I hung out with one of my best friends and watched “Warriors of Heaven and Earth“, but when she left and I was channel surfing, I found that “Escape from New York” was being broadcast in HD and I am currently marveling at:
- The spectacular 80′s synth soundtrack that was written by the director, John Carpenter and a synth composing legend, Alan Howarth.
- Of course, John Carpenter is not the only “double threat” — Isaac Hayes has a great turn as the Duke of New York, even though I always think of him as the guy who wrote the theme song for “Shaft.”
- How Kurt Russell can play a complete badass like Snake Plissken. People seem to forget he used to do action movies, like “Big Trouble in Little China” — and that he could do a reasonable squinty badass a la Clint Eastwod like he did in “Tombstone.”
- I laugh every time someone tells Snake Plissken that they heard he was dead. 
- And sadly, I just found out that my entire life is a lie! I thought that the cool 3-d “vector” graphics used on his glider flight in to New York were really computer graphics. I always referenced that as an example of how cool computer graphics could be (keep in mind, this is pre-id Software, kids), so imagine my shock and horror when I learn that it wasn’t computer graphics at all!
From imdb.com‘s trivia about the movie:
The wire-frame computer graphics on the display screens in the glider were not actually computer graphics. (Computers capable of 3D wire-frame imaging were way too expensive when this was made.) To generate the “wire-frame” images, they built a model of the city, painted it black, attached bright white tape to the model buildings in an orderly grid, and moved a camera through the model city!
- Of course, he wouldn’t be able to land his glider on the World Trade Center any more. 
Oh well, perhaps they’ll get it right in the remake (!) which seems to be in limbo… but Gerard Butler would have been a pretty good Snake Plissken!