the other thread only has like 5 posts :(
― dayo, Tuesday, 24 April 2012 01:31 (twelve years ago) link
revolver with a scope + unlimited bullets has got to be one of the best movie weapons ever
― dayo, Tuesday, 24 April 2012 01:45 (twelve years ago) link
you know what is surprisingly entertaining and competently written? the novelization of this movie.
― jesus christ (strongo hulkington's ghost dad), Tuesday, 24 April 2012 02:14 (twelve years ago) link
"this is the weakest of the Carpenter/Russell troika but it is still great."
otm
really enjoy the pieced-together open-endedness of this. fits the post apocalyptic crisis mood/premise far better than a tight, snappy plot.
Kurt slays in this and I do mean fuiud
― deejerk reactions (darraghmac), Sunday, 18 October 2015 23:43 (eight years ago) link
agreed
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 October 2015 01:53 (eight years ago) link
Here is a thing that I meant to post last month & forgot
Not sure if it means anything but it's an interesting piece of esoterica
http://www.avclub.com/article/shot-shot-symmetry-escape-new-york-and-escape-l-225525
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 October 2015 01:54 (eight years ago) link
I'm not sure I'd call it weak - that is, there's nothing I wish was better - but it's definitely the most classically b-movie of the Kurt/Carpenter bunch.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 19 October 2015 01:54 (eight years ago) link
xpost Plausible that Escape from LA was done as a passive-aggressive cash grab. Doesnt make it any better though...and pity the foolwho pored over it for hours but, bravoI guess? idk
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 October 2015 01:56 (eight years ago) link
Ugh, I'm not sure I saw "Escape from LA" a second time after an advance preview I caught. Total bummer, and I'm not sure recycling some specific shots (and more than recycling the entire first film) counts as "symmetry" so much as laziness. All I really remember, though, is being distracted by the presence of the actress who used to be in "My So-Called Life."
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 19 October 2015 02:01 (eight years ago) link
I love this. Tough to pick a russell role between snake/ macready/ jack burton, three amazing roles. Also showing amazing range.
― nomar, Monday, 19 October 2015 02:17 (eight years ago) link
I paid theater money to see Escape from LA, Vampires, and Spiders from Mars or whatever that nonsense was called
Hours of my life, gone
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 October 2015 02:22 (eight years ago) link
ghosts of mars is spectaaaacularly bad. i mean like if carpenter hadn't done a BUNCH of schlock it would have to be a parody. highlight is when a character does a narrated flashback of all the scenes we just saw, to bring another character up to speed. "so then i went down the hallway..."
also when the one alien ghost is screaming on the hill like BAAGAAWUGGALAAAAAA, that was great. he sounds like Strong Mad.
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Monday, 19 October 2015 04:02 (eight years ago) link
whereas, like, 'prince of darkness' is just ... boring.
so boring
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 October 2015 04:56 (eight years ago) link
Prince of Darkness is not boring! I'll watch that movie all day. Maybe it loses some steam in the overly-long opening sequence, maybe Jameson Parker has some offputting conversational gambits... Once they finally go to the church lock-in, it's great. Wish Dennis Dun had been in more movies.
Otoh, I saw that Vampires was on Amazon Prime streaming the other day and decided to give it a go. Made it 15 minutes in maybe? I just found myself second-guessing every single move any character made.
― how's life, Monday, 19 October 2015 13:53 (eight years ago) link
I love how boring Prince of Darkness is. I love that budget/or lack of narrative imagination determined that it's like the most apocalyptic scenario possible played out in the most modest of situations. Like, a handful of folks padding around an old church while the fate of the world teeters on the brink. Talk about the banality of evil.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 19 October 2015 14:16 (eight years ago) link
Prince of Darkness is awesome, maybe my favorite Carpenter after The Thing.
― Resting Bushface (Phil D.), Monday, 19 October 2015 14:18 (eight years ago) link
Think I've watched this Escape from NY about 20x times (uk tip: catch repeats on itv4 often). Plot is hammy - sophistication isn't what I was expecting. That's fine.
Soundtrack is superb. Dean Stanton is the best of supporting cast; Pleasance follows close by. Disagree on Russell, I suppose you could mistake the lack of expression for a 'couldn't be bothered' but fits the Snake tough-street style. Only relative flaw is there wasn't enough of him and van Cleef. Would see a sequel where they were a team (as van Cleef was offering by the end). Instead we got Escape from LA.
Saw the last hour of this after coming back home last Fri - renewed my appreciation of the tape switch.
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 19 October 2015 14:26 (eight years ago) link
I remember being incredulous about Prince of Darkness until it got to the scene where Alice Cooper kills the nerd guy from Riptide with half a bicycle, then I realized it could do anything it wanted. it's like the pacing of the fight scene in They Live applied to an entire movie.
― Milton Parker, Monday, 19 October 2015 17:40 (eight years ago) link
Prince of Darkness isn't peak material but it's still v good and pretty batshit imo
― Οὖτις, Monday, 19 October 2015 21:17 (eight years ago) link
zzzzzz
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 October 2015 21:29 (eight years ago) link
man between this thread title and the aliens one
― playlists of pensive swift (difficult listening hour), Monday, 19 October 2015 21:30 (eight years ago) link
i wish i could conjure back up the particular way i was annoyed and bored by prince of darkness, cause i'm remembering these bits and pieces that were good. it just felt like this ridiculously large cast all pacing around independently of each other. like we're still meeting new people an hour into the movie, and nobody seems really aware of anything else that's going on. there's this sense of non-urgency or disconnectedness, people having weird my-dinner-with-andre conversations about the anti-god equation off in a separate movie from the people trying to escape the green slime. it would feel dreamlike if it felt like it was on purpose, i guess.
and then there's like a twenty-four hour montage, sun setting, sun rising, as dennis dun (IIRC) slowly tries to break through a wall with a chair or a spoon or something, and in the last ten minutes he tries to get the people on the other side to actually help? the creepy computer was cool i guess.
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Monday, 19 October 2015 22:59 (eight years ago) link
vampires is the carp nadir afaic. james woods is one of those guys who is exceptional in the right role and this wasn't one of them.
what I most remember abt that movie oddly is that is was one of gregory sierra's last screen roles before his apparent retirement. I love when old school dudes show up, but this was no 'deep cover' kinda role for him.
― nomar, Monday, 19 October 2015 23:03 (eight years ago) link
I saw that in the theater and man so baaaaaad. apart from the guy who gets sliced in half. that was funny.
― Οὖτις, Monday, 19 October 2015 23:04 (eight years ago) link
According to the original book's author John Steakley, the film contained much of his dialogue and none of his plot.
― nomar, Monday, 19 October 2015 23:09 (eight years ago) link
thing I remember about Vampires was just lots of misogyny, like every other vampire was a woman who was being tortured or burst into flames
also sealed my lifelong distaste for James Woods
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 19 October 2015 23:50 (eight years ago) link
I actually called Carpenter on that at the press junket (way back when), and iirc his and everyone's defense was they're not women, they're vampires! I guess he had a point, but still ... not biting.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 00:47 (eight years ago) link
"not biting"
― Gorefest Frump (Doctor Casino), Tuesday, 20 October 2015 01:17 (eight years ago) link
baloney
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 20 October 2015 05:04 (eight years ago) link
why dress them in gendered clothing if their gender is irrelevant, why not make them more animalistic etc etc
it was a choice & a bad one, and that's a cowardly answer "but but theyre just vampires"
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 20 October 2015 05:07 (eight years ago) link
As a kid I was a bit obsessed with Frank Doubleday as Romero, he stole every scene. it took me years to find out his actual name and the name of the character, he's also the guy that shoots the kid in Assault On Precinct 13
http://i61.tinypic.com/15s7tia.png
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 11:13 (eight years ago) link
Holy shit. I'd never made that connection before! I can't stand that scene though, even though it's what sets everything in motion.
― how's life, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 11:40 (eight years ago) link
don't order the vanilla, kid!
― wizzz! (amateurist), Tuesday, 20 October 2015 13:06 (eight years ago) link
This is my favorite carpenter OST right now. So krautfully delightful.
I liked but was vexed by PoD when I watched it w couple of years ago. I wanna see it again. I like jarringly quiescent genre stories. I'm a huge fan of In The Mouth Of Madness (not that it's quiescent but it's late carpenter that no one mentioned)
― banned on ixlor (Jon not Jon), Tuesday, 20 October 2015 14:07 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, much prefer In The Mouth of Madness to boring old Prince of Darkness (tho POD has a mildly interesting commentary track where Carpenter sometimes seems quite irritated by his co-commentator Peter Jason).
― sʌxihɔːl (Ward Fowler), Tuesday, 20 October 2015 14:20 (eight years ago) link
PoD is frustrating, so many of the main roles are taken by bland, soapy actors which is a real shame as it has a couple of genuinely great bits, the 'this is not a dream' transmission sequences, the guy with the wobbly voice who says 'pray for death' then his head falls off cause he's made of bugs , the old homeless lady licking the Priest's hands.
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 15:36 (eight years ago) link
But PoD does look really great in HD and the soundtrack is just a really menacing, slow building bassline with some ornamentation.
― MaresNest, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 15:41 (eight years ago) link
PoD definitely foreshadows the later truly incompetent films
nevertheless it is transmitting from the year one... nine... nine... nine
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 17:21 (eight years ago) link
flipped through Ghosts of Mars last night on youtube due to this thread. had never dared before. it is pretty bad.
>also when the one alien ghost is screaming on the hill like BAAGAAWUGGALAAAAAA, that was great
^^
― Milton Parker, Tuesday, 20 October 2015 17:26 (eight years ago) link
I will never get tired of this film. I've been catching up on some genre stuff with my daughter. The other night we watched "Evil Dead 2" (her English teacher also teaches a film class and has an "Evil Dead" poster) and ... I think that one I *am* tired of. But we watched "Escape" last night, and nope, definitely not tired of it. And she seemed to really enjoy it (and called the ending seconds before it happened!). Kurt Russell is so good in it. When he passes, whenever that is, I will feel about him the same way I feel about Ric Ocasek today.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 16 September 2019 22:42 (four years ago) link
I’ve seen ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK countless times since it came out and I only just now noticed that two characters are named Romero and Cronenberg.
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 5 December 2020 22:16 (three years ago) link
Truly perfect.
― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 5 December 2020 22:29 (three years ago) link
I'm so obsessed with Frank Doubleday, how did he not get acres of work after that role?
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 5 December 2020 22:33 (three years ago) link
I should say *still* obessed hah
― Maresn3st, Saturday, 5 December 2020 22:35 (three years ago) link
We watched it last night (Ms. T hadn't seen it and it had been at least 10 years since I saw it last) and had to look up Doubleday afterward. Apparently he became a stage acting teacher here in LA. I had no idea that his daughters each had roles in TV shows I watched (Portia Doubleday in MR. ROBOT & Kaitlin Doubleday in EMPIRE)
― Elvis Telecom, Saturday, 5 December 2020 22:52 (three years ago) link
I watched this a couple of weeks ago with a couple of my kids. It was a lot better when I was a drunk high schooler.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 March 2024 20:22 (two months ago) link
Saw it for the first time on an iPhone screen a couple of years ago, brilliant, loved it, fabulous ending, love the chandeliers on Isaac Hayes’ limo
― brimstead, Monday, 25 March 2024 20:48 (two months ago) link
https://moviedude.co.uk/Frank%20Doubleday%20%20Escape%20from%20New%20York%20(1981).jpg
For years I thought the Romano character was Willem Dafoe (spoiler alert: it's not)
― Andy the Grasshopper, Monday, 25 March 2024 21:21 (two months ago) link
Romero