Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
You know what I like about The Suicide Squad Poster? Two things:
1. It doesn’t look like the typical Photoshopped heads poster that most movies get.
and
2. That Sylvester Stallone credit. (In case you’re wondering who that shark is… @TheSlyStallone King Shark. #TheSuicideSquad – James Gunn)
The trailer drops later today!
I like the poster and trailer to Separation. Both do what they should – creep us out and make us want to see the movie!
8-year-old Jenny (Violet McGraw) is constantly caught in the middle of the feuding between her lawyer mother Maggie (Mamie Gummer) and artist father Jeff (Rupert Friend). She leads a lonely but imaginative life, surrounded by puppets called “Grisly Kin”, which are based on the works of her father. When Maggie is tragically killed in a hit-and-run, Jeff and Jenny try to piece together a new life. But when Maggie’s father (Brian Cox) sues for custody, and babysitter Samantha (Madeline Brewer) tries to be the new woman of the house, life in their Brooklyn townhome takes a dark turn. The puppets and frightening characters come to life and Jenny is the only person who can see them. When the motives of the ghoulish creatures become clear, the lives of everyone are put very much in jeopardy.
I kid you not, we have the poster and trailer to, are you ready for this, Aquarium of the Dead!
Aquarium of the Dead is definitely a drive-in movie. I wonder if it will be one of those so-bad-it’s-fun movies or one of those so bad it’s awful movies.
Killer Among Us looks pretty good. I want to see more.
After her 4th of July shift ends, Officer Alisha Parks, an idealistic rookie commonly ostracized by her male peers, witnesses a drug-addicted teenager named Ricki being forced into a car by a strange man. She brings the abduction to her superiors who ignore it as just another situation involving a junkie. But Alisha persists and investigates off duty, eventually enrolling the department’s best, albeit wearily hardened Detective Corbucci to aid in the case. Together they uncover that this wasn’t a lone incident, and that the suspect they’re after is in fact a disturbingly indoctrinated, methodical serial killer. Alisha and Corbucci must race against time in order to save this otherwise “forgotten” woman before it’s too late.
Starring: Yasha Jackson, Imani Lewis, Bruce MacVittie
Directed by: Charlie Scharfman
I like the trailer a lot more than the poster for Edge of the World, but the poster ain’t bad. How long has it been since we’ve seen an epic like Edge of the World? I guess I’ll find out around June 21st.
EDGE OF THE WORLD Official Trailer (2021) Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Dominic Monaghan
The Virtuoso poster and trailer are here. The poster is average, but the trailer looks good. Anthony Hopkins always does great work. I’m also happy to see David Morse in the cast — he makes everything better.
Danger, deception, and murder descend upon a sleepy country town when a professional assassin (Anson Mount) accepts a new assignment from his enigmatic mentor and boss (Oscar® winner Anthony Hopkins). Given only where and when along with a cryptic clue, the methodical hit man must identify his mysterious mark from among several possible targets, including a local sheriff (David Morse). Meanwhile, a chance encounter with an alluring woman (Abbie Cornish) at the town’s rustic diner threatens to derail his mission in this noir-style cloak-and-dagger thriller.
Here we have the poster and trailer for No Ordinary Man: The Billy Tipton Documentary.
Billy Tipton was an American musician who played in jazz bands from the 1930s through 1950. In 1951, he formed the Billy Tipton Trio (along with Dick O’Neil and Kenny Richards). The trio’s popularity earned them a contract for two albums: Sweet Georgia Brown and Billy Tipton Plays Hi-Fi on Piano. The records did well enough for a new four album contract, but surprisingly, Tipton declined the offer. Tipton instead moved to Spokane, where he became a talent agent and performed occasionally. Tipton retired from music in the late 1970s.
Over the years Tipton had several different woman who went under the title Mrs. Tipton, but the title was without legal standing since he didn’t marry any of them. In the early 60s, Tipton and one of his “wives” adopted 3 sons.
In 1989, as paramedics worked to save Billy Tipton’s life, they discovered he was a female! Sadly, the paramedics were unable to save Billy Tipton.
The story that Billy Tipton was actually a woman who lived life as a man undetected by his fellow musicians, his children and even his “wives” made national news. In 1989, there was little discussion in the main stream media about transgender people, so Billy Tipton’s story was shocking. Truth be told, it would probably still be considered shocking. I remember when the story broke about Billy Tipton and I couldn’t understand how so many people close to Billy would have no idea of his secret.
For decades, the life of American Jazz musician, Billy Tipton, was framed as the story of an ambitious woman passing as a man in pursuit of a music career. In No Ordinary Man, Tipton’s story is re—imagined and performed by trans artists as they collectively paint a portrait of an unlikely hero. Together, the filmmakers join Tipton’s son, Billy Jr. to reckon with a complicated and contested legacy: how do you tell the story of someone who was hiding in plain sight yet desperate to be seen? On demand April 2nd.
I like the poster and really like the trailer to Stowaway. I plan to watch this once it becomes available!
On a mission headed to Mars, an unintended stowaway accidentally causes severe damage to the spaceship’s life support systems. Facing dwindling resources and a potentially fatal outcome, the crew is forced to make an impossible decision. Directed by Joe Penna and starring Anna Kendrick, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson and Toni Collette. Coming to Netflix April 22nd.
THE DUSK, is a new graphic novel created by Alex Segura & Elizabeth Little (writers) and David Hahn (artist), with Ellie Wright (colorist) and Taylor Esposito (letterer). It is on Kickstarter now. Here’s the synopsis…
Down below the abandoned skyscrapers and crumbling colonial architecture, beneath the buzzing lights and ragged billboards, is a fading, floundering city propped up by vice, extortion, and fear. This is BLACKSTONE—a dark, mirror image of Boston or Philadelphia. A city whose history dates back to the earliest days of our nation.
A once-mighty industrial titan—now teetering on the edge of oblivion. A city that used to mean something. Blackstone public defender Jaime Nuñez – former baseball hero, now a divorced dad to a precocious teen – is always trying to do his best. But the criminal justice system is not without limits. When Jaime comes into an unexpected fortune and some surprising, super heroic tools, he discovers there might be another, more direct way to do some actual good in the world.
Here are some preview pages. Click on them to see a larger view.
The Dusk Kickstarter offers digital, individual issues as well as an all-in-one graphic novel. There are variant covers (Gabriel Hardman, Derek Charm, Rebekah Isaacs, Jamal Ingle, Francesco Francavilla, Howard Chaykin), t-shirts, and more that can be added on.
I jumped on this Kickstarter, The Dusk looks like a fun ride. Click here for more info.
George C. Romero (George Romero’s son) is teaming with Diego Yapur (pencils/inks) and DC Alonso (colors) to bring us a comic book prequel to his father’s classic Night of the Living Dead. The new series will be published by Heavy Metal. Romero said this about working with Heavy Metal:
“With regard to the comic, I think it’s safe to say that working with Heavy Metal has given me the unprecedented pleasure of not only staying true to my original intentions for the story, but has also given me the freedom to explore the universe and the time period in a much more detailed way than a feature film script ever could.”
I’ll definitely want to check this series out. Syfy.com has a four page preview and short interview with Romero in their post GEORGE C. ROMERO RESURRECTS ‘NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD’ WITH NEW PROLOGUE COMIC ‘THE RISE’.
The poster and trailer for Into the Labyrinth starring Dustin Hoffman is here. I think the poster looks more like an ad for a game show than a movie — probably because it is missing all the credits usually seen on a movie poster. The trailer is interesting but doesn’t have me dying to see the film.
A kidnapped girl is found 15 years after her abduction. A celebrated psychiatrist is trying to deal with her trauma and a retired detective who only has hours to live is ready to put it all on the line to find a vicious killer. Will he be able to succeed? And who is the real villain?
That’s my buddy, Jim Ivey. If you’ve been a reader here for any length of time you’ve probably read about Jim. For the last couple of decades, I’ve gotten a group of Jim Ivey’s friends together twice a year to celebrate Jim (at his birthday and Christmas). We’d meet at a breakfast location for a marathon session of stories, remembrances and gifts for Jim. We were unable to meet last year due to the Covid pandemic.
Jim’s 96th birthday is on April 15th. If you would like to send a birthday card, that would be awesome. I’ll send out all cards received. Please try to get the cards to me by April 6th, so Jim gets them by his birthday. You can also contact me on Facebook or Twitter. I would love for Jim to be surprised with many cards from his friends.
I first met Mr. Ivey back in 1977. He was the owner of The Cartoon Museum in Orlando, Florida.
The Cartoon Museum was stuffed wall-to-wall with original art from around the world. The art spanned the gamut from comic book to comic strip to political cartoons to magazine illustrations. Jim had over 100,000 comic books and magazines for sale. You could find comic book scripts and autographs, and well, you get the idea. Plus you never knew who would be passing through. It could be a famous comic book or magazine illustrator, a political or newspaper cartoonist and even a couple of times famous faces from movies or tv.
Jim was also one of the founding members of Orlando Con. Orlando Con was held yearly and attracted cartoonists from around the country plus a movie/tv star or two. Guests included Joe Kubert, Wil Eisner, C.C. Beck, Hal Foster, Roy Crane, Jack Davis, Harvey Kurtzman, Robert Cummings, Jock Mahoney and many, many others.
Jim was also a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the Orlando Sentinel. He was the creator of the Thoughts of Man cartoon that ran in newspapers throughout the country. Jim was the publisher of cARTtoon, a quarterly magazine. And that’s just an overview of some of the many accomplishments of Jim Ivey.
In his newsletter that came out yesterday, Ed Brubaker shared the cover of the third book in his and Sean Phillips’ Reckless series. Titled Destroy All Monsters, it features their character Ethan Reckless. Brubaker also announced:
Our original plan was to do the first three books in the series, then take a break and do something else and then come back for more Reckless adventures, but then I had ideas for two more… so we’ll be doing five of these in a row unless something goes wrong.
If you’re not up to speed on the Reckless series check out Ed Brubaker gets Reckless with Sean Phillips at The Beat.
The poster for Trigger Point is bland. I wish I liked the trailer better because I like the synopsis and Barry Pepper. Still, I’ll give Trigger Point a shot on streaming.
A disgraced U.S. operative who suffered memory loss at the hand of captors is dragged back into the deadly spy world when a colleague goes missing. He needs all of his skills to find her but to uncover the truth he must remember the past.
The Oak Room has a great poster and I’m diggin’ the trailer. If that wasn’t enough the synopsis sealed the deal. I want to see The Oak Room.
During a raging snowstorm, a drifter returns home to the blue-collar bar located in the remote Canadian town where he was born. When he offers to settle an old debt with a grizzled bartender by telling him a story, the night’s events quickly spin into a dark tale of mistaken identities, double-crosses and shocking violence.
Starring: RJ Mitte, Peter Outerbridge, Ari Millen, Martin Roadh, Nicholas Campbell, David Ferry
Directed by: Cody Calahan
Produced by: Chad Archibald, Cody Calahan, Ari Millen
