This week’s pick is yet another John Carpenter classic. Kurt Russell stars as the first ever action hero of the 1980s in Escape From New York (1981). After success with Halloween and the horror classic The Fog, Carpenter’s next project would be a unique blend of science fiction, action, noir and a western. The result is one of the finest multi genre classics of its time.

Set in a dystopian future (now the past) the United States’ crime rate rises to an astonishing four hundred percent in 1988. To combat the growing crime rate, the United States becomes a totalitarian police state and the great city of New York is turned into the one prison for the whole country. A fifty-foot containment wall is erected around all of Manhattan Island, all the bridges and waterways are mined, and the United States Police Force patrols the wall perimeter to insure no one escapes. Once you go inside the prison, you never come out.

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In case you missed it in theatres (and chances are you did), the sci-fi thriller In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, comes to Blu-Ray and DVD* today.

The first thing you might notice about In Time is how good-looking it is. Of course, being an Andrew Niccol (Gattaca, Lord of War) joint, the film is stylish and immaculate, but that’s not what I mean. I am referring to the film’s entire cast being comprised of gorgeous young actors. With the exception of two young children, every character in the film is 25 years old.

No matter how many years they have behind them, everyone from grandmothers to mob heavies are played by actors in their mid-twenties to early-thirties. Combine that with Hollywood’s natural trend towards beauty, and the effect creates what can only be described as a “model” future.

You see, in In Time‘s vision of the future, genetics have been altered to give everyone’s life a predetermined length. At 25 years old, bodies stop aging but start counting down. Everyone gets a year, but time can be earned, traded, gambled, or stolen. It is, in fact, the only currency humanity has left.

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This week’s pick is the John Carpenter exploitation classic Assault on Precinct 13 that stars Austin Stoker, Darwin Joston, Laurie Zimmer, and Carpenter regular Charles Cyphers. Before Carpenter hit it big two years later in 1978 with the critically acclaimed financial blockbuster Halloween, his first commercial attempt came with Assault on Precinct 13.

Carpenter was a graduate of USC film school and had recently shot the now cult classic Dark Star which failed to give the young idealistic filmmaker the big break he was hoping for. Carpenter went looking for financial backers and found the CKK Corporation of Philadelphia, PA who gave Carpenter carte blanche to make whatever kind of film he wanted.

Carpenter hoped to make a Howard Hawks inspired western much like El Dorado or Rio Lobo. Due to funds in the range of only one hundred thousand dollars, Carpenter changed his mind and decided to make an action exploitation film instead.

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This week’s pick is the final chapter of the Mad Max Trilogy, or at least it is until George Miller gets Fury Road out of the film can and into theaters after almost thirty years since the franchise dried up. Mel Gibson stars for the last time as the post apocalyptic do-gooder in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985).

Thunderdome is my least favorite of the films for several reasons, mostly because of how soft Max has gotten in his old age. The film opens where it’s obvious that it has been several years (namely by Mel’s long 80s metal do) since Max helped the outpost settlers of the wasteland battle the Humungus and his barbarians.

As Max is trucking across the desert, he is knocked clear off his camel driven monster truck by a plane piloted by Jedediah (played by Bruce Spence from The Road Warrior). Jedediah steals Max’s rig and leaves him marooned in the desert with nothing. Following the tracks, Max arrives at what is known as Bartertown, a desert outpost where survivors of the nuclear holocaust come to trade precious materials.

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Catch .44 is the embodiment of style over substance.

The film looks great. Writer/director Aaron Harvey clearly has a good eye. If the budget is as low as he implies in the audio commentary, Harvey needs to marry his production designer and his cinematographer. A lot of the visual effects are a little clunky (think the fight sequences in Deadliest Warrior), but good for the budget (which bodes well for the future of indie film).

The acting is also very strong, which is not unexpected given a cast that includes veterans Bruce Willis, Brad Dourif, and Oscar winner Forest Whitaker. Most of the fun that can be squeezed from watching Catch .44 is seeing the actors play.

But the twisty crime thriller genre is all about story, and there just isn’t one here. Unlike The Usual Suspects and Reservoir Dogs, to which the marketing compares the film, Catch.44 doesn’t have any surprises, any secrets, or any tension. It’s mostly just people saying they are going to shoot each other and then, in fact, shooting each other.

The characters are poorly drawn and, with the possible exception of Whitaker’s confused psycho, unmemorable. Most have no arcs to speak of. The script doesn’t even keep you entertained with clever banter or intimidating tough-guy talk, another staple of the genre. The dialogue in Catch .44 is clumsy and lacking originality.

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This week’s Monday Pick is the 1979 action thriller Mad Max, a film that lunched one of the most lucrative franchises in film history. The Mad Max trilogy has spawned many imitations over the last thirty plus years, but they fail to add up to George Miller’s fantastic vision of the ultimate dystopian future.

Mel Gibson (who was virtually unknown at the time) stars as police pursuit man Max Rockatansky. He patrols the highways of the not too distant future Australia that is on the verge of complete anarchy and lawlessness. In the first installment of the series, Miller shows the audience that in this future, resources like food, water, and gasoline are becoming scarce and society is beginning to break down. The Main Force Patrol (MFP) is the uniformed highway safety enforcement whose main purpose is to stop marauding gangs who pose a threat to the society they are desperately trying to preserve.

The first ten minutes of Mad Max are filled with some of the most impressive and dangerous stunts ever performed in any film before or since. The MFP is in pursuit of an escaped convict who calls himself the Night Rider. Along with his girlfriend, the two take off in one of the force’s fastest V-8 pursuit vehicles and are successful in evading several pursuit units.

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2011 might go down as the year Hollywood finally figured out how to make a great prequel. Between the “X-cellent” X-Men: First Class and Rise of the Planet of the Apes we have seen two high profile franchises recieve a much needed quality boost back into the lime light.

The most impressive part of this movie is the performance of Andy Serkis as Caesar the ape. Millions of words have been written on the subject of his brilliant digital performance, and every single one of them speaks the truth. We are seeing the line between animation and performance blends so much that it is almost impossible to tell the difference.

This Blu-Ray presents the film, and a whole bunch of features that help you understand what exactly went into the astonishing effects work on the film. Of all the films that have come out in the last few years, this is one of the most worthy of a great set of features.

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The Simpsons are the kings of prime time animation. Lasting an astounding twenty-three seasons and counting, The Simpsons is an institution that has spanned generations. So the collecting of these episodes is something that fans have enjoyed since the earliest days of TV on DVD. Fox has been releasing these sets for over a decade now and we find ourselves in an interesting era of the show.

Most people consider these early and mid 2000s seasons of the show to be the worst era during the impressive run. The show seemingly was stale and the spark was missing. At the end of the day the show survived and has since rebounded to become a relevant, often hilarious show.

One of the things I was most excited about when I dug into this set was the plethora of special features. The Simpsons sets have always set the standard for insightful and worthwhile special features, anchored by the amazing cast and crew commentaries that have accompanied every single episode since season one, making over 300 episodes worth of anecdotes, insights and inside knowledge of the creation of an institution.

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Happy New Year and welcome to another year of your favorite films here at Monday Picks. This week’s feature to ring in the New Year is the 1972 Spanish horror classic Horror Express a.k.a. Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express. The film stars both Hammer Films greats Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee who battle an alien life form which has existed on Earth for millions of years.

The film opens in 1906 Manchuria where English naturalist and explorer Alexander Saxton (Lee) has discovered an ape-like creature that has been frozen for thousands of years. Convinced he has found the missing link, Saxton and his party crate up the fossil and prepare to transport the cargo by train to Moscow, Russia.

While in Shanghai, Saxton encounters his fellow Royal Society member Doctor Wells (Cushing) who also plans to board the train bound for Moscow. While under guard, Saxton’s crate is picked by a thief who turns up dead on the station platform, his eyes turned white. A crazed monk and spiritual advisor to a Polish Count believes Saxton’s cargo is unholy. Saxton dismisses the monk’s ranting as spiritual nonsense.

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Merry Christmas to all the fans of Monday Picks. This week’s pick in celebration of the holiday season is Scrooged. Richard Donner (The Omen, Superman I & II, Lethal Weapon series) directs this modern comedy version of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Bill Murray stars as media mogul Frank Cross, the head of IBC Networks who has risen to the top of the company by being a cynical, conceited, and cruel individual. Frank is in charge of a forty million dollar production of a live television broadcast that is to air on Christmas Eve.

When company executives show Frank the latest commercial for the broadcast, Frank belittles and insults his staff and shows them an incredibly offensive and violent commercial he has produced for the broadcast, which he plans to air in place of the original. Corporate executive Eliot Loudermilk (Bobcat Goldthwait) confronts Frank on the commercial saying that the ad is in poor taste and will frighten people. Frank goes along with Loudermilk’s suggestion and then has him fired just days before Christmas.

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This week’s Monday Pick is the John McTiernan holiday action classic Die Hard. It stars Bruce Willis as tough New York cop John McClane who arrives in Los Angeles during the Christmas holidays to reconcile with his estranged wife Holly (Bonnie Bedelia) who works as an executive with the Nakatomi corporation.

As McClane and his wife try to patch up their troubled marriage, the Christmas party is crashed by a group of thieves demanding that the CEO of the company open the vault which houses over six hundred and forty million dollars in barrow bonds. Alone and outgunned, McClane maneuvers through the building bumping off as many terrorists as he can while he tries to find out what their real plans are.

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Family Guy is a popular show. It has legions of fans who have made it an institution. Once it gets dark outside you can almost certainly find an episode on TV somewhere, and it’s popularity doesn’t seem to be waning. I personally feel it’s hit and miss style of throwing everything on the wall and seeing what sticks makes for an inconsistent show. But credit where credit is due I watch the show all the time, and digging into this set was a generally very pleasant experience.

The show continues on in this ninth volume, which is anchored by one of the better episodes Family Guy has ever produced. ‘And Then There Were Fewer’ is clearly the gem of this collection as it is the inspiration for the box art and menu screens. The set also has some pretty solid special features and, annoyingly, an episode from The Cleveland Show.

Interestingly though this set doesn’t follow along with any typical season order. It includes the end of the eighth season and the beginning of the ninth. I am not sure when the show jumped off of season based sets, but this odd organizational decision makes for a rather frustrating time when looking for specific episodes from specific seasons.

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