The Rewatchables - ‘Escape From New York’ With Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Chris Ryan

Episode Date: April 29, 2020

The Ringer’s Bill Simmons, Shea Serrano, and Chris Ryan record this pod from the inside of a maximum security prison after rewatching John Carpenter’s 1981 sci-fi adventure ‘Escape From New York’ starring Kurt Russell and Lee Van Cleef. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Escape from New York is next. If he climbs over the wall, they'll blow him off. If he tries to fly over the river, they'll shoot him down. If he comes up, back alone. They'll explode his brain. New York, 1997. One man has 24 hours to break in and break out before it's too late for escape. John Carpenter's escape from New York. Break it on.

All right, Chase Serrano is here. Chris Ryan is here. I thought long and hard about should we have squeezed Jason Concepcion in here as well, done a four-man Zoom. I don't know if that breaks Zoom rules. Are you allowed to have a four-person podcast on Zoom? I didn't find out. You can have as many people as you want, Bill. We should have had them. I'll start here. This is one of the greatest premises ever for a movie. 1981.

It's so far ahead of its time in so many ways. Where does, Che, where does this rank for you in the all-time action movie premise pantheon of just somebody pitching this in one sentence in a room and people going, oh, yeah, good idea. If we're talking all time, this is easily a top five pick. As soon as you say that, I don't know what the other four are, but I know one of them is escape from New York. It just is too easy. It's probably this one, a predator.

Some guys fight an alien in the jungle. Like those two are untouchable. Die hard's up there. Die hard, sure. I would put first blood in there too, where it's like being on vet, having some trouble re-assimulating, goes to the wrong town. Probably face off. They start fucking with him.

He goes into the mountains to get away and all hell breaks loose. It's just like, oh yeah, I'm in. What happens next? Faceoff is up there. Oh, faceoff. I think the reason that this one would probably be first place is because the description that you just gave for that movie is really long. With escape from New York, you go, New York is a prison and good luck.

And that's it. And you're like, fuck yes, let's go on whatever the rest of the details are. I'm in. Here's what it says in Wikipedia. Set in the near future world of 1997, which is funny in itself. Because when this movie came out, it seems so far away. A crime-ridden United States has converted Manhattan Island in New York City into the country's maximum security prison. Air Force One is hijacked by terrorists and is purposely crashed in New York City.

Ex-soldier and current federal prisoner, parentheses, Snake Puskin, is given just 24 hours to go in and rescue the President of the United States. After which, if successful, Snake will be pardoned. It's just flawless. It's like a great song. where the guitar riff starts, and you're like, this is a good guitar riff. And then the bass comes in and you're like, you know what? This is pretty good bass. And then John Bonham starts.

And you're like, oh my God. It's like when this movie starts and the synths come in, you're like, this is pretty cool. It's called Escape for New York. How could it be bad? And then Jamie Lee Curtis starts talking. The once great city of New York becomes the one maximum security prison for the entire country.

A 50-foot containment wall is erected along the New Jersey. shoreline, across the Harlem River and down along the Brooklyn shoreline. It completely surrounds Manhattan Island. All bridges and waterways are mine. The United States police force, like an army, is encamped around the island. There are no guards inside the prison, only prisoners and the worlds they have made. The rules are simple. Once you go in, you don't come out. shoot this thing into my jugular and just kill me with it. John Carpenter.

So when this came out in 1981, Halloween was the thing. Halloween had basically reinvented the horror genre and then became ripped off for the next 10 years and became one of the most successful as small budget movies ever.

And it's like, what's your next project? John Carpenter wrote this film in the mid-70s and he had done it. in reaction of the Watergate scandal, and nobody wanted to make it. It was just too weird. He said it was too dark, too violent, too scary, too weird. He'd been inspired by Death Wish and how it, quote, conveyed the sense of New York as a kind of jungle.

I wanted to make a science fiction film along those lines. So then Halloween becomes a smash hit, and he dust this thing off, which I'm guessing in the 70s, God only knows, you know, the late 70s were wild. I'm sure he's at a few Hollywood parties You know probably some dinners Probably talking to studio execs Like John any other ideas

And he's like Yeah I have this one This script And he's pitching it And they must have been like Oh my God How can you make this? Take my money.

Yeah here So it had a $6 million budget But what's interesting Shea the landscape And you care about action movies As much as me and Chris maybe even 10% more. The landscape of action movies changes right here.

This is, in my opinion, the first modern action movie. This paves the way for Rambo. This pays the way for all the Stallone movies. This paves the way for Arnold. You have a wise-cracking hero who's a little bit of an anti-hero being thrust into an impossible situation winning. Is there anything before this movie that you can think of? No, this was the first.

one I can remember finding that was like prior to this, most of the action movies were like Western tinged a little bit. And then this one shows up and it's like, oh shit, you can do whatever you want with an action movie. You can make it however weird you want. As long as you do it as well as this, it's going to, it's going to work. And once you open that door, that's how you end up with like the ones that we love the most are usually the weirdest ones. Like, Predator, and we're going to probably keep coming back to that one. It doesn't. make sense that movie would be that good

but it was because we had already established as long as you like lean into it it's going to work out pretty great. Yeah, the thing with Carpenter

around this time is I think he goes on arguably the best five B movie run if you want to call them B movies but the five like genre movie run.

The five movies he does to come out of the gate after Dark Star well there's a solemn precinct 13 Halloween, the fog, Escape from New York and The Thing. Any one of those could be rewatchables.

All of them are just as like absolutely rock solid today as they were when they were made. They were all made on relative shoestring budgets and they were all visionary. Like they all are basically still being imitated today. His ability to mix genre is seamless. When you're watching this movie, when you're watching Escape from New York,

you're watching a Western, you're watching a gangster movie, you're watching a war movie, you're watching a prison heist, a heist movie, and a prison break movie, and you're watching a dystopian movie that's on the level of like Mad Max and Road Warrior.

And it has the best sci-fi score with the exception of Blade Runner that I think I've ever heard. And he did the score. He did the same thing with Halloween, where part of the carpenter magic was the sound. Yeah. And he always nailed it.

And escape from New York the way it starts with the opening credits, which are pretty slow, but it's very similar to Halloween. And we can do this later or we can do this now, but I think we should do it now. There's a deleted scene that's on the internet.

I mailed you guys last night. This movie originally starts with how Snake Pliskin got arrested in the first place where he robs this bank. He's a war hero, robs a bank with Fresno Bob. Yeah, tough beat for them. Yeah. And they're escaping and they're in this, like, high-tech next world subway system. I don't, do you guys even, because you even figure out where they would have filmed that?

It seems like they built it and it was expensive. And I couldn't tell if that was like the L.A. subway system that they've redressed or what? It was crazy. And it's, I actually really like that scene. I think they could have edited it. But I think you could make a case the movie should have started with that scene and then gone into the opening credits. On the other hand, I love the opening credits with the music and it just kind of gets you in the mood. Shay, how much did they leave on the table with 1997 maximum security prison New York? Like this easily could have been 25 hours. Oh, yeah.

I would have watched whatever the longest version of this movie is. I absolutely would have watched it. But when you sent that clip, that was the first time I'd ever even considered, like, thinking about what it was that Snake had done to get in prison. And it was not even a thing, which I think is part of the reason this movie is so much fun to watch because they give you just enough of everything that you kind of don't have. It's not that you don't have time to ask questions about anything. But you just sort of don't want to.

Right. Like, let me see what's going to happen next. It's like the whole movie, it feels like you're sort of falling over your own feet, just trying to keep up with all of the stuff that he's laid out. Like, it's unreal how good this is to rewatch today 40 years later nearly. You think about like, this is a really good way to put it. If you get invited to go to a bar with some people, right, and you don't know them. So like one of your friends is like, come meet me and my friends at a bar.

And you go and sit down at the bar. And all the people at the table start telling you everything, about themselves and asking you questions and they're like, well, my name is Brad and I went to, you know, Michigan State and this is what I like to do on the weekends. It's like, that's boring. What you want to do is you want to sit down and they're already talking and you're just getting like a glimpse into their world and you're trying to find your way into it. That's the way that they tell this story in Escape from New York. It's like, you know, why do they keep thinking he's dead? That's fucking awesome. So it just keeps in the whole time. You're just like, why does everybody

know who this guy is and they think he's dead? And what's the deal? with snake and hawk and like why the fuck is this guy wearing an earring and who's the duke all that stuff makes this movie so compulsive if they went into like a whole thing about how the economy collapse and this is how manhattan they chose the where the the unanswerable questions for this movie is kind of what makes it so fun it's like where the hell did everybody in manhattan go you know like i want to know who is fresno bob well how did this guy get the name the brain like all those questions are kind of what makes this movie so endlessly enjoyable. Yeah, the world they create, like he lands.

And just that 15 minutes when he's kind of walking around and there's like a burlese show. And then Ernest Borgdon's like, don't go down, don't go down there. And it's like, down there is going to be pretty grim. And it's just like, what is going on? How do people have electricity? What's the plumbing like? Where do they sleep? And the movie answers none of those questions.

They're just like, this is the world now and it's fucked up. What is really to me very appealing about this movie is they do two things that I like that are sort of the opposite of each other. And movies, like they do this thing here, where they do a similar thing in John Wick, where there's a world and they just put you in the middle of it and they don't explain anything. You just figure it out as you go. I really greatly enjoy that. But also, they start the movie by very much building a sort of perimeter.

about where this movie is going to exist. They say this is the situation and these are like the pertinent details you need to know, good luck. And you think you sort of know what it's going to look like and feel like and you have no idea. That burlesque is a perfect example because he walks in there and you're just like, what the fuck is going on? And the implication is like these criminals live here and they have set up their own society.

And it's just as weird as it's going to get and good luck the rest of the way. And right then, you know, like, okay, I can't try. to figure anything else out. I just have to watch this movie and experience it and like see what happens. I also love the fact that they open up the movie with the escape attempt because that's the first thing you ask yourself is, oh, I wonder if people can get out. I wonder if people can scale the wall and they're like, nope. And it's not, there is no parole. There's no second chances. If you try, you die. And that's it. Yeah, the little touches of like when he, when he steals the car and he's like, I'm going to go down Broadway and brain's like, oh, no, don't go down Broadway.

He's like, yeah, what could happen? It's a complete shit show. But this whole world, I wanted it to know so much more. Like, what was the Upper East Side? Like, was Brooklyn involved at all? Or Brooklyn, you're fine if you're in Brooklyn. I guess Brooklyn isn't part of this, right? It's just in Manhattan Island.

Well, I would imagine that Jersey City and Brooklyn and Hoboken and all the towns like surrounding New York are essentially where the police force lives. Yeah, that's tough. That's a tough beat for, like. the people right over the water. Like, where do you live? Oh, you know, stones throw away from the maximum security city prison. Yeah, but it wasn't like, I think in 1981, it wasn't like the yeah, yeah, yeah, as we're in Brooklyn.

And it was like, oh, no, we have to get rid of like all this great pop culture. True, true. And, you know, he writes this coming out of, he writes it in the mid-70s, but during this era that's so fascinating with New York movies where over and over again, it's about like shit is just completely gone off the chain. here. You think like Death Wish, the Warriors. Yeah. These movie like cruising are the one, the cruising, the movie we've never know of the rewatchables. But all these different ones and the theme over and over again is

like, me, uh, taxi driver. That like New York. Yeah. New York is depraved. New York is losing its mind and things are unraveling to the point that a new society could potentially build. And that's what leads to this movie where it's like, hey, it's not inconceivable that by 97, we're going to just turn this New York into a maximum security prison because it's just not working right now. It's crazy to think now. Do you think was, would you have said it later than 97, Shay, were you okay with that year? Would you have gone like 2017? No, this is, this is like a perfect about a time because if you're telling me we're setting a movie, I don't know, in 2037, in my head, everything is on the table at this point. Just looking at how terribly things have gone in 2020,

You're like, oh, by 2037, this all might be on fire. We have no idea. They were looking at the same thing around that same time. Like, who knows what it looks like in 17 years? Yeah, by 2037, we're all going to be like Romero the crazy. Shea's going to be in Texas. It'll be another country by then. Like Texas, California, they'll be their own countries.

All hell is going to be breaking this. So this movie, I want to get to the categories because there's so much to cover. This movie, $6 million budget made $20,000. million was a top 35 movie of 1981, 85 on Rotten Tomatoes. One of the first movies that really had the run of VHS, Laserdisc, DVD, Blu-ray, over and over again, they're releasing new editions. There's director commentaries. They had lost the original negative.

They found it 20 years after the movie or something. They had to release a DVD again with the deleted scene of the opening they found. and this cult emerged with the movie that, you know, it was like the Warriors, it was this movie, there were a few of them. But the cult grew to the point that they decided to make the sequel and they made Escape from L.A.,

which just sadly wasn't as good. It just didn't do it. And in a weird way, made it seem like, oh, this movie was actually so special they couldn't even pull off the sequel to correctly. Shay, do you acknowledge Escape from L.A. or no? I acknowledge the basketball scene and escape from L.A. And then beyond that, I'm like, no, I'll just stick with the original.

Yeah, it's a weird miss. That's a movie that absolutely should have worked. Roger Ebert, two and a half stars, Escape from New York has the misfortune of being a merely good thriller in a summer where the standard has already been set by Raiders of Lost Ark. Yet, it's fun to see old standby science fiction ingredients rehash for our cynical times. A little too lukewarm from Raj. I'm going to give him an L on that one. It's also strange to be like comparing it to Raiders. I guess that's...

Although I have to say, if Raiders and Escape from New York came out in the same summer, I would just be living at a movie theater for three months. Yeah, you'd have to go to therapy or something. Recover. Which of those two are you? Like, you have to pick, I'm either Raiders of the Lost Ark or Escape from New York. I think for most of my life, I was Raiders, but at this point in American history, I may be fearing towards becoming Snake Pliskin.

It's funny. I was escaped from New York the whole time. I don't know why. So I saw this movie when I was 12, and that's like when you, you know, the movies that you love the most when you're 12, 13, 14 are the movies that just become your movies. So 48 hours and the Warriors and all those ones. I'm surprised you're not wearing an eye patch now. Let's talk about Kurt Russell, the casting of that. Because when I was growing up, he was like the Disney guy who was on Gilgans Island.

Yeah. And had this Gilligan's Island cameo and was just kind of pigeoned at. I guess the best way to maybe like Zach Ephron like what he was for the 70s. Yeah like he was just the guy who was in Disney movies and certainly never expected him to be a real actor. And when Carp-I'll go into the casting

and what if it's later, but when Carpenter really pushed for him, the studio was like, no fucking way. He's like the Disney guy. And this was a movie unlike anything he'd done. I did a podcast with him I think two years ago. We're going to run a,

the snippet about when he talks about Escape from New York. We'll run that at the end of this podcast, because obviously a hugely influential movie for him made him a star. He knew this was his break. This was like, this is my one chance to not be the Disney guy anymore. I don't know what that moment was for Zach Efron. Was it that weird DJ movie he made, baby? I don't know. I think he's tried to do it with like being in comedies and stuff. Yeah, yeah. Doing neighbors and stuff like that. But what's crazy when Kurt came to do the pod, it was incredible.

It was 10.30 at the morning. Comes in no entourage by himself. No PR person, anything. He's wearing a leather jacket. It's like 70 degrees outside and stinks of Marlboro Reds because he had obviously just had one. It just comes in. Hey, I'm Kurt Russell.

Hard handshake. I'm like, this is exactly what I was expecting. You're so on brand. Kurt Russell. Hard handshake. Macho. fucking dude and just old school. And I just love what he did with Snake. He's basically doing a Clint Eastwood impersonation, right? But Chris, I do feel like snakes his own distinct character, even though it's an Eastwood impersonation. The whole thing is the comic timing.

Like, he is the funniest without being Hammy action star. He's like that in big trouble in Little China. He's like that in this. He's like that in Tango and Cash. He's not really like that in Tombstone. He's more serious. Val Kilmer gets all the good lines. But, But for that trio of movies and several others, he just has this ability to be somewhat knowing. Like he knows he's doing Eastwood and Bronson. And yet really, really funny. Like with all of his comic delivery, all of his timing with the lines is just so perfect. Also, it's just like, what a transgressive move.

Like, I don't even know if there is, like, there aren't really movies like escape from New York anymore. where it's like these cheap, trashy movies that you can kind of like slum it in and go reinvent yourself by becoming this other person in these like low budget action movies. They don't really make movies like that anymore. They make John Wick. Yeah. Was this the first movie you saw Kurt Russelin? Chris?

No, I was I was obsessed with Big Trouble in Little China. I knew every line of Big Trouble and Little China. I was like, this is the best way ever. Oh, yeah. I think Big Trouble in Middle China. problematic as it may be like it was like I was every line in that movie I was like this is I put this in my yearbook page I feel the exact same way that that that was the first movie I saw Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China and then for like the I knew I knew early on that this was going to be my guy

for a long time yeah especially that you know what old Jack Burton says at a time like like I just I love it I saw him in that and then I saw him in overboard and then I saw him in tango and cash and this is like, I didn't watch these movies when they first came out. I, it was like, you know, 10, 11, 12 years old when I first started watching them.

And then I didn't come to escape from New York until like my 20s. My uncle mentioned it or something like that. And I was in college and I was like, all right, we got a video store. Let me see it. And you're sitting there watching it. Number one, I just,

Kurt Russell has a face that I just want to look at as often as possible. Like there's a class of actors who I just want to look at their face. Kurt Russell, Oscar Isaac, Julia Roberts. Like, there's something about it. Just put it as big as you can get it up on the screen. An incredible face.

And then the intro to the movie starts and they explain everything. They like set everything up. And then the music comes in and you're just like, this is fucking unbelievable. I couldn't believe rewatching it just yesterday, like how exciting the intro was to me again. As soon as it started, as soon as I hear her talking and laying out the pieces.

And I'm like, fuck, yes. Here we go. I'm so pumped. Coming back. Sorry, I had an audio issue there for a little bit. So my audio was a little off there at the beginning. One more thing on Kurt Russell. You mentioned Tango and Cash.

Where do we stand on that movie? Because if you want to do a rewatchable is about Tango and Cash right now, I am prepared. Yeah. I don't need to rewatch it. Like, I'm ready to go. Oh, okay. Yeah. Because I was felt like I was in the super duper minority.

that movie is a sarcasm off between him and Sly. It's completely absurd. I have no idea what's going on, how they got framed. It's amazing. All-time scumbag movie. It's got no redeeming qualities. I was deeply, deeply in love with Terry Hatcher for several years during middle school. And it is, it's like basically like really the only bill for Cuban links, like, of action movies.

You've got to really be about that to watch that movie. Well, we'll do that at some point because I have a lot of thoughts. It's an amazing movie. It's this weird point of Stallone's career where he's like, it's been going really well. I'm going to mix it up. Yeah. And he's like, now I'm going to bring out my comedic side. It's like, no, there is no comedic side side.

You want to talk about premises for movies. Premises for movies. It takes like nine minutes to explain Tango and Cash. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and Jack Polance, we're going to have to read. named the They New Award for the overacting. He dials it up past 13 to like 28. All right. Let's do the categories. Let's take a break and then we'll do the categories. Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about a new podcast on the Ringer Podcast Network that

we are launching this week. It's called TV concierge. It's only available on Spotify. These are 12 to 15 minute mini podcast that review the latest TV show streaming on Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Showtime FX, Apple TV, wherever else. We'll preview new shows that are launching. We'll break down the biggest shows that just launched. We'll review the biggest binge watch seasons that drop as they happen. You can listen to one. You can listen to all three.

It's up to you. It's our new TV concierge podcast from the Ringer Podcast Network. Think of it like a little bit of a playlist. Pick and choose the ones you want to listen to. It's available only on Spotify. All right. Escape from New York. A lot to get into here. Most rewatchable scene.

First one, got to put it in. Snake getting pitched by Hawk to do the whole New York thing when we really get a sense of snake. And he's just like, icy, sarcastic one-liners left and right. The plan is ridiculous. Hawk does the thing where he kind of sets up

what Snake's background was. S.D. Pliskin. American, lieutenant, special forces unit, black blight. Two purple hearts, Leningrad and Siberia. Youngest men to be decorated by the president. He robbed the Federal Reserve Depository. Life sentence.

New York maximum security penitentiary. I'm ready to kick your ass out of the world war hero. You know, he's just dropping little hints and we're learning like, oh man, that cold war against Russia must have been something, man. Snake fought in Siberia. He fought in Leningrad. How long did that last? You're just kind of piecing stuff together.

And Snake is just, you know, I don't care about anyone, but if I can get out. And then they do the, it goes to they put the things in his neck, which we'll get to later, the reliability of those capsules. But the scientist puts the capsules in. He's like, do you tell him? And they say, tell me what. All that's great.

How do you feel about Lee Van Cleef in this movie, Chris? So great, you know, obviously known from the Sergio Leone films and other spaghetti westerns. one of the all-time Hollywood faces, one of the all-time great action bad guys and Western bad guys and just like a great character in a lot of those movies. The thing that really takes it over the top

and escape from New York is the fucking earring. The earring? I actually asked my wife last night, I was like, should I bring hoop earrings back for guys? Like just, what do you think that would be like, Bill, if you came, like when we come back to the office in late 2022,

too, you know, And I have a shaved head and an earring. I've shaved head and an earring. Would you be like Chris hasn't all figured out? Or would you be like we need to get Chris some help? If you came back from our 22, two-year office hiatus, dressed as Lee Van Cleef, I'd be all in. Yeah, mustache bald earring and basically wearing a romper.

What was the stretch of time period where they established, if you wear an earring, you're the bad guy in the movie? Because that's the standout thing. I remember from Karate Kid 3. The guy and he has the earring. He's in the jacuzzi. Like on a cell phone dumping toxic waste into a thing. You've got a ponytail.

You got an earring. This has got to be the worst guy in the world. Yeah. That's good. Yeah, that was late 80s in action movies was when they just dialed it up with action villains. Because Roadhouse had that too. It's like this guy, Brad Wesley, he's just the worst person in the world. He's going to have parties.

He's just going to destroy the town. They were like. When they were setting it all up, they're like, okay, if the bad guy, how do we know the bad guy's not a bad guy if he's not black or Mexican? And they're like, oh, I got it. It was either motorcycle or earring. Bill, did you ever have, you ever pierce your ear? No.

No. Never been a bad guy. No. Next rewatchable scene. It's small, but snake, first of all, the fucking plane snake gets into is amazing. Whatever that thing is. Incredible. Does that exist?

Could they make that now in real life? I feel like they were bending some rules of physics. I think they have those now. There's like a plane that looks almost exactly like that. Really? Really narrow with the super long wings and it's just like one person or a drone or whatever. I'm pretty sure they exist now. He nailed that one.

He's telling the president we're going to fly out of here. Meanwhile, it's like a one-seat plane. I don't know if the president was just going to be holding onto the wing as they flew away. But he's landing on the Twin Towers. It's a weirdly poignant movie, too, because the Twin Towers are in this movie a bunch of times. He lands on the World Trade Center. And it just kind of set you back because this movie set in 97. That would still be before 9-11.

But it's just all of it, the whole concept of he's going to land a fucking plane on the World Trade Center. When you're watching this in real time, you're like, how's he going to do that? It seems impossible. The part that I thought they really missed was he lands a plane. It's basically teetering on the edge. but they don't show him getting out of the plane because you would think like he's getting out, he's right in the edge.

That's kind of, you know, not a lot of room for air there. He's got like four feet. Or he tumbles 120 stories to his death. I think if we see him land an airplane on the top of a building, we can assume he got out okay. Okay, we're good.

Next one. Next we watchable scene. The first Duke citing leading into snake stealing a car and driving through Broadway. We hear about the Duke. We don't know what's going on with the Duke What is he? The Duke, what's that? I want to meet this Duke.

You can't meet the Duke. Are you crazy? Nobody gets to meet the Duke. You meet him once and then you're dead. And then we see this giant, what kind of car was that? Like a Chevy something? Cadillac. Yeah.

With fucking chandeliers. With the chandeliers on there. That was a, so rewatching this, I was like, I think the Duke might have been hanging out with Mexicans because that's like a thing that we just put stuff on cars. The chandeliers, I'm like, oh shit, he's got Mexican friends. I guarantee it.

What professional athlete that we have right now is most likely to break out the double chandelier automobile if you had to guess? J.R. Smith. J.R. Smith. He finally makes it. He gets back in the league. That's what he pulls up in. It's funny.

The chandelier on the hood phase never really took off in real life. It should have. It was kind of owned by the Duke. Should have. So we see the Duke, there's some mystery, and then we see him driving. Snake realizes he has to steal a car, pulls off an amazing, kills two dudes, and then they drive down Broadway. And that whole scene, I don't know how many extras are involved.

They're all throwing shit. Just them getting through that. That's an awesome three-minute action scene. Next one I have for rewatchable. The Duke shooting at the president. You are! Hey, number one! In the Duke!

It's a pleasant. And that's really the moment where you're like, wait a second. You're the Duke. You're the Duke of New York. You're A number one. That's the moment we realized like, wait, the president has an English accent. It's probably the most absurd moment of this movie, more absurd than the premise. But how many shots do you think he fires at him?

Like about 10? Yeah. If you count those holes around them, there's a bunch. There's a lot of action movie rules for bullets in this movie. Because you have to imagine that bullets are in relatively short. supply on the island of Manhattan, but Maggie seems to have like an unlimited amount of bullets. Yeah. And snake's gun seems to never run out of ammo.

Right. Well, we have, we know the brain can make gas, which seems like a huge advantage. So maybe he could have made bullets too. I left out a rewatchable scene that I should have mentioned. Just a small scene when Romero, the guy I did the line at the top, when he goes to see Lee Van Clef and hands him the finger and does the touch me, the, touch me, he dies. If you're not in the air on 30 seconds, he dies.

If you come back in, he dies. 20 seconds. I'm ready to talk. What do you want? 17. 16. Let's go. Let's go. That whole 90-second scene, it just kind of establishes, oh, man, it's going to get fucking weird.

Because if you're watching the movie and you're like, man, I wonder what kind of impact that would have. if you were stuck on the penal quality of Manhattan Island. I wonder what that would do to somebody. And then you see Romero and you're like, oh, it's got some negative side effects. Turns out the tough beat. I love that 90 seconds. It's on YouTube. You can watch it.

Next one, just incredible. Snake fights in the gladiator match. Unreal. Unreal. I think I'm trying to think at age 12, if I had more exciting moments that weren't related to sports, like for movies. I feel like the Rocky 2 fight, the rematch against Creed was probably the most excited

I'd ever been in a movie theater up to that point. This might have been second. Yeah. Where it's like, what's going on here? You don't know. They're just walking him to the ring. You don't know what's happening. They're like, where's it going?

He doesn't have a shirt on. It's like, go in there, climbs into the ring. And then the fucking Ox Baker shows up. Yeah. And it's a, hey, are there rules? No, here's a bat. Yeah.

That was the nails in it. The wild part when the fight starts and they hand them a bat. Like this is this is a starting level fucking bats. Are you serious? And then they have, it seems like they have a break. It seems like there's a break between rounds where they're like, okay, now it's time for a shield on a bat. Yeah. I love that like in Manhattan they still like they, they still need live music.

So they have like the burlesque show that Ernest Borgnines in. They still need their sports. So they've got this like WWE. going inside of this old theater. It's great. Shea, where does that, where they had the gladiator fight rank for you, all time fight venues versus Kumetei and Bloodsport and places like that?

All Valley Karate Championships. Like, where is it? All of the, like, where does this rank for you? It's always going to be in the top five. So this to me, this to me is my single favorite reveal of the whole movie. Because as they're going forward, they're showing you like this thing exists and that thing exists.

People come up from under the ground. Like there's a threat from below as well. Do you get to that? Like you've, by this point in the movie, you've stopped trying to figure out what's going to come next. You're just watching it. And then they show you that.

And like there's also gladiator fighting in this world. I love that part a lot. If I'm putting them in order, Kumete is number one for me. Yeah, me too. Kumete is number one. The gladiator fight here, you can put that at a solid two.

I really like when they're, They fight in the swimming pool in Lion, Lionheart. You remember Lionheart? Oh, yeah. I love that one. Like, those are going to be my three favorite finishes. But goddamn, when they drop this in the middle of everything else, oh, by the way, you also are going to fight for your life with a baseball bat with nails through it.

Good luck against a giant. Holy shit. They do an amazing cutaway. Because at the same time, Brain and Adrian Barbeau trying to steal the president. So we're in the middle of this fight and they're like, are. all right, let's go to Brain and Adrian Barbeau for a second. And that's going on for like a minute. Yeah.

And then all of a sudden, we're back in the gladiating fighting in their ending. It's like, whoa, this is still going? What's happening? The them chaining snake at the end is great. Snake. Everything's awesome. This is one of the better, to this point in life, one of the best action movie scenes I can remember.

And then the last one is just the escape off the bridge and the president killing the Duke. You're all the Duke. You're all the Duke. No, right number one. That whole thing. I have for most rewatchable scene, the gladiator match. What do you guys have?

I have a different one, one that you did not list. Let's hear it. It's super quick and super fast, but I cannot get over how perfect that opening scene is when we don't see anything except they're laying the island out

on the screen in front of you. And specifically, when they put the wall up around the island in parts, and you're like, oh, fuck. everybody in here is trapped. I have not watched this movie probably for like two years.

I watched it early 2018 or something like that. And I sat down last night and rewatched it. And when that part happened, again, I just felt it in my body. I felt the excitement. I was so ready for what I knew was going to happen in this movie now. That's my most rewatchable scene. I just love how they set everything up right there. I have a...

I want to add one more rewatchable scene, which is the attack of the crazies. Coming out of the sewers. And just one of Chris Ryan's all-time, like, ideal girlfriends is the girl in chock full of nuts hanging out. She smokes. She likes hanging out in coffee shops. She loves to travel. She's just like, snake take me with you. And then the guy comes up from the floor.

Honestly, like, one of my favorite tropes in action movies is stuff coming up from the floor and grabbing people. It's always awesome in alien and aliens and stuff. It's great in this. The crazies are definitely the most terrifying part of Manhattan to me, like the people living in the subway system who've gone totally feral. And yeah, that scene is fucking awesome. And you really get to see, you know, like, I think we'll obviously talk about this with Appass Internet research,

but they shot this in East St. Louis. And the lead up to that with him walking around those back alleys and those buildings and stuff is so haunting. It's just so wild. One of the, this is like a really good example of how good and how big this movie is because they very much tip their hand early on that this is about to happen. Yeah. You see the guy banging on the sewer top?

Yeah, the sewers. And then they zoom in on snakes' feet as he's walking through the, through the shop, and he steps through the ground, and then he keeps going. And you have no idea, like, you're just so spun around, even a few minutes in. And then this happens, you're like, oh, my God, every single thing is a threat in this movie. You know, one of my rules in life is if I'm downtown somewhere, some crazy guy just starts tapping on manholes and then running the next manhole and tapping. And then the manholes start raised and people start coming out, like just run. Yeah.

I don't know. That's the way I live my life. I don't know about you guys. I have more on Chalkful and Nuts Lady in a second. What's age the best? We'll go into Romero a lot more when we have some of the actor categories. But I don't think it's ever been X-Lead. executed better.

Dynamite. Dynamite. If you're like, how would you improve Vermero? I'd be like, honestly, I don't know. I don't know. I wouldn't add anything.

So easy to screw that roll up and just to turn it into something silly and goofy. And he never does. It just feels... It's the combination. It's the combination of the look being so out there, but then when he talks, he sounds like an accountant.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, Brain, where's you doing? Like, it's just like so normal. What'd you get the hat? He got her from Cabby. Yeah. Tried it. For what?

What are you so nervous about? You got to see the president. Who says? The Duke. No, he doesn't. He's like crackhead Steve Bouchemy crossed with like David Bowie. Yeah. And he's just out of his mind.

Every moment he's on the screen, you're not looking at any other character. Like, what's this guy going to do next? Yeah, he can stand next to Isaac Hayes as the Duke. And you're like, I want to know. more about Romero. Yeah. What's up with the Romero? What's going on to them? He's listed as Romero in the credits. I don't think they ever

say his name in the movie. Yeah, great Night of the Living Dead homage with the character name there. And apparently, I haven't seen Assault on Precinct 13 in a long time, but apparently he's one of the people in that too. So he's had these two major action movies. Morewood's age the best, the 80s theme music we mentioned.

The bank robbery deleted scene is just a really fun YouTube. If you love the movie. Just like a really fun seven minutes. It's like, oh, wow, here's another scene for this movie. I don't know existed. I love Romero's first line being Touch Me. He does. And before he does it, he does the thing he kind of bends down, like it's a theater performance. He goes down and he puts his head down and then it sweeps up and then he rattles off those three lines. So every character that says, I heard you were dead to Snake ends up dying in this movie. Did you guys realize that?

Oh, I didn't. No, I never even thought about that. I know who you. You are. Yeah, but I heard you were dead. I thought you were dead. I heard you were dead. I heard you were dead. I said I said I thought you were dead. You and everybody else.

That's your car in the lobby. It's like the kiss of death. It's like the oranges and the godfather. If you say, if you say, I heard you were dead of snake, you're going to die. We mentioned the Gulf Fire plane, the Duke's car, hit everything. Any other what's the best for you guys? I would probably say that. the way that the

military installation looks like the Hawks like base is essentially like no one's ever improved that. No one's ever thought of like a cooler like post dystopia military installation than that.

Like when they do all those sweeping tracking shots of all the guys running to the choppers and hawk walking around like that whole setup is just incredible. And yeah, I think the thing that aged the best though is Russell. Like not, if you put that character and that performance on screen today,

you would just be like, that's amazing. If you were just like, how big of a star is this guy going to be after that movie? I think you would have said, skies the limit, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, no question. My pick here is the soundtrack.

This might be my number one favorite movie soundtrack of all. Like, the score is just unbelievably good still. It's like, I don't know, that's synth. Anytime a movie puts that in, there. There's a whole reason I like the movie Drive. They did that and I was like, oh shit, I remember this sound. I love this sound automatically. That one for me, what's ages of best? It's still good. It's still good today. I'm trying to get it going. First 15 seconds, nothing happening on the YouTube song. I'm going to fast forward. Uh-oh. Now it's kicking in.

A little drum in here. Oh yeah. Yeah. See, you feel that. And you just like we have, We have not seen this before. We have not felt this feeling before. It feels futuristic, too. It does. That's exactly what it feels like. Futuristic, but in a terrifying way. Not like in a Jetsons kind of way.

Like you do not want to be alive when we get to this period. But it has a little bit of that Hill Street Blues. And it kicks it right here. Kick it a little bit. Oh, yeah. A little second synth finger. If I had to add lyrics to this, it would be like, he's touching the manhole.

Get the full. fuck away. The sewer people are coming. Kick it again. Yeah. Best man in my wedding, Jeff Gallo. We loved carpenter. Like, that was our guy.

And he would play this. He could play the synthesizer and would just play that on the scent. And we would just get fired up. Let's watch some of this. All right. What's age the worst? Someone flying the president's plane. to a tall building in New York City

post-2001 is a little like, oh, that's how fun. Donald Pleasance as our president, probably the most improbable president we've had in a movie. That's a really good question. Who do you think is his competition? He's not handsome.

He's got an English accent. He seems shifty. He's like a shiftyer Nixon, which I think maybe that's what Carpenter's, it's a shiftyer English Nixon. It's just hard to imagine the scenario where he gets elected. There's, in the research, they said,

Pleasant wanted to come up with a backstory for how this guy became the president about how there was this Cold War. Everybody got annihilated. And at some point, they had England gain more power. And that's how we ended up getting English president again. And carpet was like, cool idea. But no, we're not going to explain it.

Just do an American accent when you can. Yeah. The chock-full-in-nut scene was Season Hubbly that Chris loves so much. The only what's aged or worse for me is, it seems there's about three minutes there or three seconds there where snakes like, yeah, it might, maybe some sex will be a good idea right now. I can't imagine a less appealing sex partner than the lady hanging out in the dark chock full of nuts who's been in the maximum security prison. I'm going to push back. Okay. When's the last time Snake has had any romance?

Oh, interesting. And he's knows, he already knows he only has. That's a good point. And he only has like 18, 20 hours to live at that point. So you've got to say like, you know, on one hand, I have like a one in 100 chance of this actually working out and getting the president out. Or I can get late. What's her breath like at that point? Because you think like morning breath's bad, but like shock full of nuts, post-apocalypse, maximum obscurity breath.

Not a lot of toothpaste. Maybe Brain had an inside line on some toothpaste. Made some toothpaste. Oh, I have two more. Snake's tattoo could have been better. They could have spent more money in time on that. That could have been an awesome green snake. It just looks like it was hastily done by like his buddy during the war in Leningrad or something.

My only counter to that is that in the early 1980s, it was still pretty out there to get a tattoo. And I wonder whether or not like if you make it, you know, it's 1997 in this world. And it's like, who's really doing tattoos in this world? Maybe not fine artists. Dennis Rodman. Yeah. Maybe not the best. hand on drawings, you know.

Shea, you get the tiebreaker. Tattoo, yes or no? I'm pro tattoo in this thing. I like it. I like the tattoo. But you should have been green? No, no, no. You know, snake is not a green snake.

Snake is a black snake. All right. I'll take the L. The other, what's age of the worst? Hawk's cell phone. This is a great era for cell phones and movies. Hawk is basically holding a small car in his hand. The thing's like two feet long.

And it's in 97. I'm pretty sure somebody should have given carpenter the note. Like, hey, man, by 97, these things might be smaller. They're not going to be the size of the boat. But not quite as big as Gordon Gecko's cell phone and Wall Street. But if you're talking about like the biggest cell phones and movies in the 80s, this might be the biggest one. It's massively large. It's the size of his head.

It's fucking insane. Any other, what's age of worse for you guys? I just, the sound of the, of the fist fights in this movie is a little bit like really like kung fu movie where it's like, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For me, the part that's aged the worst is when they're at the home base looking over the guy's shoulder and they're seeing the radar and they're watching the light beep along as it goes. And the guy sitting there looking at it and he goes, oh, he's in the building now. And you look at the radar and it's just circles and the light doesn't move. How the fuck did you know he got in the building?

The light didn't even move. It just blinked. That to me was like any of the blinking red light. we could have probably done a little bit better, maybe. Let's go to casting what ifs. So the movie was funded by Avco Embassy Pictures. All the movie production studios during this era sounded like fronts for drug cartels. They preferred Charles Bronson or Tommy Lee Jones for Snake Pliskin. Really pushed Carpenter hard on one of those two people.

Carpenter thought Bronson was too old. he thought he could lose directorial control over the picture with a more experienced actor and pushed really, really hard for Kurt Russell. They then approached Nick Nolte and Jeff Bridges. Neither guy was interested, kind of settled on, they were like, all right, we'll give it to Carpenter, and it ends up being the decision that makes the movie.

I will say, Nick Nulte is Snake Pliskin is kind of a fun, thoughtful. Not funny. I'm not saying it's a good choice. I'm just saying... It's in the main. but he's not funny enough. Yeah, I'm with Chris on this one.

He's funny at 48 hours though. Out of that list, the only name who could maybe do it is Tommy Lee Jones, but he's not quite cool enough. Kurt Russell is cool in this almost like untouchable way that you need a character named Snake Pliskin to be untouchably cool. Bill, can I just say really quick to,

that's such a great point by you about the studios and the small production companies that were around in the early 8. because if you look at like the Wikipedia pages for some of those, it's like, yeah, they made like these 10 action movies and they were also Israeli arms dealers. Right. It's like based in Monaco and you're like, really? Right.

Even like we joked on a previous rewatchable about some of the names of the people who made the movies just sounded like fake names. Bond villains, yeah. Mustafa Akhan. It's like that's, is that a real person? One more casting. What If? I thought this was a good one.

originally set to play brain, Warren Oates, the guy from Stripes, the guy who played Bill Murray's army, whatever, and he wasn't feeling good and bowed out and recommended Harry Dean Stanton. So they went that way instead.

And then he had a heart attack later that year. He died. So he died like basically either during stripes or right after stripes. I can't remember if he'd finish filming or not. That's all I have for casting what ifs. And then season hubbly was married to Kurt Russell, the Chuck Full of Nuts lady.

that's how she ended up. Oh, no wonder they had such chemistry. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, this is an emotional moment for the rewatchables. I think this is the first time this ever happened where we have three acting categories, best that guy, aka the Joey Pants Award, the Vincent Hanna, they knew award, and the Dan Waiters Award.

I don't know if anyone's ever swept all three. Could we see a Frank Doubleday triple crown win here? I think I was trying to think like, How does this rate against when it's happened in baseball? You know, it's very infrequent. What's like the basketball equivalent of it? Like, I guess winning points and assist and winning the NBA title. The Triple Crown, I'm pretty sure we have to have a good Facebook group for the rewatchables.

And they're pretty good at the nitty-gritty of this stuff. I'm pretty sure nobody's ever won all three. I would like to submit Frank Doubleday as Romero, aka Crakehead, Steve Buscemi, David Bowie as our first triple crown winner. I can't argue with you. I mean, there's so many good performances to this movie, and there are so many Joey Pants people and so many Vincent Hanna people and so many DM waiters people,

but nobody is on Frank's level. He does so many different things. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That guy, it's like, I don't know, I never knew what this guy. I've seen this movie for 39 straight years. Never knew what this guy's name was. Just knew him as the guy from this movie.

The they knew award, he dials it up into the 20. Yeah, the only person pushing, like, on his level is Borg9. And Harry Dean Stanton has one scene where he's just flying off the handle. And settle down, Harry. When Pleasance is screaming, you're the Duke A number one shooting machine gun. That's pretty Vincent Hanna. But for Frank Doubleday, it's Childs Play.

He's just annihilating everybody. And then for the Dion Waders Award, the other nominees would be Adrian Barbeau, who's fantastic, who I feel bad for her. It's like one of those years where there's so many good MVP candidates. it's like, hey, man, not everyone can be the MVP this season. We had somebody have a career year and it's a superstar. Sorry, T-Mack. Yeah, sorry. Isaac Hayes is a really strong Dan Waiter's performance as well.

Every scene he's in, he's riveting. And then Borgnein is, you know, who was a really famous actor from the 50s, 60s, 70s. He's just kind of having fun in here. But I think unless you guys object, I think it's a triple-class. crowd. Yeah, he's he's too good. All of the other characters you listed, they're all good at like usually one thing and double day comes in and does every single thing. Like he's terrifying in that opening scene. And then when he answers the door and he gets outsmarted by brain, you can see how insecure he is in that situation. He's like, I don't, I don't wait, are you sure? What do you mean?

Okay, come on in. And then when he gets killed and you watch him how he dies, he gets stabbed and he sort of falls back, but his knees are still up. He's like, this is the weirdest way I've ever seen anybody die and it makes perfect sense. I love, I love, I love, I love him. I love everything he does. He has that one part when, uh, when the first time where it's like Harry Dean, where Brain and Adrian Barboh, they're like, oh, you know, Snake pulled a gun on us. It's not our fault.

And it's just, it's a little shaky. And, and the guy's walking away and he walks by them and just kind of turns and points. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just points in them as he's walking away. It's so good. Every choice this guy makes is a whole road. Frank Doubleday. One of the great actors. Half-ass in her research, she said the narrator was Jamie Lee Curtis.

Russell stayed in character during the entire, even like when they weren't shooting stuff. The only thing he did, he had to take the eye patch off because it was fucking with his depth perception. We mentioned how it's filmed in St. Louis. It's in the Wikipedia. They sent their location manager on an all-expenses paid trip across the country looking for the worst city in America. and they settled on East St. Louis just for how dystopian it was in real life. So that's depressing.

That would be an amazing ringer piece is to get a writer and just send them out on the road like that. So it had a whole bunch of old buildings that looked New Yorkie. It had the river, East St. Louis. It had a bridge that they were able to do some stuff with. And they had, because of the massive fire in 1976,

neighborhoods burned out and just block after block of burnt out rubble, they said. So it just kind of worked. They also had the old chain of Rock's Bridge that he purchased for $1 carpenter to make a go. And then the city helped them out. They shut off 10 blocks of electricity every night so they could film scenes in different pieces. So that's that.

When Maggie dies, the focus group, which included a guy by the name of J.J. Abrams, who was 11 years old. He told this story in an NPR interview. the focus group said it was unclear of Maggie died or not. And J.J. Abrams claims he was the one who suggested a carpenter in the focus group that we need to see a shot of her dead. And Carpenter was married to Adrian Barbeau at the time. So they filmed in her garage, in their garage. They filmed that scene you see of her just bloody and dead. Really?

And had that to make sure she was dead. So J.J. Abrams's first contribution. Another crazy thing, guy who did the special effects that scene you like about where they spell out the what New York City looks like and the guy who is one of the directors of photography on the film, James Cameron. Yep. See? There you go. Three years before Terminator

and was referred to on the set as like the set genius. Like people right, this guy is special. So it's almost like Belichick being on Parcellus's staff on the 96 Patriots where they're like,

holy shit. How is Belichick just the defensive coordinator? I was wondering how long it was in take before we got the Belichick drop. You got it right there, Shay. Here we are. The co-writer of the movie, Nick Castle, also played Michael Myers in Halloween because he helped Carpenter with that movie, too. And when they were trying to figure out Michael Myers, they were just like, hey, Nick, put a mask on.

And he became Michael Myers. And then the Secret Service agent attempting to break into the cockpit of the airplane at the beginning the movie was the son of Gerald Ford, Stephen Ford. Okay. Who was trying to be an actor at that time. So there you go. Apex Mountain. The Kurt Russell case can be a yes or it can be a no. It's certainly my favorite Kurt Russell moment,

but I do think he wasn't a big star when this movie came out and went on to do a lot of things. The Goldie Hawn marriage was a huge thing for him. So I honestly don't even know what his Apex Mountain was. It just feels like he's been around for 40 years. This is a great debate. I think that arguably it's, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Tango and Cash,

wasn't that like a really, really, really big deal? Like, there was a really big Hollywood movie when it came out. Yeah, yeah, that one in back. Backdraft, back to back, I remember being like, this is a moment. Could it be Tombstone? Because he, you know, he rewrote a lot of that movie. We did that podcast about how important he was for that movie. But Toombe was a little bit more of like, it was his, it was his renaissance, right?

Like, it was like he's kind of been out of the mix for a little while. And then he comes and does Tombstone in 93 after Captain Ron, which people didn't really love. I mean, Shea, I think that's right. It's like, around Tango and Cash, Backdraft is probably when he's his biggest star. My favorite, my favorite Kurt Russell is still big trouble, though. Yeah. Mine too. But if we're looking at Kurt Russell's career as a whole and we're like retrofitting everything,

I think Escape from New York is when you go like, okay, this is this guy is the fucking guy. Bill, where are you at? Where are you at with Tequila Sunrise? Oh, love it. Yeah. Love it. Good one. Yeah, maybe it's probably somewhere there.

It's late 80s. He's with Goldie Hawn already. He's a big enough star that they have to make escape from L.A. Maybe escape from L.A. is weirdly the making of that movie is probably as Apex. Ox Baker, yes. Adrian Barbeau was on Maude for like six years and that was one of the 10 biggest shows during a time when every TV show was watched by 30 million people. So I feel like Maude was her Apex. John Carpenter Halloween. 1997 Apex? What else is in there? I was trying to remember what happened in 1997 in real life and it's

like Jordan beat Utah the flu game. Bill Quentin, the Lewinsky scan, starts. The internet is kind of rounding into shape. Music starting to get really bad. It wasn't a great movie year. Faceoff came out in 97. That's the only thing I remember from 97. Make the case. And then dystopian New York movies, I think this is number one. This is definitely number one. New York has gone to hell. Picking Nits. Can we talk about president flying to some summit to save the world? It's got a tracking bracelet, his handcuffed to briefcase. He's got a cassette tape that includes his secret to using nuclear fusion to replace electricity as a peace offering. No other copies of the tape? Just that one... Just sneak pliskin,

just walking out of a prison with that in his pocket. This is like when they did watch the throne, and Jay Z. and Kanye only had the album on one hard drive, and that was the only way you could get it was with that one hard drive. The same thing here. It's as important nuclear fission. Just in general, like, what's the flight plan there? Yeah, bad plan. I would add a second tape like, hey, what happens if this plane goes down? And then on top of it, so rarely important plane, we have, you know, only a couple people, a couple of flight attendants.

And somehow the flight attendants are terrorists, like no background tracks. I know things are a little crazy. We just had World War III. We're slipping a little bit in different ways. But hard to believe that terrorists could get on there. Brain makes his own guess. That's another nitpick. It's just kind of thrown out there.

They just put the oil rig in the background and you see it working. Yeah. I guess that's how they get gas is out of the earth. I don't know. Sure. He can make his own gas, but it takes him like 10 minutes to figure out where, like, where a tall building in New York City would be. So he's not going to be in Central Park.

There's too many trees. Wait a second. Yeah. Can you be a little smarter? You can't call yourself brain and not be able to just nail that in the first try. He brings snake right to where the president is. And the odds are snake's going to get captured within five seconds. I'm pretty sure somebody named Brain would have not done that.

The president, how do you guys feel about the concept of an escape pod? Where it's like, we've got to be a real thing. We've got to eject the president out of this egg. And it's just going to land. And wherever it lands, somebody's going to be able to easily break into it. Get them. And it's also just like the whole thing with, so if he. They're sending him out on his own, but they expect him to get out with other people.

Like, why couldn't they send a couple Secret Service guys with it? You want a bigger pod? In the pod? Yeah, they have a pod bigger. And then how does the pod get released from the airplane? I had a lot of questions about the escape pod. After Snake kills Zox Baker in the tremendous gladiator fight, everybody just kind of forgets to keep guarding him.

He's supposed to be this danger. They're super into him as a player. They're like, hey, yeah, this is my new favorite guy. Grab your watch. grab your t-shirt, you're good to go. I don't think that there's a lot of, like, you know, loyalty to Duke as a leader necessarily. You know, I don't think they were just like,

oh, no, like, what's the Duke say? It's like, once Romero goes, he loses his PR guy, you know? Yeah. It's tough to keep those sewer guys in line. Yeah, he's got a lot of... That was my one nitpick was, I feel like Romero should have been allowed to watch the fight.

He should not have had to stay with it. Good call. Yeah, he deserved it. He deserved it with his performance. So injecting somebody with a 24-hour exploding capsule that to the second, you know, snake to the last like 10 seconds, it's still. And then they do a little heat thing and they burn it out. I don't even think we'd have the technology now to be like in exactly 24 hours this thing explodes. But I guess like, what if we're off by a minute?

Yeah, we couldn't do it now where because that was the thing that was a little confusing there was they said it's going to dissolve at exactly this time. The dissolve, we probably couldn't get. Just making it explode at a certain time, sure, we can do that. I don't think we needed the whole dissolve angle. The one thing I love, though, with the dissolving is it gives us one of the best lines of the movie. We'll burn out the charges if you have the present.

What if I'm a little late? There's some daylight, nighttime, confusing stuff where he goes in at night. Night's forever. he gets knocked out. It's light again. But then by the time they're escaping, it's nighttime again. It seems like there's daylight here in Manhattan for about eight hours in this movie out of the 24. I don't know unless this was Alaska.

I think they're a little off on that. And then Cabby just kind of ends up with the tape as a throwaway line. They mentioned how he made a trade with Romero where it's like... For the hat. I gave him the hat. He gave me this tape. It's like, how were they negotiating? Was it their fantasy league on the internet

where they just started talking trade? Like, we're Merro and the cabby hanging out. How does this come up? I think it's just a barter economy there, man. You got to keep goods moving. Okay. Any other nitpicks? No, I don't have any other ones.

That was my main one. No, I mean, I just, I think that my mind is more of like an unanswerable question, which is just about the surrounding area. The electricity and the plumbing, Yeah, like they do food drops. I get that. They have their own system of entertainment

with the burlesks and the gladiator fights. That's pretty cool. There is some gas there. Do you think Duke, what other kind of services do you think Duke provides to garner so much loyalty among these people? Very unclear.

So they like hint a little bit at it when they say, oh, the Duke is going to take us all out of here. I think that's like his main thing. is once you're getting a little bit of position of power and you start telling everybody, just let me be in charge because I'm going to get us out of here. Everybody goes like, all right.

See, my thing would be like, my platform would be, we're probably not getting that. So let's maybe clean up the streets a little bit. You know what I mean? Like everybody's responsible for one block. You sweep up a little bit. We spruce it up. We maybe plant a garden.

You know, we get a little corn going maybe in Central Park. Do it when we can. Get some crops running. It's like we're here for the wall. long haul, maybe make a plan. I think I like, I legitimately think if you had all of the prisoners in one place all at the same time and were like, this is your area, I don't think it turns out like that. I think they make it, they just make it like a normal place to live. I don't think it goes like super crazy. It's tough because like as soon as one guy goes Romero, you know what I mean?

Yeah, you know what? I could do all these chores or I could grow my hair out and be cracked out Steve Bouchemy and go like, you think he was patient zero for like the anarchy? Chris would have tried to win over the sewer people first because those are probably the easiest people to get. Yeah. Just like, hey, man, I'll help you with, like, I'll clean the manhole covers once a week. I don't know if you guys have been to chock full of nuts,

but there's a ton of toothpaste there. Best quote. Do you have a favorite quote from this movie? All of it? I mean, every line between the entire scene, the first scene between Hawk and Snake, Pretty much anytime snake talks is one of my favorite lines. And we could go through line by line here.

Snake Pliskin, I thought you were dead. It's just like the main takeaway that and touch me. He dies. But there's so many good one-liners sprinkled through here. I love when, I love when Hawks like 18 hours left, Pliskin and Stakes like, listen to me, Hawk. The president is dead. You got that.

Somebody's had him for dinner. I really like when they call Duke A number one. You're A number one. Who's the Duke? The Duke. The Duke of New York. A number one. The big man.

That's who. That's like a really touching, nice thing to say to somebody. That's my favorite line of the thing. I think you should say that to the people in your house, Shea. You should just have your kids. I say it all the time. You should tell the kids to say, you're Shea, your dad. You're A number one.

Just tell them to yell that at you. Whenever I put them to sleep and I kiss them on their forehead and instead of saying, I love you, I say you're A number one. And then I just leave. Next category is could this be remade as a 10 episode Netflix show? Fuck yeah? Yeah. Now today?

Yeah. I think there would be so many advantages in 2020 with trying to do this idea. So we were talking about that. Craig and I were talking about that immediately before we started recording the podcast. And he was saying, I wish I would have done this movie 10 years later, 15 years later, or whatever. To which I said, that's when they did escape from L.A. And it was not as good. And I think the reason it was not as good.

Part of it anyway is because there's just a little bit of magic sprinkled in, having to do all of those things at that time. And you watch it now and you're like, clearly this is fake. Clearly this is not like a real thing. But it makes it better. This is one of those movies. I think it had to be made at this time. If you make it now, of course, I will watch it.

And it'll probably be pretty good. But I think you'll be, as soon as you start like doing the special effects in there, I think you're going to lose a little bit of it. Yeah. I always thought, Chris, have you been to Catalina? Yeah. I always thought that would be the best escape from New York location. It's a pretty sizable island.

It takes maybe 20 minutes to go from one side to the other. It's out. It's so shay. It's like probably 25-minute helicopter ride from, you know, Long Beach. So you can see it. Like if you're looking at a Pacific Ocean, you can see Catalina. It's hard to get there. It's on its own thing.

And it's its own. It's got restaurants. It's got you can zip line. It's got really nice hotel. There's a bunch of things to do. There's a summer camp there. Huge tourist location. But ultimately it would be an amazing escape from New York setup where it was just like

California has decided all of all of its inmates are just going to go to Catalina Island and there's no way out. They can form their own society. I would at least watch the first 15 minutes of that as a TV. TV show. But like, all right, I want to see how they try to pull this off. I would, the only other suggestion I would have is make it escape to New York. So basically, New York is the only safe place and ever the rest of the countries is just a

prison or a wild area. But Manhattan is the only area that's still protected and has food and is normal. Oh, I like that. And you have to get into Manhattan. I like that idea. Okay. How do you get in? However you got to get in.

Yeah. Probably unanswerable questions. What happened in World War III? Did we win? Stake fought in Leningrad. He fought in Siberia. We have a British president. It's complete dystopia.

It feels like a loss, right? We absolutely lost that war, yeah. I think that they explained it in like the novelizations and the comic books and stuff like that. But we sustained things long enough to escape from L.A. as well. Chris, this question is for you. How did it go ultimately? long term for the National Liberation

Front of America after the successful crashing of the plane. Like ultimately what was next for them? Was that their meeting? Did you talk that? Yeah. Were they like, we're good? Or was this like, was this,

was this a foothold for them to do more stuff? What are their meetings like? You know, I feel like there's a lot of yelling over people and that it's like hard to get a word in edgewise. I don't know how you top like both capturing the president and also losing him. Well, and it seemed like they were an oppressed workforce and a police state trying to prove some sort of point. Yeah, they're supposed to be like the weather underground, like that kind of thing.

Shea, this question is for you. This is the most important part of the podcast, by the way, for people listening at home. When I surprised Shea with a big picture, ridiculous question, and he answers it like we rehearsed it beforehand. Shay, you get sent to New York. It's a maximum security prison. What's your move? What are your first three days like? Who do you befriend?

What crew do you try to join? Ultimately, what's your destiny? You're there for 20 years. What are you trying to do? Are you trying to get in with the Duke? Are you trying to get in with brain? Are you just like, I'll go live in the sewers? Are you trying to start your own community?

What are you doing? What's your move? Okay, I'm going to answer this in two parts. Number one, If this was like a real actual situation and the real me was there, I'm 100% going to end up in the sewer. That's just where I belong, I think, in that economy. I think you have to be like a, like, I'm not going to survive a gladiator fight. I know that going in.

Yeah. So let me just go on down here. If not that, they mentioned very early on when Snake is walking through the hallway. If you don't want to go to New York, we'll cremate you right now. I probably take that option as well. But if it's the movie version of me and I get to be tough and I have like a cool guy, Michael Pena is playing me in the movie, I'm going after the Duke. I'm putting a baseball bat with the nails through his forehead and I'm the new Duke

is how that movie ends. Chris, are you trying to step on Cabby's territory and maybe rival cab company? No, Bill, but I'm glad you asked. Here's the thing. I'm a content guy. So I immediately start a pirate radio station and I become the Colin Coward of penal comedy mat and I'm like

coming up next are we sure the brain isn't the brains behind the Duke first a word from chock full of nuts coming up next

could we be using the world trade center better a lot of floors that's next one more question for unanswerable what happened

to the New York sports teams in this scenario like where do the Nick's so the Yankees are gone I mentioned the Yankees

in the in the thing. I think you could expand this question is just like, where did everybody go? So you're living in, are we supposed to believe that Manhattan was on the downturn already?

So let's say you have a place on Central Park West, you have season tickets for the Yankees, and life in New York has gotten worse, but it's still the cultural hub of the planet. You're clearing out to Connecticut. You're in New Canaan.

Okay. So like, what's the pitch? What's the point of going to Connecticut, though? That's the only reason you go to Connecticut is to be adjacent to New York. Sure. Maybe you just go West Coast. I don't know. What's the pitch when you're like, hey, so we're going to need to move you out of here?

Yeah, it's tough. You would have had to convince how many people live in New York, like 25, 30 billion people don't even know the number. Hey, you guys all have to go. I think from a missed opportunity standpoint, not having MSG in this movie was a miss. Yeah. I'm sure it was too expensive. They would have to fake, how do you fake a 20,000 C thing? but like if you had the gladiator fight in MSG. Mm-hmm. Or a Yankee Stadium, yeah. Yeah, you use like the real stadium. But yeah, I assume, you know, I think ultimately this leads to my next question.

Is this a better scenario for the Knicks than how it played out once James Dolan bought the team? That's a good question. It's a good question. I mean, if you're a next fan, would you rather have this version where New York becomes a dystopian prison or would you rather have the version where James Dolan buys the team in 1999? Is brain a better GM than Scott Leiden? Did the Dix make out worse in this scenario where New York has been demolished? Do they still get Patrick Ewing?

Yeah. Last question. Who won the movie? Kurt Russell. Kurt Russell. Yeah. Romero also gets huge wins. And Carpenter, yeah.

And Carpenter. All the way around. This sets up all the fun action movies to come. New segment on the rewatchables. Producer Craig. Oh, we're bringing them in. Producer Craig. Let's go. Didn't know I was coming in.

He's in his mid-20s. He works for the ringer. Hasn't seen most of these movies. So we thought with some of these older ones, producer Craig comes in, gives his quick reaction. What'd you think? The biggest thing that jumped out to me

was the music is now cool again. Music in this movie is like what people are listening to and what they want out of like daft punk or some shit. Love the 80s since all in on that. And also there's no Kurt Russell's anymore. Who's current Kurt Russell?

Kurt Russell. Kurt Russell is still Kurt Russell. Yeah, Kurt Russell is remain Kurt Russell. It's like not Chris Hemsworth, but I feel like that's who it would be if they made this movie today. Right. If Kurt Russell's in excavation,

it's immediately 20% better, 1981, Kurt Russell. Extraction. You basically have to figure out which guy in Triple Frontier could have done this. Yeah. Good point. Pascal, maybe.

Yeah. Craig, did you watch this with your girlfriend? And if you did, what was her reaction? So this was middle ground for me and Liz. Two out of four for Liz. Not bad. Check the phone a bit. It was off doing other things.

We'd come back, check in. Didn't love the jumping moments. But better than some previous movies we watched. All right. Well, that new segment was a huge win. Producer Craig weighing in the last category. What a way to finish. We're going to play right now the piece from the podcast that did with Kurt Russell

where he talks about Escape from New York and what it meant to him. That's the end of the end of the show. this part of the rewatchable. Shea, Chris, Craig, thanks so much. And we'll see you next time. Later, guys. See you. Escape from New York.

One of my all-time favorites. John Carpenter, who also directed Halloween, which is another one of my all-time favorites. So I was predisposed to like this movie. An unbelievable premise. Although, in retrospect, it was 16 years later. New York City has been turned into a maximum security prison. And now it's like 36 years later.

Maybe they should put that in like two. A metaphorical, isn't it? Yeah. I thought it was a great idea, too. It was unbelievable. One of the best ideas of any action movie. Yeah. And I had, it was, you know, but the fact that John Carpenter stuck to his guns and wanted to cast me at that time, at that age, with what I'd done in the past.

Yeah. That was another continuing wonderful opportunity and break for me. Yeah. And I don't, very few directors would have. would have looked at me and said, I want him to play this part because the part itself was quite different from any character like that at the time.

He wasn't a great guy. Well, that's the thing. All the movies with the, let's say, the 40-year-old stalwarts of those kinds of, of a movie where a guy's going to get revenge or a movie's going to. But that was the point. I tried to jump the gun there.

All those characters had social redeemers. values. Either their wives had been raped and burned in a Western, their family had been run over by, you know, the mafia had come in. Whatever the situation was, the lead guy had a reason that we knew of to go wreak havoc or to go do what he's going to do and not be very happy about it or not whatever. This one didn't have that. This was, this was a guy who was something had happened to him. he was a war hero and something had happened who lost his way

no he didn't lose his way found his way when you're a psychopath when you're a psychopath and you don't know it's wonderful to find your way and he just became a one man

I don't give a shit wrecking crew who wasn't and what's interesting about the movie is he's not a wrecking crew he's just he's very it's a very quiet movie

people have a tendency to hear about an escape from New York then see it and kind of go oh wow that's kind of really different than I imagine from what I've heard.

It's not an action movie. No. It's a movie about a guy who is there because he's got those things in his neck. Otherwise, he wouldn't be there. President or not. My favorite line of that movie is president of what? He just doesn't care.

He just doesn't care. You know, if you get deeper and deeper into Snake Pliskin, which is, you know, they're talking about doing sequels and things like that to it. You have to understand some things about Snake Pliskin, I think, that are very important. First of all, he's American. There's a reason he's in that ring with a baseball.

bat with nails in it. Yeah. Because I'm playing him. I'm pretty good with that bat in my hand. Yeah. He was an American. Yeah. He's not an international guy.

He's not James Bond. He's the negative James Bond. He's American. That's a very important thing. And the other thing is that, you know, to get further into him, and if you watch the movie and you see it, he's an escape artist. And the only thing he can't escape is himself. And that's...

that's the thing that makes him the way he is. Yeah. So anybody who's going to do the, he is what he's going to do in the future should, I think, look at that and begin to understand that about that character. And you have to have a certain sense of humor, I think, to find the balance that makes him work for the audience. It's a Netflix series if it comes back.

I think it's like 13 episodes. I don't know. I like to make remakes because they are flawed. Either they're flawed in casting or they're flawed in the screenplay. Yeah. Yeah. When it's not, when you don't have that, you face an uphill battle. In doing anything that you're going to do that John Carpenter did, you're facing a different battle.

John Carpenter has a look at life that is just different from anybody else's. It's what gives them, I think, is great talent. My rule on remakes is if I can still watch it and I still enjoy the hell out of it, don't remake it. Well, there's nothing sacred, you know. I mean, John and I did the thing. I think Stink Pliskin's a little bit sacred. Well, yeah, I know what you mean because people feel that way. I wouldn't enjoy it unless.

People feel that way. Right? Or at best, or at worst, I become Sean Connery, who is James Bond. I don't care. Yeah. I mean, you can, I know a lot of the guys that play. They're all really good. But Sean Connery is James Bond.

Yeah. That's just the way it is. So leave it alone. But I'm kind of that way. But it's like John and I did the thing, which is a remake. But John didn't do the thing that was made as a movie. He did the book Who Goes There

and they used the title The Thing. And a movie, The Thing is a movie that's connected to nuclear, the future potential of nuclear power

and what's, what's going to fall on your head from above, what's going to come to Earth. The thing was a movie, John Carpenter's

the thing, as a movie, as he said to me, I said, what's this movie about, John? He said, paranoia.

And I said, oh, great. Oh, that's cool. That's cool. A seven-foot carrot, maybe was cool in the 50s, I don't know. But I, you know, and that's, and that's a great, Howard Hawks made a great movie. It's a classic horror film. I like, I like the sort of more thriller aspect or the psychological aspect of, of paranoia.

And if you put 12 people, 12 men in a, in McMurdo station in the Antarctic, and you give them this particular problem, I, I like watching the human being, the decay, you know, the decomposition of, Everything happening through your own. And finally to the point where you don't know for, you don't know yourself if you're you, you know. What if we're already all, what if we're all, what if this happened and we're already just imitations of, of, of our ancestry. I love that kind of what is stuff.

Does Snake you had to be at wearing an eye patch the whole time? Snake, to me, was a guy who had been injured. I also wanted to, and John was great this way. I said, I think he should wear an eye patch. And John immediately went, yeah, Nobody's worn an eye passion. John Wayne and True Gritty. I don't like that idea.

Why? I said, I don't know. It's just something about, I think that he's got an injury that he will physically, visually carry with him. And if you look at Myznake, he's always slightly in pain. Like it's something like something happened to his eye that wasn't quite fixed. And it's a constant, he's trying to constantly look past it. Yeah.

Or it has. abilities that we don't know about. Oh, that's... Because it was a futuristic picture. Yeah. So maybe he's going to lift that eye patch at some time and shoot you with it. Something, who knows, you know. The biggest flaw with that movie, as much as I love Donald Pleasance and he was

the Rock of Halloween, the American president with the foreign accent. Yeah, well, that was the, no, that's intentional. What was intentional about it? It's the future. It's a future. Think about it. Even the future doesn't, the president doesn't come from here. That's a concern.

You got it.