John Carpenter Tribute at the Aero Theater: "Escape from New York" & "Escape from LA"

The Famed Director Discusses the Adventures of Snake Plissken

"Escape Artist: A Tribute to John Carpenter" continued Saturday night with the exploits of Snake Plissken who appeared in the double feature "Escape From New York" and "Escape From LA." This again brought the fans out in droves as the Aero Theater in Santa Monica was packed, and the emcee again welcomed us to a showing of "The Happening 2." He said it was a first in that he would show us the M. Night Shyamalan sequel before it was even made.

These films marked a few of the collaborations between director John Carpenter and actor Kurt Russell. The two first worked together on the TV movie "Elvis," and they quickly became great friends. They went on to work on other films including another big cult hit, "Big Trouble In Little China." "Escape From LA" remains the only sequel that John Carpenter has ever directed, and this came about because Kurt Russell desperately wanted to play the character again. Of all the roles he has played, Kurt said that this was the only role that he wanted to play again.

The emcee warned us that the print of "Escape From New York" was pretty faded, and that it was an original print and the only one they could get their hands on. This was being pretty generous as the print looked like it had been slaughtered by countless film projectors, and the color was almost completely faded. Green scratches were all over the print, and it was a huge shock that the film didn't break apart in the projector. Still, despite the print itself, people were still enjoying a film that they have seen hundreds of times. They laughed when the title of "1997 NOW" came up, and when Lee Van Cleef speaks into this huge ass cell phone that we would never see anyone carrying around today. Another character that got a humorous response was Romero played by Frank Doubleday, and he remains one of the truly strangest characters to come out of any film I have ever seen.