Remember Escape from New York? Shot in 1981, it was John Carpenter's dystopian vision of NYC in the then-futuristic year of 1997, wherein the U.S. government has abandoned the city to the criminal class, and turned Manhattan into a prison city. Ex-soldier, criminal, and all-around badass Kurt Russell (aka Snake Plissken) is sent on a mission to save the president, whose plane has crashed in the city, and has been taken prisoner by one of the gangs. Bad, but it gets worse. If Snake doesn't get the president out, nuclear war is almost assured. So, it's pretty exciting. 

Now, I won't blow it for you, because you should watch this gem, but I mention Escape from New York to set up NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell. It's a doc about the year NYC almost went to pieces but in so doing created the rich cultural dung-heap on top of which disco, hip-hop and punk thrived, becoming the musical juggernauts that more-or-less dominated the last quarter of the 20th century, and helped turn New York into a safe, hipster paradise in the process.

posted by John Paolozzi on Feb 13, 2012