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Natasha Henstridge lands the lead role in John Carpenter's GHOSTS OF MARS
Hey folks, Harry here. I can absolutely put to rest any ongoing lingering rumors about the casting of the lead role in GHOSTS OF MARS. In yesterday's story, Moriarty ended the piece saying that Natasha Henstridge was being favored for the lead role... well as of about 2 hours ago, the ink dried and she is in. Natasha will be playing a non-lesbian 'breeder' cop that ends up in a pretty fucked up situation involving the ghosts of Mars. With the lead role now filled, the production will begin steaming ahead with BROM tattoos, KNB monstrous practical effects and the inevitable badass Carpenter theme. Also, you should know that my head will be appearing in the film. How it will be used is a matter of top security on the project. Rumors are even surfacing at this very moment on this very site, that my head will be revealed as being the glowy thing in the hatbox at the end of the film. Oh yes... It's true... uh huh... yeaaaaaah, and if you believe that, then... God bless ya... You should see this confirmed in the trades probably this Monday or Tuesday.
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Well, I love Miss Henstrige, I have oh so fond memories of Species and now she's working with a genious, but what do you mean non-lesbian? I havn't seen a lesbian in a horror movie for a while and well, i would certainly enjoy seeing that aspect of a movie like this. Oh well, maybe the ghosts will be lesbians? Now that's worth nine bucks anyday!
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It's always difficult for models to switch to acting even when they are talented. I don't know what I think of Natasha Henstridge but it's more now than when Species came out. I saw 'The Whole Nine Yards' yesterday, which I thought was a fun slapstick comedy whose stock in trade was its talented cast. Natasha Henstridge, surprisingly, held her own pretty well and had a likable dryness that wasn't fake. I'm not convinced she's leading material, but she might have what it takes. There will probably be a lot of decrying this casting decision. I just hope that John Carpenter busts his recent tradition of shitty film making with this flick. It sounds like a good premise.
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Imagin Famke "Jean Grey" Jansen in a John Carpenter Movie.
She would have been the perfect geek-dream! -
If she screws up with this chance, i guess that she won't have another one. I hope she succeeds as well as this movie. Carpenter's Vampires was great, but still I felt something was missing.
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her acting ability has improved since, species 1... so who knows...
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Natasha was not bad at all in Whole Nine Yards, where Matthew Perry played Chandler as canadian dentist and Bruce Willis himself, again with all the guarenteed smirks and low talking. In fact Natasha was the second best thing in this quite unfunny comedy, the best thing was that other girl whose name slips my mind right now, the hitwoman-wannabe. "Great casting choices" won't help if GOM will "Miss something" like Vampires: Story, decent effects and substance. It was turkey of the highest order, damn it. Sorry for ranting long post but Carpenter is in a mess these days IMO.
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I have had the hots for this chick for soooo long. She is one of the few reasons that 'Species' didn't suck. Although, if she's not going to be walking around naked in the movie...that alone might be a major flaw in this upcoming picture. Think about it, her acting chops are less than stellar (did anyone see that movie 'Adrenalin: Fear the Rush' with Christopher Lambert?). She doesn't really bring any dramatic realism to anything she's done...including her sci-fi stint. Now just because its a sci-fi horror movie doesn't mean the acting shouldn't seem real. That's why ALIENS worked so well. 'Nuff Said!
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I have to agree with you on that post. By the way, that "hit-woman wannabe" is none other that Amanda Peet,..and oh GOD did I love that scene where she came out naked. (Sorry, it's the primal 'man' thing to say.)
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Yup, she was all right! Actingwise I mean but I gotta admit the way she distracted those hitmen who were after Willis...yeah, I got a little sidetracked myself there. Can
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Jul 29, 2000 5:13:26 AM CDT
I'm Interested In Any Story With the Term Breeder Cop In It.
by buzz maverik
Especially if it's done by John Carpenter, whom I revere only slightly less than Harry does. Is this sucker based on a book, because I've been confusing it with MISSION TO MARS & RED PLANET & MARS ALMOND BARS I think. Like, would someone please explain to me again the difference between END OF DAYS, STIGMATA, THE NINTH GATE and LOST SOULS. Oh, lack of originality and the prevalance of fear and insecurity in Hollywood! Okay, thanks, I get'cha now.
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Man this movie sounded cool. Even though Carpenter was doing it. Carpenter hasn't made a good movie since the Thing. This might have brought him back, but this chick sucks as an actress. I'd rather the evil Love bitch was back in it. Oh well at least I won't have to put up with Carpenters crappy synth playing. I am Jack's wasted script.
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Vampires rocked. Any movie that has the hero being such a mean, amoral SOB that he throws a mild-mannered priest onto the dirt, kicks him around like a dog and then mockingly asks him after if getting his ass kicked got him sexually aroused - on top of later bashing the same priest across the face with a phone and slicing his palm with a knife as well as heaping abuse on Sheryl Lee's hapless hooker and scorn aplenty on Thomas Ian Griffith's Valek ("you pole-smoking fashion victim!") - is way too bad-assed not to love. Even if someone doesn't like Vampires for some lame reason, it's ridiculous to say that Carpenter hasn't made a good film since The Thing. Most people would agree that post-Thing Carpenter films like Christine, Starman, Big Trouble in Little China, Prince of Darkness, They Live and In the Mouth of Madness have all had their merits and then some. So now I want to know - where's the Ghosts of Mars script review that Moriarty was supposed to deliver?
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First there was the great news about Eastwoods new movie being the kick-ass movie I was hoping for. Then there was the news about Zemeckis' new movie being better than expected (maybe) Things seemed perfect until this. Henstridge? Hell, even Courtney Love is a better actress. Don't get me wrong. this movie will be a disaster for sure with or without a good lead actress. Carpenter made some good films in the past, but lost the connection to his audience and his trade long ago. Despite still for some reason being able to land good actors, the end product always turns out disappointing. Only In The Mouth Of Madness had potential, but Carpenter wasted the great material, and a great cast. Everything else has been downright garbage. Well. Thank you letting me get this of my chest. I think I'll go watch my copy of The Thing to remember how great Carpenter once was.
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...the book by John Steakley kicks major amounts of ass, and would have made a fantastic Carpenter movie without a single change. Yet for some reason Carpenter lost just about everything after the vampire kills Crow's team and replaced it with some gibberish about reverse exorcisms and magic crosses. The original book, man...I just don't get it. Carpenter's ego must be truly uncontrollable. And I would MUCH MUCH rather have seen Famke "I can act" Janssen than Natasha "I sure look good nekkid" Henstridge. How about a nekkid Famke? That would have been the best of both worlds.
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It's called "What's Smarter?"
Now let's see, what's smarter? Natasha Henstridge or a brick?
Hmmm, a close call there, but my vote goes with the brick. At least a brick can be used for something besides bad horror flicks.
I know that the fanboys aren celebrating this casting news as they lynch Courtney Love, which is all well and good. The thing is, though, Courtney Love is an INTERESTING performer. Like her or hate her, she at least invokes a reaction. She brings something interesting to a role. What the hell is the "Species" broad going to bring to this movie?? Absolutely nothing. -
As some of you know, *I* favored Courtney Love in the role. Natasha Henstridge, however, is a decent replacement. She CAN act; the fact that FECIES, er, I mean SPECIES sucked so very badly wasn't entirely her fault. Of course, what's really gonna tell the tale on this thing is the script. If that doesn't work, then forget about it.
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Can't say how glad I am that Cortney is out and Natasha is in. First of all she ain't bad on the eyes, and her turn in Nine Yards was pleasant enough. But come on, why worry, John Carpenter has been casting so called "B" actresses in his films for years and they've all done just fine, maybe better than an A-list actress would do. After all JC asks them to go to some pretty far out places and the more willing the actress the better. Remember Adrian Barbeau, Lind Koslowski, Kim Catrall and Lisa Blount, and I can't for the life of me remember her name, but the woman with the steel gray eyes in they live -- she was great! Natasha will be too.
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Yeah!!! Ice is gonna hit it with Natasha??
GO, HOMEBOY!!
YEeAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I've been fiendin' for that blonde dimepiece ever since she got down in the Species.. -
I'm not sure but I think that was Meg Foster in They Live. That movie has one of my all time favorite lines "I am here to chew bubble gum and kick ass and i'm all out of bubble gum."
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The marketing department simply needs to advertise this as a "Natasha's getting nekkid in this" movie. Hell, it worked for Species. And yer damn right I was in the theater to see her bouncing babies! If you weighed the two, which one could you not live without? A good movie, or a naked woman? I pick the naked woman. That's all I care about. Did I mention that Natasha's an 11 on the Spinal Tap Peter Meter?
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Yeaahh, booy! Meg Foster was great! And what the hell else has she done that had half the coolness of They Live! That movie was a mind blower. And that fight scene in the alley is one of the all time greats! It just goes on forever! If any of you out there in pre-pubescent fantasy land have not seen They Live, take your mind off Natasha's breasts long enough to check it out. You will not be sorry.
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i have a PA friend on that movie and she told me that there is a scene with like 200 heads on sticks that is supposed to be real scarry i cant remeber details but it is in the script.
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... none of that made any sense whatsoever. Remember very few of us speak insiderish. How about a translation for the rest of us?
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with Escape from L.A. and Vampires it's gonna be hard to get me back in the theater for one of his films.
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this film will ROCK.....
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Sorry to spoil this for you but "Ghosts of Mars" is going to be another letdown to anybody who has an appreciation for John Carpenter's early genius up until "They Live!". Since then something has happened. What has happened to John Carpenter? Has he stopped drinking and smoking? Is he happily married? Is he content with the world now? Has he passed by microwave technology placed in the high-street? Something as subversive as where his films used to head has taken possession of him. These days his thematic, the most important element of his films has vanished and his new style is from a different man altogether. What has happened to John Carpenter? Voodoo is not that powerful, what has gotten to John Carpenter?
To illustrate, when you watched "The Thing", "Escape from New York" and "Assault on precinct thirteen" they gave you a vision straight from this guy's head. Something new and part of cinema's widely appreciated heritage. His gritty style, claustrophobia, threatened territory and existential heroes are all gone, missing from all his new films since "They Live!". Is it because his budget's have increased? I think not because "Village of the Damned" and "Mouth of Madness" were poor.
I think it is now time to let go of hope, hold our hands up and cease to look forward to any of his new films. He has burnt out and is now fading away. And that is a cinematic travesty. -
I really would've liked to have seen how Courtney Love would've been in this but without knowing much about the actual role, I have to imagine that Henstridge will be a fine substitute. As for the usual suckwad comments about Carpenter's recent output not being up to par - that's just a load of knee-jerk crap. Yes, Carpenter was uneven in the '90s but his films during that period were hardly the utter travesty that some want to label them as. The worst you can honestly say about Memoirs of an Invisible Man and Village of the Damned is that they're servicable, workmanlike efforts - neither great nor godawful. Escape from L.A. was a fun sequel/remake whose arch sense of humor too many people didn't get or appreciate. I look at it as being to the original Escape from New York what Evil Dead II was to the first Evil Dead - a more comic, campy revamp. In the Mouth of Madness was a cool homage to Lovecraft that has a blast with its reality-bending premise ("Did I ever tell you my favorite color was blue?) and features a great performance from Sam Neill (his reactions in the movie theater at the end are priceless). And Vampires was a fun B-movie, period - with old-school gore FX from KNB and a solid anti-hero to root for (any movie where James Woods gets to ride ontop of a female vampire being dragged towards sunlight while emptying a gun in her face, then catch a stake that's just been tossed to him, pound it in the vampire's chest and dive off the body just as its dragged into the sunlight to explode is cool with me). So while his output has been uneven lately and films like Vampires or Escape from L.A. probably could've benefited from more time and money, he still shows that he's capable of good work and then some. Time is always the best judge of anybody's work and I know that a film like In the Mouth of Madness will have a lot longer shelf life with genre fans than a more immediately successful film like What Lies Beneath which is nothing but the latest slick turd to come out of Hollywood. Carpenter has never tried to jump on any trends or pander to the mentality of the moment. He still makes real genre films for fans who want more than the kind of glib, disposable dreck like Final Destination or Urban Legend that appeals to whatever generation of teen mall-shoppers that happen to be coming of age at the moment. I have hopes that Ghosts of Mars will be a return to the stronger films of Carpenter's hey-day due to the fact that it's his first original script since They Live. But regardless, any new Carpenter film is still an event in my book.
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Jul 31, 2000 2:49:31 AM CDT
Not only did VAMPIRES suck, not only did it screw up the book, i
by the tall man
I can't believe people dig this shoddy piece of crap. Carpenter screwed up a semi-interesting book and in turn ripped off ideas from a 1995 underground flick called DARKNESS (it too wasn't any good but at least it was original) and then mixes in a bunch of vampire lore gobbledygook and it's a hit! Christ. Now he'll never make another good flick. Sounds like GOM is just PITCH BLACK mixed with whatever other obscurities he decides to steal from next. He WAS the King of horror at one point, but the King is dead.
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Damn, I was really rooting for Irene Jacob. I guess my Optimus Prime costume will have to go back in the closet.
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Jul 31, 2000 3:53:18 AM CDT
I've come to chew bubble gum and kick ass and I am all out of bu
by briansla
I do still have a special place in my heart for JC flicks. If anything they aren't your ordinary pieces of film crap. Even if they movie isn't good, its better than most horror flicks. As for Natasha Henstridge... the jury is out. I thought she was good in Species but Species 2 blew big chunks ( George Dzunda in that Marine officers uniform was a major hoot! What they stopped giving PT ( phys trng ) tests ?!?!). Anyway after seeing X Men, I'd would have liked Famke Jenssen. She's much hotter in looks and personality... especially in her skirt scenes where were ass looked like it wanted to fight its way out. She's even a better actress but I suppose she has gotten pretty hot these days after X Men as JC probably could afford her or she didn't want to do it. pity. She would have rocked kicking alien ass.
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John Carpenter's Vampires is a very poor film. Even the Buffy TV series is more believable in places, and you're never supposed to take that seriously. James Woods does his best against a poor and unimaginative plot, but ultimately cannot rescue Vampires from its own mediocrity. The sooner they film Brian Lumley's Necroscope series the better. Assuming they don't mess that up too.
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He didn't get one thing right while translating the book to film. He actually had the team go into a vampire den in the middle of nowhere! In the book they blew the fucking house up and waited for the vamps to dig themselves out. THAT'S REALISM! No way you're getting me to go into a vampire haven. Jeez. And what was the deal with the black cross and all that other bullshit. The only thing similar between the book and the movie was the NAME of the main character, Jack Crow. The rest, pure unadulterated copycatted bullshit! Ghosts of Mars better be an awesome movie if he is to redeem himself!
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...Which I just caught the preview to in front of Space Cowboys! Holy crapamoli does THAT look like an all-time turkey! The color of fear my ass!
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Jul 31, 2000 8:42:27 PM CDT
There have been some really interesting Carpenter talkbacks in t
by cugel
But this is not one of them. The question is not whether Courtney or Natasha will be a more suitable female lead in Ghosts of Mars, but rather, what will get us Carpenterites back to believing that GOM will be worth the ordeal of rebuilding expectations for a movie that will even be in the same ballpark as JC's original genius scripts of the 80's, which might well again let us down a la Vampires. A couple of talkbackers touched on that point, it is very very hard to keep on believing that somehow, someday, another "Thing", "Big Trouble", "Halloween" or "Escape" (the original, natch) will be matched or even approached by this infuriatingly inconsistent director. This is too depressing, I'm gonna go watch 'Fist of Legend' and 'Wing Chun' again and try to forget about the good old days of Carpenter glory. Cugel out.
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Won't be answered for anyone until the actual film comes out. Based on the circumstances, I'd say that the chances are better than average that it'll be good. Mostly because it's an original script, which always bodes well for Carpenter. And I believe he has final cut on this and I also believe the budget is pretty decent by his standards. So many of the conditions that have compromised his latest films - even though I've liked many of them - are not present here. Most of the films that Carpenter made in the '90s were either work-for-hire jobs (like Memoirs of an Invisible Man) or films that came to him only after they had already passed through many hands in the development pipeline (like Vampires, which for years was supposed to be a Russell Mulcahy picture with Patrick Swayze as Jack Crow) so they were projects that didn't originate with him. Taking all that into account, GOM at least on the surface looks a lot more promising than usual for all the Carpenter hopefuls out there.
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