Precisely this. And I find it the superior of the two films. His opinions oscillate daily, as everyone knows lol, but the last I read, Carpenter prefers the sequel too.
He was a mess. I remember he even had a standoff with the police and some other shit. He could've ended like Charlie Sheen, but he managed to avoid that.
Steve Miller's reference to the "pompatus of love", in his 1973 song "The Joker", is a reference to the 1954 Vernon Green song "The Letter" where he mentions a "puppetute", meaning a woman who happy to do what you want - in exchange for love.
Loved Basquait! Saw Jack at the same theater that I saw Basquait. Sadly, it has long since torn down, but Jack was one of the only movies I’ve ever seen in the theater where an actual boom mic falls into the frame. I remember sitting there, like, what?? Was that a friggin boom mic I just saw?? How did that make final cut?? I like Escape From LA, which I rented on video, but it pales strongly to Escape From NY!!
Gene was absolutely right about Escape from LA. Despite all the fun ideas, it was boring as all hell. I'd be willing to laugh along with the film if the jokes were actually well executed.
I had a friend that worked at Paramount. When we visited we saw it before official release. It was so boring and to be polite, I found myself propping my eyelids open with toothpicks to get through it.
Totally agree. Watch that movie now it feels SO cheap and dated. Kurt Russell looks bored out of his mind the whole time and gets ZERO dialogue. Such a dumb movie.
More than 20 years later and Escape From LA is regarded as a cult masterpiece now, go figure. For me personally it has become perhaps Carpenter's greatest achievement as a director, it is a celebration of anarchy in the name of freedom, so anything goes, this film could have not been made anytime else than before 2000 when there was a sense the world was going to end, but that collective feeling has not vanished, in fact it has perhaps only got bigger, so much so people desire there was someone like Snake willing to push that button like at the end of the film. Siskel you dont get it, in the sense you have not been able to tune into the tone of the film, it is not boring if you can get lost in its created world. The film is about extremes in the polarity, this is why there was this character Hershey, in one interview during the promotion of this film Pam Grier has explained that her transgender character was there to strenghen the theme of the whole film which is about bringing a balance towards the extreme polarity that is only strenghened by gender binary itself as it programs the consciousness towards a dualistic pattern that breeds sexism and racism and extreme beliefs, this is basically what the existence of transgender species has served here on earth for centuries within indigenous cultures, harmonizing and balancing the polarity, transcending the oppositional mind-set, most transgender people are in a sense much closer to God or unity consciousness by the existence of their intersexed body through the evolutionary changes of mother nature, this is why they bring so much confusion to humans who are so dogmatically attached to the polarity symbolized by labels man and woman. Within the unity consciousness you are a man or woman from the divine authority within, not some authority outside of you, this is why Hershey in the film is acting at a moment like she wants to kill Snake and in another like she is seducing him, she is balancing the extreme views so many hold within the world of that film, including in our world these days.
