Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
A lot of folks are going to love Sinner Man. It’s Lawrence Block’s first crime novel that had been lost for nearly 50 years!
To escape punishment for a murder he didn’t mean to commit, insurance man Don Barshter has to take on a new identity: Nathaniel Crowley, ferocious up-and-comer in the New York mob. But can he find safety in the skin of another man…a worse man…a sinner man…?
It’d be a sin to miss this one.
Standoff (2016)
Director: Adam Alleca
Screenplay: Adam Alleca
Stars: Thomas Jane, Laurence Fishburne and Ella Ballentine.
The Pitch: “A hitman, a little girl who witnessed the murder and the only man who can save her are trapped in a remote house…”
Tagline: “A Deadly Game Only One Can Survive”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
A hitman (Zishburne) tracks a little girl (Bird) who witnessed a murder to a rural house owned by a grieving vet (Jane). A psychological battle punctuated by high power weapons ensues.
Fishburne is outstanding as the hitman determined to leave no witnesses.
Rating:
Here’s the Comic-Con Trailer for the return of Prison Break!
The Cotton Club (1984)
Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Screenplay: William Kennedy & Francis Ford Coppola
Stars: Richard Gere, Gregory Hines, Diane Lane, Bob Hoskins, James Remar, Nicholas Cage, Fred Gwynne, Lawrence Fishburne, John P. Ryan, Tom Waits, Jennifer Grey, Ed O’Ross, Woody Strode and James Russo.
The Pitch: “Let’s make an event movie based on famous gangsters with dancing!”
Tagline: “Welcome to The Cotton Club. Where Crime Lords rub elbows with the rich and famous. Where deals are made, lives are traded. And the legends of jazz light up the night.”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
It is still hard for me to believe I don’t like this movie better than I do. Look at the director (Coppola!), the cast (too many to list) and the subject matter. How can this not rate higher? Perhaps the narrative is too all over the place…
There’s the young musician [Gere] who inadvertently saves a gangster [Remar] and ends up in a romantic triangle with the gangster’s girl [Lane].
There’s the African-American brothers who want to make it as a dance team but end up feuding and split up.
There’s the two gangs which are almost ready to go to war.
There’s the Cotton Club – the place owned by whites, but the talent is black and where a lot of the action happens.
There’s the… well, I could go on, but I think you get the idea. The music is fine. The dance numbers [especially by the Hines brothers] are fun. It’s also a kick to identify the real historical figures portrayed in the film. Still, the movie itself falls short.
Rating:
Jonathon Brandon Sawyer created his take on Sly as Jack Carter teamed with Chris Mills’ and Rick Burchett’s Gravedigger McCrae. How cool is that? Very.
To check out more of JBS’ art, head here. You can follow JBS on Twitter.
Gravedigger: Hot Women , Cold Cash by Mills and Burchett gets an A+ rating and is available at the link. – Craig
Miami Blues (1990)
Director: George Armitage
Screenplay: George Armitage from a novel by Charles Willeford
Stars: Fred Ward, Alec Baldwin, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Charles Napier and Paul Gleason.
The Pitch: “How about a crime movie based in Miami?”
Tagline: “Real badge. Real gun. Fake cop.”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Ex-con, Frederick J. Frenger Jr. [Baldwin] heads to Miami for a fresh start. A fresh start means stealing and conning. When Frenger ends up with a cop’s gun and badge, he finds that it makes stealing and conning easier. The cop [Ward] makes it his life’s mission to track down the thief using his identity. Oh, and there’s a sweet prostitute [Leigh], too.
Rating:
That’s a cover detail from Triggerman, a new crime comic coming from Hard Case Crime and Titan Comics.
Triggerman will be written by Walter (“The Warriors”) Hill with art by Matz.
In the mean streets of Chicago, a convict is thrown headfirst into a life of bloodshed and bullets to save the girl he left behind…
I love the sound and look. I’ll definitely be pulling the trigger on Triggerman.
Sources: Flickering Myth and Down the Tubes.
Jason Latour is the subject of a piece at Entertainment Weekly. When asked about the tv adaptation of Southern Bastards, Latour responded…
“We’re hopeful that it will move forward… It’s a slow, slow process, but there’s really good people behind it and excited by it. At some point now, to do the comic everyday, you have to forget that there might be a TV show.”
A tv series would be icing but as long as Jason Aaron and Jason Latour keep the comic coming, that’s the cake, baby.
The Killers (1946)
Director: Robert Siodmak
Screenplay: Anthony Veiller from a story by Ernest Hemingway
Stars: Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien and William Conrad.
The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on Hemingway’s The Killers.”
Tagline: “One Moment with Her…And He Gambled His LUCK…LOVE…and His LIFE!”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Two hit men show up in a small town to kill a gas station attendant known as “Swede” [Lancaster]. When warned the hitmen are in town, Swede thanks the man but refuses to run. He lays back down and waits for their arrival, a totally defeated man.
The hit men arrive. Kill him and leave.
Insurance investigator Reardon [O’Brien] gets the case and slowly begins to unravel the mystery of why hit men were sent to kill a small town nobody. What follows is a story of mobsters, big time robberies, double-crosses and in the middle of it all a beautiful woman.
The opening scene – of the hitmen at the diner is a favorite and sets the tone for a classic movie!
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.
Garin Pirnia and Mental_Floss present 15 Not-So-Simple Facts About Blood Simple. Here are three of my favorites…
1. ITS TITLE WAS INSPIRED BY DASHIELL HAMMETT’S RED HARVEST.
“It’s an expression he used to describe what happens to somebody psychologically once they’ve committed murder,” Joel Coen told Time Out. “They go ‘blood simple’ in the slang sense of ‘simple,’ meaning crazy. But it’s left up to the audience to ponder the implications; they’re never spelled out in the film itself.”
3. THE COENS—AND MANY OF THE CAST AND CREW—HAD NEVER BEEN ON A FILM SET BEFORE.
Joel Coen admitted in My First Movie, “The first day of shooting on Blood Simple was the first time I’d ever been on a feature movie set in any capacity, even as a visitor.” Coen had previously worked as an assistant editor on horror films, including 1981’s The Evil Dead. Coen mentioned how Sonnenfeld would throw up after looking at the dailies, because he was so nervous working on the film. “Everyone was in the same boat,” Joel said. “The gaffer had never gaffered a feature. The sound guy, the mixer on the set, had never mixed a feature.”
4. THE COENS CHOSE TO MAKE A FILM NOIR BECAUSE OF THE GENRE’S PRACTICALITY.
The Coens liked hard-boiled fiction authors James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler, and used them to their advantage in writing the script. “It’s certainly a genre that is entertaining, and we also picked it for very practical reasons,” Ethan said. “We knew we weren’t going to have a big budget. The financing would not allow it. We could build something on the genre and the appeal it has.”
“It’s also a genre that allows you to get by rather modestly in some ways,” Joel added. “You can limit the number of characters, put them into a confined set. There’s no need to go for large-scale effects or scatter them through the film, and those cost a lot of money. So it was a pragmatic decision that determined what film we would make.”
High Sierra (1941)
Director: Raoul Walsh
Screenplay: John Huston and W.R. Burnett from a novel by W.R. Burnett
Stars: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Henry Hull and Cornell Wilde.
The Pitch: “Raoul Walsh. John Huston. WR Burnett. Ida Lupino. Bogart.”
Tagline: “The Blazing Mountain Manhunt for Killer ‘Mad-Dog’ Earle!”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Roy Earl [Bogart] an infamous bank robber [think Dillinger] is sprung from prison by an old crime boss who wants Earl for a big robbery. Obligated for his freedom, Earl drives west to check out the set up.
Once he meets up with his old boss, Earl discovers the robbery plan is good and the money is right, but his partners are young, inexperienced thugs looking to make a name for themselves… plus they have a woman [Lupino] with them and everyone knows women weaken legs and crime plans don’t work out.
Before it is over there will be a robbery, people killed, double-crosses and a manhunt for the “Mad Dog Killer” Roy Earl.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.
Kristin Hunt and Mental_Floss present 11 Complicated Facts About Shaft. Here are three of my favorites…
1. A WHITE NEWSPAPER REPORTER CREATED SHAFT.
John Shaft made his debut in Shaft, a novel by Ernest Tidyman. Tidyman was a reporter for The Cleveland News, The New York Post, and The New York Times before he began writing the Shaft series, which included seven detective stories. Along with John D.F. Black, he adapted his first Shaft book into the screenplay for the first film. He would later go on to write the screenplays for The French Connection (1971) and High Plains Drifter (1973) as well as Shaft’s Big Score! (1972) and the Shaft TV series (1973-1974). His work earned him an NAACP Image Award.
3. SHAFT’S MUSTACHE WAS NON-NEGOTIABLE.
The Los Angeles fiasco was behind him, but Parks immediately faced another scare when he spied his star, Richard Roundtree, heading to the bathroom with a towel and razor. Producer Joel Freeman had asked him to get rid of his soon-to-be legendary mustache. Parks told Roundtree emphatically, “Shave it off and you’re out of a job.” And with that, the ‘stache stayed in the picture.
11. THERE’S A SHAFT COMIC BOOK SERIES.
There hasn’t been a new Shaft movie since the 2000 reboot starring Samuel L. Jackson, but Dynamite Entertainment began printing a Shaft comic book series in 2014. The comics are penned by David F. Walker, who also published the first Shaft novel in over 40 years this February. The latest comic series finds Shaft as a part-time consultant on a blaxploitation movie; Walker intended this meta subplot to be a commentary on “clueless producers who think they have their finger on the pulse of blackness.” And yes, that was an intended slam on the upcoming remake.
West of Zanzibar (1928)
Director: Todd Browning
Screenplay: Elliott J. Clawson
Stars: Lon Chaney, Lionel Barrymore and Mary Nolan .
The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie with Lon Chaney directed by Todd Browning!”
Tagline: “A story of love and revenge in the African jungles!”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
A magician named Phroso [Chaney] discovers his wife has been having an affair with a man named Crane [Barrymore]. Phroso confronts Crane, and during their fight is thrown over a rail, breaking his back and leaving him paralyzed and alone.
Later his wife returns only to die a short time later. Before she dies Phroso learns that she had a daughter and Crane is now an ivory dealer in Africa. Phroso heads to Africa with the child and plots his revenge. First his makes sure that his wife’s daughter is raised in a brothel so that she grows up to be a drug-addicted prostitute. Then he takes on the persona “Dead Legs” and over the course of nearly two decades builds his criminal empire.
Once the time is right, Phroso brings the grown daughter to him so that he can extract his final revenge on her and Crane. Dark stuff, indeed and with a twist [although easily seen coming] worthy of the Twilight Zone.
Rating:
Badlands (1973)
Director: Terrence Malick
Screenplay: Terrence Malick
Stars: Martin Sheen, Sissy Spacek, Warren Oates and Emilio Estevez, Charlie Sheen and Terrence Malick.
The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on the killing spree of Charles Starkweather and Caril Fugate.”
Tagline: “In 1959 a lot of people were killing time. Kit and Holly were killing people.”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Kit [Sheen] is a twenty-something garbage man with a lot of swagger. Holly [Spacek] is a fifteen year old school girl who falls for Kit. They see each other secretly until her father [Oates] discovers the affair and forbids Holly to see Kit again.
Kit comes to take Holly away and ends up killing her father. Holly decides to run away with Kit. This begins their cross-country killing spree.
Rating:
Tell (2014)
Director: J.M.R. Luna
Screenplay: Timothy Williams
Stars: Milo Ventimiglia, Katee Sackhoff, Jason Lee and Robert Patrick.
The Pitch: “Let’s make a crime movie with supporting players!”
No Tagline.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Ethan Tell [Ventimiglia] reluctantly joins in on a big heist and ends up in possession of a million dollars. Now that he has the money, how will he keep his crime partner, his wife [Sackhoff], his parole officer and a couple of corrupt cops from killing him and taking the money.
I was expecting more.
Rating:
