Jordan, Jesse, GO! - (SNEAK PEEK) To Be Watched: Escape from New York

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

Welcome to the thirds episode of To Be Watched, the Jordan Jesse Go spinoff podcast where we go through all the movies we've been meaning to watch. This time around, we're talking John Carpenter classic, Escape From New York Help support this show and unlock bonus content! Become a member at https://maximumfun.org/joinjjgo

Hello and welcome to To Be Watched, the Jordan Jesse Go spin-off podcast where Jesse and I watch movies that have been in our cues for far too long. This month, I picked the movie that we are talking about is the 1981 action sci-fi classic. Perhaps the greatest St. Louis film ever made, escape from New York. And if you're listening to this and it cuts off after 20 minutes or so, that means you're not a mad. Max Fun member. Join the club and get access to the rest of this episode and so much more. Maximumfund.org slash join JJ Go. Theme song, you've got a list in your pocket.

Movies and shows you and cut yet. And just like you, they got films in the queue. It's Jordan and Jesse's to be watched. All right, let's get into this thing, Jordan. Yeah, this was this was your pick, Jesse. When did this enter the queue? What caused you to put it in the queue? Let's hear all about it.

Jordan, I've never seen a John Carpenter film. Okay. I'm just going to say that up top. I'm not afraid to say it. It's just reality. I had never, before I watched this movie, I had never seen a John Carpenter movie, and it seemed like something I should do.

Yes. I think a surprise generally, but knowing you, this is the kind of stuff that, like, people our age, you know, watched at sleepovers or a big brother had a VHS or something. It's the kind of like was seen as junk then, but now has been reevaluated, but I think a young Jesse Thorne probably skipped this stuff. I was so busy watching The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. Sure. That I did miss this movie. Yeah, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of like, there's a lot of things.

kind of genre of movies on cable a lot when I was a kid that I did not see because I did not have cable. And I also didn't have even VHS, I don't know, until I was like eight or 10. And so there's a lot of movies that I went to see with my parents, that I went to see at like the movie theater closest to my house, the Roxy in San Francisco, where I saw parrots. is burning as a child. Sure. A full-on child. But it's a very sad movie to watch as a child.

I think I saw Akira as a child, too. Okay. But like there are also a lot of genre movies from childhood that I missed. There was like, by the time I was like 12, so the early 90s, I would go see new action movies with my dad. I have seen like face off and stuff. But there's all these, all these movies from the 80s, like Predator I had not seen until very recently, that I had missed completely. And, yeah, John Carpenter had missed me completely.

I think in part, I was worried that I would be scared. There's a lot of movies I missed that I was because I was worried that I was be scared. And because Carpenter has such a strong horror reputation, I think the whole, his whole oove escaped me. for that reason. Have you not seen Halloween with Grace? I've never seen Halloween with Grace. Oh, okay. All right.

Grace watched Halloween with Teresa. Okay. Yeah. I feel like a real turkey. In fact, he got pitched to us for Bullseye, and I think I passed the interview off to someone, maybe April or something,

April Wolf, because I was like, I don't think I can do this justice without 20 hours to prepare by watching his eight best movies. Like, I haven't seen, any of them. But this one and Big Trouble in Little China were on my list of ones that seemed like

they would be fun. Yeah. And I'm always looking for a well-made, not-too-dum movie. I don't mind a really straight, no-innovations genre movie at all. I just don't like it when it's super dumb. And it seemed like that's how people feel about John Carpenter. So I was like, I should get in on this. Well, yeah, I will be very curious to hear what you thought of this movie. I have seen in a bunch. This was a Matthew Dudley's older brother, has it on VHS kind of movie, and we put it on when we were at Matthew Dudley's house. But maybe I think I saw escape from L.A. first, which came out, you know, mid-90s or something when we were kids. So I think we snuck in to see that.

and that is a lot like seeing Gremlins 2 first, which I also did. I have seen Gremlins and Gremlins too, George. Yeah. Yeah. So the Escape from L.A. is the big, over-the-top, campy, parody version of this. It's the same plot, basically, but they do it in L.A. And there's a bunch of, like, you know, L.A. specific horrors they do. Bruce Campbell is the, like, leader of a, like, plastic surgery colony

of people and they all have weird plastic surgery faces. I think at one point an atomic bomb explodes creates a tidal wave which Kurt Russell surfs on. Okay, so I've seen the surfing part. I went on YouTube when I heard about the surfing part yesterday. It just cut straight to Kurt Russell surfing. And he's taught to surf in one sentence by Peter Fonda. Yeah. John Carpenter knows how to fill a...

movie with all of your favorite weirdos in, you know, small roles. And yeah, anyway, so I think when I finally saw this movie, I was expecting something crazier than Escape from L.A., which it is not. They kind of leaned into the camp for that one, and this one is, you know, pretty straightforward. Anyway, relatively straightforward, I guess I should say. Well, yeah, let's actually talk about what happens in this movie. We get the credits. And of course, the things. The thing that that stood out to me was special appearance by Season Hubeley. This is back when a movie said like, and introducing or I did I, did he, I know who Seasons Hubley played in this.

He's a woman. She's a woman who he meets who immediately dies, gets sucked into the floor by the crazies. It's a great scene. It is a great scene. And Season Hubele is great in it, but I had never heard of her before this. apparently she was hot enough at the time to get that little, you know, standout credit anyway. You just picture Swifty Lazar in a cafe meeting with John Carpenter and he says, Season will do it, but she wants a special appearance credit.

Right, yeah. You got season for a day and a half. Christian tells us apparently at the time she was married to Kurt Russell. So there you go. That's right. There you go. Anyway, so season Hubeley, we're like, When is she going to pop up anytime now?

We learn via voiceover and text that in 1988, crime rates rose, get this, Jesse, 400%. From what? Unclear. But for whatever it was, it rose 400%. I read that this voiceover was read by Jamie Lee Curtis, an uncredited appearance by Jamie Lee Curtis. She probably was, had gotten super famous at the time, but, you know, stepped in to give for an old buddy Johnny C. A little favor.

And Johnny C was like, I'm showing this on the screen, but what if the audience can't read? So yes. Yeah, Jamie Lee Curtis, giving you this voiceover, 1988, crime rates are up, and the thing they've done, their solution to this, is to turn New York into a prison.

New York almost kind of like another character in the film, Jesse. Well, East St. Louis. Right, yeah. where they actually shot the movie. Yeah, it is a disappointing thing about this movie is like there's not a lot of New York shit in it. You know, they don't blow up the statue of liberty. They don't, you know, there's not a subway tunnel chase because, yes, it was shot in St. Louis. There is a statue of liberty sequence.

The Liberty Island sequence, they actually did get to shoot on Liberty Island in New York City. Oh, there you go. where the Statue of Liberty is. But that's the only thing shot in New York City. And apparently, like, Carpenter wanted to shoot this movie on backlots, which makes sense, given how generic everything is. But apparently his DP or the producer said, you know, backlott streets don't look like real streets. Like the texture of the street just doesn't look like a real street.

So they sent the location manager around the country looking for the shittiest looking city he could find. And he ended up in East St. Louis. I mean, it does, it does look like they are in an actual place that has run down. It does not look like they're in New York, but it does look like there somewhere. They needed a city that was willing to shut down its electricity for a 10-block radius around where they were shooting. So, so yes. Any St. Louis agreed. Yeah.

So New York, it's a prison. It's actually also St. Louis. we flash forward to 1997. That's right. The Future. Faceoff is about to be released in theaters because it's 1997. We see a couple of prisoners kind of on a makeshift raft trying to escape. You think in this timeline John Wu still comes to America and makes face off?

He does, yeah. Oh, okay. I mean, I wonder like the butterfly wing thing whether he would do something else. No, no, he did. Oh, okay. Yeah. Thank you. In a multiverse, some things are the same. Oh, okay. Got it. So John Wu, action director, John Wu, did try and take America by storm first with broken arrow,

then with face off. And you're, and also in this alternative version, yeah, keep talking, where they've turned New York City into a crime island. Right, because crime is up 400% crime increase. John Travolta still has that kind of like Pulp Fiction career renaissance, where for a while he's just in every action. He does. Yeah, yeah. And you can't quite figure out if he's great or bad. Yeah, and it kind of oscillates between films and scenes. Yeah. Anyway, so yeah, it's 1997. Some guys are trying to get off the island. They get blown away by a helicopter. They seem to have done the thing that they were supposed to do. They say, like, turn around within 10 seconds or we'll blow you up. And it seems like they're trying to turn around when they get blown. Right. Yeah, the helicopter

turned off its body cam and just blew these dudes away. And yeah, that's kind of part of the commentary of the film is the kind of brutality of a police state. We kind of go on to, Jesse, you mentioned Liberty Island. That's kind of where the command center for New York prison is. They're taking a perp off a plane. Yeah, it's motherfucking snake Pliskin, a guy everybody knows. It's Kurt Russell in an eye patch that he apparently just put up. on before the shoot and no one knew he was going to wear it.

It might be the best part of his entire performance. The I patch? Yeah, the I patch rules. The I patch whips ass. This would not be the same film without the I patch. Nope. The I patch is worth, like there was a period when I was in college where I felt like if a girl had like Betty Page bangs, that was like a full plus two out of

in my amount of being attracted to that girl. And I feel like putting the eyepatch on Kurt Russell at least half a star for the film overall added. Right. Just from the eye patch. Like if it's a three-star movie, you put in the eye patch three and a half star movie. Four-star movie, four-and-a-half-star movie.

I think that's very fair. And yeah, and I think the movie kind of doesn't know how campy it wants to be. And like, you know, when they did escape from L.A., they're like, oh, we should have done it crazy. And the I patch points to maybe, maybe this is supposed to be a little campier. And I think the movie often can't decide. Well, the context for this I patch and Kurt Russell in general is that Kurt Russell had become a movie star based on doing like a series of sort of live action Disney comedies.

Right. And he was trying to be cool. And so when he got this part over like, all these kind of like much more than traditional masculine movie stars. But Reynolds had to open up for this, right? All these grumpy mumblers.

Right. That Kurt Russell wanted this part so that he could transition from charming teen comedy star to grumpy mumbler himself. And apparently he was like full like, I'm staying in character all the time. Which, what even is the

character just guy who says mean stuff and then not much else mean guy he's kind of a hilarious asshole the only thing between takes that he did to drop character was he did take the eye patch off because it like made him dizzy

so yeah snake pliskin he's a badass and they have brought him on to the island because they need him to do a special covert job that's right the president of the united fucking States, played by Donald Pleasance. Great, great, that guy from that thing.

He's the psychiatrist in Halloween, pops up and a lot of other carpenters. Good, good egg-shipped man. I have to take a moment. I have to take a moment here to shout out a website. Yes. That really means a lot to me. Of course. It's called Pleasance.com. I found it while I was learning about this movie.

It's a fan website for Donald Pleasins. Right. and it is full like if you're wondering is this is this website from 1999 maybe 2001

yes 100% like just text links and little tiny images and a full database of every movie that Donald Pleasence was ever in just a fucking incredible website did you happen to know when the last update was no but we should

we should find out Christian, find out what the last update was. We'll come up, we'll come to you for an update update. That's a teaser. Very, very soon. So, what happened? Donald Pleasant's taken by left-wing terrorists. Yes.

Air Force One, taken over by left-wing terrorists. It sure was. And they decides to get into the escape ball. The red escape pod with an American flag on it. Just so you know where the escape pod is from. Yeah, this movie, like everything in it, it has that, it has all that great practical stuff that definitely looks homemade. Like just a guy with a band saw made everything. I think that's part of the fun of this movie for sure.

Definitely the escape pod is a great example of that. You're like for an indestructible escape pod, that lid sure doesn't fit that tight. Yeah. No, it's very, very rickety. Shake it around with Donald Pleasant sits down and in it. So yeah, they wonder what happened to him, and he has actually been taken by some of the inmates of the New York prison. They learned that because they send in a bunch of troops, and a guy with, I'm going to call it, live-action Simpsons hair presents them with the president's finger to let them know that he's a captive. This guy has, it's kind of like a Bart Marge combo hair.

So we are introduced to two main locales, right? One is Liberty Island where the security headquarters is. And we meet the head of the prison. What are they called the United States Prison Force? Something like that, yeah. And we see Snake being checked in because he has robbed a bank. Yes. We get that great action movie thing.

where we don't know the character, so someone reads a dossier about them to them. It's like, you know, special forces, graduated, top of your class at Quantico, robbed a bank. So Snake, former war hero also, you know, broke bad at some point. Yeah, and that's intercut with this scene of the terrorists yelling into the, you know, the radio on the airplane and the president saying like, all right, me, handcuffs, a suitcase full of McGuffin.

To his wrist, gets into the escape pod and blasts down. But guess what? They're over the prison city of New York. Right. So when he lands, it's bad news for El Presente. Sure is. Because by the time our man Snake gets there, he learns that the Simpsons hair guy has the Prez. Has the Prez.

And yeah, the president has a briefcase in it is a cassette tape that has something that will cause. caused China and Russia to make peace. That's about all the info we get, and it doesn't really matter. So, you know, they're kind of briefing Kurt Russell on this. He's got to go in. He's got to get the pres in this suitcase. At some point, if they say the president's been kidnapped, he just says, the president of what? Yeah, that's the best line in the whole movie.

Yeah, there's a lot of great little things like that. Again, he's just a fucking asshole. they present him with a bunch of weapons there's not a lot of weapons in the prison colony obviously so he'll be the only like armed guy they give him a bunch of guns but also fucking ninja stars

I also noted ninja stars it says in my note he got a bunch of fucking ninja stars and this is a time in action movies where you had to have ninja stars and usually you have nunchucks I'm just bummed this movie doesn't have nonechucks it seems like it should have

nunchucks it does not He also warns him against there's various kind of roving bands. One of them is the crazies. So you got to look out for the crazies. So yeah. You know, they actually have a village in the film Jim Cata. That's right, the village of the crazies. A sequel to this movie, a prequel to this movie?

I don't know. Who knows? Only one man knows, and that's Olympic champion, Kurt Thomas. Yes, I hope there is a four-hour... International Gymnastics champion. was not championed in the Olympics. Okay, but it's still disappointment.

Very accomplished. So yeah, snakes got to go in, get the press. They put a fucking bomb in his neck. It's going to detonate after 22 hours. They can de-detonate it with X-rays, I guess, but he's got to bring back the president in the case.

They put him inside to fly in. They put him in a little plane. The little plane is so cute. It's the cutest little plane. And Kurt Russell kind of a stealth glider. Kind of a little guy, too. So this little guy in this little, you know, homemade glider prop is very cute.

And yeah, he flies, he flies into the, to the prison island. I think an escape from L.A., he's in like a CGI summary. He's in a little submarine. They just kind of do everything the same in L.A. The level of homemadeness of the sequence where this glider flies into New York City cannot be overstated. I mean, it is like, it is like an elegant version of Ed Wood. Totally. Yeah.

homemadeness. And the fact that I learned that I loved most of all, and all of my research on pleasance.com and elsewhere, was, I learned that there's a, there's display screen. So all the security world is like a world of kind of like, if you imagine like alien or whatever, like that kind of like circa 1980 digital future with a lot of, is that called rasterized? You know, the lines. a lot of green lines. I know, yeah, I know what you're talking about. I don't know what it's called. Like Star Wars, the arcade game.

Yeah, exactly. The most futuristic thing available at the time. And they needed to make a picture of the World Trade Center because he lands on top of the World Trade Center. And when they had to make for the display screens a digital picture of the World Trade Center, they could not afford to use computers to make a digital picture of the World Trade Center. So what they did is they took their set the like model New York City skyline that they were using. They put glow in the dark tape on all of the edges of all of the things and then shot it with a film camera in the dark.

Right. Maybe under black light. Anyway, they just made digital lines by putting tape on the edges of the real thing that they were using. So snake, he lands in New York. He goes looking for the prez. The first place he looks is like an abandoned. I guess it's supposed to be Broadway. It's like an abandoned theater.

There's just a bunch of convicts in drag kind of like lazily dancing around and people are watching it like it's a show. As far as I'm concerned, absolutely the best part in the entire part. When this happened, when he wanders into a theater and it's got 30 people in it and then just like six weird old convicts

in like Victorian dresses doing a can-can. Yeah. And singing a weird song. I'm like, oh, I guess this will be the greatest movie I've ever seen. Yeah. Like, it is an electric, remarkable moment of like, wait, is everything in this entire movie going to be crazy and insane and amazing?

Like, is this, like, going to be like, you know, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, for example, right? A movie that, you know, not a perfect movie. but full of insane shit. Right. Yeah, I think this is like the fun stuff of the movie, the like, you know, the what if New York stuff. And yeah, this is this is the most fun. And it, you know, this stuff, maybe a little few and far between.

But yeah, this scene is great. And yucking it up at this at this makeshift Broadway show, Ernest Bordenine. He plays cabby. And he immediately recognizes snake and says, use a snake pliskin, ain't you? He's a use guy. He says use. And everything Ernest Bordenine says is funny in this. And I, it's great.

He is such a funny little side character. Again, like, I think all the, like, casting in this is so good. Lee Van Cleef from all the old westerns plays like his, you know, Snake's Minder. So, yeah, just full of great little cameos. You want to listen to the rest of this episode? Go on over to maximum fun.org. slash join JJ Go and get access to this and a so much more bonus content. See you later.