John Wick by Dan Panosian!
Dan Panosian is back and he brought John Wick with him! (And, yeah, John Wick is thinkin’ he’s back, too!)
Category: Movies
The “Captive State” Trailer and Poster are Here!
The Captive State trailer looks interesting. I’m not 100% sold yet, but am interested in seeing more.
“Mission Impossible: Fallout” Trivia
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 51 Things We Learned from the Mission: Impossible – Fallout Commentary. Here are three of my favorites…
7. They tested shorter cuts of the film per the studio’s request, but each attempt saw the scores plummet. Cruise told them “it doesn’t matter how long it is, it matters how long it feels.”
17. The HALO sequence saw them jumping out of the plane at 25,000 feet, and it’s all done live in a single shot. The city lights below are added in post, but the jump and fall are 100% real. “We talked about this for a year. How are going to get this shot?” The camera operator for the scene is wearing a camera mounted to the top of his own helmet, and the whole thing is a legitimately thrilling sequence. Here, I’ll let a very excited and proud Cruise tell you about jumping out of the plane for the scene. “Now he’s backwards. He leaves backwards. I’m coming right at him. Now I have to get from there I have to get within three feet, not two feet ten inches, not three feet and two inches. I have to be right at three feet to be in focus. Now I go past him in that and we had a window of three minutes to get that shot. Now I do this spin, now you’re in my face,I’m up on my back, he’s going up and around. It really is a dance between the two of us. I had to always make sure that the sunset was on my left shoulder. Now we’re traveling at 200 miles an hour at times toward the ground. I’m coming in, it’s like a sprint, boom, I have to hit him. When I hit him, I have to hit him, I don’t know where I’m gonna hit him on his body, I just have to try and take him out and down. And not break his neck, my neck, and not entangle the chutes, deploy his chute or my chute. Any of those things could have led to serious problems.” They built the largest wind tunnel in the world to train and considered filming some of the sequence in there, but it didn’t look real enough.
27. The “what if” sequence at 44:13 where they show the hijack and subsequent killing of dozens of police officers under the overpass was a concern as paparazzi and Parisian gawkers lined the other side of the river watching. They hung 300 feet of silk across the archways so that people wouldn’t see police being murdered, and the unintentional but welcome effect is the “eerie light” across the scene.
The 2nd “Bird Box” Trailer is Here!
The second Bird Box trailer looks pretty good. I hope this isn’t a case where the trailers are better than the movie.
The 4th “Glass” Trailer is Here!
The headline says it all: The 4th Glass Trailer is Here!
The “Triple Frontier” Trailer is Here!
Make no mistake this is not a military operation… and make no mistake, Triple Frontier looks good!
Sam Gilbey’s “Die Hard” Print!
Check out this cool Die Hard print by Sam Gilbey. You can get your own limited edition print from Zavvi.
Source: GeekTyrant.
How Sly Stallone Made the Cover of a French Graphic Novel
Today we have the Colin WIlson cover to the French graphic novel Du Plomb Dans La Tête written by Matz and illustrated by Colin Wilson. If you think the the tough-guy on the cover looks like Sylvester Stallone, you’d be right.
See, Du Plomb Dans La Tête was the basis for Stallone’s film Bullet to the Head.
What’s interesting to note is the character (that Sly ended up playing) from the original graphic novel was drawn to look a bit like Sly as Jack Carter. When Sly took on the role for Bullet to the Head, Walter Hill (the director) opted for a different look and Sly agreed. So in the movie Sly doesn’t look like Jack Carter but on the Du Plomb Dans La Tête cover he does.
And now you have the rest of the story (as Paul Harvey would say).
“Pulp Fiction” Poster by Juan Carlos Ruiz Burgos
Once a week Joblo.com posts Awesome Art We’ve Found Around the Net.
I always enjoy seeing what JoBlo has found because with each post they list the artist’s name and a link to more of his/her art. That’s where I saw this Pulp Fiction (by Juan Carlos Ruiz Burgos ) poster.
Ranking All “Rocky” / “Creed” Movies
Sam Stone at CBR.com recently posted Every Rocky Movie Ranked. Stone did this by averaging the professional critics’ scores from Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic.
Joe Leydon at Variety had the same idea so All Eight Rocky Movies Ranked were done by Joe.
Not to be outdone, John Orquiola at ScreenRant provided All 8 Rocky & Creed Movies Ranked.
Follow the links above to see the individual comments and rankings for each of the Rocky/Creed films. I created a chart to make comparisons easier. I also added my rankings in the last column.
It was interesting to see that except for Rocky at #1 and Creed as #2 there wasn’t a majority consensus for any other ranking.
Jack Carter and John Wick by John Beatty!
On November 23, 2018, aka Black Friday, John Beatty and I met in his studio to do a livestream broadcast of John’s John Wick / Jack Carter drawing for my Stallone Sketch Collection. Click on the photo above to see a much bigger version. We were joined in the studio by Ron Wendt who took the photos below.
That’s John…
That’s me…
And that’s John with his reference working on the art. You can click on the video link below to see and hear how everything went down. We had a blast with viewers texting in questions and even a couple of call-ins to the studio.
John is considering adding tones to the Carter / Wick piece and if he does I’m sure I’ll join him in studio, so maybe you will consider swinging by as well. John draws live most Monday through Fridays and loves to interact with those who tune in. You should give it a go and tell him I sent ya.
Dead Film Franchises Begging to Be Revived
ComingSoon ran a piece called Dead Film Franchises Begging to Be Revived. Of the films listed, here are the three I felt most deserving and a couple of more that didn’t make the list but should have…
Kill Bill – Tarantino has talked up a sequel for many years now. The set-up was right there in Kill Bill, Volume 1: Ambrosia Kelley (who played Vivica Fox’s daughter) is now grown and would return to take revenge on The Bride.
Blade – I didn’t care for Blade; loved Blade II and thought Blade: Trinity was good. So, why not bring back Snipes for another outing?
Dirty Harry – My initial thought was, “No.” But the idea of Scott Eastwood picking up his dad’s role as Harry Callahan got me thinking that it could work. My biggest concern is that the social climate is much different now than it was when the original Dirty Harry was released.
Two movie franchises that didn’t make the list but should have…
Billy Jack – I’d love to see a remake of Born Losers, the film that introduced Billy Jack to the world. Get someone like Kurt Sutter to take the reigns and you’d have a winner.
Escape from – Snake Plissken continues to be a popular character with fans. Have Wyatt Russell (Kurt’s son) put on the eye patch and let’s go.
Apollo Creed vs The Stallion Chicken!
Remember in Rocky II when Apollo was trying to goad Rocky into a rematch and Apollo ran a full page ads in newspapers calling Rocky the Stallion Chicken? That’s the art that appeared with the ad.
Source: Mike Kunda.
10 Remakes Better Than the Originals
Scott Beggs and Mental Floss took a look at 10 Remakes That Are Better Than the Originals. Here’s what Beggs had to say about three of my favorites that made his list (and my commentary after)…
3. THE THING (1982)
Itself a remake of An Affair to Remember (just kidding), John Carpenter’s paranoid horror film captured a Cold War sensibility of neighborly distrust. Its predecessor, The Thing From Another World, stood out even among the mountain of now-cheesy 1950s sci-fi creature features, but Carpenter injected the zeitgeist even deeper into the film’s tissue to create a movie with complexity and a radical flamethrower.Craig – While I wouldn’t agree that Carpenter’s remake is better – how do you improve on a classic? – I do agree that Carpenter’s update has also achieved a cult classic status. I remember seeing Carpenter’s version on opening weekend in a nearly empty theater and coming out really liking the film but not loving it. The Thing (pun intended) of it is, the movie like the creature in the movie grows on you,
4. SCARFACE (1983)
The movie that spawned a million dorm room posters and impressions of Al Pacino is a remake of Howard Hawks’s 1932 film that was neutered by the Hays Code. That version still shows the violent rise of a gangster based on Al Capone, but it had to explicitly condemn everything shown on screen and tack on the subtitle The Shame of a Nation (just in case audiences thought killing people was something to aspire to). It’s absolutely one of the most important genre pictures in the vault, but Brian De Palma’s Miami-set festival of bullets successfully updated it with a slathering of the greasy greed of the 1980s. Like its forebear, De Palma’s movie had its own struggles with the ratings board, earning a debilitating X rating because of its intense violence.Craig – I agree with DePalma’s Scarface is better than the original, but I would also argue that the original was just as controversial pushing the envelope of violence and sexual innuendo.
9. THE CRAZIES (2010)
Fans chewed their fingernails off when Overture Films announced a remake of George Romero’s 1973 zombies-by-another-name horror flick, but it turned out to be ripe for remake pickings. The government assault on a town suffering from the military’s own biological weapon was effectively moody but had problems that Breck Eisner’s version cleaned up considerably. Justified star Timothy Olyphant is perfect as the beleaguered small-town sheriff, and the film works as a tense survival thriller with a boatload of spine-jolting scares.Craig – I really liked the remake much more than the original. And like both John Carpenter’s The Thing and Brian DePalma’s Scarface liked The Crazies remake better with each additional viewing.
