R.I.P. – James Garner

Posted on by

James Garner, star of movies and tv, was found dead in his Los Angeles home yesterday.  Mr. Garner was 86.

If you are a child of the 50’s then James Garner is probably best known to you for the role of Brett Maverick [the role that launched him to stardom] in the series Maverick.  Garner played a new kind of hero, one that preferred to use his wits rather than his guns or fists to get him out of trouble.

If you grew up in the 60’s then you probably know James Garner the movie star.  Movies like The Great Escape, The Americanization of Emily, Duel at Diablo, Support Your Local Sheriff, and Marlowe all come to mind.

The 70’s saw a combination of movies and tv.  The early 70’s included the movies Support Your Local Gunfighter, and Skin Game as well as the short-lived tv series Nichols.  Then in 1974, James Garner’s other cornerstone character, Jim Rockford began appearing when the Rockford Files premiered  (which ran until 1980).

James Garner went on to star in many more movies [Victor/Victoria, Murphy’s Romance, Space Cowboys,  and The Notebook are just a few], but time and time again he would return to Brett Maverick [tv series and movies] and Jim Rockford [tv movies].

My favorite James Garner roles include the two Support Your Local… movies, Marlowe [Bruce Lee appears and Garner plays Phillip Marlowe!], Nichols [watched and enjoyed the series as a kid and would love to see how it holds up] and of course Jim Rockford.

Many actors are called legendary.  James Garner embodied what it takes to get that designation.  My thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends and fans.

58 Facts That Will Blow Your Mind in Only 1 Sentence!

Posted on by

Buzzfeed posted 58 Facts That Will Blow Your Mind in Only 1 Sentence!

There are some really amazing (and mind-blowing) facts listed.  Seven of my favorites are…

  1. Russia has a larger surface area than Pluto.

  2. Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.

  3. Mammoths went extinct 1,000 years after the Egyptians finished building the Great Pyramid.

  4. Alaska is simultaneously the most northern, the most western, and the most eastern state in the U.S.

  5. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of the iPhone than she did to the building of the Great Pyramid.

  6. Will Smith is now older than Uncle Phil was at the beginning of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

  7. The oldest person on Earth was born closer to the signing of the United States Constitution than to now.

Mike Torrance and Robert Rath

Posted on by

Mike Torrance aka The Krayola Kidd is back and he’s brought Sly as Robert Rath from Assassins with him!  Over the coming weeks/months I’ll be posting more of Mike’s sketch card commissions.  My goal is to eventually get a card for every character Sly has played.  We’re well on our way!

You can see more of Mike’s art at his Deviant Art site. Mike is available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable.

 

Salem’s Lot: The Ultimate In Terror

Posted on by

When I saw this poster for Salem’s Lot  it brought back a lot of memories.  Released as a 3 hour television mini-series in 1979, Salem’s Lot  was one of the last tv events that you had to be in front of the set when it aired if you wanted to see it.  Remember, this was in the pre-VCR (anyone remember those) days.

I was excited about the mini-series since I’d read and enjoyed Stephen King’s novel Salem’s Lot.  The mini-series was well done and lived up to expectations.  I still can see that kid vampire floating outside a second story window asking to be let in… CREEPY!

Source: Dr. Horror Geek.

 

32 Incredibly Weird Deaths

Posted on by

Buzzfeed recently posted 32 Incredibly Weird Deaths…

You have people killed when…

  • a cow fell through a man’s roof killing the man…
  • a lawyer killed himself when trying to show jurors it was possible to accidentally shoot himself…
  • a man fell 24 stories to his death when he jumped against a window to prove it was unbreakable…
  • a man jumped from the Eiffel Tower to prove a suit he made would allow him to fly…
  • a man died when he fell into the Grand Canyon after pretending that he slipped, and then he actually slipped…
  • the man to die in the first plane crash was in a plane piloted by Orville Wright
  • and many more which you can read about here.

 

Jason Aaron & Ron Garney: Men of Wrath

Posted on by

I’m a huge fan of crime stories.

If the yarn’s a good one I don’t care if the medium is a novel, a comic book, a movie or television.  Men of Wrath, the five issue crime comic mini-series by Jason Aaron and Ron Garney looks like it will be a good ‘un.

Men of Wrath follows a hitman named Ira Wrath and as Jason Aaron lays it out…

He’s a bad guy. He’s an older guy who’s reaching the end of his life, which consists pretty much of killing people for money and living alone in an empty house which doesn’t have much furniture. For him it’s clearly not about the money. There’s something else going on.

“Men of Wrath” is about a family history. So each issue opens with flashbacks to different generations of the Rath family. We kind of start to see how the cycle of violence begins and gets perpetuated and passed down from generation to generation of this family and kind of culminates in Ira as the worst of the bunch.


So it’s pretty clear from his opening scene, which kind of punches of you in the face and tells you that he is not a nice man. It’s a story of how this cycle of violence has led to this one sad and very scary man.

Dave Richards at CBR.com conducted an excellent interview with Jason Aaron and Ron Garney about Men of Wrath.  One word of caution before you click over – Aaron warns us that Wrath is not a nice man and in the opening sequence does something that punches the reader in the face — I felt clobbered.  This is not a comic for kids or some adults but if you like crime comics, you’ll probably look forward to the ride.

15 Things You May Not Know About “Lock Up”

Posted on by

IFC recently posted 15 Things You May Not Know About Lock Up.  Although the majority of readers here will know most, there may be a few surprises.  Here are two that I didn’t know or had forgotten…

11. Frank McRae Had NFL History

McRae was a solid choice for the football scene – he’d actually spent a short stint as an NFL defensive tackle, playing six games for the Chicago Bears during the 1967 season.

12. Danny Trejo Is in the Movie

Danny Trejo makes an appearance as one of the gang members led by the character Chink Weber (played by actor Sonny Landham).