The Killers (1946) / Z-View

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The Killers (1946)

Director:  Robert Siodmak

Screenplay:  Anthony Veiller from a story by Ernest Hemingway

Stars:  Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Edmond O’Brien and William Conrad.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on Hemingway’s The Killers.”

Tagline: “One Moment with Her…And He Gambled His LUCK…LOVE…and His LIFE!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Two hit men show up in a small town to kill a gas station attendant known as “Swede” [Lancaster].  When warned the hitmen are in town, Swede thanks the man but refuses to run.  He lays back down and waits for their arrival, a totally defeated man.

The hit men arrive.  Kill him and leave.

Insurance investigator Reardon [O’Brien] gets the case and slowly begins to unravel the mystery of why hit men were sent to kill a small town nobody.  What follows is a story of mobsters, big time robberies, double-crosses and in the middle of it all a beautiful woman.

The opening scene – of the hitmen at the diner is a favorite and sets the tone for a classic movie!

Rating: 4 of 5 stars.

“The Mountain Men” (1980) starring Charlton Heston and Brian Keith / Z-View

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“The Mountain Men” (1980)

Director:  Richard Lang

Screenplay: Fraser Clarke Heston

Stars:  Charlton Heston, Brian Keith, Victoria Racimo and John Glover.

Tagline:  Alone… each is a bombshell.  Together… they’re dynamite.

The Overview:

Two aging mountain men survive in a world that is changing and will soon leave them behind.  If the hostile conditions of the frontier don’t kill ’em, the Indians or the corn whiskey might.

Thoughts:  Beware of Spoilers…

I remember seeing this movie back in the early 80’s on HBO and loving it.  I recently revisited it and while I still enjoyed it, The Mountain Men wasn’t the movie I remember loving so much.

The interplay between Charlton Heston and Brian Keith [who steals every scene is in] is worth the price of admission. Heston and Keith had worked together on the 1953 film Arrowhead.

It’s fun seeing a young John Glover in his first screen appearance.

The Mountain Men was director Richard Lang’s first time helming a feature film.

The Mountain Men‘s screenwriter, Fraser Heston, is Charlton Heston’s son. The Mountain Men screenplay was Fraser Heston’s feature film debut.

The Indians are too Hollywood looking now and some of the scenes don’t hold up as well.  Still I liked it a lot, just not as much as I remembered loving it.

Rating:

16 Things You May Not Know About Ringo Starr

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Eddie Deenzen and Neatorama present 16 Things You May Not Know About Ringo Starr.  Here are three of my favorites…

10. In 1964, when the Beatles first came to America, Ringo was actually the most popular Beatle. At least he received the most fan mail of the four.

16. In 2015, Ringo was finally inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (the Beatles had been inducted as a group in 1988). But now Ringo was (finally) elected on his own

3. Ringo was so sick as young boy, three times his doctors told his mother he wouldn’t survive the night. He was indomitable and did survive. Because of his incredible ability to survive, his grandfather’s nickname for him was “Lazarus.”

It Follows (2014) / Z-View

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It Follows (2014)

Director:  David Robert Mitchell

Screenplay: David Robert Mitchell

Stars:    Maika Monroe, Keir Gilchrist, and Olivia Luccardi.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a low budget horror movie – they almost always make money!”

Tagline: “It doesn’t think. It doesn’t feel. It doesn’t give up.”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

After having sex with a boy she really likes, Jay [Monroe] learns that he has passed a curse on to her. [Great choice in guys, Jay.]

“It” [the thing of the curse] will follow her, always walking but able to take different human forms and if it catches her, it will kill her.

Suddenly everyone walking towards her seems to have evil intent.  And at least one does!

Rating:

10 Facts About Jupiter That Will Blow Your Mind

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Rebecca Harrington and Business Insider present 10 Facts About Jupiter That Will Blow Your Mind.  Here are three of my favorites…

  • Jupiter is twice as massive as all the other planets combined.

 

  • The planet has a swirling storm twice the width of Earth that’s raged for at least the last 150 years called the Great Red Spot.

 

  • As a gas giant, Jupiter is mostly made of hydrogen and helium, so its surface isn’t solid.

Lone Survivor (2013) / Z-View

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Lone Survivor (2013)

Director:  Peter Berg

Screenplay: Peter Berg based on the book by Marcus Luttrell and Patrick Robinson

Stars:    Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Eric Bana.

The Pitch: “Let’s make a movie based on the best-selling book Lone Survivor.”

Tagline: “Based on True Acts of Courage”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

A Navy Seal team sent behind enemy lines on a mission to capture or kill a Taliban leader is accidentally discovered by a goat herder and his teenage son.  The soldiers faced with a dilemma, kill innocent people [and face military prison] or let them go and take their chances on being discovered.

The soldiers let them go and then find themselves outnumbered and under attack by superior numbers.  The movie’s title doesn’t leave much room for a real happy ending, does it?

Rating:

13 Fascinating Facts About “The Bridge on the River Kwai”

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Eric D. Snider and Mental_Floss present 13 Fascinating Facts About The Bridge on the River Kwai.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. ITS OSCAR FOR BEST SCREENPLAY WENT TO SOMEONE WHO DIDN’T WRITE IT.
The process of adapting Pierre Boulle’s French-language novel Le Pont de la Riviere Kwai was difficult (more on that later), but the two writers ultimately responsible for it were Carl Foreman (High Noon) and Michael Wilson (A Place in the Sun). Neither of them got credit, though, as The Bridge on the River Kwai was released during the three-year period when people who’d ever been Communists (or who refused to answer questions about it before Congress) were ineligible for Academy Awards. The screenplay was instead credited to the novelist, Boulle—which was quite a feat, since he didn’t speak or read English. (He didn’t attend the Oscars, either.) In 1985, the Academy officially recognized Foreman and Wilson as the screenwriters and posthumously awarded the Oscar to them.

4. DAVID LEAN NEEDED THE WORK.
Though he’d already earned five Oscar nominations (three for directing, two for adapting the Dickens novels) and would soon be widely celebrated for Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and Doctor Zhivago (1965), at this stage, Lean was in trouble. He’d just been through a costly divorce from actress Ann Todd. According to one biographer, he was “broke and needed work; he had even pawned his gold cigarette case.” This, plus the fact that he loved to travel, plus the fact that shooting a film in Southeast Asia would be good for him tax-wise, motivated him to accept a project that was bound to be grueling.

10. WILLIAM HOLDEN GOT A BETTER DEAL THAN THE DIRECTOR.
Lean wanted Holden, a big star and recent Oscar winner (for Stalag 17), to play American prisoner Major Shears, over the objections of producer Spiegel, who wanted Cary Grant. Once Spiegel relented, he realized Holden was a box office draw and offered him a great deal: $300,000 salary (about $2.5 million in 2016 dollars), plus 10 percent of the gross. Lean only got $150,000 himself, but he always said Holden was worth it.

Submerged (2015) / Z-View

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Submerged (2015)

Director:  Steven C. Miller

Screenplay: Scott Milam

Stars:   Jonathan Bennett, Talulah Riley, Rosa Salazar and Mario Van Peebles.

The Pitch: “What about a movie with a group of 20-somethings stuck in a submerged car with people waiting to kill them above?”

Tagline: “You can’t scream and hold your breath at the same time.”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Late one evening after a night of partying, a group of 20-somethings are traveling home in a limo when it is forced off a bridge.  The limo sinks to the bottom of the river and water slowly begins to fill the car.  When one of them tries to escape and get help, he is killed.  The trapped kids realize that there are people topside waiting to kill them.

As the water level rises they try to figure out why they are targets and if there is any way to survive.

Rating:

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) / Z-View

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Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Director:  George Miller

Screenplay: George Miller and Brendan McCarthy and Nick Lathouris

Stars:  Tom Hardy, Charlize Theron, Nicholas Hoult and Zoë Kravitz.

The Pitch: “George Miller has written and will direct a NEW Road Warrior movie!”

Tagline: “THE FUTURE BELONGS TO THE MAD”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Max Rockatansky [Hardy], a loner, surviving in an apocalyptic waste land is captured by a cult who plan to drain his blood for their warriors.  Max finds him teamed with Furiosa [Theron] and five women slaves in their escape across the desert.

Miller creates an amazing action adventure that is insanely mesmerizing to watch — the crazy action, the insane stunts, the beautiful cinematography, and unique world — I love this film!

Rating:

Eric Powell Previews “Hillbilly”

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Eric Powell is best known for his creation The Goon.  Recently Powell decided to give The Goon a rest and start up with another of his creations, Hillbilly.  

What?  You’ve never heard of Hillbilly?  Well, of course you haven’t.  He’s a new character.

Hillbilly may be new to us but the character has been “sitting in (Powell’s) sketchbook at least ten years.” Since this is such a personal project it makes great sense (but will it make dollars and sense?) that Powell self-publish the comic through his  Albatross Funnybooks company.

That’s what he did to get The Goon going.  And we all know how that turned out.

If you’d like to learn more about Hillbilly and see some preview art from the first issue you can at CBR.com’s  ERIC POWELL UNLEASHES HIS “HILLBILLY” ON THE COMICS INDUSTRY.

Terminator Genisys (2015) / Z-View

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Terminator Genisys (2015)

Director:  Alan Taylor

Screenplay: Laeta Kalogridis & Patrick Lussier

Stars: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jason Clarke, Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney,  J.K. Simmons and Courtney B. Vance.

The Pitch: “Schwarzenegger will come back for another Terminator movie!”

Tagline: “The rules have been reset.”

 

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

We all know the story, right?  In the future Kyle Reese is sent back to the present to protect Sarah Connor so that her yet unborn son will one day grow up to save humankind from machines.

Now see the tagline.  The rules have been reset.  Things happen as before only slightly differently… or in some cases very differently.  While this is fun for a while for fans of the series; it creates the same problems that all movies/shows with diverging timelines have.  What’s it matter?

You like Kyle Reese better in the original?  Different timeline.  You don’t like this Sarah Conner?  Different timeline.  Which time line should we care about?  Ultimately, I lose interest because things can be forgotten, changed or wiped out — just move to a new timeline.

Still, Terminator Genysis was fun enough if taken as a standalone story.  As for me, Terminator and Terminator 2 are the “real” Terminator timelines.  End of story… until the next sequel.

 

Rating:

15 Not-So-Simple Facts About “Blood Simple”

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Garin Pirnia and Mental_Floss present 15 Not-So-Simple Facts About Blood Simple.  Here are three of my favorites…

1. ITS TITLE WAS INSPIRED BY DASHIELL HAMMETT’S RED HARVEST.
“It’s an expression he used to describe what happens to somebody psychologically once they’ve committed murder,” Joel Coen told Time Out. “They go ‘blood simple’ in the slang sense of ‘simple,’ meaning crazy. But it’s left up to the audience to ponder the implications; they’re never spelled out in the film itself.”

3. THE COENS—AND MANY OF THE CAST AND CREW—HAD NEVER BEEN ON A FILM SET BEFORE.
Joel Coen admitted in My First Movie, “The first day of shooting on Blood Simple was the first time I’d ever been on a feature movie set in any capacity, even as a visitor.” Coen had previously worked as an assistant editor on horror films, including 1981’s The Evil Dead. Coen mentioned how Sonnenfeld would throw up after looking at the dailies, because he was so nervous working on the film. “Everyone was in the same boat,” Joel said. “The gaffer had never gaffered a feature. The sound guy, the mixer on the set, had never mixed a feature.”

4. THE COENS CHOSE TO MAKE A FILM NOIR BECAUSE OF THE GENRE’S PRACTICALITY.
The Coens liked hard-boiled fiction authors James M. Cain, Dashiell Hammett, and Raymond Chandler, and used them to their advantage in writing the script. “It’s certainly a genre that is entertaining, and we also picked it for very practical reasons,” Ethan said. “We knew we weren’t going to have a big budget. The financing would not allow it. We could build something on the genre and the appeal it has.”

“It’s also a genre that allows you to get by rather modestly in some ways,” Joel added. “You can limit the number of characters, put them into a confined set. There’s no need to go for large-scale effects or scatter them through the film, and those cost a lot of money. So it was a pragmatic decision that determined what film we would make.”

High Sierra (1941) / Z-View

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High Sierra (1941)

Director:  Raoul Walsh

Screenplay: John Huston and W.R. Burnett from a novel by W.R. Burnett

Stars: Ida Lupino, Humphrey Bogart, Alan Curtis, Henry Hull and Cornell Wilde.

The Pitch: “Raoul Walsh. John Huston. WR Burnett. Ida Lupino. Bogart.”

Tagline: “The Blazing Mountain Manhunt for Killer ‘Mad-Dog’ Earle!”

The Overview:  Beware of Spoilers…

Roy Earl [Bogart] an infamous bank robber [think Dillinger] is sprung from prison by an old crime boss who wants Earl for a big robbery.  Obligated for his freedom, Earl drives west to check out the set up.

Once he meets up with his old boss, Earl discovers the robbery plan is good and the money is right, but his partners are young, inexperienced thugs looking to make a name for themselves… plus they have a woman [Lupino] with them and everyone knows women weaken legs and crime plans don’t work out.

Before it is over there will be a robbery, people killed, double-crosses and a manhunt for the “Mad Dog Killer” Roy Earl.

Rating: 4 of 5 stars.