Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
It’s hard to believe that Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips are celebrating the tenth anniversary of their crime comic Criminal.
They are and they’re doing it in style with a special tenth anniversary one shot! Check out Image Comics for the full details and some preview art.
Twilight Zone: “Third from the Sun” [Season 1, Episode 14]
Original Air Date: January 8, 1960
Director: Richard L. Bare
Writer: Rod Serling based on a short story by Richard Matheson
Starring: Fritz Weaver, Edward Andrews and Joe Maross.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
William Sturka [Weaver] and Jerry Riden [Maross] work at a government security installation on a top-secret space craft. With the threat of world-wide nuclear war imminent security is tighter than ever.
Security Officer Carling [Andrews] is watching everyone like a hawk which makes it tough on Sturka and Riden since they have a plan to steal the space craft and escape to another planet before nuclear Armageddon.
Final Thoughts: A classic Twilight Zone twist ending!
Rating:
If you’re diggin’ Walt Simonson’s riff on Marv from Sin City, you’ll also probably want to check out Nicolas Waldmann’s interview with Mr. Simonson.
Twilight Zone: “The Four of Us Are Dying” [Season 1, Episode 13]
Original Air Date: January 1, 1960
Director: John Braham
Writer: Rod Serling based on a short story by George Clayton Johnson
Starring: Harry Townes, Phillip Pine, Ross Martin and Don Gordon with a cameo by Beverly Garland.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Arch Hammer [Townes, Pine, Martin and Gordon] has the ability, with intense concentration, to change his appearance to look like anyone. Hammer arrives in town and begins to impersonate various people in order to con their friends and business partners out of cash.
Hammer’s ability to change his appearance makes it easy to convince others that he is who he looks like. Women and money are ripe for the taking. Sadly, as this is the Twilight Zone, Hammer’s ability will bring him even more than he bargained for.
Final Thoughts: When this episode was first being prepared it was thought that one actor would play all four characters that Hammer impersonates. When it was determined that it would take too much time in make-up, it was decided that a different actor would play each part.
Rating:
Here’s the new trailer to Triple 9!
Twilight Zone: “What You Need” [Season 1, Episode 12]
Original Air Date: December 25, 1959
Director: Alvin Ganzer
Writer: Rod Serling based on a short story by Lewis Padgett
Starring: Steve Cochran and Ernest Truex with a cameo by Arlene Martel.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Fred Renard [Cochran] is a thuggish man who gets what needs from life through bullying, intimidation and worse. Sadly Renard’s ways have gotten him little. In a bar one night an old man [Truex] enters selling little novelties and necessities.
The old man peddler seems to know what each person needs before they do. The peddler tells a woman she needs stain cleaner and she accepts it. Another patron needs a bus ticket to Scranton. The patron is doubtful but accepts it. Within minutes the old man is proved correct — he has provided them exactly what they need.
Renard has found the golden goose! He intimidates the old man to provide him with what he needs for quick, easy cash. The old man comes through but Renard isn’t satisfied. He tracks the old man down for more. Will the old man have what is needed?
We’re in the Twilight Zone, baby! Of course he will.
Final Thoughts: The ending is a twist but one most won’t see coming.
Rating:
Season four of Vikings premieres on February 18th.
Want a taste now? Check out the trailer below.
Twilight Zone: “And When the Sky was Opened” [Season 1, Episode 11]
Original Air Date: December 11, 1959
Director: Douglas Heyes
Writer: Rod Serling based on a short story by Richard Matheson
Starring: Rod Taylor and Jim Hutton
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Astronauts Lieutenant Colonel Forbes [Taylor], Major Gart [Hutton] and Colonel Harrington are piloting an experimental rocket ship’s initial flight. Upon reentry the ship crashes in the desert. Gart suffers a broken leg and is hospitalized. Forbes and Harrington visit Gart and share the newspaper with a headline declaring the three of them as heroes.
After the visit Forbes and Harrington go to a bar to celebrate. Harrington suddenly begins to fill ill and decides to call his parents. His parent answers and tells a shocked Harrington that they have no son! Harrington instantly disappears and the newspaper headline changes to two astronauts as heroes.
Forbes didn’t see Harrington disappear and begins to look for him. Everyone in the bar says that Forbes came in alone. Forbes remembers the newspaper headline and gets it to show the bar patrons.
Shocked to see the headline has changed, Forbes rushes back to the hospital and to tell Gart what has happened. Gart shocks Forbes by saying there were only two of them on the flight. Forbes suddenly begins to feel ill…
Final Thoughts: Rod Taylor sells the episode. The ending is a bit of a letdown but everything leading up to is excellent.Rating:
Janet Burns and Mental_Floss present 12 Timeless Facts About 12 Monkeys. Here are three of my favorites…
6. WILLIS TOOK A PAY CUT FOR THE GIG, AND EVEN OFFERED TO SHAVE HIS HEAD.
As Den of Geek reported, Willis and his co-star Madeleine Stowe both accepted substantially less than their usual pay rates for their roles in 12 Monkeys in order to work with Gilliam. During the intensive filming process, it was Willis who came up with his character’s signature hairstyle. “It was his idea to shave his head, and it changed him a lot,” Gilliam said. “It makes him much stronger, much more dangerous. He looks like a prisoner from a Soviet Gulag … Bruce has got one of the great architectural craniums in the world! It’s just a great, beautiful thing to photograph.”
8. BRAD PITT UNDERWENT PSYCHIATRIC COACHING FOR THE ROLE.
Dr. Laszlo Gyulai, who directs the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine’s bipolar disorders unit, helped the then-up-and-coming actor to fine-tune his institutionalized character’s mannerisms through the study of real mental illness. Gyulai told The New York Times that films featuring psychiatric patients sometimes “make them look like lunatics, [while] many patients who are mentally ill are not crazy at all, particularly if they have depression or mood disorders.” Legend has it that Gilliam put an extra and very genuine bit of tension into Pitt’s performance by taking away his cigarettes on set, too.
9. PITT’S HARD WORK EARNED HIM A GOLDEN GLOBE, AND HIS FIRST OSCAR NOMINATION.
12 Monkeys made its splash at the box office just as Pitt’s career was hitting overdrive, and his Academy Award nomination and Golden Globe win for Best Supporting Actor were among the actor’s very first accolades. As the Manila Standard reported, Pitt was “surprised” by his 1996 award, and kept his comments brief during the “moment of absolute terror” in which he delivered his acceptance speech, stating: “I’d like to thank the members of—actually, the makers of Kaopectate. They’ve done a great service for their fellow man.”
Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 18 Uncovered Facts About JFK. Here are three of my favorites…
4. COSTNER MET GARRISON’S REAL ENEMIES.
The actor met both Garrison’s fans and his critics. “I wanted Costner to get both sides, to witness the hatred and extremism that Jim engenders and as an actor to look into the eyes of his enemies and know what he was up against back then,” explained Stone. “These were tough people and they’d come in a parade in front of Costner with their New Orleans accent saying that Jim’s a snake—that he liked boys and was angry that Shaw stole his lover and a lot worse.”
11. COSTNER INSISTED THAT JOHN CANDY NOT BE CUT.
John Candy was “devastated” when he heard his role as lawyer Dean Andrews was being cut from JFK, so Costner intervened. Stone wrote a letter to Candy apologizing for considering taking his nervous, sweaty character out of the movie.
10. WAYNE KNIGHT AND STONE CLASHED OVER HIS ACCENT.
Wayne Knight (Seinfeld‘s Newman) used an accent he heard growing up in northwest Georgia for his audition as Numa Bertel, which Stone loved. But Knight discovered upon meeting the real, New Orleans-born Bertel that he didn’t sound like that at all. Knight insisted on using Bertel’s real accent in the film, though it took a while to convince Stone. “He’s rough trade, that man,” Knight told The A.V. Club of Stone.
Twilight Zone: “Judgment Night” [Season 1, Episode 10]
Original Air Date: December 4, 1959
Director: John Brahm
Writer: Rod Serling
Starring: Nehemiah Persoff, Patrick Macnee and James Franciscus
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
A man [Persoff] finds himself on a passenger ship crossing the Atlantic in the middle of World War II. He doesn’t know who he is, how he got there, The one thing he does know is that their ship will soon be sunk by a German submarine.
Final Thoughts: The ending is a twist but one most will see coming. A very young James Franciscus makes a welcome appearance.
Rating:
The Free State of Jones poster and trailer are here! I like the trailer a lot more than the poster.
Thomas Boatwright is back and this time he went Over the Top!
Over the years I’ve gotten several Stallone pieces from Thomas. Here is what has been posted so far… there are more to come.
If you’d like to see more of Thomas Boatwright’s art check out his blog and his DA site. Send him some love.
If you get commissions, you should consider a piece from Thomas. He keeps you totally in the loop on his progress, finishes his commissions on or ahead of schedule, has very reasonable prices, is a fantastic artist and always gives you more than you’re expecting! – Craig
Garin Pernia and Mental_Floss present 14 Surprising Facts About Say Anything. Here are three of my favorites…
1. CAMERON CROWE BASED THE SCRIPT ON A REAL-LIFE HEARTBREAK.
Until Say Anything…, Crowe hadn’t written a love story. He told the San Diego Union Tribunethat the movie’s “a love story for people who don’t say I love you” and in 2009 told the Los Angeles Times that, “It’s a very personal movie, and it reminds me of falling in love, falling out of love, and falling back in love with life and all the unexpected glories and pain that happen along the way.”The “personal” part references his first love and heartbreak: “She fell for me, and I fell for her, but not at the same time,” Crowe said. “And yes, I used to drive by her house late at night, listening to music, feeling like a sap and somehow heroic at the same time. She was already with someone new, but I was going to wave the flag of our great love, even if I was the only one at the ceremony.”
4. IONE SKYE WAS THE OPPOSITE OF DIANE COURT.
The actress had trouble identifying with the A-student Diane Court because she wasn’t like that. “I wasn’t a good student,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “I grew up with my mother, not my father. I kind of had a wild childhood. Even the father stealing money from old people, I was saying to Cameron, ‘I can’t access why this would upset me.’ That didn’t seem bad to me at the time.” Skye’s real-life father is famed Scottish musician Donovan. Two years after the movie came out, Skye married Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz; the couple divorced him in 1999.
13. A SITCOM VERSION OF SAY ANYTHING… WAS IN THE WORKS, UNTIL CROWE PUT A STOP TO IT.
In 2014, Fox gave the green light for producers to adapt the movie into a single-camera TV sitcom that would take place 10 years after the film’s events, but they apparently didn’t bother to ask Crowe for his blessing. Once Crowe found out about it, he tweeted his dismay about the project and said, “I have no involvement … except in trying to stop it.” Cusack also cried foul about the project; the backlash prevailed and the project was canceled.
Twilight Zone: “Perchance to Dream” [Season 1, Episode 9]
Original Air Date: November 27, 1959
Director: Robert Florey
Writer: Charles Beaumont
Starring: Richard Conte, John Larch and Suzanne Lloyd
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Edward Hall [Conte] hasn’t slept in days. Fatigued and on the ragged edge, Hall not only has a mental issue [fear of dying if he sleeps] but a weak heart. Hall visits psychiatrist Dr. Eliot Rathmann [Larch] in hope of a cure.
Hall explains that each time he falls asleep Maya, a strangely alluring and dangerous carnival Cat Woman that he met in one of his fevered dreams visits him. Hall knows the Cat Woman will kill him but he can’t escape her or sleep.
Final Thoughts: Conte is excellent as the tormented, fatigued Hall. Lloyd comes off perfectly as the dangerous but irresistible Maya. The dream sequences are memorable.
Rating: 4 of 5 stars.
