Greg Smallwood’s Jack Carter
Last year Greg Smallwood announced he was doing a limited number of head sketches for charity. I was more than pleased to get Smallwood’s very cool riff on Sly as Jack Carter!
Category: Celebs
The Lethal Weapon TV Series
I’m a huge Lethal Weapon fan…but I had my doubts about a tv series. The trailers have started to win me over thanks to Damon Wayans and Clayne Crawford.
As long as it doesn’t become the “case of the week” it could last.
11 Fab Facts About The Beatles’ Revolver
Jeff Merron and Mental_Floss present 11 Fab Facts About The Beatles’ Revolver. Here are three of my favorites…
7. IT WAS ALMOST TITLED ABRACADABRA.
All four Beatles liked that name, wrote Barry Miles in his Paul McCartney bio, Many Years From Now. Also considered: Four Sides of the Circle and Fat Man. Ringo, noting that the Rolling Stones had just come out with Aftermath, suggested After Geography. They finally settled on Revolver, because an album spins, man.
8. WITHOUT REVOLVER, THERE’D BE NO “BOHEMIAN RHAPSODY.”
Up until the spring of 1966, The Beatles had used a fairly conventional studio technique to make vocals sound richer: double tracking, in which the lead singer would simply record his vocals twice onto different tape tracks. But John Lennon hated doing this. So to accommodate him, EMI engineer Ken Townsend invented “automatic double tracking,” which allowed one performance to be recorded on two tape machines—with one delayed by about 100 milliseconds, automatically creating a nice, thick sound.
11. THEY NEVER PLAYED ANY PART OF THE ALBUM LIVE.
The Beatles were near the end of their touring days, but not quite. They began a 14-city North America circuit in Chicago on August 12, just four days after Revolver’s U.S. release. But they didn’t feel it was possible to reproduce the album’s technically sophisticated, studio-crafted songs on stage. The most recently recorded track that audiences heard was “Paperback Writer,” the number one hit single they had released on May 30, 1966. The Beatles’ last concert was on August 29, 1966, at Candlestick Park in San Francisco. But nobody outside the band knew it at the time.
The Lineup (1958) / Z-View
The Lineup (1958)
Director: Don Siegal
Screenplay: Stirling Silliphant
Stars: Eli Wallach, Robert Keith and Richard Jaeckel.
The Pitch: “Hey, if it works on tv…?”
Tagline: “The Manhunt They Had To Put on the Giant-Sized Movie Theatre Screen!”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
A criminal organization gets heroin into the US by hiding it in tourists’ luggage (without the tourists’ knowlege). A psycho hitman and his partner then retrieve the heroin (by whatever force needed).
Two police detectives investigating a murder discover what is going on. As the bodies pile up they learn that a woman and her little daughter are next on the psycho’s list!
I was expecting a lot more than a by-the-numbers police procedural from director, Don [Dirty Harry] Siegal, writer and Sterling [Route 66] Silliphant. There’s a lot of potential here but only Eli Wallach rises above the material given.
Perhaps my rating is a bit tough because I was expecting so much more.
Rating:
Jamie Jones Draws First Blood
I met Jamie Jones at Heroes Con 2015 and got this quickie John Rambo sketch above. You can see more of Jamie’s art at his site. – Craig
Quint at AICN Interview with Burt Reynolds
Quint at Ain’t It Cool News sat down for a short interview with movie legend Burt Reynolds and it is worth a read!
Congrats to Quint for getting some time with Burt Reynolds and for being the owner of the original art to the White Lightning poster shown above!
Captive Wild Woman (1943) / Z-View
Captive Wild Woman (1943)
Director: Edward Dmytryk
Screenplay: Griffin Jay and Henry Sucher
Stars: John Carradine, Evelyn Ankers, Milburn Stone, Martha Vickers and Paula Dupree.
The Pitch: “Hey, isn’t about time for another turn a gorilla into a pretty woman movie?”
Tagline: “STRANGEST OF SIGHTS… The brain of an animal… the form of a woman!”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
An insane scientist [Carradine] develops a transfusion that will turn a gorilla into a beautiful woman named Aquanetta [Dupree] but the process kills the human giving the transfusion.
While visiting the circus it is discovered that Aquanetta has a mysterious power over the animals. Soon she is part of the act. All goes well until Aquanetta becomes jealous and begins reverting back to gorilla form…
It was fun seeing the male lead, Fred Mason played by Milburn [Doc on Gunsmoke] Stone.
Rating:
The Top 10 One on One Movie Fights
Alex Maidy and JoBlo.com recently took a look at the Top 10 One on One Movie Fights.
I would have found spots for Lee Marvin vs Ernest Borgnine in Hard Times, Bruce Lee vs Chuck Norris in Return of the Dragon, Sly Stallone vs Mr. T in Rocky 3, Lee Marvin vs Robert Tessier in Hard Times.
Spectre (2015) / Z-View
Spectre (2015)
Director: Sam Mendes
Screenplay: John Logan and Neal Purvis & Robert Wade and Jez Butterworth based on character created by Ian Fleming
Stars: Daniel Craig, Christoph Waltz, Léa Seydoux, Ralph Fiennes, Monica Bellucci, Ben Whishaw, Naomie Harris and Dave Bautista.
The Pitch: “Hey, I’ve got an idea on a new James Bond movie!”
Tagline: “The dead are alive”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Bond [Craig] discovers SPECTRE, a mysterious worldwide organization behind many terrorist activities. As Bond follows clues in the field, the new head of National Security in England has decided to shut down the MI6 division of National Security. Bond is alone and without backup when SPECTRE turns their sights to Bond.
I really like Daniel Craig as Bond and much of Spectre was fun, but I found myself wanting more — more from the opening action sequence and more from the main fight between Craig and Batista. Perhaps Casino Royale just set the bar too high…
Rating:
13 Nostalgic Facts About American Graffiti
Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 13 Nostalgic Facts About American Graffiti. Here are three of my favorites…
3. CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, THERE IS NO ACTUAL CONNECTION BETWEEN AMERICAN GRAFFITI AND HAPPY DAYS.
Happy Days premiered five months after American Graffiti was released. It was set in the ’50s, had Ron Howard playing a teen very similar to his American Graffiti character, used “Rock Around the Clock” as its theme song, and even borrowed the American Graffiti font for the credits. You’d think that Happy Days was somehow a spin-off of the movie, but you’d be wrong. It actually began as an unsold pilot in 1971 and aired in 1972 as part of the anthology series Love, American Style. (Lucas watched it at some point when he was considering casting Howard in American Graffiti.) After the movie took off, and with ’50s nostalgia in high gear (Grease was burning up Broadway), ABC reconsidered the Happy Days pilot, ordered a series, and did everything they could to make it remind people of American Graffiti. It ran for 10 years and was one of the most popular sitcoms in TV history.
8. THE PRODUCER HAD TO BECOME MACKENZIE PHILLIPS’ LEGAL GUARDIAN FOR THE SHOOT.
Mackenzie Phillips was just 12 years old when she arrived to make the film, and though she had showbiz experience (her father, John Phillips, was in The Mamas & the Papas), neither she nor her parents realized that California law required her to have a guardian present. “They were almost going to have to recast me, but Gary Kurtz”—a producer on the film—”and his family said, ‘We’ll take her,'” Phillips said in 1999. ” So they went to the courts in San Francisco and got guardianship of me.” Phillips lived with the Kurtzes for the duration of the shoot and described it as a happy experience.
2. IT WAS SAVED FROM BECOMING A TV MOVIE BY THE GODFATHER.
Universal Pictures gave Lucas a budget of $600,000, or about $3.5 million in 2016 dollars, to make the movie—in other words, not very much. When Coppola came onboard as a producer shortly after the release of The Godfather, Universal gave Lucas another $175,000. Later, when the film was finished and had test-screened positively, Universal inexplicably wanted to drastically re-edit it and release it as a TV movie. Lucas objected but had no clout. Coppola, on the other hand—by this time an Oscar-winner—could make studio executives listen. He convinced them to do only a little bit of trimming (the deleted scenes were reincorporated for home video release) and to release the film theatrically.
Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters
Last week we took a visit to Guilermo Del Toro’s Bleak House.
If you’d like to see some of Guillermo del Toro’s personal collection of movie props, original art and other collectibles, you can if you live within traveling distance of The Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The exhibit is called Guillermo del Toro: At Home with Monsters.
“Sicario 2” is “Sicario” on “Steroids”
Sicario was one of the best movies in recent memory. Naturally, a sequel is planned with Taylor Sheridan returning to write the screenplay which will focus Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) and Matt Graver (Josh Brolin).
To read more about Sicario 2 and how Taylor Sheridan describes it check out Jack Giroux’s “Sicario” Screenwriter Says the Sequel Is The First Movie on “Steroids” at /Film.
The Top Ten Toughest Heroines in Horror and SciFi
ComingSoon.net recently posted their choices for The Top Ten Toughest Heroines in Horror and SciFi.
Using just their list I would say the top three are Ripley from Aliens, Furiosa from Mad Max: Fury Road and Sarah Conner from Terminator 2.
My question is how could they not include: Lornetta “Mace” Mason from Strange Days, Charly Baltimore from The Long Kiss Goodnight and Michonne from The Walking Dead??
Dave Wachter and Jack Carter
Dave Wachter is back and he brought his take on Sly from the Get Carter. I met Dave several years ago and became an instant fan. I wasn’t the only one to discover Dave’s fantastic sketches! How can you not like a great guy who is a terrific artist?
It has become a HeroesCon tradition that I get Dave to draw his take on Sly. Somehow this one was never posted until now.
You can see more of Dave’s art at his site. – Craig
Solomon Kane by Howard Chaykin!
Howard Chaykin is one of my all-time favorite artists/writers. I’m not a big Solomon Kane fan, but this sketch could win me over.
