Podcast: Escape From New York
Bryan's favorite movie, a movie in which everything is working in perfect harmony
99 Cent Rental Podcast
Episode 28: Escape From New York
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon | Goodpods
99 Cent Rental is a comedy podcast revisiting the low-budget action, comedy, and science fiction films that clogged video store shelves throughout the 1980s and early 90s.
Every other week, hosts Bryan and Dave White, hosts of the Bring Me The Axe! horror podcast, dive deep into the nearly forgotten world of ninjas, breakdancers, skateboarders, action hero knockoffs, and Cold War paranoia that embodied the excess and over-the-top attitude of the 1980s and celebrate them for everything they were and weren’t.
This week we take a look at Bryan's favorite movie of all time, John Carpenter's tough guy action dystopia that definitely shook the Disney off of Kurt Russell and reintroduced him as a premier action movie star for the 1980's. We track the entire trajectory of this movie's production, we'll tell you why everyone thinks Snake Plissken is dead, you'll find out about all the other guys that the production company wanted over Kurt Russell, how director of photography, Dean Cundey engineered an entirely new anamorphic lens just to see the movie at night without sacrificing all the awesome lighting. It's a once-in-a-lifetime action movie that set the pace for the decade and inspired everyone to try their hand (and mostly fail) at making their own version of the movie.
Carpenter had access to more money than he'd work with before and still had to stretch a dollar to make the movie and he managed to knock it out of the park on every front. The cast is stacked. The production design is second-to-none, and the soundtrack is just perfect. Listen in and learn all about it.
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