Big Trouble In Little China / Assault on Precinct 13

BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, 1986, 20th Century Fox, 99 min. Dir. John Carpenter. Ultra-colorful adventure in the grand tradition of 1930s serials, starring Kurt Russell as a cocky truck-driver who finds himself battling ancient Chinese warlords and hideous demons to save feisty Kim Cattrall. A great guilty pleasure, and one of Carpenter’s most purely entertaining genre films.

ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, (1976), CKK Corp., 90 min. Dir. John Carpenter. This stark modern homage to Howard Hawks’ RIO BRAVO updates the action with a youth gang attacking a closing police station in a blighted ghetto neighborhood. Rapid-fire banter flies fast and furious between charismatic convict Darwin Joston and policewoman Laurie Zimmer as the faceless, virtually supernatural marauders attack. This remains one of Carpenter’s most effective pictures, an edge-of-your-seat thriller that put him on the map as an imaginative, creative force to be reckoned with.