Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
If you’ve ever wondered what Rocky Balboa would look like drawn on a Mexican Bingo Card, well, wonder no more. Brad Woodward has created just that. Not only did Woodward create the card, he shows us how he did it in the video below.
You can find more of Brad Woodward’s art and process videos on his Brave the Woods YouTube channel and his Brave Outpost.
Thanks to John Beatty for the heads-up!
Rotten Tomatoes posted the rankings for all of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s movies. Here’s RT’s and my top ten:
|
Rotten Tomatoes |
Craig |
| 10. Terminator 3 | 10. The Expendables 3 |
| 9. Conan the Barbarian | 9. Escape Plan |
| 8. Commando | 8. Eraser |
| 7. True Lies | 7. Sabotage |
| 6. Stay Hungry | 6. True Lies |
| 5. Predator | 5. Conan the Barbarian |
| 4. Total Recall | 4. Commando |
| 3. Terminator 2 | 3. The Terminator |
| 2. Pumping Iron | 2. Predator |
| 1. The Terminator | 1. Terminator 2 |
Film School Rejects decided to rank all of Quentin Tarantino’s movies. I decided to play along and here are the results:
|
Film School Rejects |
Craig |
| 10. Death Proof | 10. Death Proof |
| 09. Django Unchained | 09. Inglourious Basterds |
| 08. The Hateful Eight | 08. The Hateful Eight |
| 07. Kill Bill: Volume 2 | 07. Django Unchained |
| 06. Reservoir Dogs | 06. Kill Bill: Volume 1 |
| 05. Once Upon a Time In… Hollywood | 05.Kill Bill: Volume 2 |
| 04. Kill Bill: Volume 1 | 04. Jackie Brown |
| 03. Jackie Brown | 03. Once Upon a Time In… Hollywood |
| 02. Pulp Fiction | 02. Reservoir Dogs |
| 01. Inglourious Basterds | 01. Pulp Fiction |
I’ll admit that sometimes I flip the rankings of Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs, but everything else stays pretty much the same.
Ryan Arey at ScreenCrush presents all the many, many connections in the Tarantino Cinematic Universe. It’s a fun and informative piece worth a look!
Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood (2019)
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Timothy Olyphant, Julia Butters, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, Mike Moh, Luke Perry and Al Pacino.
The Pitch: “Quentin Tarantino’s 9th Film!”
Tagline: The 9th Film from Quentin Tarantino.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is an interesting film that isn’t easily summarized because it doesn’t follow the traditional three act format of most films. Instead Tarantino focuses on three main characters, fading movie/tv star Rick Dalton (DiCaprio), his best friend and stunt double, Cliff Booth (Pitt) and Dalton’s next door neighbor and rising star, Sharon Tate (Robbie). Dalton and Booth are fictional characters interacting with fictionalized versions of real Hollywood celebrities of the era. And since this is a fairy tale (Once Upon a Time), liberties are taken.
Dalton is a mash-up of Burt Reynolds and Clint Eastwood with a bit of Steve McQueen thrown in. A former tv star of a popular western bounty hunter series from a decade earlier, Dalton now makes his living guest starring as the bad guy on other folks’ tv shows. He knows his star is fading and worries that his career is over.
Booth is Dalton’s best friend and stunt double. He’s a mash-up of stuntman Hal Needham and Robert Wagner (due to the rumors that he killed his wife on a boat).
Robbie is Sharon Tate, the beautiful young starlet who was just gaining fame when she (along with several of her friends) were brutally murdered by members of the Manson family.
As we follow Dalton & Booth and Robbie, we know that they’re on a trajectory that in the real world leads to brutal murders. The journey Tarantino takes us on is a fun one. The world looks, feels and sounds like 1969. The real joy of the movie is the journey but be advised there are moments of suspense and shocking brutality. As expected, the movie doesn’t have the expected real-world outcome. (How’s that for an oxymoron?)
DiCaprio is excellent in his role as Rick Dalton displaying perhaps his best acting ever which is ironic considering he’s an actor worrying about his career. Pitt is perfect in his role as the best bud, cool sidekick. Margaret Qualley and Julia Butters were especially good in the roles. And it’s always cool to see Kurt Russell and Timothy Olyphant.
Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood is a movie that I think I’m going to grow to like more and more as time goes on. I’ve been thinking about it a lot since I left the theater yesterday. I really liked it. Below the trailer and my rating I’m going to speak about a couple of scenes that give away major plot points. Don’t read on if you don’t like major spoilers.
Rating:
The first scene that I want to discuss is the fight between Bruce Lee and Cliff Booth. In the scene Lee comes off as arrogant and Booth appears to be beating or at the very least holding his own against Lee. Bruce Lee’s daughter has taken offense at the scene saying it puts her dad in a bad light. Initially I one hundred percent agreed with her. Thinking more about the scene I realize that Tarantino set the scene up so we’re seeing it by how Booth remembers it. From Booth’s viewpoint Lee was arrogant and even in this remembered version Booth isn’t beating Lee. From this perspective I don’t have a problem with the scene.
The scenes where Dalton screws up his lines in a scene, goes to his trailer and has a meltdown and then goes up for the next scene and nails it, is some of DiCaprio’s best acting. The payoff is set up in an earlier scene with Julia Butters and it’s a great one.
The most suspenseful scenes occur when Booth goes to the Spahn ranch, then decides to check on old man Spahn and later when Dalton unknowingly confronts members of the Manson family who are ready to kill. Both of these scenes had me fearing that Booth and Dalton were about to die.
I thought that when the Manson followers go in to kill Booth and Dalton’s wife it was excessively brutal and over the top. Looking back, that’s exactly what the Manson murders were — excessively brutal and over the top.
I liked the final scene where Dalton is invited in to meet Sharon Tate. Following the trajectory of the real-life characters I believe that Dalton will go on to become a major movie star and Booth will get a shot directing action movies.
I felt certain going in to the movie that Dalton and Booth would somehow save Sharon Tate and her friends from being murdered. I was surprised when the Manson family members ended up going into Dalton’s house. As the movie progressed I thought maybe Bruce Lee would be at Sharon’s house and he and Booth would have additional words. Dalton would attempt to calm them down when the killers show up. Lee and Booth would save the day and of course Dalton would also get credit and that would get him back into the star light. Kudos to Tarantino for surprising me (and the audience).
I look forward to future viewings of Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood.
Deadline is reporting that Sly Stallone and Dolph Lundgren are teaming for an hour long drama series that has been pitched to several networks including Netflix and Apple streaming services. The series will star Lundgren as a covert operative for the United Nations. Sly is set to serve as a producer through his Balboa Productions.
Matt Donnelly at Variety checks in with Sylvester Stallone’s Production Company Wants to Be the Blumhouse of Action Films and it is well worth a read. The piece talks about the goal of Sly creating Balboa Productions…
“My goal is for us to be the go-to place for action,” says Aftergood. He wants Balboa to follow the specialty model of Blumhouse, the company behind “Get Out” and “The Purge.” “I appreciate that statement is grandiose, but Blumhouse has done an extraordinary job owning the horror space,” says Aftergood. “There is no reason why we can’t own the action space in a similar way.”
The rationale behind Sly creating Balboa Productions…
“At one of our first meetings, I asked him why he wanted to do this,” Aftergood recalls. “Starting and running a company is a pain in the ass. I don’t care who you are or how many people are underneath you — at some point you have to answer a question about payroll, about office decor. In Stallone’s case, he seemed to have graduated past all of that.” Stallone answered with one word: legacy.
Balboa Productions that are in the pipeline…
For all the details click over to Sylvester Stallone’s Production Company Wants to Be the Blumhouse of Action Films.
(The only thing missing is Sly’s adaptation of Hunter by James Byron Huggins. Cannot wait to see what Sly does with this great action/horror novel. It is a natural for him and Balboa Productions! – Craig)
It was announced that Rutger Hauer died on July 19th at his home in Beetsterzwaag in the Netherlands after a short undisclosed illness. Hauer was 75.
Hauer has well over 150 acting credits. He got his start co-starring in Nighthawks, playing a terrorist opposite Sylvester Stallone. Hauer is best known for his role as the android hunted by Harrison Ford in Blade Runner. Rutger also had memorable roles in Ladyhawke, The Hitcher, Sin City and so many other films/tv series.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Ruger Hauer’s family, friends and fans.
Hitman for the Dead.
Even without the cool Andrew Robinson art, the title would have brought me in for a closer look.
And it did.
ANTHONY HARKEN is a drifter, a detective of sorts, and a killer. While he kills the most evil kind of people – the unpunished murderers of the innocent – he knows he’s still a murderer, taking human life and operating totally outside the law.
In the world of good and evil, Harken has chosen sides, but in the world of normal, everyday life, he has chosen an extreme and dangerous path. He carries a gun, he does drugs (Yage), he kills, and lives detached from a society that has no idea that people like him are even among us.
To be sure, he fills in where the law fails: he is a vigilante. He is judge, jury and executioner. And there is no guarantee that he is always right or that he, himself will not make a mistake someday and dispatch someone who was totally innocent.
Anthony is not the only “hit-man for the dead” out there. There are others.
If this sounds like something you’d like, you’re going to love this!
Bob Burden, the creative genius of Hitman for the Dead has created a website for the property. The site has all of the background info you could ask for, art and more. Oh, and the more includes a 25K word Hitman for the Dead novella that you can download for free!
I hope Burden runs with. I’d love to see more Hitman for the Dead prose stories and graphic novels. Fire up the Kickstarter now!
Sylvester Stallone is cover-featured and the subject of an “hours-long” interview at Variety. Check out Sylvester Stallone Feels Robbed of an Ownership Stake in ‘Rocky’: ‘I Was Furious’ By Claudia Eller, then head out and get a copy!
I absolutely love this Rambo Last Blood fan poster by Stallone fan and StalloneZone member Branden Hafiz! You can see more of Branden’s art here! Hopefully we’ll also see more of Branden’s art here in the future!
Source – Stallone: Action Icon.
Here’s the Top Gun: Maverick poster and trailer. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Top Gun. I liked it but it doesn’t come up in my list of favorite movies, or even my favorite Tom Cruise movies. But I have to say, I really like the Top Gun: Maverick poster and trailer!
Stephen Verona died on Saturday after a year and a half long battle with lung cancer. Readers of this site probably know Verona best as the Producer, Co-Writer and Director of Lords of Flatbush, but Verona was much more than that.
Verona got his start creating commercials. He met and became friends with John Lennon which led to Verona getting to animate the Beatles song I Feel Fine. Next came a music short with Barbara Streisand. He went on to work with Natalie Cole, Chicago, Simon & Garfunkel and many others.
Verona was a screenwriter, an award-winning director of feature films, television episodes and specials, an an award-winning painter and photographer. A renaissance man, indeed.
The Hollywood Reporter posted that “When Stallone learned that Verona was ill, he sent him an email saying that his career would not have been the same without him.” The same could be said for many other celebrities.
Had Stephen Verona only been known as the talent behind Lords of Flatbush, it would have been worth noting here, but I hope fans know he was so much more.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Stephen Verona’s family, friends and fans.
Here’s the poster and trailer for Another Life starring Katee Sackhoff. I don’t much care for the poster. The trailer is okay, but I think the movie has potential. We shall see.
Far Out put together a list of 22 of Stephen King’s All-Time Favorite Films. The list is a mixed bag. I’ve seen 15 of the 22. My top three from the list are:
