Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Here’s a cool link for Stallone fans or folks who’d like a behind-the-scenes look at the making of FIST from the time when the movie was made. Check out Stallone’s Latest Fight by Jean Vallely from Esquire, May 9, 1978.
Franco Columbu died yesterday of an unspecified illness. He was 78.
Columbu was a boxer, weightlifter, bodybuilding champion, actor and chiropractor. Franco met Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1960s and they became lifelong friends, with Columbu serving as Arnold’s best man when he married Maria Shriver in 1986. Columbu is a two-time Mr. Olympia Bodybuilding Champion. He also appeared in Stay Hungry, Pumping Iron, The Terminator, Conan the Barbarian, The Running Man, Big Top Pee-wee, as well as other movies and television shows. In addition, Franco trained many celebrities (including helping Sly Stallone get in shape for Rambo and other films).
Our thoughts and prayers go out to Franco Columbu’s family, friends and fans.
One of the first characters I associated Howard Chaykin with was Solomon Kane. Kane was created by Robert E. Howard (best known for Conan the Barbarian). Kane may have created him but when I think of Solomon Kane I always think of Chaykin first.
Thanks to Black & White and Bronze you can read Rattle of Bones by Roy Thomas and Howard Chaykin which first appeared in Savage Sword of Conan #18 (April 1977).
Best trailer and poster for Terminator: Dark Fate yet.
ScreenRant posted Sylvester Stallone’s 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes. Below is their list and my rankings using just their top ten. Regular readers would know that Get Carter would have definitely made my list.
|
ScreenRant |
Craig |
| 10. Rocky II | 10. Antz |
| 9. Nighthawks | 9. Death Race 2000 |
| 8. Cop Land | 8. Rocky II |
| 7. Rocky Balboa | 7. Creed II |
| 6. Death Race 2000 | 6. Rocky Balboa |
| 5. Creed II | 5. First Blood |
| 4. First Blood | 4. Nighthawks |
| 3. Antz | 3. Cop Land |
| 2. Rocky | 2. Creed |
| 1. Creed | 1. Rocky |
If you’ve never read a Rex Stout Nero Wolfe story, you should. You’d be in for a treat.
Stout did something unique: he married the British Golden Age, puzzle-solving school of mystery fiction with the street-smart, hardboiled, thoroughly American detective novels of Chandler and Hammett to come up with a seamless blend of thought and action, narrated in a prose that was unfailingly literate, witty, and engaging.
Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories are entertaining with just the right mix of action, mystery and humor. Neil Nyren (who I quoted above) provides an in-depth look at Stout and his stories at Crime Reads. Check out Rex Stout: A Crime Reader’s Guide to the Classics.
I love this cover to Ms. Tree: One Mean Mother. Ms. Tree was a comic series created by Max Allan Collins and Terry Beatty that first appeared back in the 1980’s!
I have to admit I didn’t get the title’s pun until my buddy, Jim Ivey pointed it out to me: Ms. Tree = Mystery. He thought I was messing with him, but I truly missed it. At any rate, Ms. Tree tales are being reprinted by Hard Case Crime. Here’s how the first is being solicited…
When her private detective husband is murdered by the Muerta crime family, Ms. Tree takes over the business! Cold, calculating, and tough as nails, no case is too small, no violence too extreme, so long as a mystery is solved… and Ms. Tree is paid.
The creation of award-winning crime and comics writer Max Allan Collins (Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, Road To Perdition, Quarry’s War), illustrated by co-creator and pulp legend Terry Beatty (Johnny Dynamite, Mike Danger, Rex Morgan M.D.)!
Collects five classic Ms. Tree stories for the first time since the ’80s, plus the rare Ms. Tree prose story “Inconvenience Store”!
The D-Day trailer is here!
Some people called it a suicide, but for the Rangers of the 2nd Battalion, that’s another word for #mission. When an elite group of American #soldiers are ordered to take out a series of German machine gun nests, they find themselves blindly venturing into hostile territory. Outnumbered and outgunned they must risk life and limb as they cross treacherous terrain, never knowing where the enemy might be hiding.
The Briarpatch trailer looks quirky and interesting!
From time to time you’ll hear me talking about a type of film that I refer to as a drive-in movie. I was fortunate enough to grow up when drive-in theaters were everywhere. Drive-in theaters were inexpensive and fun, always offering at the very least a double feature of second run movies, low budget films and often theme nights (Charles Bronson movies, horror movies, well, you get the idea).
Brad Gullickson at Film School Rejects writes about a movie that definitely fits my criteria of a drive-in movie. Race with the Devil is a low-budget movie featuring Peter Fonda and Warren Oates as a couple of buddies who with their wives stumble on a Satanic human sacrifice while camping out. Before you can say, “Run!” the Satanists are after them with the thought of four more sacrifices.
Check out Gullickson’s Satanic Panic Hits The Road in ‘Race with the Devil’.
Each week JoBlo.com posts a feature called Awesome Art We’ve Found Around the Net. I always enjoy what JoBlo finds because with each post they list the artist’s name and a link to more of his/her art.
That’s where I found this cool Arniegedon poster by Ben Turner. You can see more of Ben’s art here.
Check out this Tony Moore variant cover for Vampire State Building! It’s a retailer variant cover limited to just 300 copies. You can see a larger version and learn more about the cover and the series at Bleeding Cool News.
Wow! Here’s El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie teaser. Can’t wait to see this!
Mark Mancini and Mental Floss present 11 Fun Facts About Them!. I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve watched Them! over the years. I’m happy to report it still holds up. When I was a kid, I loved that Matt Dillon, Spock and Daniel Boone all had roles, heck it still brings a smile to my face. And now without further adieu, here are three of my favorite facts…
4. LEONARD NIMOY MAKES AN APPEARANCE.
In one brief scene, future Star Trek star Leonard Nimoy plays an Army man who receives a message about an alleged “ant-shaped UFO” sighting over Texas. He then proceeds to poke fun at the Lone Star State, because, as everybody knows, insectile space vessels are highly illogical.
10. THE MOVIE WAS A SURPRISE HIT.
Studio head Jack L. Warner predicted that Them!, with its far-fetched plot, wouldn’t fare well at the box office. So imagine his surprise when it raked in more than $2.2 million—enough to make the picture one of the studio’s highest-grossing films of 1954.
11. THEM! LANDED FESS PARKER THE ROLE OF TV’S DAVY CROCKETT.
When Walt Disney went to see Them!, he had a specific objective in mind: Scout a potential Davy Crockett. At the time, Disney was developing a new television series that would chronicle the life and times of the iconic frontiersman, and James Arness, who plays an FBI agent in Them!, was on the short list of candidates for the role. Yet as the sci-fi thriller unfolded, it was actor Fess Parker who grabbed Disney’s attention. Director Gordon Douglas had hired Parker to portray the pilot who ends up in a psych ward after an aerial encounter with a gargantuan flying ant. And while his character only appears in one scene, the performance impressed Disney so much that the struggling actor was soon cast as Crockett.
