Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Francesco Francavilla is no stranger to the ZONE. I’ve posted about his art and gotten sketches from Francesco for my Stallone-theme collection. Over at one of his blogs for the entire month of October, Francesco is running what he calls the 31 Days of Halloween. Every day Francesco posts a drawing [sometimes more] of a monster, vampire, werewolf, well… you get the idea. It’s a great idea and a lot of fun. I hope you can join us.
Available November 23, 2010, The Expendables will come in two formats: Blu-Ray and DVD. Here are the specs according to IGN Movies:
— “The Expendables: Ultimate Recon Mode” in-movie BonusView
— “Comic Con 2010 Panel”
— Audio Commentary with Sylvester Stallone
— “Inferno” feature-length “making of” documentary
— “From the Ashes” Post Production documentary
— Deleted Scene
— Gag Reel
— Marketing Archive including Trailers and TV spots
— Metamenu Remote and BD Touch enabled
— D-BOX Motion Control Enabled
— Standard Definition DVD Copy of the feature film
— Standard Definition Digital Copy of the feature film
— Audio Commentary with Sylvester Stallone
— “Before the Battle” featurette
— Deleted Scene
— Gag Reel
— Marketing Archive including Trailers and TV spots
I don’t know about you, but I have pre-ordered mine!
When I posted the first teaser trailer to the Cohen Brothers’ remake of True Grit, several folks on my message board wrote to say that the John Wayne version was a classic and shouldn’t have been redone. I felt [and still feel] somewhat differently. I loved the original True Grit, but was open to another version. Now that this trailer is out, I’ll bet some of the original naysayers are starting to change their minds.
Otis Frampton’s art is no stranger to the StalloneZone. I’ve told you about Otis’ 7-7-7 Sundays before. I’ve been fortunate enough to get three previous sketches from Otis — Rambo, Jack Carter and Cosmo Carboni. You can see them here.
I finally got to meet Otis in person at Heroes Con last year. When Otis attends conventions he has sketchbooks that he sells for a buck each. Yep, one buck. And to make the deal even more enticing, Otis includes a free headsketch. For mine he did Freddy from Cop Land. I would have gladly paid a buck a piece to have Otis draw Sly from every movie he’s done, but the idea is to get new fans to give Otis’ work a look. So instead, whenever I ran into a friend who’d never heard of Otis I’d slap a buck down and buy ’em a copy of the sketchbook with a free headsketch. Luckily none of them requested Sly, or I might have had to keep the copy for myself. ; )
A few days ago, I was wondering, “What’s Up with the Skyline?” After watching this teaser trailer, I kind of get the picture.
It’s been years since I’ve watched True Grit starring John Wayne, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell and Bruce Dern. I saw the movie when it was first released and I loved it. I remember thinking that it held up well when I watched it again years later.
This trailer for the re-make by The Cohen Brothers that stars Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin looks like it will give the original a run for it’s money.
I don’t know much about the movie, Skyline, but the poster above does what a good poster should do; it makes me want to learn more. To get the full effect, click over to this sky-sized version at IMPAwards.com.
Dave Wachter joins us this week with his take on Sly from The Expendables. I’m a huge fan of Dave’s art and own several pieces [and hope to get more in the future]. He’s a tremendous artist, but more importantly an all-around decent guy. You can see more of Dave’s art at his site. – Craig
The Town is one of my all-time favorite crime movies. Ben Affleck, as director and star, surrounded himself with a great cast [Rebecca Hall, Jeremy Renner, Jon Hamm, Pete Postlethwaite, Chris Cooper] and terrific story [and adaptation of Chuck Hogan’s Prince of Thieves].
Part of the reason that I love The Town so much is that it feels real. This was Affleck’s goal in both casting the roles and filming. When casting the female lead, Affleck said it was really important…
…that she feel like a real person. If you dropped a very recognisable Hollywood whoever-it-is or starlet that everyone knows into that role, somebody who depends on a certain kind of acting that was sort of “recognizable”, the immediately the audience would know “Okay, it will be hard for her, but then she’ll come back and she’ll be winning and we’ll all go home happy” and it would allow the audience to feel comfortable…
Affleck believes that his decision to use security camera footage also helped with the feel that the robberies were real…
…The security camera footage, I wanted to use so that the audience would subconsciously feel as if it were more realistic. I think we’re actually used to seeing crime and violence through that prism, that 15 frames per second, no sound, black and white security stuff. So when you see that happen, “this feels real” and then you cut into the 35 stuff and maybe at some level in your mind you’re feeling like it’s more kind of authentic.
You can read more about Ben Aflleck’s contributions to the success of The Town at Bleeding Cool’s post.
That’s Ryan Cody’s take on Sly from Demolition Man. I’d been wanting to get a sketch from Ryan for a while now, but since he doesn’t make it to east coast shows and I don’t get west, it didn’t look good. Not long ago, Ryan was going to a show and offered fans some discounted sketch opportunities and even extended the offer to me through the mail.
I jumped on board for two pieces and the Demolition Man is the first. You’ll see the second in the coming weeks. Until then check out Ryan’s blog and his DA site.
Thanks to Ryan! Hopefully we can do it again sometime. – Craig
As I write this I’m a little less than half way through William Shatner’s autobiography, Up Till Now and I’m already hating that it will end. Shatner’s stories, observations and asides are entertaining and written as if he was chatting with the reader over a McDonald’s Mocca Frappe. [Stay thirsty, my friends!]
Growing up, I was a HUGE Star Trek fan [although Spock was my favorite character] and I did enjoy Shatner in Boston Legal and The Twilight Zone episodes [that he headlined], but I wasn’t a TJ Hooker fan. And except for the Star Trek movies starring Shatner and the original crew, there are no other William Shatner films in my movie collection. That had led me to believe that I might enjoy only a small part of Shatner’s autobiography. Boy, was I wrong. Ever page has either made me smile or given me some interesting insight. And sometimes both. For example, Shatner discusses being flown to France with his co-stars for the premiere of an animated film…
In the animated film, Over the Hedge I played Ozzie the Opossum, whose primary survival technique is playing dead, but truly dramatically dead. Shatnerian playing dead. Jeffrey Katzenberg, the head of DreamWorks, sent the cast, including Bruce Willis and myself to the Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of the film. As we were walking up the red carpet, surrounded by photographers, we were introduced to the French actors who had played our characters in the French version. Wait a second, I wondered, we’re the stars of the film, right? I knew we were the stars, our names were in big letters on the lobby cards and credits. But as this is an animated film our faces weren’t on the screen, and now our voices were replaced by French actors. So we were the stars of a film in which we didn’t even appear. What were we doing there?
Think about it. Pay big bucks to an actor who will never appear on screen and then replace his voice too! It’s gotta make you simply shake your head and smile.
Just the other night four of us were having a discussion about M. Night Shyamalan. All of us loved The Sixth Sense and Signs. After that things went south. Every other movie brought about mixed reactions… but none got the love of The Sixth Sense or Signs. Yet all of us held on to the hope that M. Night Shyamalan would return with a movie that would once again wow us.
Yesterday we had a music mash-up, today check out a movie combo. Here is what might happen if The Terminator squared off against Robocop with a bit of Predator to boot.
Link via Miss Cellania.
