And you thought 9-11 was tough try this: Escape from New York (1981).

I was watching an episode of American Dad today which made some references to a futuristic Armageddon world and then it came to me: John Carpenter’s Escape from New York (1981).  This flick has it all: a great cast Kurt Russell as “Snake Plissken,” Lee Van Cleef  as “Bob Hauk,” Ernest Borgnine as “Cabbie,” Isaac Hayes as “The Duke of New York City,” and Adrienne Barbeau as “Maggie.” This quality continues as the movie has a futuristic Sci-Fi story, suspense, humans sacrificing themselves and a cult like following.  Why haven’t I looked at this one sooner?  Who the hell knows but here we go!

Escape_From_New_York-Cut01

►

In the “near future” Manhattan is turned into a free for all prison.  The island is surrounded by a fifty foot wall and all bridges leading in and out are heavily mined.  Needless to say the dystopian society that has evolved inside the walls is cruel and unforgiving.  Road Warrior like gangs roam the streets looking for prey or carrion to feast on with an assortment of weapons and whatever machines they can keep running (like Ernest Borgnine’s taxi).  As prisoners are being processed before being dumped into this hell they are given the opportunity to be terminated immediately rather than face the chaos.

 

Enter Snake Plissken, a one-eyed ex-special forces soldier caught robbing the federal reserve who is about to serve the rest of his days in New York.  Alas, Air Force 1 is forced to crash.  The President survived thanks to some sort of escape pod but he is stuck in New York.  How do we know the president survives?  The Duke sends one of his fingers to the authorities to confirm it.  Snake cuts a deal with Hauk that if he can get the President out of New York within 24 hours he will get a full pardon.  Oh and by the way there is a cassette tape that contains important information on nuclear fusion that he has to get too.  By the time Plissken has reluctantly agreed, Hauk has him injected with microscopic explosives that will rupture his carotid arteries once the 24 hours are up.  Even cooler is that the explosives can only be defused during the last 15 minutes before they detonate, ensuring that Snake does not abandon his mission, or find another way to remove them.  If he returns with the President and the tape in time Hauk will save him.  As he should, Snake promises to kill Hauk when he returns.

 

Snake slips in atop the World Trade Center in a glider, and locates the escape pod.  He follows the President’s life-monitor bracelet signal to the basement of a theater, only to find it on the wrist of an old man.  Snake then runs into a friendly inmate nicknamed “Cabbie” (Ernest Borgnine), who offers to help and takes him to see Harold the “Brain” Hellman, a well-educated inmate who has made the New York Public Library his personal fortress.  It turns out that Brain and Snake are old buddies from some heists they pulled in the past.  Brain tells Snake that the self-proclaimed “Duke of New York” (Isaac Hayes), the terrifying leader of the largest and most powerful gang in Manhattan, has the President and plans to lead a mass escape across the mined and heavily guarded 69^th Street Bridge by using the President as a human shield.  How much cooler can things get?  Well when the Duke unexpectedly arrives for a diagram of the bridge’s land mines, Snake forces Brain and his girlfriend Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau) to lead him back to the Duke’s place f/k/a Grand Central Station.  Snake finds the President being held in a railroad car but is not able to rescue him and he is captured by the Duke’s cronies.

Escape_From_New_York-Cut02

►

Brain and Maggie trick the Duke’s men into letting them have access to the President and after killing the guards, they free the President and flee to Snake’s radical glider.  When the Duke learns the President has escaped with Brain, he loses his mind and rounds up his gang to chase them down and kill them.  Snake manages to slip away and catches up with Brain, Maggie and the President at the glider, but during their attempted getaway, a gang of inmates push the glider off the building.  Is there another way out?  Yes, Snake and the others find Cabbie, and Snake gets behind the wheel before heading for the bridge.  When Cabbie reveals that he has the nuclear fusion tape, the President demands it, but Snake takes it.

 

Being pursued by the Duke, Snake and the others drive over the mine infested bridge.  After the taxi hits a land mine, the cab is destroyed and Cabbie is dead.  As the others make a run for it Brain is killed by a mine and Maggie won’t leave him.  She wants revenge on the Duke and shoots at him with a revolver—to no avail as the Duke smashes Maggie and his car.  Snake and the President reach the containment wall and the guards raise the President up on a cable drawn from a Jeep mounted winch. Snake sees the Duke approaching and attacks him from behind but only after the Duke blows away the two guards with a machine gun Snake lost to the Duke when he was captured.  Knowing time is running out Snake nails the Duke in the head and makes his move for the cable.  Halfway up the wall, the cable stops and the President fatally shoots the Duke.  Snake is then lifted to safety, and the explosives implanted in his body are deactivated with mere seconds to spare.

Escape_From_New_York-Cut03

►

After Snake gains his signed pardon from Hauk, Hauk offers Snake a job, to which Snake merely starts walking away. As Snake continues walking out of the prison parking deck area, Hauk asks Snake if he is going to kill him. Snake replies, “I’m too tired… maybe later.” Snake, still walking away, pulls the magnetic tape out of the cassette containing the information on nuclear fusion as he leaves.

 

Wow!

 

What else can I say?  Great movie.

 

Here is some comedy.  Where did they decide to shoot this movie needing gritty decaying buildings?  Where else can you find hell on earth but East St. Louis!  I always thought East St. Louis’s reputation was urban lore, but apparently I was wrong.  See http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CCsQtwIwBQ&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DtWMFsXwpToA&ei=TFYiTv2EE4ajtgfq-rijAw&usg=AFQjCNGqe9vUGdn7wG7-W4ioFYfWfAPKMA&sig2=UoFKCPSfyE_TncCaurkPsA.

 

The movie was also a great commercial success—it had a budget of six million dollars and grossed about fifty million worldwide.  Nice work as usual Mr. Carpenter.  They sure don’t make them like this anymore.

 

Our Next Tri-fecta is Movies Directed by Women!

After Dr. H and I finish the last of our “They had the budget but blew it” series I’ve decided to pay tribute to movies directed by women. We will examine three movies all directed by women. In fact if you can guess two out of the three directors I’ll even send you a DVD of your choice courtesy of JPFmovies. So stick around the films just might surprise you.

 

Guest Reviewer Silver Gives Us Gold With His Look & The Dark Crystal (1982)

Here is what our guest reviewer Silver has to say about a little known classic:  The Dark Crystal.

 

The Dark Crystal (1982)

Vocal Talent: Stephen Garlick, Lisa Maxwell, Billie Whitelaw, Percy Edwards, Barry Dennen, Michael Kilgarriff, Jerry Nelson, Thick Wilson, John Baddeley, David Buck, Charles Collingwood, Sean Barrett, Mike Iveria, Patrick Monckton, Susan Westerby, Joseph O’Conor

Directed by Jim Henson & Frank Oz

Expectations: One of my favorites. I watch it every few years.

3 stars

==

Growing up in the 80s, my childhood was filled with the puppets of Jim Henson. From Sesame Street to Fraggle Rock to the first three Muppet films, I was an absolute Henson fiend. Hell, I even watched the Muppet Babies cartoon. One day while rummaging through a stack of VHS tapes when I was around eight or nine, I came upon one that had the words, The Dark Crystal scrawled onto the tape label. What was this? Even in my youth I was obsessive about my film watching, so seeing a title that I was unfamiliar with took me by surprise. I popped in the tape, finding that we had recorded the movie off of TV and the first minute or so were cut off. I didn’t mind missing that first minute, nor did I mind the fuzzy quality of the TV reception recorded onto that magnetic tape, for I was thoroughly enthralled in the tale being woven before me. So began my quest with The Dark Crystal. I must have watched that tape five or six times over the course of my childhood, obviously not a lot for an obsessed kid, but I distinctly remember wanting to savor every viewing so that it wouldn’t become cheap. I’ve pretty much stayed the course ever since, only re-watching the film every three-four years and loving it every time.

The.Dark.Crystal Playable_to_AVI_clip0

►

The Dark Crystal is a story of tragedy and renewal, of the Skeksis and the Mystics, and the Gelflings that will change the course of their world forever. It is a realm rich with history that unfolds as the minutes pass by. There are definite shades of Lord of the Rings throughout, especially the “halfling venturing across the land with a storied object to enter the evil one’s domain and destroy them” storyline, but to discredit The Dark Crystal’s story in such a broad way would be unfair, as its greatness lies within its detail and its characters. The birdlike Skeksis are haunting and creepy to this day, the Mystics wise and moving slowly with purpose. Jen the Gelfling hero is an orphan that most children will find easily relatable if they’ve ever felt lonely or ostracized in any way, not to mention that every kid wants to go on an adventurous journey.

Technically, the film has no equal. Never before or since has anyone undertaken such a massive puppet film, with no humans represented on-screen. Even if you hate the film (how dare you!), you have to admire the genius of Jim Henson and his studio at work. I highly recommend also watching the PBS documentary included on most DVD releases of the film, The World of the Dark Crystal. It’s filled with great footage of the guys inside the puppets, and while that does break the illusion, it grows a respect for the performers that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

The.Dark.Crystal Playable_2_to_AVI_clip0

►

In addition to the puppets, the optical FX are incredibly well done and add to the visual splendor of the film. And let’s not forget the matte paintings! Holy shit, they are even more impressive than I remember and this should be Exhibit A for the case to bring them back to filmmaking. CG backgrounds can look good an all, but there’s something majestic about the matte paintings here that 3D art could never attain. The cinematography helps a great deal as well, with wonderful color representation and gorgeous framing. One might expect a film filled with puppets to feature a rather static camera, as the puppet’s mobility is obviously limited. This is not so, as the camera moves in, out and around conversations and action, further intensifying the sense that we are watching real characters as opposed to cleverly designed puppets. In addition to the visuals, Trevor Jones’ dark, haunting score has resonated and stayed with me since my first viewing all those many years ago. It’s truly one of the best fantasy film scores of all time, other-worldly, fantastical and haunting all at once. Jones perfectly evokes the character’s through his music, resulting in a perfect auditory compliment to the visuals.

The serious tone propels the film deeper into the crystal chasm, presenting unaware viewers with quite the dark fantasy film. And I mean dark! If you know of another kid’s movie that features cute, tiny characters strapped into experimentation chairs against their will as their life essence is drained into a vial for the evil emperor to drink, then please let me in on the secret. The film is rated PG, but I’d be surprised if it got released with the same rating these days. Not to mention that, the film is just creepy and scary. It ran me through a range of emotions as a child and it still has me feeling similarly after tonight’s viewing. Any film that can still affect someone on such a deep level is worthy of your time.

The.Dark.Crystal Playable_1_to_AVI_clip0

►

On the negative side, it does drag a bit in spots (the opening narration is over six minutes), but overall it is paced pretty well. I’ve seen it so many times at this point that I’m unsure if I’m a qualified judge of this anymore. There is also a scene with the Gelflings in the forest that reminded me of the 70s sci-fi hippie film, Silent Running. This is not a positive in my eyes and thankfully it’s only a few short moments. Other than these minor quibbles, I had a great experience with the film, even if I was able to see through a lot more of the FX this time around.

I’m biased as this is a film from my childhood, but I would honestly say that The Dark Crystal holds up admirably. If you fancy yourself a fan of fantasy, you should be entertained with this fine film and the history of the world and its inhabitants. If you’re a fan of puppets, you’ll be entertained by the technical wizardry of it all and the power of puppets to create the illusion of life. If you’re a fan of both, then it should be a match made in heaven.