ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK (1981) Blu-ray Review

Escape from New York (1981) d. John Carpenter (USA)

As the second of their two-picture deal with Avco-Embassy (following The Fog), producer Debra Hill and writer/director Carpenter set their eye on realizing a sci-fi/action script he had written in the mid-’70s, with the entire island of Manhattan having been turned into a maximum security prison with a 50-foot detainment wall built around its perimeter. Into this scenario Carpenter and co-screenwriter Nick Castle (who had played “The Shape” in 1978’s breakout Halloween) dropped ruthless and charismatic mercenary Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) and a wild, do-or-die plot about rescuing the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) after Air Force One is hijacked and crash-landed in the Big Apple. On a budget of $6 million (substantial, but still smallish for the project’s ambitious scale), the creative team – with special nods to production designer Joe Alves, cinematographer Dean Cundey, and one of the coolest ensemble casts EVER – emerged with a critical and box office hit . . . and an all-time iconic character in “Call me Snake” Plissken.

UNCLE SAM (1996) movie review

Uncle Sam (1996) d. Lustig, William

After his body is returned home, KIA Desert Storm vet Sam Harper (David Shark Fralick) rises from his coffin confines on July 4th to wage war against the citizens of his American-as-apple-pie hometown, to the disbelief of his idolizing nephew Christopher Ogden. Turns out “Uncle Sam” wasn’t such a good guy in life, and in his inexplicably resurrected form, he’s twice as nasty, bumping off former friends and neighbors right and left wearing a – you guessed it – red, white and blue top-hat-and-white-goateed costume.

Working from a script by noted rabble-rouser Larry Cohen, Lustig paints a cartoonish and violent paean to the supernatural slasher subgenre, with all the nutritional value and culinary daring of a cinematic cheese dog on a stick. Wants to be good, dumb fun, but mostly just ends up being dumb and dull, despite the game efforts of Isaac Hayes, Timothy Bottoms, Bo Hopkins, and Robert Forster.