the groundhog day project

Chris dances and mouths along to "Then He Kissed Me" and she dresses in black and white, which is an easy segue into her later dancing and singing--"Babysitting Blues"--at the Silver Dollar Room. Which, out of all the various messages one could take from this film regarding the "urban" world, is maybe the worst. I say maybe because the car theft ring is a pretty bad thing, but feels more opportunistic and less systemic. Wandering into a blues bar and immediately owning the stage when forced to perform--that's got bigger implications. Again, maybe. Albert Gene Drewery, better known as Albert Collins or the Ice Man, plays himself. He's the guitarist/singer running the stage at the club. Playing more like a nobody in a small club than who he really is (even thought he is credited as self... on IMDb; he is not in the cast list at the end of the film). This same year, he had been the musical guest on Late Night with David Letterman and in 1988 he...

Escape from New York didn't teach me anything about "white flight", of course . Its premise builds on the concept but the plot doesn't really play with it. Notably in how we never see what life is like for those outside the prison. In 1968, the Kerner Report warned, "Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white--separate and unequal" and "cities will have Negro majorities by 1985 and the suburbs ringing them will remain largely all white unless there are major changes in Negro fertility rates, in migration settlement patterns or public policy" and argued, "The alternative is not blind repression or capitulation to lawlessness. It is the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society." This entry will not all be so dense and full of historical quotes, but it will, as feels inevitable when spending time with Escape from New York , be political. I mean, of course someone like The Duke would rise up ...

Once Escape from New York 's plot actually gets moving, there isn't that much that actually happens. Snake (Kurt Russell) meets Cabbie (Ernest Borgnine), Cabbie takes Snake to Brain (Harry Dean Stanton). Duke (Isaac Hayes) shows up. Snake, Cabbie, Brain, and Maggie (Adrienne Barbeau) flee, get to Duke's and find the president (Donald Pleasance) but Snake is captured and forced to fight Slag (Ox Baker). They all make a run for Snake's glider on top of the World Trade Center, then head for the Queensboro Bridge to get off the island. People die, Snake and the president get away. The end. Basically. There isn't much to say about the plot as it is. There's room for strange interpretations of meaning, but with John Carpenter behind the film, it feels like it would be me inventing meaning where he put none. As far as implicit meaning, Escape from New York feels like a response to gang violence in New York in the 1970s, an outlandish extension of the reality, people ...