This is the greatest "so bad it's good" movie ever made. I took it seriously when I was in my early teen years and first saw it, and loved it. I had a friend with the movie poster in his room and I desperately envied him. This movie seemed so dark and gritty and hard-hitting when I was 14.<br /><br />When I grew up and saw it again, I found that unlike 99% of the stuff I'd thought was good when I was 14 years old, I actually still liked this movie almost as much as I originally did, but for completely different reasons. A huge, scary, pimpy-looking black man driving a Cadillac with chandeliers on the hood? Who makes the President of the United States say, "You're the Duke of New York, You're A-Number-One"? <br /><br />What could possibly surpass this in the annals of film history? I think that all previous cinematic efforts all the way back to Thomas Edison were just a build-up for this triumphant moment, a seething maelstrom of cheese that vaporizes the very soul of the viewer, leaving nothing but a listless, nihilistic shell waiting for death, as any subjective experience past this point has no meaning; it is completely annihilated by the revelation of film greatness that is Escape From New York.<br /><br />