Ghosts of Mars (2001)

Director: John Carpenter

Cast: Ice Cube, Natasha Henstridge, Jason Statham, Pam Grier

Have I Seen It Before: Never. Three years ago, I was of a mind to watch all of Carpenter’s library* through the summer between my final years of grad school, but time slipped away before I got to this one.

Seems like a long time ago.

Did I Like It: I kinda-sorta wished I had watched this one that summer and let Vampires (1998) go by the wayside. That earlier of Carpenter’s final big-studio releases felt like a mean-spirited swing at the dirt (complete with a star turn from the positively rancid James Woods), and this feels like something of a return to form.

It’s a b-movie at its core, with a budget that can’t quite acquit itself, and a cast that generally seems stiffer than they have proven to be in other films. There’s also the slight problem of this—despite being something of a space opera—being nothing new for Carpenter. One might have been able to call it Escape from the Red Planet (although you probably would have needed Kurt Russell in the Ice Cube role) or even Assault on Planet 4. It’s a western at its core, as most of Carpenter’s films are, and there’s just a flash of hope that he might have been rebounding more fully, and the 2000s could have been his best decade yet. It didn’t come to pass, obviously, and he sat the decade out, largely cashing obligatory checks from remake productions of his earlier, more celebrated films.

That sounds less like a criticism of this movie, and more of the man himself, but I don’t mean it to be. He may have, indeed, had more films left in him, but he may not have felt the need to fight with a Hollywood that was less and less interested in letting him do what he does best. That’s a completely legitimate decision, one I think I even applaud. If I had to face the indignities of spending most of 1992 making a Chevy Chase vanity project I may, too, have thought getting high and playing video games for the last few decades I have left.

*Minus the stuff he did for TV. Honestly, that Elvis biopic he did couldn’t be as good as Halloween (1978), or Assault on Precinct 13 (1976), right?

Jackie Brown (1997)

Director: Quentin Tarantino

Cast: Pam Grier, Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Forster, Robert De Niro

Have I Seen it Before: Yes.

Did I Like It: But that’s the interesting thing. I don’t think it would be a terribly controversial opinion to call this Tarantino’s least memorable film. It’s certainly a different type of film from Tarantino’s other projects. It’s more linear than anything else from him, with the plot unfolding form A to B to C in such a coherent order (until the third act, a little bit) that if it weren’t for the close up of ladies feet, one would be forgiven for not realizing Tarantino is directing at all. It’s the only adaptation Tarantino has done—from a novel by Elmore Leonard—but I’m still a little bit surprised that the story of Jackie (Grier) didn’t get thrown into the Tarantino narrative blender.

But, that’s not a bad thing, the lack of memorability and relative anonymity of it all. I’ve watched Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (2019) about a half a dozen times in the year since its release. It’s terrific, naturally, but the little moments and touches of the film that make Tarantino have become quite familiar over such a short amount of time. The same can be said about Pulp Fiction (1994) and either of the Kill Bill films. So, it’s an extra treat to rediscover this movie every once in a while. It’s almost like getting a new Tarantino movie every once in a while when you really weren’t expecting one. It may not meet some of the delirious highs of some of his other films, but even with its minor status, I can’t readily think of a better film from 1997.

Plus, Michael Keaton is in the movie, and frequent readers of this space know I’m prepared to give any movie a pass if Michael Keaton is in it.