"Escape From New York" - stupid film, but.... Classic or Dud?

Kurt Russell
Lee Van Cleef
Ernest Borgnine
Donald Pleasence
Isaac Hayes
Harry Dean Stanton
Adrienne Barbeau

Season Hubley as "Girl in Chock Full O' Nuts"

Farewell, Girl in Chock Full O' Nuts. We hardly knew ye.

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).

iirc Season Hubley was Kurt's girlfriend at the time

Lee Van Cleef's look in this scene, so good

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMGI0YzE1ZjUtZWE2Yy00NmQ5LThlMTgtZDFhOWRiNTE5MDkxXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_.jpg

This film did have the same gritty, surreal atmosphere as The Warriors, an undisputed classic.

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.

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.

I remember liking Escape from LA and find myself surprisingly not hostile to the idea of an "Old Man Snake" sequel.

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.

To me the movie kind of reads like an 80s Wm. Gibson caper but like 20% more flamboyant?