Escape from L.A./John Carpenter's Escape from L.A./Escape from Los Angeles (1996) or, Snake Plissken in Crazy-World!

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+ Costliest Flop of the Year: 31.12 mil. $ range

Kurt Russell looks cool in the intense colors on this poster for John Carpenter's Escape from L.A.

Snake Plissken is back, this time in the year 2013, in which he avoids deportation by getting imposed an assignment by the mad president of the United States to capture his daughter and a weapon on the prison island that is Los Angeles.

Escape from L.A. is a colorful an very wacky sequel to New Yorker master co-writer-director John Carpenter's (Halloween (1978)) own great Escape from New York (1981). It features some early CGI, which looks curious today, and an exaggerated plot that doesn't reach the heights of the first film or another comparable 1990s sci-fi-action great like Paul Verhoeven's Total Recall (1990).
But Escape from L.A. does have its own kind of charm and a cast that contains several smaller scoops, including a scene where Bruce Campbell (Burn Notice (2007-13)) plays a crazy plastic surgeon, which is a favorite, and Pam Grier (Linc's (1998-2000)) playing a male-to-female transgender, (hadn't seen that coming.)
Escape from L.A. is co-written with Debra Hill (The Fog (1980)) and returning star Kurt Russell (Dark Blue (2002), actor). It is a noisy and nonsensical piece of super-kitsch. SPOILER Especially the film's ending is odd, as Plissken "bombs the world 500 years back" by turning off the power with a satellite.

Related posts:

John Carpenter: Cigarette Burns (2005, TV movie) - Carpenter burns out in weird, tiresome TV movie 

1996 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess
Christine (1983) or, Bad Plymouth!
Escape from New York (1981) - Carpenter introduces Kurt Russell as action star in dystopic dream
Top 10: The best action movies and TV-series reviewed by Film Excess to date
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) - Solid action guerilla film-making

Watch an ad for the film from a VHS tape here - featuring creative marketing that changes the film's huge flop status by referring to it as a "25 mil. $ box office smash", - some 20 years after movies broke the 100 mil. $ mark at the domestic box office ...

Cost: 50 mil. $
Box office: 47.2 mil. $
= Huge flop
[Escape from L.A. was released 9 August (North America) and runs 101 minutes.  The film was in development for almost a decade but was sped up by the 1992 LA riots, the 1994 LA earthquake as well as Russell's wish to play Plissken again. The budget was more than 8 times that of the original film. Shooting took place in California, including at Universal Studios, Texas and Miami, Florida from December 1995 - March 1996. The film opened #3, behind fellow new release Jack and hold-over hit A Time to Kill, to an 8.9 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it fell out of the top 5 in its second week, only played 4 weeks and grossed just 25.4 mil. $ (53.8 mil. % of the total gross.) Roger Ebert gave the film 3½/4 stars, equal to two notches better than this review. Escape from L.A. is rotten at 53 % with a 5.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Escape from L.A.?

Easy Rider (1969) or, The 1960s Ride Again!

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An iconic poster for Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider in a ghastly yellow

Two friends complete a drug deal and start a road trip on motorcycles, which leads them to a hippie collective, a New Orleans jail, a bad trip in a cemetery and more.

Easy Rider, written by Terry Southern (Barbarella (1968)), Peter Fonda (Enemy (1990)) and co-writer-director Dennis Hopper (Chasers (1994)), is one of the most iconic and sensation-stirring American films of the 20th century and the single most responsible film for marshaling in the New Hollywood period of young filmmakers with license to experiment that enriched the cinematic output of the country in the 1970s. - But does that naturally entail that it is a masterpiece or even a great film? I think not.
When Jack Nicholson (The Last Tycoon (1976)) enters Easy Rider, it attains a power and a natural center that it lacks before his arrival. SPOILER But then he dies, and later the two leads (Fonda and Hopper) go the same way.
The good things in Easy Rider, principally, are the scenes of driving and nature, which contains fantastic beauty, along with a few other scenes such as the cemetery trip scene. The music in the film and portrait of its time is also a huge part of its lingering attraction. However, I don't feel any romantic connection to the late-60s era or the hippies the film idolize, and perhaps as a consequence, ultimately, Easy Rider continues to strike me as a somewhat boring and overrated film with a very thin plot.

Related posts:

Dennis Hopper: Top 10: Best drug-themed movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
24 - season 1 (2001) - TV action milestone (actor)
Blue Velvet (1986) or, The Strange World (actor) 
Apocalypse Now (1979) Redux version - The horror of war (actor)

Watch the intro from the film here

Cost: Listed as 360k $ - but additional music license cost of 1 mil. $ rises the overall cost to 1.36 mil. $
Box office: 60 mil. $
= Mega-hit
[Easy Rider premiered 12 May (Cannes) and runs 95 minutes. Fonda and Hopper developed the film as a deeper reflection upon their times and the youth revolt and personal experiences on films such as The Wild Angels (1966) and The Trip (1967). Nicholson's part was initially to have gone to Rip Torn, who became antagonized by Hopper's distaste for Texans and 'rednecks', being a Texan himself. In the 1990s, he successfully sued Hopper for defamation, after he had claimed on Jay Leno's late night talk show that Torn had pulled a knife on him as part of their disagreement. The record of Hopper's wild and self-aggrandizing behavior during the making of Easy Rider is long and elaborate. Shooting took place from March - May 1968 in Louisiana, New Mexico, California and Arizona. The cast and crew reportedly held their wrap party and then found out that they still needed to shoot the final scene. Hopper initially proposed a 220 minute cut of the film, which is not in existence today, just as other lengthy cuts of the film are deemed lost. The film became the 3rd highest-grossing film of 69, making 41.7 mil. $ (69.5 % of the total gross) in North America. It got nominated for 2 Oscars: Best Supporting Actor (Nicholson), lost to Gig Young in They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, and Best Original Screenplay, lost to William Goldman for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The film was also nominated for a Golden Globe, and a BAFTA; it won a Best First Work award in Cannes and more. Easy Rider is certified fresh at 89 % with an 8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Easy Rider?

The Wild Angels (1966) - Young biker rebels deliver a counter-culture punch in Corman's hands

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Artsy, wild-colored poster for Roger Corman's The Wild Angels

The Wild Angels is a sub-genre-creating counter-culture gem from genre maestro Roger Corman (The Fall of the House of Usher (1960)). It created the outlaw biker genre that culminated three years hence in Dennis Hopper's Easy Rider (1969), which became a massive hit and a mainstream pop-cultural reference.
As with most biker films, the narrative is pretty thin in Angels:
'Blues' is the president of the Hell's Angels Venice California chapter, and he orders his guys out to look for some missing choppers at a warehouse controlled by some Mexicans. After a fist fight breaks out, the police butts in, and the bikers have to flee the warehouse on their Harleys. The president's right hand man 'Loser' unfortunately gets chased and shot by a cop who then drives off the road, killing himself. 'Loser' gets broken out of the hospital by his biker compadres, SPOILER which kills him. 'Blues' and the rest of the gang stage a funeral at a far-away funeral parlor, but end up assaulting the minister and trashing the place instead, and their wild ways eventually make the burial of 'Loser' almost impossible.
Angels was wildly popular at the time and stroke fear across parents' hearts in the Western world, as their wild kids suddenly seemed to adore violent bikers wearing swastikas.
The film is provoking, because it presents the aimless drifters in a fascinated, positive light. They are the heroes of the film, but at the same time, they are pretty ridiculous and morally reprehensible with their disregard for everyone besides themselves and their stupid ways in general. Different things will outrage each person most, be it the Nazi symbols they flaunt everywhere, the rape of the girlfriend of 'Loser' at his funeral (!), the way 'Loser''s corpse is dragged around and fed a smoke at his funeral, the violence, or the disrespect towards religion, as they abuse the minister at 'Loser''s funeral. They're pretty terrible.

Peter Fonda tells the minister what they want at his friend 'Loser''s funeral: To be left alone and get wasted and have fun

At the same time, their unity is fascinating: They seem very poorly dressed by the surrounding society. They have no norms or objections but just accept acting out in most every circumstance they find themselves in.
Peter Fonda (Easy Rider (1969)) is charismatic as the president 'Blues', and Bruce Dern (Nebraska (2013)) is good as 'Loser'. The women are Nancy Sinatra and Diane Ladd, portraying 'Loser''s girl. Ladd was Dern's wife at the time, which probably helped her play the part.

The details:

A lot of Angels' attraction also comes from its awesome rock soundtrack by Mike Curb (It's a Bikini World (1967)) and Davie Allan (Night on Earth (1991)), which runs like an electric zeitgeist-fueled current through the picture.
The version I have on DVD is very well-restored picture- and sound-wise, and the film was no blight to the eye like the terrible, topically related Hells Angels on Wheels, which is technically and dramatically nowhere near Angels in terms of quality.
I know that this review is more positive than most that have been written about of The Wild Angels. (Leonard Maltin, to take one critic, has written that the film is "OK after about 24 beers.")
- I have a very soft spot for Corman and the confrontational approach he uses in some of his films like this one and for instance Shame/The Stranger (1962). I also have a soft spot for his more colorful horror and suspense pictures, but that's another story.
The by Film Excess beloved Peter Bogdanovich (The Last Picture Show (1971)) co-wrote the script for Angels with Charles B. Griffiths and did second unit direction and other jobs on the picture.
The Wild Angels serves as an impeccable historical source to understand youth rebellion in the 60s and the crazy flux of values that was present at the time for these youths, often replaced by anarchistic or nihilistic tendencies.
It is not a very likable bunch in the film, but I enjoyed it anyway. It is made with persuasion and power. And, personally, I like it better than the super-praised Easy Rider (1969), which makes martyrs out of its two drug-toking, anarchistic bikers. Angels is more fun, raw and makes more sense to me.

Related reviews:

Hells Angels on Wheel (1967) or, The Troglodyte Outlaws!
Peter Bogdanovich: What's Up, Doc? (1972) - Screwball comedy revived for a wonderful show
Bruce Dern: Nebraska (2013) or, Father and Son

The provocative opening title with a swastika against Peter Fonda on his Harley

Budget: 0.3 mil. $
Box office: 15.5 mil. $
= Huge hit

What do you think of the biker pictures and The Wild Angels in particular?
Which Corman-film is your favorite?