Tag Archives: Kurt Russell

The Thing (1982) | John Carpenter

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The story starts out in Antarctica, where a group of scientists is bunkered until one day they are disturbed by the sounds of gunshots coming from a Norwegian helicopter, apparently trying to kill a runaway dog.  They miss their quarry, and the Norwegians end up getting offed, with no explanation as to what their problem is.  Fearing more violence, the American crew travels to the Norwegian camp, only to find some very odd occurrences, including a mangled humanoid body that has normal internal organs.  Then, the dog reveals that it is not really a dog, but some sort of alien organism with the power to mimic other life-forms and dominate until it takes over everything around it.  The men of the camp are its next intended victims, and soon, no one can trust the others. Kurt Russell, Keith David, and Wilford Brimley appear. Directed by John Carpenter.

Escape from New York (1981) | John Carpenter

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Escape from New York is set in a future 1997, during a time when, after the crime rate has skyrocketed out of control, the island of Manhattan has been turned into an ultra-maximum security prison where the worst of the worst violent criminals are put to live in a state of walled-in anarchy. A potential global crisis emerges when Air Force One is hijacked, forcing the President’s (Donald Pleasance) escape pod to crash land on the island, where he is immediately taken and held hostage by the criminals there, led by the vicious warlord, The Duke (Isaac Hayes). As they will kill the President if any cop sets foot on the premises, the government recruits eye patch-wearing Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell), a former military hero turned criminal who has been recently sentenced to the island, in exchange for not only his freedom, but, due to a bomb implanted inside him set to detonate in mere hours, his life.  Plissken has less than 24 hours to get the President out alive so that he can get some critical information delivered in time for an important political conference that might save the planet from a dark destiny. Co-written, directed, and scored by John Carpenter.

Overboard (1987) | Garry Marshall

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Goldie Hawn plays the ultra-disdainful Joanna Slayton, who hires a carpenter, Dean Proffitt (Kurt Russell), while stopping off for repairs in their luxury yacht off the coast of the small town of Elk Cove, Oregon, with her snobby hubby Grant (Edward Herrmann), in order to remodel her closet space for her extensive designer clothing collection. The two don’t see eye to eye on his work, and Joanna refuses payment, leaving him walking away miffed, especially as she also tosses him and his pricey tools overboard. When Joanna ends up falling off the yacht, she ends up drifting ashore with amnesia. Grant sees this as his opportunity to sow some wild oats, while Dean, seeing her story on the news, sees a way to get payback by claiming she is his wife Annie and making her do all of the household chores for him and his four bratty boys. Annie knows nothing about such matters but soon settles into the role Dean tells her she has always had, but as the two grow feelings for one another, there will be a reckoning should she ever remember where she actually came from. Garry Marshall directs.