Category: Crime

Coffin Bound by Waters, Dani, Simpson and Bidikar

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Coffin Bound by Dan Waters (writer), Dani (artist) and Brad Simpson (colorist) is a new series coming from Image Comics.  It doesn’t look or sound like a typical comic…

Chased by an unstoppable killer, Izzy Tyburn has decided that if the world won’t have her in it, it can have nothing of her at all. She’s retreading her life, leaving nothing but burned rubber, ash… and the sun-scorched bones of those who get in her way.

“This is a book all about the inevitability of death, and the choice each of us faces between coming to terms with it, or trying to deny it,” said Watters. “This is a book drawn beautifully by Dani, with Brad Simpsons’ filthy bright colors. This is a book about cars, guns, and sex—and how each of those things does little to stave off the bottomless void waiting just beyond the veil of our known existence. What was the question again?”

Image has an eight page preview that you can see here.  I’m on board.

The “Killerman” Trailer is Here!

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I like this trailer for Killerman.

Blue Fox Entertainment
In theaters on August 30th

Cast: Liam Hemsworth, Emory Cohen, Diane Guerrero, Nickola Shreli, Suraj Sharma, Mike Moh, Zlatko Buric

Directed By Malik Bader

In KILLERMAN, a New York City money launderer named Moe Diamond (Liam Hemsworth) desperately searches for answers after waking up with no memory, millions in stolen cash and drugs, and an insane crew of dirty cops violently hunting him down.

Sebela and Visions: New Supernatural Crime Series!

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Trust Fall by Christopher Sebela (writer) and Chris Visions (artist) is a new comic series that’s worth a look.  Here’s how Aftershock describes it…

Ash Parsons was raised to believe she’s special. As someone with a quirk of genetics that lets her teleport things, she’s the golden goose of her family — the foundation of a struggling criminal outfit.

Ash is able to pop out whole fleets of cars and entire bank vaults. But while she can teleport valuables and her accomplices, she can’t teleport herself — making every job a trust fall with her family there to catch her and escort her to safety. It’s a perfect setup, but as things begin to change and the Parsons move up in the world, Ash will find herself pushing back against her golden cage, with deadly results.

Dead Letters’ Christopher Sebela (COLD WAR, Shanghai Red) and Chris Visions (Spider-Gwen, Bitch Planet) reunite for a criminally provocative tale of give-and-take with a style all its own.

If you’d like to see a preview of Trust Fall, you’re in luck because Syfy has an exclusive nine page preview!

“Alfred Hitchcock Presents” Trivia

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Jake Rossen and Mental Floss present 10 Facts About Alfred Hitchcock Presents.  I love AHP… especially the half hour episodes.  Here are my top three facts from a very good list…

5. IT COULD HAVE BEEN TITLED HENRY SLESAR PRESENTS.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents drew primarily from published short stories it optioned from writers. One such author, Henry Slesar, was a frequent contributor to Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, the monthly short story collection that had the director’s endorsement. When producer Norman Lloyd realized the prolific Slesar and three other authors had a story in the magazine every month, he invited all four of them out to California for a meeting about writing teleplays based on their stories. According to Lloyd, only Slesar showed up. This was because the other three writers were all his pseudonyms. Slesar ended up writing 55 scripts for the series, the most of any contributor.

3. HITCHCOCK’S DIRECT INVOLVEMENT IN THE SERIES WAS VERY LIMITED.
In style and substance, Alfred Hitchcock Presents shares a lot in common with Hitchcock’s films, particularly the scheming characters with murder on the mind in 1948’s Rope and 1951’s Strangers on a Train. Despite the Hitchcock aesthetic, his direct involvement in the show was limited. Because he was so busy with his movie career, he was convinced by MCA executive Lew Wasserman that lending his name and likeness to the series would not take up much of his time. Producers and frequent Hitchcock collaborators Joan Harrison and Norman Lloyd handled most of the production chores, though Hitchcock did direct 17 episodes over the course of the series. The director later said his supervision of the show extended to delivering “fatherly words of advice without trying to usurp their position.”

Viewers, however, seemed to infer he wrote and directed much of what they saw, sending fan letters to the director stating as much. While his effort was not as significant as they believed, it proved to be lucrative. Hitchcock drew a reported $129,000 per episode from CBS and sponsor Bristol-Myers.

8. ONE EPISODE WAS DEEMED TOO GRUESOME TO AIR.
While none of the criminal deeds depicted in Alfred Hitchcock Presents were explicit, one episode in season 7 written by Psycho author Robert Bloch inferred something so disturbing that it was kept off the air by NBC. (Spoilers follow.) In “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” a boy who dreams of becoming a magician is coerced into murdering his stage idol by the performer’s cheating spouse. She convinces him to do it by telling the boy—who is none too quick of mind—that he will absorb her husband’s “powers” once the deed is done. He believes it, and proceeds to saw her in half despite not having much of an idea about how the illusion is actually supposed to work. At the conclusion, Hitchcock makes a characteristically grim observation that the scheming widow must be “beside herself.” The episode later ran in syndication.

Tom Reilly Teams Jack Carter and John Wick!

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I usually don’t post any of my Stallone commissions until I’ve received them, but Tom Reilly sent me a scan of the Jack Carter/John Wick piece he did for me and I like it so much I just couldn’t wait!

Tom Reilly is an artist from Mount Desert Island, Maine. He is a graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, with a BFA in Illustration. Tom’s work has been included in exhibits such as the Society of Illustrators Student Scholarship Exhibition, the Rhode Island School of Design Illustration Triennial Exhibition, and the 2017 MoCCA Arts Festival.

You can check out more of Tom’s art at his website or follow him on Twitter.

The Best Noir Comics

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Eddie Muller (Host of TCM’s Noir Alley) and Michael Kronenberg (Designer/Artist for the Film Noir Foundation) posted their choices for the Top Ten Noir Comics.  Their list is a good one as you can see above.

I’ve read 8 of their top 10 only missing out on Crime Suspense Stories (their first choice!) and Blacksad.   I’ve heard great things about both and plan to check them out at some point.

My top three (in alpha order) would be:

  • Chandler by Steranko
  • Daredevil by Frank Miller and Klaus Janson
  • Richard Stark’s Parker adapted by Darwyn Cooke.

If you’re a fan of crime fiction/noir, then check them out.  I’d also add one more.  That would be Frank Miller’s Sin City yarns and I’d start with The Hard Goodbye.

‘John Wick’ Franchise Director Chad Stahelski Interview

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Jack Giroux at /Film has an interesting interview with John Wick 3 director, Chad Stahelski.  It’s worth a read and here are a couple of tidbits to whet your appetite before you click over…

They call it the curse of the sequel. They love the first movie because it’s original, but by its very nature, the sequel can’t be original in the same way as the first one is because it’s a sequel [Laughs]. So how do you become original, how do you keep the audience invested in what they love and at the same time, show them something new? They want to see it again, but they don’t want you to repeat exactly.

Same with backstory. Halle [Berry] can look at John with the anger, the love, and the look and stoicism and still agree to help, and that should tell you there’s something there. I don’t need her to say, “I love you. We were together for five years.” If you’ve gotta say that, you got the wrong cast or you’ve gotta drop the writers.

Click over and get your John Wick 3 fix!

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019) / Z-View

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John Wick: Chapter 3: Parabellum (2019)

Director: Chad Stahelski

Screenplay: Derek Kolstad and Shay Hatten and Chris Collins & Marc Abrams from a story by  Derek Kolstad

Stars: Keanu Reeves, Halle Berry, Ian McShane, Laurence Fishburne, Mark Dacascos, Asia Kate Dillon, Lance Reddick and Anjelica Huston.

The Pitch: “It’s time for the sequel”

Tagline: “Tick Tock, Mr. Wick”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

John Wick [Reeves] is on the run after killing a member of the High Table on neutral ground.  With a $14 million bounty on his head, there’s danger at every turn.  Wick has a plan, but for it to work, he’ll have to fight his way out of the city and to the one person who can provide a possible option for his life.  The odds are against any of it working, but then again, this is John Wick we’re talking about.

The John Wick series is the best movie franchise in years.  Each new chapter (film) really feels like an extension of the previous films.  In other franchises each film often feels like a step up or slightly different world.  John Wick 3 raises the bar for action and provides a broader view of Wick’s world.  The new cast members (Berry, Dacascos and Dillon) are perfectly cast.

If you liked John Wick 1 and 2, you’ll dig Chapter 3.  They’ve already set a release date for John Wick 4 and that’s May 21, 2021.

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27 Things We Learned from Brian Helgeland’s ‘Payback’ Commentary

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 27 Things We Learned from Brian Helgeland’s ‘Payback’ Commentary.  But first some background…

Payback is one of the very rare films that has more than one version available.  Brian Helgeland was fired from the film when he refused to make changes ordered by the studio.  The studio then ordered additional scenes changing the tone and ending of the film.  That version was released to great success both theatrically and on video/dvd.  And thanks to the video/dvd market, Helgeland was able to have his version released and it was also successful.  I have both versions in my collection and like both.

With all that said, here are my three favorites from Helgeland’s commentary:

12. He was in post-production on this film the night of the Academy Awards, and having been nominated for his L.A. Confidential (1997) script he really hoped he would be named the winner. “I knew that they were getting close to finally removing me off this movie,” and he thought winning the Oscar would mean they couldn’t fire him. He won, Sean Connery tussled his hair backstage while congratulating him, and that was his Sunday night. “And on Tuesday I got fired. So much for the magic of an Academy Award.”

13. Walter Matthau handed him his Oscar. Matthau starred in Charley Varrick (1973). The restaurant scene at 32:53 was filmed in a place called Varricks.

17. An early teaser strung together the film’s funnier scenes, and both audiences and the studio responded favorably. He protested and was told by the marketing department that “what it is is one thing, and selling it is another thing.” The studio clearly wished the movie “was more like our trailer, and I didn’t know it at first but it became this struggle for what the heart of the movie was about.” Re-shoots began leaning heavily toward the teaser’s tone, and the writing was on the wall.

Sly Talks “Rambo V,” New “Rocky” and New “Cobra” Series

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Sly Stallone was a guests a the Cannes Film Festival where he talked about Rambo: Last Blood and two potential projects:

Rambo: Last Blood –  “We pick it up, he’s out in this storm, a horrible storm. He’s trying to rescue people… He’s still dealing with survivor guilt, b/c he couldn’t save his friends in Vietnam. A result of PTSD. He has a hard time. He has a beautiful ranch, but he lives underground… He has an adopted family there. His father has passed on. The housekeeper who is 70 has a granddaughter. He’s her surrogate father… Bad things happen…There’s going to be some serious vengeance in this movie. A lot of people getting hurt.”

Cobra – “That (conceit) was what if Bruce Springsteen had a gun? That was rock n’ roll meets drama. That should have been another franchise because that character was so cool. And I blew it. My personal life got in the way. But we’re trying to bring it back as a streaming TV series. Bring out the zombie squad. I’m long gone, but the idea is really good…”

Rocky (Not Creed III): “I have a great idea for Rocky. He finds this fella in the country illegally and it becomes a whole thing…”

Sly talks about more in the article but there were two quotes I want to share:

“Failures just make you smarter. Sometimes success makes you dumber.”

“Never stop punching.  That’s how I roll. You always have something to prove.”

The one project I wish we’d hear more about is Hunter based on James Byron Huggins best-selling novel written for Sly!

Source: Deadline.

“Breaking In” / Z-View

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Breaking In (2018)

Director: James McTeigue

Screenplay: Ryan Engle from a story by Jaime Primak Sullivan

Stars: Gabrielle Union, Billy Burke, Richard Cabral, Ajiona Alexus, Levi Meaden, Seth Carr and Mark Furze.

The Pitch: “Let’s turn Tim Lebbon’s novel into a movie.”

Tagline: Payback is a Mother.

The Overview:

After her father is killed in a hit-and-run, Shaun (Union) and her two children travel to his secluded house to prepare it to be sold.  Shortly after their arrival four criminals looking for a safe containing four million in cash show up.  The thugs take her children hostage, but Shaun is able to escape.  With no means of contacting anyone and the nearest help miles away, Shaun realizes she is her children’s only hope.

Gabrielle Union is extremely likable and believable as a mother looking to protect her children.  I was glad to see that they didn’t provide her with a martial arts, military or some other background with “special skills.”  She’s just a ticked off mom.

Breaking In is predictable in the broad strokes but there are a couple of unexpected surprises which make it a good way to spend an hour and a half.

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