Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
I like the poster and trailer for Find Her. Deal me in.
When an ex-cop arrives in a small town searching for answers to a murdered ranch owner and his missing daughter, it slowly becomes clear he has his own personal agenda to finding the truth.
Written, directed and starring Nick McCallum. Also starring Richard Gunn, Anais Lilit, Stelio Savante and John James.
The Stranger Things Season 4 trailer looks like we are in for an epic conclusion!
It’s time. See you on the other side. Stranger Things 4 Vol. 1 premieres May 27th, only on Netflix.
Adam Chow is an artist and a Bruce Lee fan. His Instagram page is filled with his Bruce Lee art. A sample of Chow’s cool pieces include Bruce Lee from his various movies, with Brandon Lee as the Crow, if Bruce was in Star Trek, Bruce Lee as John Wick and much more. Click over and give Adam Chow’s art a view!
Today we have the full trailer for We Own This City, a six episode limited series coming to HBOMax on April 25th. We Own This City stars Jon Bernthal, Dagmara Dominczyk, Domenick Lombardozzi, Don Harvey and Treat Williams. Deal me in.
“We built this machine.” #WeOwnThisCity premieres April 25 on HBO Max.
Babylon A.D. (2008)
Director: Mathieu Kassovitz
Writers: Mathieu Kassovitz & Joseph Simas (screenplay) with Éric Besnard (scenario and dialogue) based on the novel by Maurice G. Dantec.
Starring: Vin Diesel, Michelle Yeoh, Mélanie Thierry, Gérard Depardieu and Charlotte Rampling.
Tagline: Save the World One Child at a Time.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
In the near future, Toorop (Diesel), is an exiled American mercenary living in a dangerous gang-ridden Russian slum. Toorop is hired to safely transport Aurora (Thierry) and her guardian (Yeoh) across the war torn continent and sneak them into the United States. Under the best circumstances this would be a tough gig, but the fact that two different organizations have sent armed teams to kidnap Aurora for vastly different reasons makes survival unlikely.
Babylon A.D. is an under-rated and flawed film that I absolutely love. Bad weather, budget over-runs, problems between the director and 20th Century Fox all contributed to the end result. 20th Century Fox released a drastically cut (reports range from 15 to 93 minutes shorter than the director’s cut) theatrical version with almost zero publicity. In 2011, Mathieu Kassovitz released a behind the scenes documentary of the troubled production called Fucking Kassovitz. I’ve seen the documentary. It is clear that problems with the production team meeting the director’s vision were enormous.
With that said, I still love Babylon A.D. It has scope, vision and attempts to rise above the action genre film. There’s so much to love. The opening with Toorop in the Russian slum. Gorsky (Depardieu), the Russian crime lord’s method of getting Toorop on board. How Gorsky gets Toorop to the convent to pick-up Aurora. Slowly seeing that there is more to Aurora than meets the eye. The gradual development of respect and then friendship between Toorop and Sister Rebeka (Yeoh). The parkour fighters. Toorop “rescuing” Aurora from the monster cage fighter. The submarine scene. Escaping the drones. The New York showdown and more.
Babylon A.D. is not a great movie. As I said at the start, it is flawed. But I love what they did get on film. I’ve watched Babylon A.D. several times over the years and like it better with each viewing. This is one where I expect the mileage will differ from mine with many viewers. Why not give it a shot and see? As for me, I rate Babylon A.D. five of five stars.
Lee Child’s Jack Reacher novel are already best seller and with the popularity of the Reacher television series, they should sell even more. We’ll find out this October 25th, when No Plan B, the new Jack Reacher novel premieres.
The gripping new Jack Reacher thriller from the #1 New York Times bestselling authors Lee Child and Andrew Child. The plan: It’s coming Fall 2022. No Plan B.
In Gerrardsville, Colorado, two witnesses to the same tragedy give two different accounts. One guy sees a woman throw herself in front of a bus in what authorities will call a suicide. The other witness is Jack Reacher. And he sees what actually happened: A man in a gray hoodie and jeans, moving like a shadow, pushed the victim to her death—before swiftly grabbing the dead woman’s purse and strolling away.
Reacher follows the killer on foot, not knowing that he is part of something much bigger and far-reaching . . . a secret conspiracy with many moving parts, with powerful people on the take, all involved in an undertaking that leaves no room for error. If any step is compromised, the threat will have to be quickly and quietly and permanently removed.
Because when the threat is Reacher, there is No Plan B….
The Devil Takes You Home by Gabino Iglesias is on my to-be-read list. I’m a fan of Iglesias’ Zero Saints and love the plot of The Devil Takes You Home. Check it out and see what you think,
From Bram Stoker, Anthony, and Locus award-nominated author, Gabino Iglesias, comes a genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what’s left of his family, even if it means a descent into violence –both supernatural and of our own terrifying world.
Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.
The Devil Takes You Home is a panoramic odyssey for fans of S.A. Cosby’s southern noir, Blacktop Wasteland, by way of the boundary-defying storytelling of Stephen Graham Jones and Sylvia Moreno-Garcia.
If you have any interest at all in the Assassination of President Kennedy, you will want to check out Ten Tales from Dallas’s Parkland Hospital, Where JFK Died by Christopher Dale at Listverse.
Normally I would pick out my three favorite items from the list. I won’t this time because each fact/tale of the ten is rare and interesting. Without giving too much away, Dale’s behind-the-scenes of the Kennedy Assassination tells…
Hats of to Christopher Dale!
The Home is filled with tension due to professional acting, directing and production values. Well done.
Set in a small, isolated 19th century Irish home for unwed mothers, a young pregnant woman must fight for her survival as the home falls siege to a group of mysterious invaders.
“The Home”
Writers: L. Gustavo Cooper & Peter Cilella
Director: L. Gustavo Cooper
Starring Alex Essoe (Doctor Sleep, Midnight Mass)
Speculation as to who the Zodiac Killer was, is always a popular topic. There are so many folks who have done extensive research and most often they come up with the usual suspects. Not so with Jarett Kobek. Kobek did the research, but facts led him down a different path to a new, viable suspect named Paul Doerr.
Tim Molloy at MovieMaker provides an excellent overview of Kobek’s findings in his piece Zodiac Killer Revealed by His Love of Comic Books, Author Says. Molloy’s article is definitely worth a read. It details how a card sent to police/newspapers listed four ways the Zodiac planned to kill: “By Fire, By Gun, By Knife, By Rope”. Many Zodiac researchers linked the quote to the 1952 Western comic book, Tim Holt #30. Kobek took this finding and ran with it.
Kobek realized that the number of comic book collectors at that time was relatively small. His next step was to start researching comic book fanzines of the era. Paul Doerr’s name came up in letters to the fan magazines. His writing style and the content of his letters struck Kobek as being similar to the Zodiac’s. Then Kobek discovered that Doerr was on the mailing list for renaissance fairs. Of course in one of the Zodiac attacks he was wearing a Medieval executioner’s hood. In other letters Doerr talks of killing and making a bomb. Click over to Molloy’s piece for full details.
Jarett Kobek’s book, How to Find Zodiac lays out the evidence leading to his belief that Doerr was the Zodiac Killer. Here’s the synopsis…
“A scruffy masterpiece of criminology. It seems to me that either Kobek’s painstaking deductions are correct, or we must urgently revise the laws of probability.” – Alan Moore, author of From Hell
Dear Reader,
This is not the Zodiac speaking. The one thing that I ask of you is this, please read this book. It is called How to Find Zodiac. Being that this book is about the Zodiac, it offers a new suspect. The theory is probably correct. At the moment the theory is unproven. But the idea is a bomb waiting to go massive. Can you see the flaws in the hunting method or will you just agree and say case closed. Either way one thing is true. Zodiac can never look and seem the same after you read this book. It was written by Jarett Kobek.
It will be interesting to see how Zodiac researchers react to Kobek’s research and suspect.
Usually I like my crime fiction to be hardboiled and serious. But there are times when a bigger helping of humor is a nice change of pace. Murder in Grease Paint by Whiskey Leavins looks to be a prime example. I loved Leavins’ The Devil’s Own Piss and Other Stories. So picking up his latest offering is a no-brainer. Check out the synopsis and see what you think.
Washed up pitching prospect, Rock Cobbler, now a hotshot detective with the Santa Lacrimosa PD likes working alone as much as he likes bourbon. That is to say, a lot. One rainy night at Santa Lacrimosa Clown College he finds himself looking out a dorm room window. Down below lay the hilariously twisted body of Mr. Rubadubdub, apparently tossed from that very same window.
The investigation into the defenestration of the promising young clown will lead Rock through dive bars, contemporary Christian clowning performances, and down into the seedy underbelly of clown lore. He will discover what no non-clown should know; like the existence of dangerous, rival clown factions that will stop at nothing in search of clown dominance and the possession of one particular venerated clown relic. To crack the case, he will have to match wits, and game, with the alluring Professor Wiggles. Will Rock take a pie to the face? Or will he solve the case before more clowns die?
Murder in Greasepaint is equal parts Chandler, Christopher Moore, Bozo, and Bourbon.
Ignore the boring poster and instead check out the trailer for There Are No Saints starring Jose Maria Yazpik, Ron Perlman, Tim Roth, Neal McDonough, Tommy Flanagan and Paz Vega with a screenplay by Paul Schrader directed by Alfonso Pineda Ulloa.
Looking to start a new life, a former hitman nicknamed The Jesuit (Jose Maria Yazpik) is unable to escape the sins of his past. With enemies on both sides of the law, he has nowhere to turn when his only son is kidnapped by a ruthless cartel boss (Ron Perlman). He’ll stop at nothing to save his boy in this gritty action-thriller from the writer of TAXI DRIVER.
I’ve been on a roll finding new (at least to me) excellent crime fiction authors/books. Today we have Hell Chose Me by Angel Luis Colón. My order is in. Check out the synopsis and see what you think.
Bryan Walsh is a killer for hire. He is haunted by those who have fallen by his hand. He will stop at nothing to avenge his brother’s death.
When a lifetime of bad karma finally lands on Bryan’s doorstep and leaves his brother dead, he must survive long enough to find the killers and get his revenge, but as the path only grows bloodier, Bryan may not be able to handle the steps he’ll need to take against his enemies.
As he becomes more unstable and his past crashes into his present, Bryan must decide if vengeance is worth becoming the monster he always denied or if he could find a another path; one that could lead to something like redemption.
Outer Range has an interesting premise, a trailer that makes me want more and I’m a Josh Brolin fan, so deal me in.
Outer Range centers on Royal Abbott (Josh Brolin), a rancher fighting for his land and family, who discovers an unfathomable mystery at the edge of Wyoming’s wilderness. A thrilling fable with hints of wry humor and supernatural mystery, Outer Range examines how we grapple with the unknown. At the onset of the series, the Abbotts are coping with the disappearance of daughter-in-law Rebecca. They are pushed further to the brink when the Tillersons (the gaudy owners of the neighboring profit-driven ranch) make a play for their land. An untimely death in the community sets off a chain of tension-filled events, and seemingly small-town, soil-bound troubles come to a head with the arrival of a mysterious black void in the Abbotts’ west pasture. Wild revelations unfold as Royal fights to protect his family; through his eyes, we begin to see how time contains secrets held in the past and unsettling mysteries foreshadowed.
PopCultArt recently sent out a Tweet with four different Alt. Rocky posters. The one above was created by Agu Mendez. You can see the other three here.
