“A Little Human Compassion”: Fascism and Freedom in ‘Death Wish’ and ‘Escape from New York’

By K.E. Roberts

John Carpenter wrote the original script for Escape from New York (1981) in 1974, inspired by Death Wish, Michael Winner’s film from the same year—specifically its seedy portrayal of New York “as a kind of jungle.” Both Death Wish and Escape from New York did extremely well commercially and launched their respective genres, the citizen vigilante film and the dystopian actioner…

Adventures in Atari BASIC: Lesson One – Programmer Kids and Plotting Stars

By Mikey Walters

When someone chooses a computer to purchase today, they usually consider only what the computer can do based on available software. They’re thinking about what games they can play, what kinds of entertainment media they can enjoy, and how fast they can access the web. But in the 8-bit home computer boom of the late 1970s and early 1980s, choosing a new computer was based largely on what kind of software you wanted to create yourself…

From Alphaville to Mos Eisley: How the French New Wave Influenced Hollywood Sci-Fi

By J.G. Newman

To say that the box office success of Star Wars in 1977 shifted Hollywood’s interest toward blockbuster genre fare is, to put it lightly, an understatement. Before the release of George Lucas’ space saga, realistic, Oscar-lauded films such as The Sting (1973) and The Godfather (1972) stood on nearly equal box office footing as more fantastical effects movies like Jaws (1975) and The Exorcist (1973)…