Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Check out Arnold Schwarzenegger in this DeepFake trailer to Dirty Harry! The technology is improving so quickly that soon we’ll see dead actors/actresses making a comeback.
Some folks are against putting deceased stars in ads or movies, but I like the idea if the heirs are okay with it. Who’d have thought we may someday see new movies with Marlon Brando, Bruce Lee, Humphrey Bogart or Lon Chaney?
The Once Upon a Time in Hollywood poster above was created by Nuno Sarnardas. His poster came in 2nd place in a recent contest at Poster Spy. You can see the contest winner as well as all the entries here. Selecting the top three must have been tough because there were quite a few well designed posters in the running!
F. Paul Wilson’s popular character Repairman Jack will be appearing in a 120 page graphic novel published by Dynamite Comics in 2020. Wilson will team with artist Antonio Fuso, colorist Pippa Bowland and letterer Crank to produce Repairman Jack: Scar-Lip Redux.
Got a problem? He can fix it. He thought he’d seen the last of the Rakoshi, but one has survived. A particularly cunning and deadly Rakosh known to Jack as Scar-Lip. Now, Jack faces the fights of his life as he seeks to end the creature once and for all, before it ends him!
Source: Bleeding Cool.
Disturbing the Peace staring Guy Pearce has just made my must-see list. I love the look of the poster and trailer. Yeah, deal me in on January 17, 2020.
For years The Twilight Zone Marathon on the Syfy Channel was a Zablo family New Year’s Eve tradition. I’m happy to report that the TZ Marathon is back starting at 6:00am est on December 31st.
If you can record ’em all, then do it! If you’d like to know the top ten I suggest to not miss, then set the DVR for…
Dec. 31st
7:30 pm Time Enough at Last
8:30 pm The Monsters are Due on Maple Street
9:00 pm Eye of the Beholder
9:30 pm The Invaders
10:00 pm It’s a Good Life
Jan. 1st
2:30 pm The Shelter
9:30 pm Will the Real Martian Please Stand Up?
10:00 pm The Midnight Sun
10:30 pm To Serve Man
11:00 pm Nightmare at 20,000 Feet
6 Underground (2019)
Director: Michael Bay
Screenplay: Paul Wernick, Rhett Reese
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Mélanie Laurent, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Ben Hardy, Adria Arjona,Corey Hawkins and Dave Franco.
The Pitch: “Michael Bay wants to make an action movie.”
Tagline: They Say No One Can Save The World. Meet No One.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Ryan Reynolds plays a billionaire who recruits folks with special talents to join his team to right wrongs throughout the world. That’s all you really need to know other than the fact that this mission’s goal is to replace an evil dictator with his democracy-loving brother.
Think a low-budget Mission Impossible movie made with a big budget.
The star of the movie isn’t Ryan Reynolds, it’s the action scenes directed by Michael Bay. The movie starts with a 20 minute car chase where we learn the bare bones plot and who the players are. We’re literally off and running with cars, trucks, motorcycles and parkour.
And that’s the opening.
Before 6 Underground is done we’ll have action on roof tops, in pools, hotel rooms, boats, construction sites, the desert, and museums. Bad guys are wiped out in bunches and I’ve never seen a movie where pedestrians are just as likely to be killed as the bad guy’s henchmen.
There are a lot of car wrecks and we all know the analogy — It was like watching a car wreck, I couldn’t look away. Well, that’s a good analogy for 6 Underground, because the action comes so (pardon the expression) fast and furious, you’ll find yourself watching. The movie never slows long enough to become boring before the next action scene is ramping up. So you keep looking… watching the shoot-outs, car chases and fights until the movie ends.
6 Underground is entertaining in the way a roller-coaster is fun – it moves fast, has a few surprises and doesn’t slow down long enough to bore you. When it’s over, you’ll probably say, it was fun but you’ll be ready to move on to the next ride.
Rating:
The Detachment (A John Rain Novel) by Barry Eisler
Paperback: 324 pages
Publisher: Thomas & Mercer
First sentence…
“I hadn’t killed anyone in almost four years.”
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
When Colonel Scott “Hort” Horton reaches out to John Rain, Rain knows things are bad. Horton has learned of a plan to overthrow the United States government. In order to stop the coup, Horton wants Rain to team with three other assassins and take out the three high level government officials behind the plan.
The complexity of multiple hits, coupled with the big payday offered convinces Rain to team with a former friend and two talented, but unknown killers provided by Horton. Things go sideways and the new team is betrayed. Rain doesn’t know who he can trust. As the clock ticks down, the four assassins must figure out who the traitor is and still find a way to effectively end the coup.
Eisler is an excellent writer with skills enhanced by his experience in a covert position for the CIA and a black belt in judo. He’s especially good at bringing out the underlying tension when a group of mercenaries are brought together under circumstances where any one (or more of them) may be secretly part of the group they are working to bring down.
Rating:
I’d be surprised if any regular visitor to this site didn’t recognize the guy on the left. It is, of course, Clint Eastwood. My guess is that a high percentage of folks also know the guy on the right… especially if they look at the art between the two. The hard case on the right is the legendary Frank Frazetta.
Frazetta was commissioned to create the poster for Eastwood’s movie, The Gauntlet. I like the movie and the poster. Love must be in the air, because I’m a fan of both gentlemen as well.
You can see larger versions of both photos as well as a detailed shot of the painting at Frank Frazetta Art.
Speaking of posters and trailers that I like, check out the poster above and trailers below for the BBC’s new Dracula mini-series which comes to Netflix on January 4th.
I’m diggin’ everything about the poster and trailer for Briarpatch. I hope the series is as good.
BRIARPATCH follows Allegra Dill (Dawson), a dogged investigator returning to her border-town Texas home after her sister is murdered. What begins as a search for a killer turns into an all-consuming fight to bring her corrupt hometown to its knees. The season celebrates the beloved genres represented by Thomas’ book — a stylish blend of crime and pulp fiction — while updating his sense of fun, danger and place for a new generation.
The season also stars Jay R. Ferguson (Mad Men, The Romanoffs), Brian Geraghty (Chicago P.D., Ray Donovan), and Edi Gathegi (StartUp). The first season will shoot in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Wow! This came out of left field. Legendary artist (and one I thought who had retired) Barry Windsor Smith has announced he plans to publish a new graphic novel in 2020!
Monsters is a 250-plus page story about “two disparate American families fatefully connected by an abandoned Nazi project in genetic engineering that has been covertly revived by the U.S. government.”
If this interests you, click over to NEWSaRAMA for full details. I’m looking forward to more info about this one!
Check out the Inherit the Viper trailer below!
VFW, directed by Joe Begos and staring Stephen Lang, William Sadler, Fred Williamson, Martin Kove, Sierra McCormick and David Patrick Kelly is like something you’d see at a drive-in back in the day. And you know how much I loved drive-ins.
VFW looks like Assault on Precinct 13 meets The Wild Bunch. That can’t be a bad thing, can it?
Stephen Dorff introduces us to his character, Sheriff Hollister, in Deputy, premiering on January 2, 2020 on FOX.
Stallone fans are going to love this: Eye See You is getting a special edition Blu-ray release from MVD Collector’s Brands. What makes this release especially special is that in addition to the theatrical Eye See You release, the disc will also contain director Jim Gillespie’s cut known as Detox!
From MVD Collector’s Brands’ release (bold text is my doing)…
EYE SEE YOU – Update!
It’s with great pleasure that I am able to report that director Jim Gillespie (the guy that made “I Know What You Did Last Summer”) took time and energy to dig up and locate a copy his original cut of “Eye See You”, known as “Detox” (that’s how it’s spelled on his cut of the film). While I personally have not seen this version yet (it’s being used to author the disc right now), I’m told that it’s a “darker” and more horror-ish in tone (Fincher’s “Seven” was what I think they were going for here) version of the film, which was his original intention before the film was recut, re-titled and changed.
“Detox” is being included on this disc as a bonus feature. It is not in HD. The quality is VHS. It is in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio and had time code under the letterbox (see image for reference). We will be reformatting the image for 16 x 9 which should eliminate most (if not all) of the time code. I don’t know what the audio quality is but given the quality of the video I would say manage your expectations accordingly.
We’ve included all of the previous available bonus features and we’ve also adding a new photo gallery (see list of “final” bonus features below). I have also made the decision to create a LIMITED RUN SLIPCOVER for the first pressing (as you know we really don’t do slips for Marquee titles anymore but I’m making an exception for this one) so if you want to guarantee a slipcover, I would suggest pre-ordering this title. After street it’s hit or miss.
I’m really excited to have produced this new “Special Edition” Blu-ray release of ‘Eye See You”. I’ve always considered this to be an underrated title. In my opinion, it’s the closest thing to a horror movie Sylvester Stallone has ever done (at least up til now) and hopefully this alternative cut will finally give everyone a chance to see what director Jim Gillespie had intended.
STREET DATE = April 14, 2020
You can pre-order using this link.
SURVIVAL IS A KILLER.
A brutal serial killer is targeting cops, and detective Jake Malloy is on the warpath. But now the killer is making it personal, and this dedicated agent is twisted in an emotional nightmare. Time is running out, and so are the options, as Malloy engages in an extreme game of cat-and-mouse with a killer who won’t be stopped.
I’m on board! Who’s with me?
