Wow! What great memories this brings back. Artist portfolios were really popular back in the 70’s and into the 80’s. It was always a thrill when a new one was announced. And truth be told, I was thrilled to see The Bristol Board posting Chaykin’s Sherlock Holmes portfolio.
Screenplay: Jason George (based on the book by Jacek Dukaj)
Stars: Pauline Etienne, Laurent Capelluto, Stefano Cassettiand Mehmet Kurtulus.
The Pitch: “Let’s turn Jacek Dukaj’s novel into a movie!”
No Tagline: The Darkest Hour is Just Before the Dawn
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
In the early morning hours just before dawn, passengers have just started to board an airplane when a wild-eyed, armed man fights his way into the cockpit. He forces the pilot to take off and then shares his story with the few passengers. The sun’s rays have somehow changed and are causing death. Of course no one believes him until they begin to hear reports from around the globe of the mass extinction that comes with the new day.
Their only hope for survival is to fly into the night… but then what? Fuel will only take them so far. Getting into shade won’t save them. The different personalities and ideas for survival make Into the Night a fun ride. Like all good apocalyptic movies, a group of strangers are thrust into a situation where in order to survive they must work together and make the right choices.
Into the Night has an interesting cast of characters and because there are no big name stars, any of them are likely to not survive. There are plenty of twists as each of the six first season episodes takes us further into the mystery and hope for survival. My wife and I binged the six forty minute episodes in one sitting. I look forward to season 2.
Remember when we talked about Stephan Franck’s new Kickstarter called PALOMINO? Well, Tommy Lee Edwards created the art above to support Franck’s comic.
How about this limited edition First Blood print by Oliver Barrett? Barrett actually did two versions. The one above has a print run of 82. There’s another version with a different color scheme and it has a 300 print edition. You can see larger versions of both editions at Mondoshop.com.
I’ve been fortunate to get sketches from both Kelsey and Dave for my Stallone sketch collection. And of course I pre-ordered the EGtH graphic novel (Kelsey cover).
Speaking of the Kelsey Shannon cover, you can see a larger version by clicking on the art above.
Jonathan Maberry has a new one coming out. As you can see from the cover above it’s called Ink.
Tattoo-artist Patty Cakes has her dead daughter’s face tattooed on the back of her hand. Day by day it begins to fade, taking with it all of Patty’s memories of her daughter. All she’s left with the certain knowledge she has forgotten her lost child. The awareness of that loss is tearing her apart.
Monk Addison is a private investigator whose skin is covered with the tattooed faces of murder victims. He is a predator who hunts for killers, and the ghosts of all of those dead people haunt his life. Some of those faces have begun to fade, too, destroying the very souls of the dead.
All through the town of Pine Deep people are having their most precious memories stolen. The monster seems to target the lonely, the disenfranchised, the people who need memories to anchor them to this world.
Something is out there. Something cruel and evil is feeding on the memories, erasing them from the hearts and minds of people like Patty and Monk and others.
Ink is the story of a few lonely, damaged people hunting for a memory thief. When all you have are memories, there is no greater horror than forgetting.
Matt Stevens is a talented designer and illustrator who came up with the fun (and cool) idea of turning good movies into “old books”. Above is a taste. You can see them all at Matt’s site.
Mort Drucker, perhaps the world’s best and best known caricaturist has died at the age of 91. Odds are even if you don’t know Mr. Drucker’s name, you know his art. Starting in 1956 and for over fifty years after that Drucker’s art appeared in Mad Magazine’s wildly popular movie and tv satires.
Mr. Drucker’s work also appeared in comic books, movie posters and advertising. His distinctive style made his art recognizable often before you saw his signature. In 2014, Mort Drucker received the National Society of Cartoonists’ Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mort Drucker’s family, friends and fans.
The Fifth Movie Had A Ton Of Unused Scripts.
…A script called Rambo 5: Savage Hunt was a horror movie in which Rambo led a Special Forces team into the Arctic Circle to track down a flesh-eating mutant creature.
…Another script called Rambo 5: Last Stand pitted Rambo against a band of meth dealers who were terrorizing a small town. There were also a few drafts about Rambo saving a kidnapped girl from a Mexican cartel before the final script was written.
(The Rambo 5: Savage Huntscript was based on James Byron Huggins’ Hunter novel. While this would have made an interesting Rambo movie, it might have been too much of a genre change. I hope that someday Sly will turn Hunter into the film it deserves. Rambo 5: Last Stand sounds a lot like Arnold’s Last Stand movie. – Craig)
Dolph Lundgren Was Initially Cast As The Villain In First Blood Part II. The role of Russian Lieutenant Colonel Sergei Podovsky, the only villain in Rambo: First Blood Part II with any lines in English, was originally offered to Dolph Lundgren. Lundgren even accepted the part and signed a contract.
(I did not know this. – Craig)
…Burmese Freedom Fighters even adopted some dialogue from the movie to use as battle cries. In particular, they were known to say, “Live for nothing, or die for something.” When he heard about this, Sylvester Stallone said, “That, to me, is one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had in film.”
(And we thought people only quoted Rocky for inspiration! – Craig)
Phillip Etemesi at ScreenRant posted an article that should appeal to a lot of folks who check in here. First Blood: 10 Differences Between The Movie & The Book takes a look at, well you read the title. Here are three of my favorite differences and my comments on each…
Escape From Jail. In the film, the deputy sheriff decides to beat him up… The officers keep on brutalizing him… one of them comes with a razor to shave hi(m), it triggers memories of his torture in a POW camp in Vietnam. He thus fights his way out of the station while still clothes… No one dies in the process.
In the book, Rambo is not abused. He is simply locked in a cell. When Teasle shows up to cut his hair, he begins to panic. And when the deputy comes with another straight razor, he loses his mind completely. He takes the razor and slices through the deputy’s abdomen before escaping while naked. He steals a motorcycle and manages to hide from the police for the night after a good samaritan offers him shelter.
(One of the reasons that FirstBlood was hard to get made as a movie is because Rambo in the book killed police officers and wasn’t as sympathetic or heroic as he ultimately became in the movie. – Craig)
Guerilla Tactics
In the book…
Rambo in the novel doesn’t value the lives of law enforcement officers. He kills most of them together with their dogs before cornering Teasle and giving him a warning. In the movie…
Rambo takes out the entire town’s police force by himself. Using guerilla tactics, he attacks one at a time until they are all wounded. It’s important to note that he only wounds the officers in the movie and doesn’t kill them.
(Again, the book made it harder for audiences to sympathize or empathize with Rambo. Killing a dog in a movie is perhaps the ultimate downer. – Craig)
Fleeing From The Cave In Morell’s book,
Rambo keeps up with his murderous ways and goes on to kill plenty of the members of the state police who had been brought in after he decimated the local police. A couple of civilians and national guard members also ned up being casualties. In the movie,
Rambo damages plenty of property in the town but doesn’t kill anyone.
(FirstBlood had been floating around Hollywood for years before Sly become attached. No one prior was able to get a handle on the character. Under Sly, Rambo became more heroic, sympathetic and less of a killer… at least until Last Blood. – Craig)
Jessica Fisher at GeekTyrant posted Behind-the-Scenes Facts About the Classic Coming of Age Stephen King Adaptation STAND BY ME. Here are three of my favorite facts and my comments on each…
As with most of Stephen King’s stories, this one originally contained connections to other books he has written. Ace Merrill later re-appeared in the book Needful Things (1993), although he does not appear in the film. The dog Chopper is compared to Cujo (1983). Characters are familiar with Shawshank Prison, from The Shawshank Redemption (1994). Teddy Duchamp was actually first mentioned in King’s first book, Carrie (1976), in which Carrie destroys a gas station he once worked at.
(I love when authors create different books/movies with overlapping characters. Elmore Leonard did it well. Jonathan Maberry does it regularly. Tarantino has carried the idea into movies. – Craig)
Rob Reiner considers this the best film he has ever made. This is pretty big, considering he has directed some of my favorite movies, including The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, This is Spinal Tap, and A Few Good Men. But he’s not the only one who is proud of the film. King, who has been a vocal critic of many of his adaptations, also praised the movie.
(High praise indeed. I lean towards The Princess Bride as Reiner’s best, but a rewatching of Stand by Me may be in order to verify. – Craig)
In the shot where Gordie and Vern are running towards the camera with the train right behind them, the train was actually at the far end of the trestle with the two actors on the opposite end. The crew used a 600mm long-focus lens that, when shot at the telephoto end, compressed the image so much that it made it look like the train was right behind them.
(And that is a peak behind the curtains! – Craig)
If you’ve enjoyed these facts, check out Behind-the-Scenes Facts About the Classic Coming of Age Stephen King Adaptation STAND BY ME.
Screenplay: Sean O’Keefe & Brian Helgeland based on characters created by Robert B. Parker and the novel by Ace Atkins
Stars: Mark Wahlberg, Winston Duke, Alan Arkin, Bokeem Woodbine, Marc Maron, Donald Cerrone and Post Malone.
The Pitch: “Let’s turn Ace Akins’ Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novel into a movie!”
Tagline: The Law Has Limits. They Don’t.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
If you’re not a fan of Robert B. Parker and Ace Atkins Spenser characters there’s an outside chance you may like Spenser Confidential. If you are a fan of the books, my guess is that you’ll hate this movie. That’s because not a single character goes unchanged to something fundamentally different from the novels.
Spenser goes from an intelligent, wisecracking ex-cop to a less than stellar (IQ-wise) ex-con who aspires to be a trucker. In the novels, Susan is a Harvard-educated, calm, supporting soul mate to Spenser. In the movie she becomes a foul-mouthed, crazy girlfriend that Spenser works to avoid until he needs sex or help with the “case”. In the novels Hawk starts out as a respected rival who works on the fringes of the law and ultimately becomes Spenser’s best friend (outside of Susan). In the movie Hawk is a big, nerdy, untrained lug who dreams of being a MMA Champion who is forced to be Spenser’s roommate.
Peter Berg is usually a director that makes fun movies. Not here. Brian Helgeland wrote the screenplays for LA Confidential, Payback, Mystic River, and Man on Fire. Spenser Confidential isn’t in the same ballpark… not even the same continent.
You may be thinking that if I wasn’t such a big fan of Parker and Atkins’ Spenser novels I would have liked Spenser Confidential better. Perhaps I would have liked it a bit more… but not much.
They’ve announced the next Robert B. Parker’s Spenser novel. It’ll be called Someone to Watch Over Me and Ace Atkins will again (yea!) be the writer.
In this next thriller in the New York Times bestselling Parker series, Spenser and his new apprentice trace the murder of a young woman to an international crime ring that has been operating with impunity because of the powerful and highly connected billionaire at its helm.
Ten years ago, Spenser helped a teenage girl named Mattie Sullivan find her mother’s killer and take down an infamous Southie crime boss. Now Mattie–a college student with a side job working for the iconic private eye–dreams of being an investigator herself. When Mattie’s childhood friend from the South Boston housing projects, Chloe Turner, is found dead, she decides to take on the case for the family. Taking a cue from her boss, Mattie has a knack for asking the right questions to the wrong people.
Soon, Spenser and Mattie find ties between Turner and dozens of other girls from poor families to an eccentric billionaire with a massive home along Commonwealth Avenue. The man owns properties and business throughout the Massachusetts with connections to local politicians, the state house, and beyond. As a bleak winter bears down on Boston, Spenser and trusted ally Hawk must again watch out for Mattie as she unravels a massive sex trafficking ring that will take them from Boston to the Bahamas, crossing paths with local toughs and an old enemy of Spenser’s–The Gray Man–for a final epic showdown.
Anything Atkins writes is worth getting — never read a clunker by him yet — and his Spenser novels are more than worthy successors to Parker. Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me (Spenser) by Ace Atkins is available for pre-order now and drops on November 17, 2020.
If like me, you’re a Darwyn Cooke fan… and if like me, you’re a Richard Stark fan, and if like me, you already own or have pre-ordered Richard Stark’s Parker: The Martini Edition, then you’re going to love this post.
Richard Stark’s Parker: The Martini Edition – Last Call has been announced for a September 29, 2020 release! This oversized edition will contain…
Features more than 100 pieces of never-before-seen Parker art by Darwyn Cooke; a round table talk with Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips, Bruce Timm, and Scott Dunbier on Parker and Cooke; and a brand-new 17-page story by multiple Eisner Award-winning creators Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips.
Darwyn Cooke crafted four universally acclaimed Parker graphic novels, adapted from the works of Richard Stark (A pseudonym for Donald Westlake), before his untimely death. This volume will be (along with the Martini Edition) the last word on Cooke’s brilliant Parker stories.
This edition is a loving tribute to the legacy of Darwyn Cooke and Parker.
Over at B&N Reads, Jeff Somers posted his list for The 50 Must-Read Noir Detective Novels. I’ve read half of the books on Somers’ list and if the other books are just as good, Somers has picked nothing but winners.
I’d be interested in how many you’ve read and if you’d add any that Somers missed.
Speaking of Jeff Somers, I recommend his Avery Cates series to anyone who likes hardboiled sci-fi.
