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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Welcome to Monday Picks, a new weekly feature that examines a new movie every week from a wide array of different genres. In the spirit of the Halloween season, and being that the prequel opened this weekend, to kick us off is this week’s pick: John Carpenter’s 1982 classic The Thing.

The Thing is one of my favorite sci fi horror films for several reasons. 1) It is one of John Carpenter’s best films besides Escape From New York, Assault on Precinct 13, Starman, and Big Trouble in Little China. 2) Kurt Russell’s acting is phenomenal and his character MacReady is the textbook hero of the film, who overcomes and triumphs. 3) It is a very well done film in which the suspense, and the acting play a crucial role in executing the plot. From beginning to end, the film is truly a flawless picture.

The film was based off of John W. Campbell Jr’s short story “Who Goes There?” The film is not a remake of the classic 1951 Howard Hawks film, but is a very faithful new version of the short story for a new generation of sci fi horror fanatics.

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This week sees more new film and TV releases on Blu-ray and DVD. Among the ones we’re more interested in this week are The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, Ponyo, The Neverending Story, the Syfy miniseries Alice , Kurt Russell in Elvis, and the original Clash of the Titans (with Sir Laurence Olivier, pictured above).

Check out all the new releases below.

Film

Bitch Slap (Unrated) ~ Debbie Lee Carrington, Michael Hurst, Kevin Sorbo (DVD)

Clash of the Titans ~ Laurence Olivier, Harry Hamlin, Maggie Smith (Blu-ray and DVD)

Cold Souls ~ Paul Giamatti, Boris Leskin (Blu-ray and DVD)

Curious George 2: Follow That Monkey ~ Curious George (DVD)

Gentlemen Broncos ~ Jermaine Clement, Sam Rockwell (Blu-ray and DVD)

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According to Heat Vision Blog, Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Grindhouse) and Joel Edgerton (Attack of the Clones) are set to star in the latest incarnation of The Thing, Universal’s take on “the shape-shifting alien who terrorizes a group of people in a remote facility.” Oh yeah, that one.

Winstead will play a Ph.D. candidate who joins a Norwegian research team in Antarctica after it discovers an alien ship frozen in the ice. When a trapped organism is freed and begins to kill, she is forced to team with a mercenary helicopter pilot (Edgerton) to stop the rampage. Matthijs Van Heijningen is directing the movie, which was written by Ronald D. Moore and Eric Heisserer.

Sadly, Van Heijningen has never directed a big budget feature film before, so he’s probably the best choice for this one. Yes, that was sarcasm.

The Thing has, of course, been made into a film at least twice before. The best (and best-known) of these is probably the John Carpenter version from 1982 which featured Kurt Russell as the titular “mercenary helicopter pilot.” That film was a contemporary remake of 1951′s The Thing From Another World, directed by Howard Hawks and featuring pre-Gunsmoke James Arness as the creature.

A March 15 start date in Toronto is planned with a very short theatrical run and swift trip to your local video store probably soon to follow.

Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as Battlestar Galactica: The Plan, Night of the Creeps, the original Stargate, The Sam Fuller Collection, Orphan and the complete The Prisoner series starring and created by Patrick McGoohan (pictured above).

Check them out.

Movies

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan ~ Edward James Olmos, Tricia Helfer (DVD and Blu-ray)

42nd Street Forever 5: Alamo Drafthouse Edition ~ Charlton Heston, Robert Englund (DVD)

Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs ~ Ray Romano (DVD and Blu-ray)

Into Temptation ~ Kristin Chenoweth, Jeremy Sisto (DVD and Blu-ray)

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Here’s a list of some of the new DVD and Blu-ray releases this week we’re particularly interested in. Plus, some old favorites (and not so favorites) coming out this week for the first time on Blu-ray.

Movies

Race to Witch Mountain ~ Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, AnnaSophia Robb, and Alexander  Ludwig (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Soloist ~ Robert Downey, Jr., Jamie Foxx, Catherine Keener, and Stephen Root (DVD and Blu-ray)

Obsessed ~ Beyoncé Knowles, Idris Elba, Ali Larter, and Jerry O’Connell (DVD and Blu-ray)

Harvard Beats Yale 29-29 ~ Tommy Lee Jones, Brian Dowling, Vic Gatto, and Frank Champi (DVD and Blu-ray)

My Cousin Vinny ~ Joe Pesci, Ralph Macchio and Marisa Tomei (Blu-ray)

Mutant Chronicles ~ Thomas Jane, Ron Perlman, and John Malkovich (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Tigger Movie ~ John Hurt, Ken Sansom, Kath Soucie, and John Fiedler (DVD and Blu-ray)

Ulysses ~ Kirk Douglas, Anthony Quinn, Franco Interlenghi, and Daniel Ivernel (DVD)

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