John Carpenter - what a weirdo. Here he is in film school, with a bunch of hairy freaks shlepping around the cheapest space sets imaginable, enacting Dan O'Bannon's proto-'Alien' screenplay as a stoner 2001. Padding was added afterwards, but it's a tribute to the singularity of vision that I'm not entirely sure what stuff was in the original - although I am sure that ingenious-if-transparent elevator scene was a late add. I wish the third act had something as left-field as that beach ball, and the pacing could put you to sleep, but it's totally charming, and gives one some perspective on Carpenter's later goofball genre work.
Review of Dark Star
