Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Ed Brubaker, Sean Phillips and Elizabeth Breitweiser have a new crime comic series coming out this summer called Kill or be Killed…
KILL OR BE KILLED is the story of a troubled young man who is compelled to kill bad people, and how he struggles to keep his secret, as it slowly begins to ruin his life and the lives of his friends and loved ones.
Deal me in.
Source: Bleeding Cool.
Kaare Andrews is a movie and television director, a writer and artist. Talk about a renaissance man! Andrews has a new six issue comic series, Renalto Jones, coming out this summer. Here’s how Kaare describes the series…
KA: Here’s the big conceit of the series: As you said, it’s about a man who hides amongst the super-rich and makes them pay for their super-rich crimes. But he doesn’t just hide in that world, he lives in it. So I can have a great time drawing gold plated Lamborghinis and huge estates, while still being able to get some payback. The book isn’t saying that all rich people are evil (remember, this is fiction), it’s saying that there is a certain kind of evil that’s untouchable because it hides behind wealth. To get at them, it’s going to take one of their own.
What’s interesting for me on a character level is that Renato isn’t really who he appears to be. ‘Renato’ is Italian for ‘Rebirth’ and that plays a big part of his character. Who is he? Why is he doing this? It’s not about revenge, but restitution. That’s important to Renato. He’s not getting even with the super-rich, he’s making them pay.
Check out Rich Johnston’s Why Kaare Andrews Is Focusing 100% On The One % at Bleeding Cool for the full story.
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 24 Things We Learned from Ben Affleck’s Gone, Baby, Gone Commentary. Here are three of my favorites…
7. Affleck worried about a shot of Jerry Springer on Helene McCready’s (Amy Ryan) TV thinking it might be too cliched, but “literally one in every two houses that I went into had Springer on while we were scouting in the afternoon.”
8. The extra with the hole in his throat was in the bar when they arrived for shooting so Affleck just asked him to stay. The man moving quickly behind him is actually Affleck who was passing by unaware they were grabbng the shot. Stockard wonders if this is Affleck’s stab at a Hitchcock cameo, but the director denies it.
3. One of the changes they made from the novel was adjusting the private eyes’ ages from being in their 40s to being in their 30s, “but that presented its own challenges,” says Stockard.
Twilight Zone: “The Dummy” [Season 3, Episode 33]
Original Air Date: May 4, 1962
Director: Abner Biberman
Writer: Rod Serling based on a story by Lee Polk
Starring: Cliff Robertson, Frank Sutton and George Murdock.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Jerry Etherson is a very good ventriloquist. The only thing holding him back from the big time is his dummy… who is very evil and very alive.
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Just the names Azzarello and Risso are enough for a comic to make my monthly pull list. Probably yours too, right? Add to the fact that Moonshine is a period crime tale with werewolves and I think that we won’t be the only ones.
MOONSHINE is set during the Prohibition Era, deep in the backwoods of Appalachia and tells the story of Lou Pirlo, a city-slick “torpedo” sent from New York City to negotiate a deal with the best moonshiner in West Virginia, one Hiram Holt. Lou figures it for milk run—how hard could it be to set-up moonshine shipments from a few ass-backward hillbillies? What Lou doesn’t figure on is that Holt is just as cunning as ruthless as any NYC crime boss and Lou is in way over his pin-striped head. Because not only will Holt do anything to protect his illicit booze operation, he’ll stop at nothing to protect a much darker family secret…a bloody, supernatural secret that must never see the light of day… or better still, the light of the full moon.
Source: Bleeding Cool.
Jarrod Alberich aka The Yard Sale Artist created the Rambo piece above. Jarrod calls himself The Yard Sale Artist because he uses only materials that he finds at yard sales, thrift stores, dumpsters and so on.
Eric D. Snider and Mental Floss present 13 Monumental Facts About North by Northwest. Here are three of my favorites…
3. JAMES STEWART WANTED TO PLAY THE LEAD.
Stewart had been in four Hitchcock movies at this point, and he wanted North by Northwest to be the fifth. But while Hitch loved him, he didn’t think he was right for the glibly debonair Roger Thornhill. He wanted Cary Grant for the part. Not wanting to hurt Stewart’s feelings, Hitchcock waited until Stewart was committed to another film (Bell, Book and Candle) before casting the role.
4. CARY GRANT HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING ON.
The star found the screenplay baffling, and midway through filming told Hitchcock, “It’s a terrible script. We’ve already done a third of the picture and I still can’t make head or tail of it!” Hitchcock knew this confusion would only help the film—after all, Grant’s character had no idea what was going on, either. Grant thought the film would be a flop right up until its premiere, where it was rapturously received.
5. PART OF IT WAS SHOT SECRETLY.
You wouldn’t expect Hitchcock to have to sneak around, but even the Master of Suspense was no match for the United Nations, which did not allow filming at its New York headquarters, not even in the plaza outside. So to get the shot where Grant walks into the building, Hitchcock hid a camera in a nondescript truck and filmed in secret from across the street.
Twilight Zone: “The Gift” [Season 3, Episode 32]
Original Air Date: April 27, 1962
Director: Allen H. Minor
Writer: Rod Serling
Starring: Geoffrey Horne, Nico Minardos and Cliff Osmond.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Word reaches a small Mexican village that a space craft crashed nearby and the alien encounter with the police left one of the officers dead and the alien wounded. Shortly after a stranger shows up in town.
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For decades John Wayne was one of the biggest box office stars in the world. Wayne’s dream project was to direct the story of The Alamo. Although film fans know that Wayne did get the film made, most don’t know what a struggle it was.
Wayne had hoped to just direct The Alamo, but financing was impossible unless he not only starred in it, but signed a three picture deal with the studio. Casting was also a nightmare. Wayne was hoping to get Clark Gable or Frank Sinatra for one role and that didn’t work out. Burt Lancaster was Wayne’s first choice for another role but he ended up with Richard Widmark. To make matters worse Wayne and Widmark developed an instant dislike to each other.
During filming there were natural disasters, the murder of a co-star and more. Even after filing wrapped there were troubles.
Nolan Moore documents Wayne’s struggles to get The Alamo made in 10 Amazing Stories About John Wayne’s Epic Failure. It is well worth the read.
Source: Listverse.
Twilight Zone: “The Trade-Ins” [Season 3, Episode 31]
Original Air Date: April 20, 1962
Director: Elliot Silverstein
Writer: Rod Serling
Starring: Joseph Schildkraut, Noah Keen and Alma Platt.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
John and Marie Holt have had a long and loving marriage. The take their life savings to the New Life Corporation with the idea of having their consciousness transplanted into new, young and healthy bodies. Sadly, they only have enough for one of them to get the transformation.
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Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 32 Things We Learned from Zack Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead Commentary. Here are three of my favorites…
13. Snyder cameos during the opening credits montage as a soldier with a machine gun on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol.
19. The original’s Tom Savini, Ken Foree, and Scott H. Reiniger all cameo here as a sheriff, a preacher, and a general, respectively.
29. Someone after a test screening questioned Snyder as to why/how the zombies pause at the bottom of the stairs at 1:32:25, and it put him on the spot when they asked if the zombies could even do that. He replied, “in real life, no, but in film where you dramatize…”
Twilight Zone: “Hocus-Pokus and Fisby” [Season 3, Episode 30]
Original Air Date: April 13, 1962
Director: Lamont Johnson
Writer: Rod Serling based on a short story by Frederick Louis Fox
Starring: Andy Devine, Milton Selzer and Howard McNear.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Somerset Fisby [Devine] is known to tell tale tales about everything. To hear Fisby tell it he has several advanced degrees and the greatest minds in the world seek his advice.
Everyone knows to take what Fisby says with a grain of salt except for the two strangers passing through town… they turn out to be aliens in disguise and believe Fisby would be the perfect example of a human to take to their planet.
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A loving look at how the Fleischer brothers pushed the limits of animation to create the definitive Superman. Well worth a look!
Twilight Zone: “Four O’Clock” [Season 3, Episode 29]
Original Air Date: April 6, 1962
Director: Lamont Johnson
Writer: Rod Serling based on a short story by Price Day
Starring: Theodore Bikel, Phyllis Love and Linden Chiles.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Oliver Crangle [Bikel] has made it his life’s work to ruin the lives of those he sees as communists, perverts, and undesirables. Crangle contacts an FBI agent to say that he’s arranged that a four o’clock the evil people will transform.
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