Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
I’m a fan of the original Fast & Furious. I thought Fast 5 was even better.
So I was pretty excited to hear that they were bringing back the whole team for Fast & Furious 6. Yep, they even brought back The Rock and Michelle Rodriguez. I guess the only thing that I’d have liked better is if Fast & Furious 6 had a Stallone cameo and room for Rosario Dawson.
Below is the just released featurette for Fast & Furious 6. Be advised that there are minor spoilers.
The Movie: Sharkey’s Machine
The Pitch: “Dirty Harry goes to Atlanta.”
The Tagline: “Burt is Sharky. Nobody leans on Sharky’s Machine!”
The Story: Tom Sharky is a narcotics cop demoted to vice after a botched drug bust results in a citizen being shot. Sharkey discovers a plot involving murders and a high level politician being manipulated by a crime boss. Sharkey pulls together a team of quirky cops, but as the bodies pile up find they are in over their heads.
The Screenplay: Gerald DiPego from the novel by William Diehl
The Director: Burt Reynolds
The Cast: Burt Reynolds, Vittorio Gassman, Brian Keith, Charles Durning, Earl Holliman, Bernie Casey, Henry Silva, Richard Libertini, Rachael Ward,Suzee Pai, Dan Inosanto .
The Good: The cast. The action. The soundtrack is awesome. Rachael Ward in her breakout role. Reynolds has the right balance of action/violence/humor. The shootout at the start and end of the movie.
The Bad: Henry Silva is a coked-up psycho hitman and that’s good. What happens to Reynolds when he crosses some Yakuza.
The Ugly: The torture scene on the boat.
The Rating: B
As I was going through the latest issue of Previews, I came across this solicitation:
Honey West was a female private eye that first appeared in a series of novels in the 1950’s. In 1965, Anne Francis played Honey West in an ABC tv series that lasted just one season. Although the show only lasted 30 episodes it became a cult classic.
Created by Harry Julian Fink (who also created Dirty Harry), T.H.E. Cat appeared in a 1966 tv series that ran for just one season on NBC. Although T.H.E. Cat only lasted for 26 episodes, it also became a cult classic.
Now nearly 50 years later they are teamed for a 2 issue comic mini-series? How cool is that? The eight year old kid in me says, “Pretty dang-gone cool.”
I’ll be pre-ordering the series. If it appeals to the kid (or adult) in you, then you know what to do.
Mike Torrance aka The Krayola Kidd returns with his next Rocky card.
You can “C” more of Mike’s art at The Daily Sketch with The Krayola Kidd (and if you’ve never checked out Mike’s site, you ought to if only to see his Walking Dead cards!) and his Deviant Art site. Mike is available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable.
Last night Sly sent out a series of tweets (seen above) that puts to rest the speculation on Mel Gibson (or John Woo) as the director of Expendables 3.
According to Sly, he found an EXCITING director… a young lion who Sly believes can help make Expendables 3 top Rambo as a pure action film.
Awesome. Can’t wait to hear who it is.
Last night the UFC along with FX and FOX put on a great night of fights. Let’s look at my predictions and the results.
Final thoughts:
If you’re a MMA fan, then you’re probably looking forward to a full night of fights.
Starting at 5pm EST we have the UFC Prelims on FX. This portion of the card includes:
Then at 8pm EST we switch over to FOX for the main event fights:
While I’ll be watching the prelims, my interest is in the main event. So, let’s take a look at my predictions:
I’ve been talking about Francesco Francavilla and his art for years. Francesco is a great guy and a talented artist who has been getting a lot of (well-deserved) praise and press for his creation The Black Beetle.
If you’re not reading The Black Beetle, you should be. If you want to learn more about Francesco or his creation, you can here thanks to CBR.com.
This is the first poster for 300 Rise of an Empire. As you probably guessed (if you didn’t already know), 300 Rise of an Empire is a sequel of sorts to 300.
The jury is out on this one, but I’m hoping for a thumbs-up verdict.
This is the first poster for Fast & Furious 6 that I’ve liked. It looks even better bigger thanks to IMPAwards.
Mike Torrance aka The Krayola Kidd returns with his Rocky 2 card.
You can see more of Mike’s art at The Daily Sketch with The Krayola Kidd (and if you’ve never checked out Mike’s site, you ought to if only to see his Walking Dead cards!) and his Deviant Art site. Mike is available for commissions and his prices are very reasonable.
MSN Entertainment recently listed their 100 Favorite Films. I’d seen 72 of them.
Of the 72, I could give a “thumbs-up” to all but 4. So it’s not a bad list, as lists go.
Of course, any list of favorite movies that doesn’t have Rocky in there somewhere has to be called into question.
Although I like this character poster of Johnny Depp as Tonto, I wonder how the movie, The Lone Ranger is going to do at the box office. My guess is it will either do really well or bomb.
In other words, I have no clue.
Fans of the traditional Lone Ranger (you know, folks old enough to remember the Clayton Moore and Jay Silverheels Lone Ranger from the 50s tv series) will probably stay away. Of course if you’re old enough to remember the tv series, you’re probably not the demographic the movie is aiming for.
The question then becomes will Depp’s Pirate of the Caribbean fans show up?
But wait… is Johnny Depp the only selling point to this movie? What about Armie Hammer who is starring as The Lone Ranger?
Let me put it to you like this, I don’t think it’s Hammer Time.
If Depp’s fans don’t show up, the box office for The Lone Ranger will limp off in a cloud of dust with a weak, “Hi – No Silver, the Box Office It Got AWAY!”
Roger Ebert, was one of the most popular movie reviewers of our time, the first film critic to win a Pulitzer prize, and a fan of cartoons.
Mr. Ebert was a regular contributor to The New Yorker’s Cartoon Caption contest and had even won the contest on at least one occasion. Robert Mankoff takes a look at some of Roger Ebert’s Final Cartoon Captions at The New Yorker.
The cartoon that is posted above features one of Ebert’s captions, but it wasn’t the one that got him the win (“I’m not going to say the word I’m thinking of.”) or even the one that I thought was the funniest (“Now watch how I lift my tray table to it’s original and upright position.”). We’ll save those for folks that click over to the original New Yorker piece.
