Picture this dude with big frightwig hair.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 6 March 2004 12:44 (twenty years ago) link
― …, Saturday, 6 March 2004 13:26 (twenty years ago) link
"shit shit shit SHIT SHIT SHIT!"
(okay not 'escape from new york').
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 6 March 2004 14:09 (twenty years ago) link
― adam (adam), Saturday, 6 March 2004 17:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 6 March 2004 17:21 (twenty years ago) link
― Eisbär (llamasfur), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:49 (twenty years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Saturday, 6 March 2004 18:51 (twenty years ago) link
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Kingfish Cowboy (Kingfish), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:31 (twenty years ago) link
― stockholm cindy (Jody Beth Rosen), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:31 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:38 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Saturday, 6 March 2004 19:53 (twenty years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 7 March 2004 00:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 7 March 2004 00:49 (twenty years ago) link
― :|, Sunday, 7 March 2004 00:59 (twenty years ago) link
― :|, Sunday, 7 March 2004 01:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Ste (Fuzzy), Sunday, 7 March 2004 01:23 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 7 March 2004 21:53 (twenty years ago) link
― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:11 (twenty years ago) link
― Anthony Miccio (Anthony Miccio), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:12 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan I. (Dan I.), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:22 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:24 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 7 March 2004 22:30 (twenty years ago) link
Also, EFNY is total classic.
― Elvis Telecom (Chris Barrus), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 00:51 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:00 (twenty years ago) link
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 9 March 2004 01:19 (twenty years ago) link
i say this sheerly as an observation and without misogynist or sexist intent -- Adrian Barbeau's breasts were a thing of jaw-dropping splendor.
― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 29 July 2004 02:33 (nineteen years ago) link
― St. Nicholas (Nick A.), Thursday, 29 July 2004 13:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:20 (seventeen years ago) link
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― kenan, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:27 (seventeen years ago) link
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:31 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:38 (seventeen years ago) link
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:39 (seventeen years ago) link
― the schef (adam schefter ha ha), Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:40 (seventeen years ago) link
― kenan, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:41 (seventeen years ago) link
― Dr Morbius, Wednesday, 18 April 2007 14:48 (seventeen years ago) link
god i love this movie and john carpenter i feel like i have rediscovered something and it's changing my life all over again and i'm not even a 12-yr-old boy!
― rrrobyn, Monday, 19 May 2008 23:26 (fifteen years ago) link
Personally I love Big Trouble in Little China, who's with me?
― chap, Monday, 19 May 2008 23:34 (fifteen years ago) link
i think this is my spring/summer of john carpenter (realized i've never seen 'ghosts of mars' or 'vampires' all the way through, so, hm)
i think it will rule
― rrrobyn, Monday, 19 May 2008 23:34 (fifteen years ago) link
ernest borgnine and i have the same birthday
― rrrobyn, Monday, 19 May 2008 23:43 (fifteen years ago) link
Jeez, Rrobyn. I'm a Carpenter fan, but those are both terrible movies.
― Oilyrags, Monday, 19 May 2008 23:48 (fifteen years ago) link
realize the parenthetical - they will be in context of greater carpenter + i have completist tendencies
― rrrobyn, Monday, 19 May 2008 23:51 (fifteen years ago) link
Ah, I see. Well, enjoy the good ones, then!
― Oilyrags, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 00:01 (fifteen years ago) link
Pliskin's tat is out of control.
― Abbott, Tuesday, 20 May 2008 00:05 (fifteen years ago) link
this movie hasn't aged well IMHO
― Eisbaer, Friday, 1 August 2008 18:58 (fifteen years ago) link
seeing it again after all these years, it looks ... and SOUNDS ... like an apocalyptic episode of "knight rider."
― Eisbaer, Friday, 1 August 2008 18:59 (fifteen years ago) link
soundtrack may be best part.
― Steve Shasta, Friday, 1 August 2008 19:04 (fifteen years ago) link
I mean he tricked Van Cleef with the tape? Are we talking about that film or the sequel?
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:19 (three weeks ago) link
I loved this film as a kid but was a little disappointed that the scene of the poster art (with the Statue of Liberty's head) wasn't in the film anywhere, that would have been rad.
― Maresn3st, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:20 (three weeks ago) link
The president didn't give a shit about him or the people that died rescuing him, so you know..
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:20 (three weeks ago) link
The novelization reveals the tape actually contained info the US was using to establish their nuclear supremacy, which I'm not using as a serious argument but otoh I don't think we get evidence that the tape is what the authorities say it is in the film either? Why would we trust them?
On a more thematic level, though, Snake is hardly just "pissed at the president" - he and his companions were gleefully used by Van Cleef and his system and spat out, this is the only way he has to make them suffer and it's cathartic to see him do it imo.
xposts
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:22 (three weeks ago) link
One of the all time greatest casts in this too.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:23 (three weeks ago) link
Maybe I misunderstood it, but doesn't the tape contain the secret to nuclear fusion? Which would help everybody. Of course, it's a dumb plot device to think that such valuable information would be confined to a single C60 in the possession of the president.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 March 2024 22:26 (three weeks ago) link
So he makes everyone suffer.
It supposedly does but the only confirmation we have of that is from govt sources iirc.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:28 (three weeks ago) link
Got to think this movie's greatest influence is in video games more than anything.
Add in Blade Runner and Mad Max and you have the bedrock for lots of video games.
― earlnash, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:37 (three weeks ago) link
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 March 2024 bookmarkflaglink
Big leap to say that because there isn't going to be nuclear fusion that everyone will suffer!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:40 (three weeks ago) link
Isn't it about securing the peace treaty rather than the nuclear fusion technology as such?
― jmm, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:42 (three weeks ago) link
xp It would be a transformative technology. I think they even talk in the movie about how it will not only make life better, but avert nuclear war.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 March 2024 22:43 (three weeks ago) link
One of the all time greatest casts in this too.― Daniel_Rf, Monday, March 25, 2024 10:23 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, March 25, 2024 10:23 PM (eighteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink
Kurt RussellLee Van CleefErnest BorgnineDonald PleasenceIsaac HayesHarry Dean StantonAdrienne Barbeau
Doesn't get much more A-list than that in my book
― I saw three hippies saving a whale (Matt #2), Monday, 25 March 2024 22:46 (three weeks ago) link
I thought it was about the president being at the peace conference, yes.
Which is why jazz music is kinda better than whatever boring stuff was in that tape.
xp - the people saying this built the world that has a prison in the middle of NYC. I would trust Snake much more than them!
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:46 (three weeks ago) link
The novel also clarifies that the president's plan for the cassette tape is not benevolent. Rather than presenting to the world a new energy source in the form of nuclear fusion (as claimed in the film), the tape actually reveals the successful development of a "fallout-free thermonuclear weapon, which would grant the US supremacy in the global conflict.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:47 (three weeks ago) link
OK, but that doesn't come through in the film, at least not as far as I could discern.
Really, I think it's just a giant middle finger to everyone. Which is fine, it's just always bothered me.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 March 2024 22:48 (three weeks ago) link
Another example of why it's importabt to read up on things rather than believing everything you see on the telly!
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:48 (three weeks ago) link
This movie is perfect. Lotsa John Carpenter movies end with the end of the world.
― Josh in Chicago, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:51 (three weeks ago) link
but yeah as I said the movie doesn't reveal this but also imo gives us zero motivation to believe the nuclear fusion thing is legit xpost
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 25 March 2024 22:53 (three weeks ago) link
This kinda gets foregrounded in the sequel where it’s much more clear that the US has a orbital doomsday weapon, and Snake just EMPs the planet(or at least the continent) to burn it all down.
Bit overdone that he stares at a single lit match as the screen fades to black, of course, but Carpenter was pretty much done as a director by that point and ready for his 420-24/7 & video games retirement for the following decades
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Monday, 25 March 2024 22:58 (three weeks ago) link
I will say, seeing Carpenter & Sons playing music live in the pre-pandemic world(including Dave Davies’ son on guitar), you felt it HIT when they played that theme in front of the crowd
― Glower, Disruption & Pies (kingfish), Monday, 25 March 2024 22:59 (three weeks ago) link
It's such a banger. Italo version o Assault On Precinct 13 my all time Carpenter fave tho.
― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 25 March 2024 23:02 (three weeks ago) link
Season Hubley as "Girl in Chock Full O' Nuts"
Farewell, Girl in Chock Full O' Nuts. We hardly knew ye.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 25 March 2024 23:05 (three weeks ago) link
Very weird and cool that this thread was revived today! I watched the first two Mad Maxes this weekend in preparation for a run through the glut of (mostly Italian) Maxploitation flicks that followed in their wake but then realized, what with titles like 1990: The Bronx Warriors and 2019: After the Fall of New York and, uh, y'know, Escape from the Bronx, that the release of Escape from New York was probably nearly as influential an '81 milestone as The Road Warrior on the post-apocalyptic mini-genre. So this one is on the docket (along with the earlier films of Cirio Santiago, who I only just realized contributed no fewer than four Mad Max-inspired films to our culture).
― Great-Tasting Burger Perceptions (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 26 March 2024 02:14 (three weeks ago) link
iirc Season Hubley was Kurt's girlfriend at the time
― Maresn3st, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 09:59 (three weeks ago) link
Lee Van Cleef's look in this scene, so good
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMGI0YzE1ZjUtZWE2Yy00NmQ5LThlMTgtZDFhOWRiNTE5MDkxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg
― jmm, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 16:20 (three weeks ago) link
This film did have the same gritty, surreal atmosphere as The Warriors, an undisputed classic.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Tuesday, 26 March 2024 16:28 (three weeks ago) link
I like The Warriors more but I love both of them. I'm pretty much a sucker for dystopian New York movies of the '70s and early '80s, even lesser ones like Fort Apache the Bronx.
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 26 March 2024 16:34 (three weeks ago) link
I hadn’t considered the idea of the tape recording as a threat. I like that interpretation. Even in the movie, where it’s not spelt out, you can easily read the President’s intended announcement as an implicit threat to China and the Soviets. That fits a lot better with what we see of this President and government.
As for the ending, Snake is ultimately just doing what he warned he was going to do the whole time, which is not to cooperate except under compulsion. It was their dumb mistake to assume they had more leverage over him than they did. He’s also not irrevocably dooming the world (nor irrevocably thwarting the U.S.’s plans for world domination, if you prefer that interpretation). They can probably create another copy of this nuclear fusion information, I assume? Maybe they couldn’t do it within 23 hours, for some reason? In any case, I figured the reason it was so important to get the President and tape in front of the cameras by that time is just that this is what the U.S. had announced (threatened) previously, and they need to project strength and competence. Snake’s basically just allowing them to screw themselves, and leaving it to them to clean up the mess.
― jmm, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 16:40 (three weeks ago) link
I remember liking Escape from LA and find myself surprisingly not hostile to the idea of an "Old Man Snake" sequel.
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 17:04 (three weeks ago) link
I'd really like to find a book with something like this movie's style and approach to dystopian world-building. Genocidal Organ by Project Itoh seems like a possibility? The author wrote a Metal Gear novelization anyway.
― jmm, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 17:16 (three weeks ago) link
To me the movie kind of reads like an 80s Wm. Gibson caper but like 20% more flamboyant?
― Philip Nunez, Tuesday, 26 March 2024 17:20 (three weeks ago) link