MARS
Year: 2176
Terraforming: 80% complete
Population: 640,000
Society: Matriarchal
"There's a thin line between a cop and a crook. You just got the Woman behind your bullshit."
--Ice Cube to Natasha Henstridge in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, currently splattering theatres everywhere.
Another John Carpenter fan!
From the Village Voice 2001 Films in Review:
It is daunting to defend a low-tech heavy-metal zombie alien action thriller set on Mars, toplined by the actress best known for being naked throughout Species and a rap star whose most animated demeanor could charitably be described as phlegmatic. But god, I love JOHN CARPENTER'S GHOSTS OF MARS. Its exteriors are laughably cheap miniatures, and the situation never rises above pulp; yet there is more lucid storytelling here than in almost any other Hollywood picture of the year. The structure is complex—a dreamy overlapping of flashbacks within flashbacks—and the movie posits cool political underpinnings (Mars is run as a matriarchy, and the entire ghost thing is about colonialism and its consequences) without getting strident about it. Natasha Henstridge anchors the high-octane craziness with a calm intelligence so laid-back you might not notice—and most people didn't—how good she is. The dialogue is often berserk ("If we blow up the nuclear power station, what would happen? I mean, there'd be a huge explosion, right?"), but Carpenter means it, in a non-campy way. —Robert Horton
Now that he mentions it, the "calm intelligence" of the Henstridge character mirrors the poker-faced cool of the sublime Laurie Zimmer in Assault on Precinct Thirteen. Carpenter rocks!
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Year: 2176
Terraforming: 80% complete
Population: 640,000
Society: Matriarchal
"There's a thin line between a cop and a crook. You just got the Woman behind your bullshit."
--Ice Cube to Natasha Henstridge in John Carpenter's Ghosts of Mars, currently splattering theatres everywhere.
- tom moody 8-30-2001 7:41 am
Another John Carpenter fan!
From the Village Voice 2001 Films in Review:
It is daunting to defend a low-tech heavy-metal zombie alien action thriller set on Mars, toplined by the actress best known for being naked throughout Species and a rap star whose most animated demeanor could charitably be described as phlegmatic. But god, I love JOHN CARPENTER'S GHOSTS OF MARS. Its exteriors are laughably cheap miniatures, and the situation never rises above pulp; yet there is more lucid storytelling here than in almost any other Hollywood picture of the year. The structure is complex—a dreamy overlapping of flashbacks within flashbacks—and the movie posits cool political underpinnings (Mars is run as a matriarchy, and the entire ghost thing is about colonialism and its consequences) without getting strident about it. Natasha Henstridge anchors the high-octane craziness with a calm intelligence so laid-back you might not notice—and most people didn't—how good she is. The dialogue is often berserk ("If we blow up the nuclear power station, what would happen? I mean, there'd be a huge explosion, right?"), but Carpenter means it, in a non-campy way. —Robert Horton
Now that he mentions it, the "calm intelligence" of the Henstridge character mirrors the poker-faced cool of the sublime Laurie Zimmer in Assault on Precinct Thirteen. Carpenter rocks!
- tom moody 2-20-2002 5:31 pm [add a comment]