Starman means a lot to me, so I’ll get this out of the way first. I love Starman so much—the story, the cast, the pacing, the score, and Carpenter’s direction... especially since (at least on paper) he’s the last person I would ever suspect or choose to make this kind of picture. I don’t revisit this often and there’s a reason for that, which I’ll go into because I think it’s time to change that...

Jenny Hayden: Love is, um, it's when you care more for someone else than you do yourself.

In my late 20’s I lost someone. We were together for years until that fateful day, which happened to be my birthday. Just like that, she was gone. When…

I loved everything about Starman, from the beautiful theme composed by Jack Nitzsche to the inclusion of The Voyager Golden Record, the Saturn-like appearance of the spaceship, the special effects, Karen Allen! Jeff Bridges! Charles Martin Smith! John Carpenter going full helicopter enthusiast!

This was probably the first time I have been emotionally moved by a John Carpenter film (yes, I cried...a couple of times...), but I also laughed, became tense during climatic scenes despite knowing things were going to turn out okay, but that's great filmmaking, isn't it? The ability to take a rather predictable, formulaic [albeit solid] script and turn it into cinematic gold. J♥hn Carpenter, how I love you and your craft.

If I'm being completely honest,…

'Starman' is a revenant story, a ghost story, a story born out of grief and loss, and the reintegration of what was lost back into a life made new and strange. It is a story about Stockholm Syndrome pre-loaded. 'Starman' is a noir posing as a romance posing as a sci-fi film. It is the story of the outlaw on the lam from the authorities who hides in the home of the grieving widow and takes her on the road with him in her car to safety (across the county/state/country/planetary line). In this story, the grieving widow tends to (righfully) fear the (misunderstood) outlaw who generally points a gun at her after she points a gun at him until they…

Love is... um... it's when you care more for someone else than you do yourself.
-Jenny Hayden

I never notice Starman on any John Carpenter "best of" lists but it surely deserves to be on at least a few. Not only is it a great film but it showcases Carpenter's talent as a director in a different light then what his fans are accustomed too. Even though the film is most assuredly science-fiction, it's still Carpenter's biggest attempt at real drama and it succeeds in spades.

Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon's script was in limbo for a few years because the studio thought it was too similar to E.T.. Dean Riesner attempted to rewrite the script while working with…

possibly my favourite carpenter to date, exceptionally profound and heartbreaking, it's the type of film that understands what it means to be human, the beauty in the strength, the variety, the connections and passions, the idiosyncrasies that make each of us unique. but mostly it understands the power of love, how seeing the face of the man you loved in person again, not just in a clip or in a photo can make the pain of the loss fade just a little bit. how as he develops as a person, he gains not just disconnected and apathetic knowledge about our species but the passion and warmth and humanity that is present throughout the best of us. but it's about how…

Carpenter is biting Spielberg really hard here, and it's the damndest thing that it still feels so sincere. Was this a weird Salieri and Mozart rivalry playing out after Spielberg's friendly E.T. became an international sensation and Carpenter's The Thing tanked? Whatever his intentions, when Carpenter has Karen Allen give "the Spielberg face" while watching alien Jeff Bridges resurrect a deer, I melt and evaporate away. Carpenter is so different than the rest of his generation in how he assimilates existing works. It's not tribute or pastiche, nor an attempt to deconstruct or recontextualize or play any post-modern games with classic Hollywood material. He just remakes it as his own. Sincerely, without a hint of irony, and in Allen and…

as I lay me down to sleep I hear her speak to me...

I only met my great aunt twice. her impact upon me seems more pronounced in the moment than it did in my nascent years, and yet something I can’t recall about those meetings lingered with me in and beyond the moment... I know she was a medium, of a sort. one who inspired me to explore my own conception of spirituality in her passing.

my mother had a friend who was dying of cancer and she came by one night and somehow we all knew, before we knew, that it was a final goodbye and when I saw her body drained of life it was a shock…