does not exist despite the fact that we promised it I shouldn't have said a word about Ackroyd on this podcast now he's going to disappear like a ghost. That guy's available. You can get him.

I don't know. We have tried so hard to get him for George Lucas talk show, and we can't. Really? I know. And our pitch has been, John. John. Our pitch has been, Dan.

That's where you're fucking up. You keep calling him John. My name is not John. Yeah, his best friend you fucking idiot balushi listen to me yes uh no our pitch has been dan you come on and talk about whatever the fuck you want for however long you want you're the only guest you said how long it is we'll talk to you about ghosts and ufos and whatever you want the floor is yours the other pitch is that conor

ratliff who plays george lucas does not drink has drank like three times in his entire life and if he came on the show we would make the entire thing uh as an hour plus devoted to solely promoting a crystal skull vodka and we would each drink so it would be drunk fake george lucas talking to real dan akroyd about ghosts and aliens. And every time we reach out, they're like, he's not promoting anything right now. Well, he's promoting Ghostbusters right now. That's why we got him.

I know. And remember, it's Crystal Head Vodka. Crystal Skull. I know, it's the kingdom. Crystal Skull is the... Just try again, guys. I really have faith. We'll try again, guys. I really have faith.

We'll try again. Box office game? I do want to take us through, yes, the opening weekend of Ghosts of Mars, August 24, 2001. Not a hot time at the box office. And it's opening number nine with $3 million. Horrible. Grossing eight total domestically i i would sort of argue that the two worst box office weekends are the first week of september and the first week of

january but last week of august is pretty fucking close and now now shang chi has opened first week of september and made a bazillion dollars so So last week of August might be less desirable than first week of September. What else came out that day, though? Well, I'm going to tell you some of the movies that came out this day. There's a lot. One of them is in the top five, so Griffin's going to guess it. But some of the movies that are opening new that are not in the top five. You've got Freddie Prinze Jr. baseball movie, Summer Catch.

You've got The Curse of the jade scorpion woody allen burning up the box office opening at number 11 we have jake gyllenhaal cult comedy bubble boy yeah pretty good opening opening at number 13 he's great in that movie yeah and then you have um uh what's uh the movie is called Tortilla Soup. Isn't it a remake? Am I crazy? It's a remake of Eat, Drink, Man, Woman. Eat, Drink, Man, Woman.

That's right. Yes. Well, opening at number 20. But Griffin, number one in the box office is a sequel. It's in its third week at number one. It's a comedy. It's Rush Hour 2. Comedy's ruling this box office.

It's Rush Hour 2. No. What? Rush Hour 2 is number two. It's American Pie 2. It's American Pie 2. Comedy's ruling this box office. It's Rush Hour 2. No. What? Rush Hour 2 is number two. It's American Pie 2. It's American Pie 2. Thank you. The two twos at the top of the box office crushing.

Both of them are crushing. American Pie 2 and Rush Hour 2. Back in August, stupid comedies ruled the roost. I've said this before, and I got the specifics wrong, but Rush Hour 2 at the time of its release was like one of the five highest grossing opening weekends of all time. Highest groping? You might be talking about the director of that movie. It's not about the Jade Scorpion

there. Yeah. There's a lot of high groping movies at the box office this weekend. I'll tell you this, I've never seen a Rush Hour. They're okay. Never seen any of them. I have only seen one. I've only seen the first one. I have never seen Church. The pastiche seen the first one. I have never seen Turquoise. The pastiche is like all the movies that I like,

but some of the parts is not enough for me to enjoy it. Yeah, I think two and three are bad. I think one is dysfunctional. It's like satisfying. Right. Yeah, I remember it being pretty fun. Seeing the two of them together, the chemistry between the two leads carried that movie. Right. Yeah. I remember it being pretty funny. Seeing the two of them together, the chemistry between the two leads carried that movie.

Right. Number three at the box office is the other new entry this week. It's also a comedy sequel, but in kind of a different way. Very nerdy movie from someone you've collaborated with, Griffin Newman. Oh, oh, oh, oh. It's J. and Silent Bob Strike Back. You know, it's funny to think about this as the pre-9-11 weekend, practically. You know what I mean?

American Pie 2, Rush Hour 2, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. America's just like, this is fine. Let's just be stupid. You know, sit around giggling. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, opening at number three to $11 million. I feel like that was seen as an underperformance,

but in retrospect, I'm like, that pretty good for like a very niche movie but comedies were so hot back that's they were 100 million and it was like r-rated raunchy comedy it had so many stars in it even if they were mostly cameos and it comes out after dogma and dogma despite all the controversy was like far and away his highest grossing movie so I think people thought that this one might break out a little because they were like well it's like a stoner movie it's like two like sex obsessed stoners isn't that similar to the types

of movies that do well but it's an incredibly niche film that is almost entirely made up of fan service and callbacks to four other fairly niche films. That's what I hated about it so much. And thank God he's doing those again.

Hey, Message to the Universe Revelation Part 2 coming out November 2021. He tried a lot of different stuff, Kevin Smith. He did. That's why he's still floating around. Red State? He could have just clicked into doing stuff like that.

Steady hand directing Red state yeah agreed uh yeah i don't mind red state actually yeah i have not seen it since it came out number four the box office speaking of red state is a horror film a pretty good one uh kind of a slow burn hit makes like a hundred million dollars it's the others good non-jumpy super atmospheric haven't thought about that in a long time good movie good movie i like that movie so there are like six movies getting dumped into wide release this one weekend and and they're all tanking because number five griffin is another madcap comedy with an all-star cast. Rat Race? It's Rat Race. Wow. Rat Race!

The race is on. Guys! The race is on. The race is on. Enjoy the race! I'm realizing how many movies can be said about that, Griffin, but I still was blown away by that. Thank you. I remember this weekend vividly. After that, it's like Summer Catch.

That's another comedy. Summer Catch is like a another comedy, right? Summer Catch is like a rom-com, right? I've never seen it. You've got The Princess Diaries at number seven. That's cleaning up. Sure. But it's, well, whatever. Number eight, Captain Corelli's Mandolin,

a famous bomb of the year. Huge bomb. Great book, terrible movie. Basically, everyone is miscast. Why the hell did they release it in the summer, too? I guess it's because it's Greek Island or whatever. I think that movie was filmed on Oahu. Am I wrong about that?

That's very possible. That's interesting. I don't know. I wasn't there. You always have a soft spot for movies. It was filmed up the street. Bella Bambina, two o'clock and then ghost of mars planet of the apes at number 10 the i was gonna ask wow planet okay planet of

the apes came out in uh july right like it was the last weekend yes it was the last week of july so this is like okay it was around my birthday that's right okay it's dropped pretty fucking hard you've also got Jurassic Park three. These are the other sort of like lingering blockbusters and Legally Blonde. Those are the, those are the other big boys. I have a soft spot for Planet of the Apes. I kind of like that movie.

Have you, have you rewatched it? I have rewatched it. Yes. Wahlberg is so, so poorly cast in that movie, but you've got Helen of Monom Carter a truly wild from Jumati exactly like what's his name Lingo Lingo Lingo Limbo Limbo yes right

right I just love Jumati doing any sort of like carnival barker or like slave owner or like what he does in Jungle Cruise I just I'm a fan he should be the lead character in jungle cruise i agree i wanted more of jamadi and in the rock in that hopefully sequel um but yeah so and you know it just to underline this movie massively underperformed yeah uh it was given poor reviews it kind of felt like this weird sort of damp ending to his career and now people have come around on it so carpenter was like all right i'll give you a real damp ending don't worry i'll make one more but that's that's for next comes around with a wet towel threatens to throw it on top of you yeah um but yeah ghost of mars i like it too griff i like it

i own the dvd i'm happy it's a six it's a gentleman six for me yeah it's a six and a half maybe i'm gonna go five i mean it's it's definitely not above average jonah now you have to give a number um i'm sorry i i lost track of the conversation because i was because it turns out it wasn't captain corelli's mandolin and i thought it might have been tears from the tears of the sun by bruceis Was it Windtalkers? Windtalkers, that was it! Windtalkers, yeah! Lots of horror movies

I was going to say it was a Tigerland I had a lot of options lined up But it was the other sort of Prestige-y Nicolas Cage attempt World War II movie Historical, yeah Because that came out in 2002.

He should not have made back-to-back World War II movies. That was a mistake. There's a lot of things that Cage should and shouldn't have done. The World War II movies were hot as hell back then. Saving Private Ryan. It was John Madden and John Woo. It's true. They were prestige

projects. It's true. I can't deny it. Captain Carlyly's mandolin is a great book i will say um but he's he's such insane casting for that role when you read the book it's crazy we don't need to talk about captain carly's mandolin we do need to send our guests on their way because they have a hard out oh shit yeah yeah we did have a hard out 10 minutes ago exactly j. Jiminy Christmas. I just again, don't really know what was happening, but I'll say five.

Yeah, there you go. Good. Nailed it. Nailed it. That's a good one. That's a good one. Perfect. Jonah, Dave, thank you guys so much for being here. Obviously, people should listen to Galaxy Brains. Wherever podcasts are found, is there anything else the two of you want to plug? Absolutely not. Jonah has a thing at the

oh it's probably gone by the time this airs right? I don't know. The men at work screening? Yeah. Oh yeah. I mean I know that's just a local thing I don't like that. But this January new season of Mystery Science Theater 3000 coming out. It's going to be independently produced thanks to a Kickstarter

it's going to be out on our own website but really funny movies and there's going to be out on our own website. But really funny movies and there's going to be a new movie on the site every month. New riffs, all the bots are there, stuff like that. So stay tuned for that. Very, very exciting.

Thank you guys so much for doing this. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having me. Tick for tack. Thank you for taking the Midnight Train to Mars with us. And thank you all for listening. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media,

AJ McKeon and Alex Barron for our editing, JJ Birch, Nick Loriano for our research, Joe Bowen, Pat Reynoldsins. For our artwork. Leigh Montgomery. And the Great American Novel. For our theme song. You can listen to their new album. Extremely Loud.

Incredibly Online. Wherever you find albums. I don't know. Go to blankies.rad.com for some real nerdy shit. And go to patreon.com slash blank check. For blank check special features. Where we do franchises on commentaries. And of course, obviously,

are ending out the year with Tim Allen's Santa Claus trilogy. Amazing. Tune in next week for the end of Carpenter. It's been a wild run. Duh, Ward. Duh, Ward. And as always,

I think Ghosts of Mars was meant to be the third St. Kliskin movie. Is that right, David? But with Rowdy Roddy instead of Russell in the role of St. Kliskin, right? Is that right? It's going to be a gender-flipped Snake Ash movie.