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.

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.

This week’s pick is John Carpenter’s independent horror classic hit Halloween that held the record as the highest grossing independent film of all time. Halloween helped to usher in a new era of slasher films throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Carpenter’s use of camera angles, music, photography, and story help create one of the most frightening films of all time.

Carpenter sights many influences ranging from Howard Hawks, John Ford, and Orson Welles. Carpenter’s then girlfriend and producer at the time Debra Hill had a concept about a group of teenage babysitters stalked by a masked killer. The script was called “The babysitter murders.” Producer Irwin Yablans suggested the title Halloween. Carpenter and Hill reworked the script to have it occur on Halloween night, and changed the title to Halloween.

Graduating from USC film school in the early 1970s, Carpenter’s first big break was the action hit Assault on Precinct 13 which producer Irwin Yablans viewed at the Milan Film Festival along with financier Moustapha Akkad. Both men liked Carpenter’s style and approached him about making a film for them. Akkad fronted the film’s three hundred and twenty thousand dollar budget and Carpenter was given four weeks to come up with the film.

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.

Film remakes are something that we’ve all grown accustomed to over the years but with two major releases last week both being remakes, Footloose and The Thing, have we reached the breaking point? Is no film safe from a remake? Is it only time before we see Howard the Duck remade with a CGI duck a la The Smurfs? The new pop-culture debate show GeekDown discuss the pitfalls and necessary evils of remaking classic, or not so classic, films.

Jonathan London of Geekscape.net sits in the guest chair this week to give his insight on why piracy is causing the massive influx of remakes in recent years.

The trailer for Joss Whedon’s Avengers hit the internet this week and fanboys around the world had to change their pants. We manage to calm ourselves for a few minutes and dissect the trailer to make sense of why Thor is about to bring the hammer down on Captain America, why there’s so much Tony Stark, and why Loki hates cars so much.

If that wasn’t enough for one show, Mass Effect 3 Multiplayer is also up for discussion. After a drawn out “will they, won’t they” situation worthy of any sitcom, BioWare finally announced that they will have multiplayer in next year’s hotly anticipated Mass Effect 3.

Is it the final step towards making the game of the year or is it just an afterthought to sell more $10 online passes? Find out what we think on this episode of GeekDown after the jump.

Is it a sequel? A prequel? A remake? A premake? Yes.

Director Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. (yes, that is a real name) takes a lot of inspiration and most of the story from John Carpenter’s 1982 classic, the only ostensible difference being that this film takes place in the Norwegian camp immediately before the events of Carpenter’s.

The Norwegians unearth the titular Thing and call in some American paleontologists, among them the comely Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a young graduate student whose major qualification is that she provides a reason for the movie to be in English.

And from there, it plays out as you’d expect.

We love video mashups, but this is insane, several songs and score segments come together to make one excellent music video and mashup.

Stop motion plus some favorite retro toys equals one awesome video titled The King of LEGOland. And yes, Micronauts are still cool.

Talked about for months, the official Dragon Age webseries, titled “Redemption”, hits the web. Enjoy it here!

In getting you ready for this weekend’s prequel/reboot of The Thing, here’s a flashy musical that wraps up John Carpenter’s classic film nicely.

In what should become a regular prank at Madame Tussauds, Pittsburgh Steeler Troy Polamalu put the scare into some unsuspecting football fans.

Remakes get a bad reputation in the fan community. Mostly for good reason, but a few bad eggs like Gulliver’s Travels or The Honeymooners ruin the concept for the whole group, which is just unfortunate. These days, a few remakes are welcome with the current technological advances we have in CGI or, heaven forbid, 3D.

That’s where a remake like The Thing comes into play. Some call it a remake, others a “prequel/reboot hybrid”. All we know is that we’re getting to see some pretty badass scenes that we never got in the original from 1982. For all 8 of you who haven’t seen the original or need a refresher, here’s the premise of the film.

Taking place three days before the events of the John Carpenter film, paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) joins a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across a crashed extraterrestrial spaceship buried in the ice of Antarctica. They discover a creature that seems to have died in the crash eons ago.

When an experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate joins the crew’s pilot, Carter (Joel Edgerton), to keep it from killing and imitating them one at a time, using its uncanny ability to mimic any life form it absorbs through digestion, and potentially reaching civilization.

The trailer manages to keep the film’s creepy and shock-tastic tone while still looking like an intriguing science-fiction piece. Check it out after the jump and be sure to catch The Thing in theaters October 14th.

Apparently, today is turning out to be new trailer day. What with the first one for John Carter already being released and now a brand new one for The Thing just coming out as well.

Of course, we’ve got it for you right here, curtesy of the folks over at MSN Movies. Here’s some info on the film for you.

It’s directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton. It was originally set for release on April 29th but that was changed to October. Not a good sign that this film will be any good.

Still, the trailer looks pretty awesome so perhaps the movie will end up being better than expected? Could happen. Although, the fact that the director hasn’t done any other feature film, let alone one with this many effects, doesn’t bode well either. Oh Hollywood, will you never learn.

In case you’re not familiar, here’s a brief synopsis of The Thing:

Paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Winstead) has traveled to the desolate region for the expedition of her lifetime. Joining a Norwegian scientific team that has stumbled across an extraterrestrial ship buried in the ice, she discovers an organism that seems to have died in the crash eons ago. But it is about to wake up.

When a simple experiment frees the alien from its frozen prison, Kate must join the crew’s pilot, Carter (Edgerton), to keep it from killing them off one at a time. And in this vast, intense land, a parasite that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish.

Check out the trailer after the jump. The Thing arrives in theaters on October 14th, 2011.

This week on The Flickcast Chris and Matt inch ever closer to the magical 100th episode of the show. It’s getting closer every day but until then, they still had this episode to do and do it they did.

This week’s topics include lots of new trailers including Green Lantern and The Muppets, the state of 3D movies at the Box Office, the technical glitches of some movie theater chains on the East Coast, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Torchwood: Children of Earth and much more. Sadly, they also talked about Charlie Sheen, Ashton Kutcher and Two and a Half Men . . . but only for a minute.

Of course, the boys made some picks this week including Matt’s pick of John Carpenter’s They Live and Chris’ pick of the book Bossypants by SNL and 30 Rock writer and star Tina Fey.

As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, at Facebook and MySpace or via email.

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