Lee and Dan's Midnight Movie Club » John Carpenter

Big Trouble in Little China – 100th episode

Midmoclub — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 22:50:09 +0000

A drug addled Lee with toothache joins Dan for the giant, Huge, MASSIVE 100th episode featuring the all time classic and favourite of Lee (and apparently all of you) Big Trouble in Little China!

The boys discuss the history of having your teeth pulled out and the horror of the student dentist, as well as a discourse on hookers and your obsession with all things Frankenhooker.

The trailers that Lee made Dan watch this week:

Lee and Dan also comment on SOPA, Netflix in the UK and celebrity spotting.

Apologies for the quality of the sound, Dan is very loud and Lee is very quiet… Dan is overcompensating for something:

So what do you think of the podcast, did any of the hosts have an extraordinarily wrong opinion??

Let us know in the comments and come back next week for Supergirl!!!

Confessions of a movie podcaster – the films that I am yet to see

Lee — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 08:54:41 +0000

No podcast this week as Dan and myself are balancing the act a little amongst work commitments and our pledge not to record on weekends. This will possibly come up more and more so I suspect you might be encountering the odd old school blog post from one of us every couple of weeks in lieu of a poorly put together podcast (trust me the trade off is worth it). Of course if you have one of those text to speech converters then feel free to run the posts through one of them for that podcast feel (if any of you actually do this please send me a link!!).

Now over the past week or so I’ve been talking about some of the films that I am catching up on of late, nothing unusual there I think we all go through patches where we seem to miss every film at the cinema and catch up on blu-ray or dvd later on. The thing about these films though are that they’ve been benchmark films that I really should have seen.

My wife still won’t let it go that I only in the past couple years discovered the joy that is The Goonies, a point I concede completely.

I guess this line of thought started a couple of months ago when we watched Footloose which I’d never seen and was assured that I really should have, indeed I now know what to do with all my built up angst (release in dance form in the garage). That experience was surprisingly satisfactory (the film not the garage dancing) and I started thinking more and more about some of the absentees in my movie collective that have been gnawing at me for some time now. Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal were certainly the front runners having been exposed to them as a child but never having sat down to watch them in their entirety.

So I caught Labyrinth the other night and despite controversial comments from Mr Hughes (of which he has now clarified his position further) I actually really liked it and can see why it is such a touch point for so many of our generation. I was particularly taken with the character Ludo and the battle mech guarding the gates. Certainly the film is dated in places but it’s a testament to Jim Henson that a 34 year old man can enjoy it so many years after it was released (in fairness that man is me and I write this whilst wearing a Marty McFly Back to the Future 2 lenticular cap).

I haven’t had the chance to sit down and watch The Dark Crystal yet as Tracey refuses to watch it with me in the same manner that she refuses to watch The Lion King again. But the other movie that was sorely lacking and probably more so than these other two was John Carpenter’s The Thing.

If anything I certainly am all of these following things:

a John Carpenter fan
a Kurt Russell fanboy
a science fiction nut.

Add to this my fondness for horror when I was a teenager and it seems ever so wrong that I’d never seen The Thing. Well thanks in part to a day off unwell in bed and the news of the abysmal reception of the remake I finally watched The Thing and all is right in the universe again.

I enjoyed it, a lot.

It’s nice I think when you can discover such an iconic film after the event and appreciate it for everything that it is.

What it does do is make me wonder what other awesome films that I’ve missed that aren’t coming to mind!!

So I’ve shared mine, what are the films that you know that you really should have seen but haven’t gotten around to (I’m hoping that we share the same gaps and you’ll jog my memory!).

Let us know in the comments here or over on the Facebook page which films you should have seen already but haven’t!

Soundtrack Saturday: Big Trouble in Little China

Lee — Fri, 04 Feb 2011 22:53:38 +0000

I don’t think it’s any great secret that one of my favourite films of all time is the John Carpenter masterpiece Big Trouble in Little China. Now the thing a lot of people don’t realise when it comes to John Carpenter films is that the dude likes to write the music for his films and will perform it. Classic soundtracks such as Halloween and Escape from New York capture the feel of the films perfectly in no small part thanks to John Carpenter envisaging everything he wants from his film.

So like his other films John Carpenter was very hands on for the soundtrack of Big Trouble in Little China and it only adds to the Carpenter feel of the film. I’m not 100% certain but I can’t recall any other films he performed lyrics for the music like he did here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D03E9kUTTtQ

Yes that’s right, the main singer there is none other than John Carpenter himself!

The CDs are pretty scarce on the ground unfortunately, my impression is that I have an actual copy in my collection somewhere but it’s equally likely that I’m confusing the Escape from New York soundtrack and that the copy I have is borrowed from my cousin Larry. iTunes doesn’t carry the music either except for a couple of tracks on compilations.

Here’s the track listing for those of you keeping score at home, this is of the original soundtrack, not the re-release:

Coup de Villes — “Big Trouble in Little China” 3:13
“Pork Chop Express” 3:40
“The Alley” 2:00
“Here Come the Storms” 2:20
“Lo Pan’s Domain” 4:30
“Escape from Wing Kong” 8:00
“Into the Spirit Path” 7:07
“The Great Arcade” 10:00
“The Final Escape” 4:47
Coup de Villes — “Big Trouble in Little China” -Reprise- (3:08)

Couldn’t track down too many of the tracks I’m afraid and on eBay you’re looking anywhere from $30 to $65.

John Carpenter’s They Live (1988 – yes 1988!)

Midmoclub — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 23:00:57 +0000

This week the club shuns dancing and corner putting and returns to manly popcorn flicks… well we hoped anyway. There are a lot of guns in this and a lot walking around but there is also what feels like the longest fight scene ever!

I’m never quite sure what to say in these little introductions since we’ll be talking about the film in the podcast and don’t want to give anything away in a sad attempt to interest you enough to listen. Lee and Dan nickname one of the characters ‘Dead Eyes’ if that helps? They also completely don’t bother to learn anyone’s name in the film except the guy who has no name… ummm I might quit whilst I’m ahead.

Join Lee and Dan as they talk about John Carpenter’s They Live!

Support the Midnight Movie Club

Next week we head back into what we hope is enjoyable film watching with So I Married An Axe Murderer!!