Tag: Halloween

Frasier (1993) s05e03 – Halloween

Halloween buries the lede. The episode opens with David Hyde Pierce arriving at the apartment and talking with John Mahoney about costume problems. Hyde Pierce is throwing a costume party and isn’t having any luck finding Mahoney a Sherlock Holmes outfit. From background to foreground come Kelsey Grammer and Jane Leeves, who are giggling as Grammer does a Chaucer impression (preparing for the party). Hyde Pierce dislikes the convivial mood between Grammer and Leeves, especially when it turns out they’ve been on a microbrewery tour together.

Most of these elements will be important later.

Suzanne Martin’s script—outside multiple racist Native American jokes for Edward Hibbert (but we’re supposed to be laughing at him not with him)—is really well-constructed. It’s a subplots on four burners simultaneously type episode, with them all boiling over in precise unison.

The main plot comes in when Grammer gets to work to discover Peri Gilpin’s having a very off day. After very unprofessionally screaming at her to accuse her of being unprofessional (even the late nineties remain a trip), Gilpin breaks down and tells Grammer she’s having a pregnancy scare. She’s just waiting to hear back from the doctor.

What better way to take her mind of it than going to Hyde Pierce’s party—and now all subplots are in place on the stovetop—plus Dan Butler popping in to announce he’s also going to the party.

The party is going to be Hyde Pierce getting drunker and drunker—Maris has called and said she won’t be able to attend (he’s still in his apartment, complete with Baby the bird, their reconciliation seemingly stalled compared to its trajectory at the end of last season)—and getting very confused about who’s pregnant and who’s the father. He speaks with such authority, he gets Mahoney worked up (and confused), all while Gilpin’s waiting on a call from the doctor, Grammer’s hitting on a fetching fellow party-goer (then wife Camille Grammer, which is cute even if Grammer plays it too horndog), and Leeves is bouncing between the subplots.

Before it’s all over, there will be a marriage proposal, trick-or-treaters, those racist jokes from Hibbert—oh, then just a generally ableist joke regarding another guest because even though Martin’s got a bunch of solid one-liners, she’s got some big whiffs too.

The episode, which ostensibly is about Gilpin waiting for her possibly momentous news, instead of becomes a showcase for madcap Hyde Pierce and it is glorious. There’s a “To Be Continued” tag too, so it’s not like they’re abdicating the narrative responsibility on that arc, it’s just a lot more fun to have Hyde Pierce act a major fool in a fantastic situation.

Hype Pierce, Gilpin, and Leeves are the standouts. Grammer’s good and funny but he’s pretty thin when he’s ignoring everyone’s actual problems. Mahoney’s really funny but all support.

Only the end credits tag—and the shitty jokes, and then a stinker of a recurring joke where the joke is it’s a stinker of a recurring jokes—drag it down.

Excellent Pamela Fryman direction too.

[Stop Button Lists] John Carpenter on LaserDisc, 1994-98

John Carpenter films, 1976-82, released on LaserDisc, 1994-98

source: LaserDisc Database

When I was fifteen, it was a very good year. It was a very good year for John Carpenter fans. Maybe more than his fans, it was a very good year for his reputation. He was coming off Memoirs of an Invisible Man, his most mainstream film in eight years and it had bombed hard. But in June of 1994, when New Line Home Video released Escape From New York on LaserDisc in a collector’s edition, as well as on VHS with a “director’s special edition,” which had some of the same features. But was also pan and scan.

I was vaguely familiar with Carpenter. I had seen and liked The Thing (after years of hearing it was terrible), I had seen and liked Starman (it was a family favorite), I had seen and did not like Halloween (after years of hearing it was the only good slasher movie), I had seen and did not care for Big Trouble in Little China (if you had a friend with HBO in the late eighties, you saw Big Trouble a lot), I had seen and did not care for Memoirs of an Invisible Man. I was, in my younger days, quite the Chevy Chase fan.

A scene from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, directed by John Carpenter for Embassy Pictures.
A scene from ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, directed by John Carpenter for Embassy Pictures.

One of the guys at the video store sent me home with the Escape From New York special edition VHS. I was back the next day to buy it. I think with scrounged together pennies. I made my mom and sister watch it with me either that night or immediately following. I loved Escape From New York.

And I started seeing other Carpenter films, so by October 1995, when I had moved from “special edition” VHS tapes to my own LaserDisc collection, I bought The Fog sight unseen. And I watched it. Probably twice in a row, the second time with the commentary. And it got me to appreciate Carpenter’s filmmaking. I would have shown the Fog (on LaserDisc in its glorious Panavision OAR) to my friends. I might have even made my sister watch it. I loved The Fog.

Then came Escape From L.A.. Wait, what? A fifteen years late sequel. Kurt Russell, on a second career high, got to bring back Snake Plissken. He and Carpenter palling around for the Escape From New York commentary got their wheels spinning. I saw it opening night. And I loved it, which is really embarrassing because it’s terrible.

A scene from HALLOWEEN, directed by John Carpenter for Compass International Pictures.
A scene from HALLOWEEN, directed by John Carpenter for Compass International Pictures.

That November–I guess Criterion couldn’t make it happen for Halloween–they released a special edition of Halloween. CAV LaserDisc. The film was now legitimized. And I’d seen it a few times. And I still didn’t like it. Whenever I finally bought the LaserDisc (not at release), I had done so for the special features. I wanted that Carpenter, Debra Hill and Jamie Lee Curtis commentary. I knew his commentary tracks were awesome.

(Halloween is still my least favorite Carpenter film of this era, even if it is better than The Fog).

Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston star in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, directed by John Carpenter for Turtle Releasing.
Austin Stoker and Darwin Joston star in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, directed by John Carpenter for Turtle Releasing.

In February of 1997, Image released Assault on Precinct 13, which I think I saw right away and hated the cover art for the LaserDisc. I tried transferring the commentary and effects track to Sony MiniDisc. I was a commentary fiend back then. And, of course, I loved Precinct 13.

Carpenter didn’t disappear–I couldn’t wait for Vampires, which teamed him with James Woods, another of my nineties enthusiasms–but I did have to wait. Its distribution was a nightmare of looking through “Entertainment Weekly” or maybe reading “Dark Horizons” hoping for good news. But it was a time for appreciating old Carpenter, not new.

And then, in August 1998, Universal Studios Home Video released The Thing in a Signature Collection LaserDisc release. Universal made some great LaserDiscs, but usually of popular films. The Thing had been a box office failure. But Carpenter was draw on LaserDisc–his Panavision composition can’t be pan and scanned well. All these special editions with the great commentaries would introduce Carpenter to a whole new audience–the casual home video consumer, trying out the new DVD format. All these LaserDisc special editions soon became early DVD special editions.

A scene from THE THING, directed by John Carpenter for Universal Pictures.
A scene from THE THING, directed by John Carpenter for Universal Pictures.

These films–and these LaserDisc releases–forged Carpenter’s ironclad reputation as a filmmaker. No matter how many Children of the Damned or Memoirs he made, no matter how crappy remakes of his films got, no matter how many times Anchor Bay released Halloween on DVD, Carpenter’s reputation leaped out of the hole Memoirs dug. No one liked Memoirs. Even with awesome special effects as CG-appreciation became a mainstream fixation, no one liked Memoirs. I’m sort of scared I liked Memoirs in the theater now, because I remember renting it on VHS and I have no idea why I would have done such a terrible thing.

These five Carpenter films still get all the hype–they’re still the ones in the public consciousness, whether through remakes or awesome new Shout! Factory blu-ray special editions. The commentary tracks usually make it over too, which is fantastic. Not quite the same thing as Criterion putting out Halloween and forcing it into the film enthusiast consciousness (complete with a reassuring clip of Siskel and Ebert explaining why it’s okay to like Halloween), but the content is out there for people to discover. It’s just the community isn’t there, which is too bad.

As for Carpenter, he just put out an album, Lost Themes. I love it.