Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Escape from New York (1981) - John Carpenter | Houselights #295

Transcript

Escape from New York (1981) - John Carpenter | Houselights #295 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Nerd Party.
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: Welcome back to House Lights, our director discussion show here
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: on the Nerd Party Network. This week, we're entering the
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: House of Carpenter. with a selection of his thrilling, spooky,
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: genre-defining work from the 1980s. First, we're traveling to the
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: maximum security prison on Manhattan Island with 1981's Escape from
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: New York. I'm your host, Darren Snake Moser, and I'm
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: joined by Tristan Snake Riddell and, of course, John, call
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: him Snake, Mills. Gentlemen, get your gliders ready and check
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: your watches as we dive into Escape. From New York. Yeah.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: And the first thing this movie always makes you think
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: of is when I was at college and we were
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: all film majors. I've told these stories before, but two
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: of our roommates were both named Andrew and they both
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: wanted the nickname Snake. So we just kept calling everybody
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Snake for like one summer. And that always comes back
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: to my memory when I watch this movie again.
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: Snake is not a nickname that you ask for. It's
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: one that you earn.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, no, no. That was the joke, yeah.
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: I know, but that's like George Costanza where he's like,
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: I want to be known as T-Bone. No, no, you
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: don't get to be T-Bone. You got to earn T-Bone.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: You can be T-Bone if you're in a car accident,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: but not on request.
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: I once had a kid introduce himself to me as Maximus,
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: and I was like, no, you're not.
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: Hard pass. That ain't happening, son.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: Not at all.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: You don't look like you play ball with Richie Rich.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: So we're not going to. Yeah. Maximilian.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: No, I just want to say that while you named
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: us all Snake, I'm going to say instead that I
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: am the Duke of House Lights. So there you go.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: You can be the Duke. No, it's this movie. We're
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: going to talk about a lot of stuff, guys. We're
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: going to talk about darkness. We're going to talk about runtime.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: We're talking about editing because this movie has spades of
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: all three But I want to start with you, Tristan,
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: because this was a first view for you. So what
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: did you know going in? Did you know this was
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: going by Snake? Why did he have an eye patch?
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: Is it set now in 1997? How did it approach you?
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: I didn't know anywhere near as much as I thought
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: I did. Before I watched this, I was convinced that, oh,
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: I've seen this movie just from watching TV or walking
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: into the room. I'm sure I've seen enough of it.
• 2:46
  Speaker 4: It's one of those movies where You see all the
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: scenes out of order. That was not the case. I
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: was completely wrong. Watching this with my wife last night,
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: I didn't have any memory of any of it. I
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: was like, okay, I'm sure I saw a trailer at
• 3:00
  Speaker 4: one time and that's the only memory that I had.
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: It was a false memory. And so all I knew
• 3:05
  Speaker 4: about this movie is that it was Snake Plixen.
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: Plixen? Plisken, thank you. I knew I was going to
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: get that wrong. Plisken.
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: And that Metal Gear Solid stole a lot from this movie.
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: And that he has an eye patch and that it's
• 3:21
  Speaker 4: Kurt Russell's favorite film that he's ever done. That's all
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: I knew about this going into it. And that it
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: took place in the far future of 1997.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Far, far future. Yes. What about you, John? This sounds
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: like it could have been you saw opening day.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: I'm not that old, but I can say that I
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: saw this at such an early age that I can't
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: remember a time that escape from New York wasn't in
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: my life. And I wasn't a fan of snake Plissken.
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: Like I saw this either on late night TV or
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: I saw it, uh, like a videotape that my brother
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: rented and told me to shut my mouth so that
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: my parents didn't know I saw it or something like that.
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: Sounds like that happens, happens a lot, John. That does
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: a lot.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: Listen, you know, I, an older brother with a, uh,
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: a local video store membership. The days before even like
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: Blockbuster or Aeros roamed the earth was the mom and
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: pop shops. You were, you were a God. Like you
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: were unfettered watching R-rated movies when you were seven, man.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: And it was the best. It was a magnificent time
• 4:28
  Speaker 3: to be alive. And because it was just a tiny
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: bit of effort involved. It wasn't as easy as it,
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: as it is now. You had to like learn how
• 4:35
  Speaker 3: to negotiate, and compromise and navigate your way through just
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: like Snake does on the streets of Manhattan.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Yes, those dimly, dimly lit streets. Although you could see
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: quite a bit. Yeah, for me, this is one I
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: can't place when I first saw it. It was definitely
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: more recent, you know, high school or later. It just
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: probably might have been one of those the cover finally
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: got me. I don't know about you guys, but sometimes
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: I'd just be walking through Blockbuster and like, I don't
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: know what I want to watch. And then Again, one
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: of those covers where I'm like, oh, okay, that looks semi-interesting.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I've never seen it. Let's grab that. But I had
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: not rewatched it in a long, long time. So this
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: almost felt like a new viewing. So yeah, let's talk about,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: this movie is short, guys. It's only 99 minutes. But
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know, for me, I really felt the runtime
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: this time. This is our introduction to Carpenter. You know,
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: I feel like there's going to be a lot of
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: different sensibilities as far as that 80s pacing. But Tristan,
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: you know, first time watching, were you checking your special
• 5:45
  Speaker 2: push the button to see the time watch several times
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: during this? Or was that sense of discovery not having
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: seen it before that helped?
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: It was crazy.
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: Every time I hit my watch that showed the time,
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: it said, Two hours and 20 minutes left. Two hours
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: and 19 minutes left. Two hours and 18 minutes left.
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: And then the next time I hit it, it said
• 6:04
  Speaker 4: 30 minutes left. I was like, where did all the
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: time in between go?
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: It was crazy.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: It was crazy.
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: No, with this film, I just want to state that
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: this film was a lot of fun. I enjoyed this movie.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: I enjoyed watching this movie.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: It was campy. It was over the top. But at times,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: it was terrifying. It was innovative.
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: But the editing, good lord. this was, this was a
• 6:28
  Speaker 4: horribly edited film. Uh, we, uh, it, I think it
• 6:32
  Speaker 4: took 17 minutes to actually get going and develop the plot.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: And like that, that in itself is sane, insane. And
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: there was, we have an awkward introduction to snake. And
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: then we have a reintroduction of snake. That's bad-ass. And
• 6:52
  Speaker 4: like every single shot was too long at the beginning and,
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: And there was a time, I can't remember where I
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: said it, but both my wife and I said out loud,
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: almost at the same time, this is where the.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: Movie should have started.
• 7:06
  Speaker 4: This was such an overly long intro and so uninteresting.
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: And it could have been condensed a crazy amount. This
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: movie could be so much tighter all around. But the
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: thing is, is that I'm coming into it with a
• 7:20
  Speaker 4: 2026 mentality. And I have zero nostalgia for it. And
• 7:24
  Speaker 4: so I'm sure there's people out there including in this podcast,
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: who are screaming inside their heads about, you know, what
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: I'm saying. But like, again, while I said this was
• 7:32
  Speaker 4: a fun ride, it has no business being this long
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: and could be much tighter to be a much more
• 7:37
  Speaker 4: enjoyable experience.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: John, for you, again, you have that nostalgia, you know,
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: attached to your brother. Oh, yes.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Again, I don't know that it was my brother that
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: was the means by which I saw this. It belongs
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: in the mists of time.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: Unknown, unnamed people in the past.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: No, no, no. I mean, seriously, this could have been
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: a late night TV discovery for me when I was
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: a kid. Because this is the type of, quote unquote,
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: R-rated movie where it's like, right. Seriously, every time I
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: watch this, I'm like, I could show this to my kid. Because,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: I don't know, yeah, they got the fight to the
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: death thing, but like, eh. There's so little blood. It
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: really is. Carpenter is known for horror and excitement and
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: all of these things. And it's like, really, the only
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: movie he ever did where there was real blood everywhere
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: was The Thing, which we'll get to. But Halloween, which
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: is like, oh my gosh, it's the great granddaddy of
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: slasher movies. There's hardly any blood in it. It's crazy
• 8:39
  Speaker 3: because it's the movie that set the template. And then
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: with Escape from New York, I look at it and I'm.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Like, this is.
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, this would fight to get up to a
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: PG-13 nowadays. So to your point about sensibilities, Tristan, yeah,
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: back then, times are different. Things are different and everything.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: I don't have a problem with the editing on that scale.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I totally get what you're saying. For me, there are
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: certain points at the end where I would have trimmed
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: it and made it tighter, especially on the actual escape
• 9:07
  Speaker 3: from the bridge part. But by that point, the movie
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: has earned so much goodwill from me, I'm willing to
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: let it slide. And I'm fully aware that Russell as
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Plissken buy so much goodwill from me that I forgive
• 9:22
  Speaker 3: things that I wouldn't forgive in other movies. Like this,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: this is one of those things where this is Kurt
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: Russell's role as much as Indiana Jones belongs to Harrison Ford.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: There were rumors that they were going to remake this
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: at some point. And I was like, Oh hell no,
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: absolutely not. And they even offered Russell the chance to
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: come back and play the president. And, I forget what
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: show he's being interviewed on. They're like, yeah, you can
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: come back and play the president. And Kurt Russell was like,
• 9:47
  Speaker 3: I told him, no, he's like, I don't have any
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: interest in that. He's like, I'm snake.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: I was snake. And you want to offer me the
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: president role? No, not a chance.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: But I think that, while I understand where you're coming from, Tristan,
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: it is one of the things where Snake gets that
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: sort of like pseudo-introduction, and you're like, oh, this is
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: about to go, and then you get introduced to the
• 10:09
  Speaker 3: situation with the president. And the reason I actually appreciate
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: that is because Snake's capture is, I don't see it
• 10:18
  Speaker 3: as as story convenient as it would appear in what
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: I would expect a typical movie like this to be
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: where you would see the president go down and then
• 10:28
  Speaker 3: snake would arrive. And they're like, it just so happens
• 10:30
  Speaker 3: snakes there. It's like, no snakes gonna go to prison.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: And then the president goes down and it's like, Oh, cool.
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: Snakes here. It seems, it just comes across as less
• 10:39
  Speaker 3: convenient to me. Now the specific edit of going totally
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: get that of going to black, like cutting the commercial.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: That's awkward. That's weird. Now, I do want to say
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: the editor on this film also served as an editor
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: on Star Trek The Motion Picture. So maybe slow-moving movies
• 11:00
  Speaker 3: are a thing for Todd Ramsey. I'm just putting it
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: out there.
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: Well, TMP wasn't all Ramsey's fault because they had like
• 11:08
  Speaker 4: 30 minutes to put that movie together.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: There's the Trekker coming out. You know, all of a
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: sudden we're an apologist for the style. I get it.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: I get it. It's okay.
• 11:17
  Speaker 4: No, the dip to black, the phantom dip to black
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: totally took me out of it.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I was just like, what are we doing? What's happening here?
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: We go into a dream sequence.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It's time for a commercial break, you know.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: It does. That's what it feels like.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: John, I think you're absolutely right that it would feel
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: more contrived if we didn't see him beforehand. But then
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: that's when I feel like to solve that issue, we
• 11:41
  Speaker 4: could have... shown Snake... Call me Snake. Snake doing the
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: thing that got him into prison, which apparently they actually
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: wrote in the script. Oh, and they filmed it. Yeah,
• 11:52
  Speaker 4: and they filmed it, but then test audiences didn't like
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: it or something.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: It's terrible. I've watched it.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: It's not good.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: It doesn't work at all.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: No.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: You don't want that to be your.
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: Introduction to Snake. Him robbing a bank, and it feels
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: like it's so low stakes. And you're like, this is
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: what he got sent to New York for? Okay, fine.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: And everybody knows his name.
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: I would argue if you're going to come at it structurally,
• 12:11
  Speaker 3: I would, you know, you take me back to that
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: story conference with Nick Castle and John Carpenter. I'm pitching
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: Snake's in there. And the first thing they have to
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: do is they have to go in and get Snake
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: and pull him out and tell him what the mission is.
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: That would have been neat.
• 12:26
  Speaker 4: But that's not what happened. And I'm fine with it. Okay,
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: so the narration at the beginning, I like it. Is
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: it true, John, that it's Jamie Lee Curtis?
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, 100%. Absolutely. It's Jamie Lee Curtis in an uncredited role.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: And you actually hear her as like a computer voice
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: a little bit later, too. But yes, it's Jamie Lee
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: Curtis doing her her pal John Carpenter a solid by
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: doing the narration in the beginning, which I think is
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: I mean, this this is an important thing because you're like, oh,
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: I'm looking at it with 2026 eyes and everything. People
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: in 1981. This was not a strange idea for New
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: York to go this way, even without being turned into
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: a prison. Like New York was not a pleasant place
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: in the 70s, nor was it a pleasant place in
• 13:09
  Speaker 3: the 80s. Like it didn't become, you know, this weird,
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: you know, Disneyland experience until the 90s. Like I remember
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: how rough New York was back then. And so like
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: that's part of the fun is being old enough to
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: look at it and have that lens and be like,
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: this is just where everybody thought New York was bound
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: to end up. Like, that's fun to me because it
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: is such a time capsule on this seemed, you know,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: achievable back then just by entropy.
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: And how horrible do you have to feel living in St. Louis,
• 13:44
  Speaker 4: you know, or being like a St. Louis native and
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: thinking like, oh man, we can't shoot in New York
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: because it would be too difficult to show a decaying
• 13:52
  Speaker 4: New York.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: So where else could we go?
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: Oh, I know.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Let's shoot in St.
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: Louis.
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: Oh, you mean like when they decided they needed to
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: show Metropolis- host man of steel and they went detroit
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: we're gonna shoot we're gonna shoot in detroit you know
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: that's kind of rough too you gotta.
• 14:08
  Speaker 4: Feel like at least where you know like where i
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: live you know and and work in chicago like when
• 14:14
  Speaker 4: like when they went there for the dark night it's
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: it's supposed to be like a gleaming city on the
• 14:20
  Speaker 4: hill like just on the edge of of getting better
• 14:23
  Speaker 4: at least there's that right it's on an upward swing.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: I mean to st louis's point it you left out
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: that they had had like a massive fire a couple
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: of years earlier and we're just taking advantage of the
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: burned out parts of the city. Yes.
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: It's true.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: I did.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: They parked themselves in downtown and Hey, it just happened
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: to look like dystopian New York. I would say that
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: modern day St.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: Louis might not have recovered yet, but I'm just going
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: to throw that out there.
• 14:49
  Speaker 2: We love you St.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: Louis listeners. Just making a joke.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: So this is, so again, we're looking at this movie,
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: you know, obviously as it's piece of its place in time,
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: But we're also, this is our introduction to John Carpenter.
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: So it's going to be really interesting over these next
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: couple of movies as we look at, you know, what
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: is his main strength? Is it the story building? Is
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: it the creating a really good character that you're kind
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: of connecting with as they're evolving or the insurmountable thing
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: they're put up against? So while this, for me, this
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: does feel like a, it's hard to say. You know,
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: we've mentioned, you know, freshman outings, sophomore outings, things like that.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: this post Halloween. So this is post his big break.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: This was kind of the, the, I would say the
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: blank check movie of the idea he had. Not quite.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: No, he, he did the fog.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Oh, that's right.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: And so he had two successes. The fog was, was
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: not a success on the scale of Halloween, but it
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: was still a success.
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: Sure. He wasn't a winner. Yeah.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Well, this moves him beyond horror because the fog is
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: a horror story. Halloween's a horror story. And it's like,
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: this is the one where he's like, okay, I can
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: do something other than horror. I can do a different
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: type of movie. And like even casting Lee Van Cleef,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: like this is such a love story to like the
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: tough guy Westerns. Like you're seeing sort of a guy
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: known for playing characters that wound up influencing who Snake
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: Plissken was on screen with him. It's like, I kind
• 16:17
  Speaker 3: of love him as Halk. It's a whole lot of fun.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Definitely. And again, I mean, this movie, this movie was
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: 45 years ago. but from that movie back to the
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: time of the Western was not that far. So you
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: still have a lot of audience recognition, you know, for,
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: for Lee and would see those parallels for sure. Now,
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: obviously we have a little bit of connections with Halloween.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: And that's also what I enjoy seeing as we're looking
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: at a director, you know, like we just mentioned Jamie
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: Lee Curtis and we also, you know, have Donald Pleasance
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: where he, Because I think, oh, that's right, he was Dr.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Sam Lewis in Halloween. So you're starting to see, oh, yeah,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: I know why they got that guy. Or, oh, it's
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: definitely that who you know. And we're going to see
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: that more and more as we go.
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: When I started this movie and we had that incredibly
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: long intro of just the credits, and then you started
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: seeing who was in it, I tried to guess who
• 17:19
  Speaker 4: they were.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Going to play.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: Oh, fun.
• 17:22
  Speaker 4: And I think I was like 75% right. And I
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: loved it. And that's not a criticism. It's just like
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: when we see Ernest Borgnine, I was like, okay, he's
• 17:31
  Speaker 4: going to be the plucky sidekick somehow. And then we
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: see Isaac Hayes. I was like, he's going to be
• 17:36
  Speaker 4: some big wig in New York City. And then we
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: see Donald Pleasance. And I'm just like, he's got to
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: be the president of the United States, a British president
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: of the United States.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: He's a North. No, he's a New Englander.
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: They speak with that sort of. upper crust accent sometimes.
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: No, that's the only thing I could think of watching
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: the titles was a small documentary I recently watched on
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: the making of Monty Python and the Holy Grail on
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: how little their budget was that they had no budget
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: to make like a traditional opening title, which is why
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: we got what we got. And I'm like, did that
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: happen here? Because it's literally music, a black screen, white text,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: like not even even under the the intro describing the prison.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: You know how some titles will kind of bleed into
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: the movie and still kind of be happening, you know,
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: in the corner. No, we're just going to watch an
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: unskippable track of this movie as we go through the
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: entire titles.
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: But that is a hallmark of Carpenter as well. You
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: go back all the way back to Halloween and it's
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: like it's all about setting up the overture and getting
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: that theme in your head. And, you know, Snake Shake,
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: the theme from Escape from New York is I could
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: listen to it on loop forever. I freaking love it.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: Carpenter makes just the most straightforwardly simple but earwormy themes
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: for his movies. The Halloween theme gets stuck in your brain.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: This gets stuck in your brain. Like it's crazy how
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: he like, I mean, you know, he's doing the soundtrack.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: He's doing the movie. He's doing everything. Like he's the
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: one-stop shop guy. And it'll be interesting to see as
• 19:22
  Speaker 3: he moves forward, whether he can let go of some
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: of that control or not. I think anybody who's seen
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: his movies knows the answer to that question, but it's
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: I really enjoy the intro. I think the intro is
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: one of the reasons that I still give it so
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: much leniency for other stuff. is because it's very dedicated
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: with that intro to let you feel the groove. It's like,
• 19:44
  Speaker 3: this is the groove of the movie. This is the mood.
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: This is the tone. And it really does a fantastic job.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: But you shake off the outside world, and now you're
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: in the world of Snake Plissken.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: Right. Exactly right.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, we don't scoff at the overture in 2001.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: It's the exact same thing. It's a whole track that
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: just brings you in. Like you said- it's very much
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: an overture into it.
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: Oh, I scoff at 2001.
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: Of course you do. I mean, I was.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Talking to the Duke, A number one over here.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: But to keep it tied together with Mr. Todd Ramsey,
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: do you scoff at the overture to Star Trek The
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: Motion Picture?
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: I usually fast forward it, yeah.
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Wow, really?
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Man, you're a monster.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: Okay, so I get blamed for being a Trekkie, a Trekker,
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: defending it, and then I get blamed when I don't
• 20:31
  Speaker 4: defend it.
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's just like me with my Star Wars fan.
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: It's the internet right there. If I like it, it's
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: because I'm a Star Wars fan. If I don't like it,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: it's because I'm a Star Wars fan.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: I feel like I'm on Reddit.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: There you go. So, ow, that's mean.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: Don't do that.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: In researching this, it looked like Carpenter was really pushing
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: for Kurt Russell to be the lead in this. And
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: the studio was not, you know, surprise, surprise, studio was
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: not agreeing because Russell was, really trying to shake that
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: strongest man alive, computer war, tennis shoes, you know, that Disney,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: you know, nice color college guy vibe that was not
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: that long before this, like maybe five or six years
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: at most. And so, you know, he's still rather young
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: in this. And did that like track for you, Tristan?
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: I mean, I mean, I know we're, we're viewing it after, uh,
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: you know, Kurt Russell, the action hero, who's been in
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: dozens of things, but were you able to kind of
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: put yourself in that freshman outing of his career for this?
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: Or was it easy to see where he would go?
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: Yeah, this was, I can't really answer that because I
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: have no frame of reference. I can't put myself in
• 21:45
  Speaker 4: the Disney era of Russell. In fact, I'm completely ignorant
• 21:48
  Speaker 4: of the Disney era of Russell. And so to me,
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: all of his career has been post-Plissken.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: And it's important to keep in mind as well. I mean,
• 21:58
  Speaker 3: the thing is, this is, I know I went back
• 22:01
  Speaker 3: to Halloween, but like, you know, Carpenter had done Assault
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: on Precinct 13 and Dark Star pre-Halloween. So he had
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: done non-horror. But like, if you think that like Escape
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: from New York is a low budget movie or Halloween
• 22:13
  Speaker 3: is a low budget movie, go watch Assault from Precinct 13.
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: That's a low budget movie. That's a crazy low budget movie.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: but they had worked together on Elvis, which was a TV.
• 22:24
  Speaker 2: That's right.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Uh, prior to this, uh, Carpenter did that actually between, uh,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: it's crazy because Carpenter did two TV movies after Halloween. Like,
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: think about that. Like, that's crazy. And one of them
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: was Elvis and it was starring Kurt Russell, which is
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: why if you watch, um, uh, his Santa Claus movie,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: the first one on Netflix, he has a musical scene
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: and it harkens back to him playing Elvis, which is,
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: which is delightful. But I think that that's where that,
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: that relationship first gets forged. And it makes perfect sense
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: to me that they were just looking for a way
• 22:58
  Speaker 3: to work together again after that.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: Now, are you saying that was strange that he went
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: back to television or that he did it so quickly
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: in succession after Halloween?
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Think about a director nowadays who hits it big, right?
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: Halloween's a tremendous success. And then his next two features
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: are TV movies.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: That's, That doesn't really happen.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Especially in the pre-streaming era. It's like, it kind of
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: breaks my brain because it's like, how does that happen? Like,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: you know, imagine that, because Halloween was a massive independent
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: film success, like on a scale unimaginable. And, you know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: it's almost like Coppola doing like The Godfather. And then
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: it's like, and then, you know, he did, you know,
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: a TV movie for Little House on the Prairie or something.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: Let's, let's.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: Let's not throw in comparisons to the Godfather. Okay.
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: First and foremost, I will compare. No, no, hold on.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: I will compare Halloween to the Godfather. All right. So
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: leave me alone on that. But number two, I'm talking
• 23:59
  Speaker 3: about in terms of hitting a strata of success. Right.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I don't understand how somebody is.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, no, no. I know. And that wasn't exactly the trajectory.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're, we're saying success just if, in case
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: you didn't know, dear listeners, uh, Halloween had a budget
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: around $ 300, 000 and made around $ 70 million in 1978 money.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: That's crazy. Yeah.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: It was an unimaginable return on investment. But anyway, so yeah,
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: I think that Elvis is where the relationship is forged
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: with Russell and Carpenter. And then they're looking for a
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: project to work together. And I think it's obvious that
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: Russell's just having the time of his life.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: Oh, he's chewing up the scenery.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: So much fun. It's a joy to watch him, just
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: how much fun he's having. It's ridiculous.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: So he's dropped in here. Like you said, this isn't...
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: Do I want to say mid-budget? I don't know. It's
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: not a shoestring budget, per se. It's got some money
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: behind it, but there's a lot this movie has to
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: pull off. It has to pull off in 81... this
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: dystopian New York. And that is very difficult. There are
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of tricks that you can do, but you
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: have to really reach into that toolkit. You have matte paintings,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: you have miniatures, you know, on location special effects. I
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: think James Cameron was even involved in this as a
• 25:24
  Speaker 2: matte painter pre, you know, directing days. So for this one,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: the thing that's most impressive to me as far as
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: locations is that they actually got to shoot on Liberty Island.
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: Like that's not, let's pretend it's Liberty Island. There's like
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: a shot. No, it's right there. It's right there.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: When I saw that, I knew when it was shot.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: And so I was just like, how did they do that? Like, how, like,
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: is that some sort of matte painting? You know, what's
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: going on? Like I was talking about your brain breaking, John,
• 25:55
  Speaker 4: like that broke my brain. And like, as the shot progressed,
• 25:58
  Speaker 4: I was like, that's not fake. How on earth did
• 26:00
  Speaker 4: they get permission to do that?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this was the first movie to be allowed to
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: film on Liberty Island. So they had the entire island
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: one night to shoot all those shots. Apparently this was
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: like three months after a bomb scare. So they were
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: unsure if it was even going to happen. But yeah,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: there's something about, yeah, they knew the assignment. They're like,
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: we have to have some sort of tracking shot to
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: prove that we are actually here or everyone's going to think,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, it's just another, it's like, no, dang it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: we were on the Island. We're going to prove that
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: we had the chops, but I always liked that shot.
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: It's just, it's so immersive.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I, you know, while it's obviously a matte painting
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: and everything, seeing the twin towers in the skyline and
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: then just having the sort of, you know, modern day
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: reaction to seeing the plane heading toward the city as
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: air force one is going down and you see the
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: twin towers there, like it, It's so weird because it
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: plays so differently because you have that real-life history sitting
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: in your brain that nobody could even think of. It
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: wasn't even in anybody's brain back then. And just to
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: see it is just wild. So while the Liberty Island
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: stuff is gorgeous because they actually filmed there, and I
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: think all of the shots are great, it's that one
• 27:23
  Speaker 3: matte painting shot and the plane going in is like,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: like I, that one, that one hits so differently over
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: the last 25 years than it did prior to that.
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: Like it, it's, it's really wild.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: No, you're right. Any, anything in the, in the nineties
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: or previous that has that in the skyline, it's just,
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: it's a kind of a recontextualization that obviously was not intentional.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: There's no way that they would have known. No, that
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: leads to, you know, one of the other really cool
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: shots of this movie is, is the glider scene is
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: an amazing shot. And I'm sure it blew Tristan's mind
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: with these amazing wireframe special effects. It did. I lost
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: my mind.
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: That was another thing where I was just like, how
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: in blue perfect hell did they do CGI wireframing in 81?
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: I was blown away. I was like, there's no way.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: There's no way.
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: And I was right, but I couldn't figure it out
• 28:26
  Speaker 4: until I did some research on it. And the way
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: that they did it is just so obscenely cool where
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: they're like, listen, guys, we don't have the money to
• 28:33
  Speaker 4: do this. We definitely don't have the money to make
• 28:35
  Speaker 4: a CGI wireframe sequence. And so they put like neon
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: tape on the edges of the real models that they made.
• 28:44
  Speaker 4: By the way, the model work in this is freaking fantastic.
• 28:47
  Speaker 4: And then they just shined it with a black light
• 28:50
  Speaker 4: and then messed with the shutter settings on the camera
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: and walked through it as if they were flying.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And it totally sells it. It totally sells it.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, in a way, I think it's even
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: better than if it was wireframe. Because wireframe, you see
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: through the buildings. And it would just look like a
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: mass of lines. But because this is a physical object
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: with highlighted edges, the buildings create a density of foreground
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: and background. I was most impressed by the three shots.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: The fact that you had the forward camera and the
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: port and the starboard. And they all basically lined up.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: So as the glider was turning, they were all banking
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: the same way. Because I know those are separate passes,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: like how they're pulling it off. And then we do
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: get a little bit of actual wireframe for that last
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: tiny actually laying on top of the Twin Towers. But yeah,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: it is one of those things where I'm trying to
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: think of other movies that have done it similarly, but
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: there have been other times where art has imagined a
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: computer and they're definitely using different techniques than actual computers
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: because they just can't handle it. Or like you said,
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: The budget wasn't there. Like we can do it, but
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: it's going to cost 20 million of our 6 million
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: budget to do this one wireframe shot. So yeah, that,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: that was a very impressive. So, okay. We've talked about
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: the music. We've talked about the effects, map paintings, amazing
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: things in this. I want to make sure we don't
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: miss anyone on our cast list because even though there's
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of, you know, little roles, there's a lot of,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: you know, as the story is going, I think my favorite,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard to say favorite outside of Snake,
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: because Snake's just there. He's just, like, I can't put
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: him on my list because he's just Snake. He's just,
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: he is the list. But if I had to go
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: past Snake, I like Harold, or aka Brain, this great
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: little role by Harry Dean Stalton, who, you know, I'm
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: a huge Alien fan, so I'm enjoying seeing him not
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: being a space trucker, but John, was there another role?
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: Was it Cabby? Was it the Duke? That kind of just,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: I mean, they're sharing the screen with Snake, but that
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: they kind of shone for you?
• 31:08
  Speaker 3: I mean, you know, I think that the greatness of
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: the cast here is even Russell is willing to share
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: the screen. He's not, even though he's Snake Plissken and
• 31:22
  Speaker 3: he is undeniably Snake, the protagonist of this film, he's
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: sharing the screen with people in such a way that he,
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: it never feels like he's trying to edge anybody out.
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: And I think that, I mean, you got Adrian Barbeau, who's,
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm a big fan. Um, I love even
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: seeing Ox Baker, who is like legendary pro wrestler type
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: of guy, like showing up in the fight scene. And
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, that's like, that's speaking my language right there.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: You know, Tom Atkins, like you have all of these
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: people who are, uh, absolutely, you know, their, their talents are,
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: in their own right, that never get the chance to
• 32:00
  Speaker 3: have the spotlight on them. And the sense I get
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: through the entire film is that the spotlight's shared with them.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: It's never done in such a way that focuses on
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Kurt Russell at the exclusion of the other actors. But
• 32:16
  Speaker 3: I think that the guy who is undeniably my favorite
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: is Isaac Hayes as the Duke. I can't escape him.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Like the Duke of New York is the coolest guy
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: in the world. Like I'd follow him, you know, and it's,
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: you know, if I'm on, listen, if I'm on Manhattan Island,
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: it's been turned into a prison. I know I, you
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: got to align with somebody. But I, you know, I
• 32:39
  Speaker 3: really liked the, the interplay between Stanton and Barbeau. Like,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: I like that fun chemistry that they have with each other.
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: And I think that really comes through.
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: You, Tristan, there is another character that was sharing the
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: light with Snake. You know, was it running the gambit
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: of the bridge or every time, you know, Cabby, his
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: name is Cabby. You know, how can you hate that?
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: It comes on screen. Romero.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I freaking love Romero.
• 33:07
  Speaker 4: The moment, the moment he comes on screen, he knows
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: exactly what movie he's in. And I mean, how easy
• 33:14
  Speaker 4: would it have been to get into character with that
• 33:17
  Speaker 4: hair and makeup? Like seriously, like my wife and I
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: both just, you know, like moved a little bit forward
• 33:24
  Speaker 4: in our seats whenever he came on screen and we
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: were just laughing our asses off at how he was
• 33:29
  Speaker 4: performing it.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And even his death scene where he's like.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah it's just he's so ridiculous and he's just
• 33:37
  Speaker 4: so cool looking and ridiculous looking i.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: I loved it i loved it he was by far
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: my favorite character.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: He almost looked like he jumped out of mad max
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: and like ran over to this set and he's like
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: oh post-apocalyptic i got you i got you we.
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: Kept calling him the lost boy um because it's like
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: it's like Like my wife said, oh, he's the Lost Boys.
• 33:59
  Speaker 4: But like when Wendy came back and found out that
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: things went terribly wrong.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, I love his introduction when he just
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: walks out. He's like, you know, he's like, you have
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: 30 seconds to leave. He's like, maybe we can talk. 29, 28.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: He's just counting down. And Lee Van Cleef, I think,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: plays it so well because you see this change in
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: his face. He's like, yeah, he's not effing around. And
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: they all just leave.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: No, he was good. And I, I noticed in a
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: lot of his shots, he was a smart villain as
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: far as, you know, yes, he got the, you know,
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: the drop on him and, and he got taken out. But,
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: you know, when he answers the door and they're like,
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: oh yeah, the Duke sent us here. And he's like, no,
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: he didn't. It's like, oh, oh man, you have two
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: brain cells. What do I do? How am I going
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: to get by you? So that was, is interesting. It
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: was an actual interesting counter to our protagonists as they're
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: trying to achieve their goals. It's like, Oh, this guy's,
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: he knows what the Duke wants and what he doesn't.
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: You're not going to drive a stake between them in
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: two minutes. So now you got to pivot and figure
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: out what to do. And usually pivot is stab them
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: and grab a gun, you know, but yeah, so we're,
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: you know, we're set in New York. It was just,
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: you were talking, you know, Tristan about the, the tension
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: of this movie. And I noticed on this watch for me,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: it was really for myself, putting myself in this situation
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: of snake where you are, you're cut off. Like, yeah,
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: you're walking down an alley at night. Yes. It's New
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: York futuristic, whatever. But it made me think, Oh man,
• 35:31
  Speaker 2: like if I was in this situation, it's like, you
• 35:34
  Speaker 2: don't know who to trust. Like there's danger literally around
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: every corner under the street around you. Like, I, I
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: guess I just felt like overwhelmed as far as I
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: didn't even know where I would start if I was
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: dropped into this situation. So I, did that kind of
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: build that tension you were talking about? Or was it
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: more like interpersonal tension of like the characters?
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: I think there, there was a few moments that really
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: kind of get you going. Uh, you know, even though
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: this movie can be ridiculous in a fun way, there
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: are moments that are genuinely terrifying. And I think the
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: first one where I was like, Whoa, who was in
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: a chuck full of nuts when, um, What's her name?
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: I think in the novelization it was Maureen. And I
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: think it was Kurt Russell's real-life wife. When she got
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: sucked into the ground. When she just went through the
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: freaking floor. Because people were underneath and pulled her down.
• 36:27
  Speaker 4: That is genuinely frightening. And you don't see it coming.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: You know something's about to happen. You know that danger
• 36:35
  Speaker 4: is just around the corner. But you have no idea
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: that she's going to get sucked through the floor. And
• 36:39
  Speaker 4: when he goes to the theater.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: And then like starts going to the bowels of the theater.
• 36:48
  Speaker 4: I think I even said out loud, I said, because
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: when you see that all the people on stage are men,
• 36:54
  Speaker 4: and then he walks downstairs, I'm like, man, I don't
• 36:57
  Speaker 4: think women would be treated too well in this environment.
• 37:01
  Speaker 4: And then almost as if God was listening, the very
• 37:04
  Speaker 4: next scene, we see, you know, the beginnings of a
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: sexual assault. And thankfully, we don't see the rest of it.
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: But it's, uh, again, it's just like, it's just more
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: and more terrifying as he goes through the, these bowels,
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: these bowels of hell. And I think you, you, they
• 37:19
  Speaker 4: do a really great job of establishing tone. Like once
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: Snake actually gets into New York, they do a very
• 37:24
  Speaker 4: good job of establishing tone and him, like he, he
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: is a badass, but he's not invincible, which I really appreciate.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: And this was right before, uh, every single action hero
• 37:38
  Speaker 4: had to have, uh, very showy, but useless muscles, you know, like,
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: like you didn't have to look like Arnold. You didn't
• 37:45
  Speaker 4: have to look like a bodybuilder to be an action star.
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: And I really appreciated that. And yeah, I just think
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: like going on from that, it was really just like
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: the ticking clock literally in, in some cases really, really helped.
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: So I think those moments of dread built with the
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: ticking clock, I think established the tone.
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: So John, you know, for me, the, it was an
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: interesting vibe once we're in New York. And I think
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: I can articulate that dread. That is kind of that
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: Western overlay where he's the gunslinger coming into town and
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: you don't know what is around any corner. You know,
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: people are armed. People could jump out at you. Like
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: you are on your back foot the entire time. Did
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: you get kind of that, you know, Western vibe with this?
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: that they're kind of trying to match. I mean, that's
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: obviously the 80s and obviously, you know, there's lasers.
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: There's no doubt that it's in there.
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: You're right.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: You know, I mean, if anything, it calls to mind
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: shades of Yojimbo, right? You're going in and the town sucks. And,
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: you know, is the guy going to, you know, make
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: it out? Is he going to do the right thing?
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: Is everything going to be okay at the end? But
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: what I love is this turns it on its ear
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: and this guy doesn't care about doing, he cares about
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: doing the thing that he's got to do. And it's
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: I I just you know, there's so much worldview that
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: I wonder how much Escape from New York did influence
• 39:11
  Speaker 3: it influenced me later in life. You know, whereas like
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: it's the president, president of what? Get yourself a new president. Like,
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, you don't have a good guy here. He's
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: not a good guy. He's just Snake Plissken. And at
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: the end, you know, it's like, oh, you know, this
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: thing is going to give us the upper hand. We're
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: going to win World War 3 that we're fighting right
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: now and Plissken's like ah screw it and just like
• 39:33
  Speaker 3: let the world burn it's like it's the most beautifully
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: like fun nihilism that you could see on screen because
• 39:41
  Speaker 3: you're not you're not mad at Snake you're not like
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: no we've got to fight along like you get Snake's
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: vibe especially after he's gone through New York he's like
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: eh let it burn It's like, oh, anyway, all that
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: to say, like, yeah, it's got a Western vibe, but
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: it doesn't have, you know, the the gunslinger with a
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: heart of gold. He's just the gunslinger. And that's why
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: I think that's why so many people love Snake Plissken,
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: because he's a believable badass. Like, he's not doing it
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: because he's like, because the world did me wrong, but
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: I'm going to. OK, fine. I'll save the people. He's
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: just like, no, I'm doing this because this is what's
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: going to make me live. So, you know, like, OK, like,
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: I just I. Yeah. Anyway, long way of agreeing with
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: you and all of that.
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: No, no, no. You said some great things, especially agreeing
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: with me. Tristan, as we're rounding third, you know, we've
• 40:31
  Speaker 2: talked about Snake and there's definitely no protagonist confusion in
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: this movie. Dear Lord, it's so over the top that
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Snake is the lead. But I'm curious on this kind
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: of your initial viewing, did it feel like the setup
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: worked as a payoff or was it my goodness, they
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: have to go through all these hoops to get this
• 40:53
  Speaker 2: specific person in this specific scenario so that he has
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: to do the acts of the movie. I know sometimes
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: when I'm watching a movie where it feels like they're
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: going through extra hoops to set up the exact scenario
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: of the movie, it doesn't quite work. But how did
• 41:09
  Speaker 2: this come across to you after the five-minute overture of
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Black Text? Was it a plausible enough setup where they
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: drew you in with that narration and intro or were
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: you like okay i'm on board let's start the let's
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: start the.
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: Movie i think with this type of movie either you're
• 41:28
  Speaker 4: on board or you're not either you're going to have
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: a good time or you're not i don't really think
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: it's something that you need to be convinced of i
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: mean there's there's plenty of things that happen in this
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: movie whether it's set up or whether it's uh plausibility
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: i mean you you got to check that crap at
• 41:44
  Speaker 4: the door and i'm not saying that as a bad
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: thing I'm saying that like when you go into a
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: movie like this, even if you don't know what you're
• 41:50
  Speaker 4: getting into, like especially watching it in 2026 and you're
• 41:54
  Speaker 4: like the far future of 1997, you know, Jamie Lee
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: at the beginning says this, this is what's going on.
• 42:00
  Speaker 4: And you're like, okay, your brain can instantly think of
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: a thousand different possibilities that we would be better than
• 42:06
  Speaker 4: walling off Manhattan and putting everybody in there, you know,
• 42:09
  Speaker 4: flying them from across the country and putting them in there.
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: But you don't need to do that. You just accept
• 42:15
  Speaker 4: the premise or you don't. And when you want to
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: have a good time, whether it's an action film, a
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: sci-fi film, or both, or an exploitation film, or something
• 42:25
  Speaker 4: over the top like this one, you just go along
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: for the ride.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: And you're like, listen to Jamie Lee. That's all you
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: got to do.
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, listen to Jamie Lee. Now, I read that in
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: the initial screening of this, when they were testing it,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: they did not have that opening... narration bit. And you
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: didn't really learn kind of what was going on until
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: like two thirds of the way through kind of really
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: what the stakes were. And it did not do well
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: because people just weren't really invested by then. But with
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: a couple of low budget, let's going to draw on
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: this PowerPoint presentation and show you the wall going around Manhattan. And,
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: you know, like you said, they sold you on that 1997,
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: and then you're buckled up for the ride, at least
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: in my opinion. All right. Well, I see we got
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: about five minutes left on our timer, so we better
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: start answering our ratings. Then I'll give you the x-ray
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: treatment to the jugular. John, as the Duke of Orlando,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: you must please, A, number one, Give me your rating
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: and any final thoughts.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: I kind of want to start calling John the Duke
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: of Orlando.
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: That's fine. That works for me. But I do want
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: to say that forever listening to the soundtrack, I always
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: love the fact that they have selected clips from the
• 43:48
  Speaker 3: movie and burned in my brain forever. And I swear
• 43:51
  Speaker 3: I got to find a way, like when I have
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: my memorial, when I've like died in the future or
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: anything like that, Like, and they have the memorial. I'm
• 43:58
  Speaker 3: going to open it with Donald Pleasance chained to a
• 44:01
  Speaker 3: wall going, you are the Duke of New York.
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: Oh, hey, number one.
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Like that is one of my favorite things in movie history.
• 44:09
  Speaker 3: I have always loved this film. Make arguments about nostalgia
• 44:14
  Speaker 3: if you want to, whatever. But it's again, it's been
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: ingrained in my brain since I don't know how long
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: I've known this movie. And typically I've come in at
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: a four and a half with it. Cause there are,
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: there are some things where like, if I want to nitpick. Yeah. Yeah. There,
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: there are things that gotta be fixed here and there,
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: but I gotta tell you, it's so completely possesses what
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: it is, makes no apologies for it. And it has
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: one of the greatest performances from Kurt Russell in a
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: long and illustrious, an illustrious career. I'm coming in with
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: a five this time. Don't care. Hate me, judge me,
• 44:52
  Speaker 3: whatever you want. Send me to New York as a
• 44:56
  Speaker 3: walled prison with mines on the bridges out. But, you know,
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: you do have to question, was the real estate in
• 45:04
  Speaker 3: like Staten Island still valuable at the time? Like you
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: were right next to this giant prison.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: Is it valuable now?
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: Well, reasonably. It's one of the five boroughs, right? Like Brooklyn's,
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: you know, it's a thing. I mean, nothing's going to
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: help Jersey.
• 45:18
  Speaker 4: I'm just messing with you folks at Staten Island. I
• 45:21
  Speaker 4: just got done watching What We Do in the Shadows,
• 45:23
  Speaker 4: the TV show, and there's always taking cheap shots at
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: Staten Island.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: With good reason.
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I come in at a five. That's where
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: I'm sticking with it, and I'm not going to change
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: my story.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: All right. Just like this movie, you're going to walk off,
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: have a cig, call me Plissken.
• 45:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: All right. For me, yeah, this movie... I don't have
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: the nostalgia connection, but I found myself as I'm watching it,
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: kind of just watching it as a story where it
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: was doing a great job of this happens. And then,
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: you know, so you could see like as the different
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: things came at our hero, it really drove the plot.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: It wasn't just a character who's dropped into something. It's like, no,
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: he's got his goal. He's got to get, you know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: get to where the Duke is. But then again, There's
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: a barricade he's got to get through. And then he
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: gets through the barricades like, and then, you know, so
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: I was really enjoying that aspect of the story. I
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: felt it was well written in that regard, pacing and timing.
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: You know, it it's 81 and that's, I felt like
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: they put every scrap of footage they could to get
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: that runtime. But I did read that they used some
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: sort of special lens to try to draw the as
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: much light into the camera as possible. And I thank
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: them for it because while it was very dark, I
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: could still see, you know, what enough of what was
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: going on. It was a different kind of dark. It
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: was an 81 dark.
• 46:52
  Speaker 4: I just saw the Cliff Booth trailer by David Fincher.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: And the entire time I was watching it, I was
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: thinking about you, Darren, because it could be the literal
• 47:04
  Speaker 4: darkest movie that Fincher has ever made.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: Well, there you go. Oh, I started playing it on
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: my DVD. I forgot to turn on the monitor, but
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: I wouldn't have known for how dark it was.
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: Well, I mean, tip of the hat to the legendary
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: Dean Cundy for, you know, for doing that, for getting
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: that special lens and also. having a nighttime that's well
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: lit enough to see and isn't a blue wash the
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: way it is with a James Cameron.
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: Yes. It wasn't a blue night. It was a black night,
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: a dark night as one would say.
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to give it a solid three. It's enjoyable.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: I do watch it every once in a while, but
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: it is not on my go-to. And I think a
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: lot of that is just kind of that nostalgia not
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: being there of, of going yet. But, This is one
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: I'd recommend to someone if they were on a Kurt
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: Russell kick or wanted to watch a lot of John Carpenter.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: I would include it in the list for sure to
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: be watched in the 80s. I wouldn't skip over it.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: But three for me, right in.
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: The middle of the pack.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: All right, enough quantifying. Tristan, give us your first time viewing,
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: first time rating.
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: I'm giving this a three as well. I enjoyed this film.
• 48:18
  Speaker 4: And three is not a bad rating when you enjoy it.
• 48:22
  Speaker 4: You're just being realistic about it. I liked it, but
• 48:25
  Speaker 4: it has its issues. I'm not saying anything new here
• 48:30
  Speaker 4: that I haven't said previously in this podcast or even, Darren,
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: what you said. The pacing is abysmal for the first
• 48:36
  Speaker 4: 15 minutes. Just truly abysmal. And it only moderately gets
• 48:40
  Speaker 4: better after that. And then we start getting into pacing
• 48:43
  Speaker 4: issues towards the end again. And I feel like I
• 48:45
  Speaker 4: want to get my hands on this cut. I want
• 48:47
  Speaker 4: to make a condensed cut. But I know it'd be
• 48:50
  Speaker 4: considered heresy, but Yes. I think there's a, uh, yeah,
• 48:54
  Speaker 4: it's just like this, this could be a better movie
• 48:57
  Speaker 4: with editing and that's really it. Like that's, that's really
• 49:01
  Speaker 4: the only thing that I have an issue with, but
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: that's such a big deal that I can't give it
• 49:05
  Speaker 4: anything higher than a three. This is a fun movie
• 49:07
  Speaker 4: that's over the top, really kitschy, really campy.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of fun, but there's things wrong with it.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: I will say, yeah, for, a $ 6 million movie, they
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: did a lot. I think people often forget just when
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: you have a, I'd say sci-fi, yeah, futuristic sci-fi kind
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: of movie like this, action, you have to make so
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: much of the world to put your characters in it.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: And it just takes so much effort. All right. Well,
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: we have started this amazing House of Carpenter series. Next week,
• 49:40
  Speaker 2: we're going to be covering 1982's The Thing next on
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: House Lights. Join the revolution. Join the nerd party.