“28 weeks later” Wanted Sooner!
I’m looking forward to “28 weeks later” even more after reading THIS REVIEW.
Hundred-Dollar Baby
Robert B. Parker’s Hundred-Dollar Baby is his 34th Spenser novel. A new one comes out every year, and when you’ve been reading them for as long as I have, each new novel is like a visit from an old friend. That’s both good and bad. It’s good because the characters have a long history and are well-defined. It’s bad because after so many years the reader can anticipate how the story will unfold. With a long-running series like the Spenser novels, the journey becomes more important than the final destination. Well… normally that’s the case.Hundred-Dollar Baby breaks that mold. Sure, the story begins like most Spenser novels when he accepts case for a young woman [who first appeared in two earlier books, Ceremony (1982) and Taming a Sea Horse (1986)]. The story moves along in a very predictable fashion until about 3/4 of the way through when it takes on an unexpected twist. Hundred-Dollar Baby concludes with one of the most memorable endings of any Spenser novel.
If you’ve never read Robert B. Parker’s Spenser, then I’d suggest that you start with The Goldwolf Manuscript [the first in the series]. If you used to read the Spenser novels, but drifted away, then Hundred-Dollar Baby would be a good place to rekindle your friendship.
Mills Doubles Up
I told you HERE just how excited I was about the release of “Payback – The Director’s Cut.”
Although I’ve got my copy, I won’t get a chance to view it until this weekend [at the earliest]. Still, thanks to Chris Mills’s review, I’m even more excited about the odds of me loving the new version.
Chris and I enjoy a lot of the same movies, authors, and comics. When Chris says, “This new edition does not replace the old one for me, but does improve upon it in most ways, and I’m grateful for it,” I feel that I will be as well. Of course, I’ll let you know for sure once I watch the new version.
“Die Hard 4” and “28weekslater” Trailers are Here!
Above we have the international trailer to “Die Hard 4.0”
Below the trailer to “28 weeks later.”
I like both of these trailers better than the previous ones.
Time for a Little Payback
I can’t wait to get my copy of “Payback – The Director’s Cut” when it goes on sale tomorrow. Although the theatrical version of “Payback” is one of my favorite Mel Gibson movies, I have a feeling that the Director’s Cut will be as well. I know what you’re thinking, how could it not be? It’s the same movie with just a few extra scenes that were cut out when the movie was originally released.
Not so, good buddy!
Paramount and star Mel Gibson originally felt that writer/director Brian [“LA Confidential”] Helgeland’s adaptation of Donald E. Westlake’s novel The Hunter was too dark. So they told Helgeland to do some reshoots. He refused. Surprisingly, he was fired and Mel Gibson took over the director’s chair. About a third of the movie was re-shot, new characters were added along with a happy ending.
There were always rumors that Helgeland’s version was better. Tomorrow we’ll be able to decide for ourselves. In the mean time, CHUD.com scored an exclusive interview with Brian Helgeland who talks about what happened to get him fired and why Mel Gibson helped to make it possible for the new version to be released. Click HERE for the interview.
As I said, “Payback” is one of my favorite Mel Gibson movies. My guess is that “Payback – The Director’s Cut” will be as well.
Grindhouse Fails to Score
Weekend box office returns for “Grindhouse,” are in and they aren’t good. The Tarantino / Rodriguez double feature brought in only $11.6 million which puts it in fourth place for the weekend, and far below the mid-$20 million predicted.In hindsight, we can all speculate on why the movie hasn’t, at least this far, lived up to it’s hype. When I told people that I planned to see “Grindhouse” this weekend, most hadn’t heard of it. A few vaguely remembered seeing some ads for it, but then asked, “So what’s it about?” That’s never good. Others wondered why they should go and see movies with “scratches, splices and scenes missing.” In other words they just didn’t get it. My son, Mike, before seeing the movie with me said, “I think ‘Grindhouse’ is going to be like ‘Black Snake Moan’ — everyone talked about it, but no one went to see it.”
Seems like Mike may have been on to something.
Serra Stuns the World
There’s an old cliche: That on any given night one athlete / team can beat another.
Last night Matt “The Terror” Serra stunned the world by knocking out George St. Pierre in the first round. Nobody [except Serra himself] thought that St. Pierre would loose. As we were getting ready to watch the fights, I told my son, “The only shot Serra has is if he rocks GSP and then jumps on him. Serra can punch and punchers always have a chance.” Even knowing that, I didn’t think that Serra would win so quickly and decisively. Congrats to Serra. My guess is that he will next fight Matt Hughes. Serra would be a huge underdog… just like in his fight against GSP. I doubt that will matter to Serra.
The fight I really wanted to see was Josh Koscheck vs. Diego Sanchez. I figured that this would be the action-packed fight of the night. Sanchez was undefeated [19-0] and had beaten Koscheck before. There was a lot of bad blood between the two and both repeatedly promised in interviews that they would knock the other out. The reality is that the fight was less exciting than the pre-fight interviews. I do have to congratulate Koscheck. I thought that the fight would go to Sanchez since his stand-up was better. Well, you couldn’t tell that from what happened in the cage last night. Koscheck was quicker, landed more punches, and made Sanchez pay each time that he tried to score. Koscheck did enough to win and ended Sanchez’s undefeated streak. My guess is that these two will fight again. If so, I just hope that they live up to their hype.
The most exciting fight of the night was Roger Huerta vs. Leonard Garcia. Huerta won a unanimous decision, but the fight was far from one-sided. These guys threw punches in bunches, went to the ground, reveresed each other repeatedly and at times each looked on the verge of being knocked out or knocking out his opponent.
Overall it was a good card. I’d say that the fans got their money’s worth… but one cliche per post is probably enough.
Bob Clark – RIP
Director Bob Clark and his 22 year old son Ariel were killed early this morning when a car suddenly swerved over and hit them head on. The driver of the other car was booked on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and gross vehicular manslaughter. While the accident killed Clark and his son, the other driver suffered only minor injuries.
Bob Clark is best known for co-writing and directing the classic “A Christmas Story”. Mr. Clark was also the brains behind the very successful “Porky’s” [which he co-wrote and directed] which in turn led to several sequels. Mr. Clark directed many other films [horror, comedy, children’s], including “Rhinestone” [with Sly Stallone and Dolly Parton].
I’ll never forget the first time I watched “Porky’s” with my brother-in-law. We laughed until we cried and talked about the movie for days. Christmas isn’t Christmas without watching “A Christmas Story” with the family. Bob Clark not only left us with some fun films, he provided the source of some great family memories as well.
My thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends, and fans.
Season Six Starts Tonight
Tonight. 10pm. FX. The Shield returns for season six. Comments are welcome.
Guns in the Gutters
Chris Mills has started a new blog called Guns in the Gutters. There you’ll find Chris’s reviews of crime comics. Chris has great taste [in other words we like a lot of the same movies, books, comics, etc.], not to mention he wrote one of my personal favorite crime comics, GraveDigger: The Scavengers! Okay, okay, so I mentioned it. Believe me, the comic is more than worth a look. Huston Continues His Streak
Charlie Huston just keeps hitting homeruns.
No, he’s not a baseball player. Huston’s a writer. And a very good one. I told you about how much I enjoyed Huston’s writing HERE. Now he’s back with his second Joe Pitt novel called No Dominion. It’s even better than Already Dead [and you know how much I liked it]!
So who is Joe Pitt? Let’s let Huston tell you in his own words:
Joe is a kind of a detective. Kind of. In the same way he’s kind of alive. Duck around the issue as long as you want, sooner or later it’s gonna bite you. See, Joe’s a vampire. Yeah, a blood sucker. But not in the usual way, least not in the way you’re thinking from the books and the movies. Joe’s got a sickness, same sickness a lot of other poor slobs got. And all of them are creeping around Manhattan, trying to stay out of the public eye, out of the sun. Got themselves organized into Clans, each one laying claim to some turf. Wanna stay alive, gotta be with a Clan. Except Joe. He doesn’t hold with that way of life. That way is no life at all as far as he’s concerned. Ha, life, that’s funny. Sort of.
At any rate, after you check out Joe Pitt, you might want to try Huston’s Hank Thompson trilogy. [You should start with Caught Stealing, then Six Bad Things, and finish with A Dangerous Man.] They’re as good as the Joe Pitt books. And it doesn’t get much better than that!
Stern vs American Idol
Howard Stern, the self-proclaimed, “King of All Media” has encouraged his fans to vote for Sanjaya Malakar since the general consensus is that Sanjaya is the worst singer currently on the show. Stern has repeatedly told his listeners to go to Vote for the Worst.com and also to call in to vote for Sanjaya.
So now that Sanjaya has avoided the boot and made it into the top nine, Stern is crowing. He told his listeners, “We’re corrupting the entire thing. All of us are routing American Idol. It’s so great. The No. 1 show in television and it’s getting ruined.”
Okay. Let’s look at the facts: 1] American Idol is still the top rated show on television. 2] American Idol’s ratings are up! [More viewers means more earnings — just the opposite of what Stern is trying to achieve] 3] Vote for the Worst.com doesn’t get anywhere near the number of hits it would take to keep Sanjaya on — and that’s even counting the bump in votes brought in by Stern’s listeners.
It’s interesting that Stern is actually helping American Idol by claiming he will be behind it’s downfall. Perhaps it’s even more interesting that Stern’s getting publicity while at the same time failing at his mission. I guess that’s why he’s the King of All Media.
"28 weeks later"
Here is the new trailer for “28 weeks later”. I really liked “28 days later” a lot. I plan to see “28 weeks later” but wonder if it will be as good… or at least nearly as good as the original. From the looks of the trailer it’s hard to tell. Marshall Rogers – RIP
Marshall Rogers has died. He was 57 years old. The cause of death is not known at this time.
What is known is that Rogers burst onto the comics scene in mid 70’s and became an immediate fan favorite. Best known for his work with writer, Steve Englehart and inker, Terry Austin, the trio redefined Batman and his cast of supporting characters in Detective Comics #471-#476. Rogers then went on to do more groundbreaking work on Mr. Miracle and later Dr. Strange. In addition Rogers worked on the Silver Surfer, Detectives, Inc. [graphic novel and comic series], The Coyote, and his own creations Captain Quick and the Foozle, and later Scorpio Rose as well as other series.
Rogers left comics in the early ‘90s but later returned and even followed up on his classic Batman stories by reteaming with Englehart and Austin on Batman: Dark Detective.
I was a huge Marshall Rogers fan. I loved his work on Batman, Mr. Miracle, and even Dr. Strange [not one of my favorite characters, but Rogers made him work!]. Detectives, Inc. with Don McGregor is a fondly remembered graphic novel. As is Rogers great “Strange” portfolio. I followed Rogers work on everything he did until he left comics. Like everyone, I strongly recommend his Batman stories. They are easily found and definitely work looking up. Another title worth searching out is the Demon with a Glass Hand graphic novel adaptation that he penciled and inked from an original story and script by Harlan Ellison. It’s great stuff… which is to be expected since Marshall Rogers worked on it.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Marshall Rogers fans, friends and family.
Mackey is Back
April 4th can’t get here fast enough. Mackey is back… with a vengeance. You know you can’t wait. [Don’t feel bad, neither can I.]
