Category: Movies

“The Naked Prey” Trivia

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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 24 Things We Learned from The Naked Prey Commentary.  Before we get into my favorite trivia items, if you’ve never seen The Naked Prey, please put it on your To Be Seen list.  It’s an under-rated action adventure film well worthy of your time.  Now for three of my favorites…

5. Writers Clint Johnston and Don Peters were nominated for an Academy Award for their script, and they worked again with Wilde on his follow-up film Beach Red (1967).

10. The story is inspired by the true story of a man named John Colter who endured a long journey on foot while pursued by members of the Blackfeet tribe in the early 1800s. (I’d read a short story about this incident before seeing the film and thought the similarities were too much to be coincidence. – Craig)

24. The film was Wilde’s favorite of the ones he directed, and he even wrote a script for a sequel. “He was negotiating with Paramount to do it when he died in 1989, so it was never to be.”

“Creed II” (2018) / Z-View

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Creed II (2018)

Director: Steven Caple Jr.

Screenplay: Sylvester Stallone,  Juel Taylor

Stars: Michael B. Jordan, Sylvester Stallone, Tessa Thompson, Phylicia Rashad, Dolph Lundgren, Florian Munteanu, Russell Hornsby, Wood Harris, Milo Ventimiglia, Andre Ward and Brigitte Nielsen.

The Pitch: “The Rocky/Creed saga continues!”

Tagline: None.

The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…

After winning the Heavyweight Championship, Adonis Creed under the tutelage of Rocky Balboa is on top of the world.  He’s ready to marry Bianca and start a family, his step-mother has accepted that he’s a fighter and Rocky is doing better with his cancer battle.  The bad thing about being on top of the world is there is always someone who wants to take your spot.

Victor Drago, son of Ivan Drago is a monster of a man.  He’s been winning fights by devastating knockouts and has his sights on Creed’s title.  A Drago/Creed match-up would be a boxing fan’s and promoter’s dream.  Ivan Drago killed Apollo Creed in an exhibition boxing match.  Rocky traveled to Russia to fight and beat Ivan Drago in a follow-up match.  After that fight Rocky was never quite the same and Drago disappeared from the boxing scene.  A fight between Apollo’s son (who is trained by Rocky) against Victor Drago, (trained by his father, the man who killed Apollo) is a bout that sells itself.

The idea that Drago didn’t just lose the fight to Rocky Balboa, he lost everything – his standing in his country, the privilege being the best fighter brought him, the honor and prestige granted a superior athlete and most importantly his wife.  Drago has lived with this hurt and humiliation for over 30 years.  It has hardened him and made him bitter.  Drago has, as Rocky says, “raised (his son) in hate.”  Ivan and Victor travel to the US to issue a personal challenge to Adonis who instantly wants to take the fight.  Rocky doesn’t want it and refuses to train Adonis.  To give away more would be wrong.

Any time a sequel follows a successful, wildly popular movie, expectations are high.  Creed II lives up to them.  Of course the actors do a great job – the movie is again perfectly cast with all the main players returning to reprise their characters.  New additions, Russell Hornsby as promoter Buddy Marcell and Florian ‘Big Nasty’ Munteanu as Victor Drago are excellent in their roles and add to the Rocky/Creed universe.

The story rises well above the reprise of a Creed/Drago replay.  Creed II has (as it should) call backs to the earlier Rocky movies but they feel natural.  Hats off to screenwriters Stallone and Taylor for avoiding clichés, providing unexpected turns and excellent dialogue. Director, Steven Caple Jr., had big shoes to fill and does so.  Sly Stallone, nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for Creed, should get a nomination for Creed II and this time he should win.  Also, Dolph Lundgren should be given kudos — his scene with Sly early on was my favorite of the movie.

The movie works so well because it doesn’t just focus on the fight drama.  Each of the major characters has a life beyond just the scenes that they appear in.   Milo Ventimiglia and Brigitte Nielsen appearances were icing on the cake.

Creed II will of course appeal to fans of the Rocky/Creed series, and to all who love great movies.  Bring on Creed III.

Rating:

The Best Movies Starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

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Taylor Sanders and ComingSoon posted the 10 Best Dwayne The Rock Johnson Movies.  Usually with posts like this, I use just the choices in their top ten and list my three favorites.  Not this time.

I think Sanders really missed the mark.  My two favorite Dwayne Johnson movies didn’t even make his top ten!  So, without further adu, here are my top three movies starring The Rock

 1.  The Rundown – Johnson plays a man sent to the jungles of the Amazon to bring back a rich man’s son but finds himself caught up in a fight for a lost treasure.  Also starring Sean William Scott, Rosario Dawson and Christopher Walken.  Directed by Peter Berg.

 2.  Faster – The Rock plays Driver, a just-released ex-con out to kill the crime partners that murdered his brother and left him for dead.  Billy Bob Thorton and Carla Gugino play cops trying to catch Driver before he kills again… and Oliver Jackson-Cohen plays a hitman hired to kill Driver.  Faster deserves more love than it gets.

3.  Fast Five – This was Johnson’s first outing as Hobbs for The Fast and the Furious franchise.  Johnson has been excellent in each outing but since this was his first appearance it is the one I went with.

J. Byron Huggins Talks, Sly, Hunter and a Whole Lot More! (Updated Link)

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James Byron Huggins is back!

Long-time readers know Huggins best as the author of Hunter.  Huggins wrote Hunter specifically for Sly Stallone (who bought the movie rights) in mind as the book’s hero.  Stallone fans continue to hope that Sly will helm a movie version of Hunter under his Balboa Productions banner.

Huggins wasn’t a one-hit wonder.  He also wrote The Reckoning, Cain, Leviathon, Rora, and other novels.  (And I recommend each of them!)  Huggins’ novels are a combination of thriller, action-adventure and horror.  His skill at seamlessly combining the genres made Huggins an international best-selling novelist.

Huggins recently sat for a long interview where he discussed meeting Sly, writing Hunter and a whole lot more.

All “Creed II” Trailers and Featurettes

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Creed II gets a widespread release tonight and if you’re like me, you’ve already purchased your tickets.  As we wait for the movie to start I thought it’d be a good idea to pull together all of the Creed II posters, trailers and featurettes in one spot.  So here they are…

You can see all of the Creed II posters here thanks to IMPAwards.   Now on to the trailers and featurettes….

“The Others” Trivia

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Erika Berlin and Mental Floss present 10 Spirited Facts About The Others.  Here are three of my favorites (beware of spoilers!)…

6. KIDMAN QUIT THE FILM DURING REHEARSALS.
During rehearsals and pre-production, the subject matter—and particularly [SPOILER] Grace’s killing of her children—was giving Kidman such intense nightmares that she quit the project. “At one point I didn’t want to make the film because I couldn’t even go there emotionally,” she has said. “It was still very difficult to exist in that state … when you’re doing an intense film the boundaries blur.” Fortunately, Amenábar and his team were able to convince her to return to the film, but “I was so glad to step out of her in the end,” Kidman said.

10. AMENÁBAR APPEARS IN ONE OF THE OLD MOURNING “BOOK OF THE DEAD” PHOTOS.
Like Alfred Hitchcock and M. Night Shyamalan before him, Amenábar found a way to make a brief cameo in his horror flick. “Half of the photographs [in the film] are real and half are fakes,” Amenábar said of the postmortem photographs Grace finds in the attic storage room. “We asked for originals and we lost them.” Because of that, replicas were made, and the director appears in one of them.

4. IT MADE HISTORY AT THE GOYA AWARDS.
The Others earned a total of eight Goya Awards, including Best Film. It’s the first film to earn Spain’s highest film honor in which not one word of Spanish is spoken.

“The Matrix Revolutions” Trivia

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Sean Hutchinson and Mental Floss present 15 Mind-Blowing Facts About The Matrix Revolutions.  Here are three of my favorites…

4. THE FILM WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT A LOT OF MOVIE MAGIC.
In addition to cutting-edge CGI technology, the production included the use of some impressive miniatures, such as the dock door of Zion, which was a 1/10th-scale model. Still, the scale of the door was astonishing as this “miniature” was 30 feet high and 40 feet wide.

8. R&B SINGER AALIYAH WAS ORIGINALLY SUPPOSED TO PLAY ZEE.
In another tragic turn of events, the character Zee was recast after Aaliyah, who shot small portions of the role for the second movie, died in a plane crash in 2001. Nona Gaye, daughter of singer Marvin Gaye, ultimately played Zee.

9. CAPTAIN MIFUNE’S NAME IS A NOD TO TOSHIRO MIFUNE.
Toshiro Mifune’s samurai movies (Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, etc.) were major inspirations for the Wachowskis while making the Matrix trilogy, so to honor him, the character Mifune was created.

John Beatty Livestream: Jack Carter & John Wick Watercolor on Nov. 23rd!

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This Friday, November 23rd, starting at 1pm EST, John Beatty will be drawing live on YouTube.  I’ll be co-hosting as Big J creates a watercolor painting pairing Sylvester Stallone as Jack Carter and Keanu Reeves as John Wick!  How cool is that?

Just think: You can avoid the Black Friday crowds and have a blast with other like-minded fans as we watch John draw and paint!  We’ll be talking movies, comics, tv, novels and of course Sly Stallone.  John and I will take questions from the folks who show up.  These livestreams are always a blast so we hope to see you there!

RIP – William Goldman

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William Goldman, the two-time Oscar winning screenwriter, has died at age 87.  Goldman won his Oscars for Best Original Screenplay (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid) and Best Adapted Screenplay (All the President’s Men).  Goldman was also the screenwriter for the beloved The Princess Bride (based on his novel), The Marathon Man, Misery and dozens of other movies.

Goldman began his career as a novelist and then moved to writing movies, plays and non-fiction.  Goldman won two Edgar Awards, from the Mystery Writers of America, for Best Motion Picture Screenplay (for Harper starring Paul Newman and for Magic which he adapted from his novel). Mr. Goldman also received the Laurel Award for Screenwriting Achievement from the Writers Guild of America.

Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mr. Goldman’s family, friends and fans.

Dell Comics Covers for the Classic Universal Monsters!

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Yesterday we got a look at Francesco Francavilla’s classic Universal Monsters posters.  It seemed only natural to follow them up with Dell Comics adaptations of the same.

Above is Creature from the Black Lagoon, but if you click over to The Bristol Board you can see larger versions of it as well as Dell Comics covers for Dracula, The Mummy and Frankenstein!