Give "Escape From L.A." DVD a Carpenter/Russell Commentary!

It is long overdue for Paramount Home Video to give their DVD catalog title Escape From L.A. a John Carpenter/Kurt Russell audio commentary. As many know, the Carpenter/Russell commentaries for the DVDs of Escape From New York, The Thing and Big Trouble in Little China are absolute treasures that can be listened to and enjoyed many times over. This stellar director and stupendous actor are longtime friends as well as work associates, and their ingratiating rapport is incorrigible to the nth degree. Not only do you get fascinating details about the making of the movie but awesome stories of off-the-set happenstances and neat personal stories of the two, as well. These are far from the dry, reticent commentaries that far too many DVDs are afflicted with -- you feel the commentators couldn't have cared less about recording their thoughts, only that they're doing the very minimum amount to pick up easy paychecks. With Carpenter and Russell, you can hear them opening up cans of beer and lighting cigarettes in the background, kicked back and loose and anxious to give the listener their money's worth, and accompanying their words with oodles of laughter and good cheer. While it's perfectly understandable that not all movies can be given audio commentaries on DVD, this one more than warrants one. In fact, it's the only feature film of the teamwork of director Carpenter and star Russell that doesn't have one, and that's a shame. It would not only be a great joy to fans but also a good business opportunity for Paramount, for these fans would buy a the DVD just for the commentary alone. (Case in point: I'm not exactly a fan of China, but I greedily bought the DVD the day it became available and have listened to the commentary many times over.) Paramount has been known to drop the ball on more than one occasion -- they were the last major home-video company to finally adopt chapter stops on their LaserDiscs back in the day (even the second-tier Image Entertainment beat them to the punch on this) -- but with enough dedicated fan support signing this petition, we can communicate and persuade them to do what's right for us pleasurably and them financially. A bare-bones DVD of a Carpenter/Russell movie is like a Schwarzenegger movie without action, a Pia Zadora one without skin, a David Mamet one without profanity -- it's just unheard of and bottom-line intolerable. Let's band together and get this grave injustice undone. I think Snake Plissken's disgruntled look below sums up our frustration.