Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
It’s amazing the detail that many of today’s action figures aka collectables are able to achieve. The photo above is of course a shot of the Arnold Schwarzenegger action figure from Terminator: Genisys.
You can see more shots of the figure here thanks to ComingSoon.net.
I saw Glen Campbell perform live when I was a kid. Glen Campbell was one of the first celebrities that I can remember seeing “in person.” The concert took place at the Indiana State Fair. At the time Mr. Campbell was a recording star, but would go on to have his own television series and appear in movies.
Glen Campbell always came across as a nice guy. Mr. Campbell seemed like someone you’d enjoy sharing a meal with or just talking to. That made the news that he was suffering from Alzheimer’s even more tragic. Not that you’d want anyone to get the disease, but especially not one of the good people.
Last October I posted about Glen Campbell’s song, I’m Not Gonna Miss You. At the time I said it was one of the saddest songs that I’d ever heard. I still think it is. Perhaps even more so after watching the documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.
Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me takes us behind the scenes for a look at how Alzheimer’s wrecks the life of not only the person with the disease but also everyone who is close to the him/her.
Luckily for Mr. Campbell he has a devoted wife, family and friends and the financial resources to provide him a superior support system. Still even with all of that, the disease is unstoppable.
Mark Evanier wrote about being at a party a few years ago and the excitement that went through the crowd as it became known that Glen Campbell was going to sing a few songs… and the initial discomfort when they realized the toll Alzheimer’s was taking on him. Mr. Evanier goes on to say, heck, instead of me telling you what he said, why don’t you just click on over and read his words for yourself. Like everything Mark Evanier posts, it is more than worth a read. I’ll be here when you get back.
I want to echo Mark Evanier’s recommendation that you check out Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me.
Rating:
As I was posting this, I noticed (and it was probably unintentional) that the title of the documentary Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me can also read like Glen Campbell: Ill Be Me.
Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 15 Fun Facts About Weird Science. Here are three of my favorites…
9. THE SCENE WHERE GARY TALKS LIKE AN OLD AFRICAN-AMERICAN BLUESMAN WAS INSPIRED BY RICHARD PRYOR.
Hall recounted in an interview that he and John Hughes would “watch Richard Pryor movies on the weekend. And we would imitate this character called Mudball that Richard Pryor would do. And so it was really just a product of being Richard Pryor fans that John said, ‘Hey, why don’t we create this scene where you go into a bar and do that?’”11. IT TAKES ITS TITLE FROM A 1950S COMIC BOOK, BUT OTHER SIMILARITIES ARE COINCIDENTAL.
EC Comics published 22 issues of Weird Science between 1950 and 1953, alongside more popular anthology titles like Tales from the Crypt. Hollywood mega-producer Joel Silver got the rights to all the old EC stuff in the ’80s, and Hughes was in his office one day when boxes of the comics were being delivered and unpacked. Seeing the title Weird Science, and thinking of a beautiful woman he and Silver had seen earlier that day, Hughes said, “What if two kids figure out a way to make that girl that was in the commissary?” This is according to Silver’s recollection, anyway. “I already had rights to the EC books, so that’s how I convinced them to let me have the title.” Now, there was a story in an issue of Weird Science that bore a superficial resemblance to Hughes’ idea—“Made of the Future,” in which a man builds a wife from a kit he got on a trip to the year 2150.13. BILL PAXTON GOT HIS CHARACTER’S DISTINCTIVE MILITARY-STYLE HAIRCUT WITHOUT HUGHES’ PERMISSION.
His first day on the set, “I told [the film’s makeup artist] I wanted to do a haircut that was really intense,” Paxton told The AV Club in 2012. “He’s the one who suggested the flattop, but long on the sides and slicked back. And he was afraid he was going to lose his job to cut it like that without having it approved by the producer or the director, but I said, ‘Just do it.’” Fortunately, Hughes loved it, along with everything else Paxton brought to the character.
Hollywood.com recently posted 13 Interesting Facts About M. Night Shyamalan Movies. Here are three of my favorites…
1. Sixth Sense was inspired by an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark?.
According to M. Night, the film is based on the episode “The Tale of the Dream Girl”, where the premise was: the lead characters are being ignored by the friends/family and don’t understand that they are dead until the end of the episode.
5. M. Night wrote the screenplay for Unbreakable with Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson in mind.
He always anticipated the two actors agreeing to do the film. This was also their fourth film together, after Loaded Weapon 1 (1993), Pulp Fiction (1994), and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995).
6. The Happening is the only movie of his in which M. Night does not physically appear.
He’s the voice of Joey, who calls out to Alma a few times in the film.
7. All of his films are set in, or very close to, Philadelphia.
The London Has Fallen Trailer is Here!
The Creed Trailer is Here!
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 33 Things We Learned From Joe Carnahan’s The Grey Commentary. Here are three four of my favorites…
11. The scene with Ottway waking up in the snow was shot in minus twenty degrees. “See Liam’s face, how red that is, there is no makeup on him,” says Carnahan. “They kept saying ‘you can’t put Liam in the snow, you can’t put Liam in the snow,’ but Liam went in the snow.” Barton says Carnahan and the guys complained so much about how cold it was, but the editing room was probably 75 degrees which was also pretty tough. “There was some days the espresso machine was jammed,” adds Hellmann.
13. Carnahan’s wife told him she thinks Ottway was the lone survivor and the rest were simply facets of his personality. “I thought that was really novel until ten other people, all women, said the same thing to me. I thought my god that’s an interesting little trend.” Barton recalls hearing her say that and thinking “Holy crap, what a great thing to say. We had never thought of that.”
21. The high-pitched howl emanating from the woods as the men scramble to start a fire after being chased by the wolves was actually made by Quentin “Rampage” Jackson. They recorded him and modified it some, but he’s the source.
****SPOILER ALERT****
33. The post-credits shot, a remnant of their attempts to capture Ottway’s fight with the wolves, was included for purely artistic reasons on Carnahan’s part. “It certainly, to me, doesn’t answer any questions,” says Barton, “in a good way.” Carnahan adds that a lot of people don’t seem to realize that’s the back of Neeson’s head resting on the wolf’s slowly breathing form.
Frank Miller, Joel Schumacher, Paul Dini and other filmmakers discuss details of the Batman films that nearly made it to the big screen in Aaron Couch’s Before ‘Batman Begins’: Secret History of the Movies That Almost Got Made for The Hollywood Reporter.
I’m still holding out hope that someday someone will take Batman: Year One and/or The Dark Knight Returns all the way (and do it/them right).
Recently Maane Khatchatourian posted in Variety The 10 Best Monster Movies of All Time.
While I don’t think the list was a great one, I’ll play along. Here’s my ranking (and comments for their choices)…
Creature from the Black Lagoon – One of my favorite movies of all time. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen Creature from the Black Lagoon, but I always enjoy it! Wondering when it will be updated/rebooted?
The Thing (1982) – I saw it on it’s original theatrical run. Scary then and scary now.
Alien – Another one I saw when it was first released. I’ve grown to love it even more over the years.
King Kong – The original Kong is still King.
Bride of Frankenstein and Frankenstein – The Godfather II and Godfather of monster movie sequels.
Jaws – I have a tough time with this one being labeled a monster movie. Jaws is a classic though.
Jurassic Park – Still the best of the Jurassic Park/World movies.
The Fly (1958) – “Help me. Help me.” Chilling. Another film that I’ve grown to appreciate more over the years.
Gremlins – Not a fan.
Godzilla (1954) – Not a fan of the original Godzilla movies although I watched them enough as a kid with my grandpa.
Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Fun Facts About City Slickers. Here are three of my favorites…
1. JACK PALANCE WAS BILLY CRYSTAL’S ORIGINAL CHOICE TO PLAY CURLY.
When Crystal first came up with the seed of the idea for City Slickers, he immediately thought of Jack Palance as the crusty bad guy with the heart of gold. He thought of him because the first movie he had ever seen was the 1953 movie Shane, where Palance played the bad guy. The actor left a lasting impression on Crystal, who was seven years old at the time of his first movie-going experience. Because his father produced jazz concerts, Billy saw Shane seated on Billie Holiday’s lap.
5. CHARLES BRONSON WAS ANGRY OVER BEING ASKED TO PLAY CURLY.
Jack Palance initially turned down the role of Curly, as he was committed to another project. So Crystal offered the part to Charles Bronson, who was not pleased. He cursed Crystal out because “I’m dead on page 64!” Palance, of course, ended up taking the role (and the rest is history).
6. PALANCE GOT INTO AN ARGUMENT WITH THE DIRECTOR ON THE FIRST DAY OF SHOOTING.
The veteran actor yelled at Ron Underwood over his first direction, but everything went smoothly after that. When Crystal asked what had happened, Palance explained that he always gets nervous on his first day of shooting. Sure enough, Tim Burton told a similar story about Palance snapping at him on his first day of shooting on Batman over how he was told to walk out of a bathroom, with Burton admitting that the incident scared him “to death—I literally saw white and left my body.”
Are you a parkour fan?
If so, are you also a Buster Keaton fan?
A strong case could be made that Keaton was one of the first inventors of parkour!
Eric D Snider and Mental_Floss present 14 Deep Facts About The Hunt for Red October. Here are three of my favorites…
1. Even though the novel had been a bestseller, nobody wanted to make the movie.
Tom Clancy’s book is a complicated story with a lot of technical jargon, which made Hollywood executives antsy. It also made the movie hard to summarize. “In Hollywood, because of time constraints, very few people in a position to say yes to a project like this read the book,” admitted producer Mace Neufeld. “They generally read the reader’s report. [And] this book doesn’t condense well into two or three pages.” Neufeld got the project off the ground by getting a Paramount executive to read the novel—not just the book report—and see for himself how cinematic it could be.
3. Sean Connery was a last-minute replacement.
The film had been under production for two weeks when word came that Klaus Maria Brandauer (Out of Africa), the Austrian actor who’d been signed to play the rogue Soviet sub commander Marko Ramius, couldn’t do it after all because of a prior commitment. Connery took the part instead, needing only one day for rehearsal. Coincidentally, he and Brandauer had acted together in 1983’s Never Say Never Again and would reunite again for 1990’s The Russia House, which was shot shortly after The Hunt for Red October.
9. Alec Baldwin wanted to return for the sequels but was edged out when Paramount learned they could get Harrison Ford.
It’s complicated, and there are at least two sides to every story, but here’s the gist: While negotiations with Baldwin were still ongoing, Paramount allegedly offered the part to Ford, who was a bigger box office draw and to whom the studio owed money anyway because of a previous project that had fallen through. Baldwin had been dithering over the specifics of his deal, and now a Paramount executive used that indecision to force his hand: either commit right now to an open-ended contract for Patriot Games and whatever came next, or the offer would be withdrawn. Not wanting to give up a chance to appear in A Streetcar Named Desire on Broadway, Baldwin left Jack Ryan behind.
Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Fun Facts About Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Here are three of my favorites…
1. ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL BELIEVES THAT JOHN HUGHES WANTED HIM TO PLAY FERRIS.
Hall told Vanity Fair that his relationship with the director ended rather abruptly following their work together on Weird Science, and after Hall had begun working with other directors. But he believed that Hughes wrote the roles of Duckie in Pretty in Pink and Ferris Bueller for him. For his part, Hughes said Broderick was the actor he had in mind when writing the screenplay. Casting directors Janet Hirshenson and Jane Jenkins only seriously considered one other actor for the part: John Cusack.
6. LOVE WAS IN THE AIR.
Matthew Broderick and Jennifer Grey (who played Jeanie, Ferris’ sister) met and got engaged just before the movie’s release. Cindy Pickett and Lyman Ward, who played Ferris’ parents, met on the set of the movie and eventually got married and had two children.
7. BEN STEIN WAS INITIALLY SUPPOSED TO DO HIS LECTURE OFF-CAMERA.
The student extras laughed so hard that Hughes decided to put Stein in front of the camera for his speech on supply-side economics. Stein himself picked the topic after Hughes asked him to speak about something he knew a lot about. Before he became a familiar movie and television presence, Stein—who is also a lawyer—was a speechwriter for Presidents Nixon and Ford.
Today we have an Italian poster for one of my favorite noirs – The Big Heat starring Glenn Ford, Gloria Grahame, Jocelyn Brando and Lee Marvin.
Source: 41 Strange.
Cake, animation studio Titmouse, Inc. and C3 Entertainment Inc.— owners of The Three Stooges brand have announced that Larry, Curly and Moe will be returning in a new animated series of 52 eleven minute episodes.
While I’m happy that three of our favorite knuckleheads will be exposed to a new generation of fans, wouldn’t it be cool if each new cartoon was paired with one of the original Three Stooges shorts for a thirty minute episode? The cherry on the top would be to include Shemp in the cartoons paired with original shorts that he co-starred.
Source: Entertainment Weekly.
