Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
Francesco Francavilla created minimalistic posters for each episode of season one of Breaking Bad.
You can see them all at Francesco’s site. When you click over, plan to stay awhile. The posters are just the tip of a very cool iceberg.
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.
To celebrate Halloween, artist extraordinaire, Francesco Francavilla posted a drawing a day on on his Pulp Sunday blog. If you missed out, it’s not too late to see every drawing plus the grand finale!
Thanks to Francesco for his great taste in movies and wonderful art!
Francesco Francavilla is no stranger to the ZONE. I’ve posted about his art and gotten sketches from Francesco for my Stallone-theme collection. Over at one of his blogs for the entire month of October, Francesco is running what he calls the 31 Days of Halloween. Every day Francesco posts a drawing [sometimes more] of a monster, vampire, werewolf, well… you get the idea. It’s a great idea and a lot of fun. I hope you can join us.
How often do you get something good for free?
Well, if you’re a regular reader of Francesco Francavilla’s blog, pretty often would be the correct answer. So head on over and enjoy!
I’m a fan of Francesco Francavilla’s art. Usually when Francesco releases a new sketchbook, he offers free “quick” sketches with each purchase. My first piece from Francesco was Sly from “Cop Land”. My second quick sketch was in Francesco’s sketchbook of classic horror movie characters and for that sketch he did a “Jack Carter” zombie.
My most recent Francesco sketchbook was dedicated to a character that Francesco created, “The Black Beetle”. Francesco came up with the idea for my sketch — what would the Black Beetle look like if played in a movie by Sly Stallone. LOL. How could I not go with it? You can learn more about the Black Beetle here. You can see more of Francesco’s art here, here and here.
Francesco Francavilla is a talented artist. I visit his art blog and pulp blog regularly.
Here’s Francesco’s take on Freddy from “Cop Land.” The sketch was free since I purchased Francesco’s Chiaroscuro sketchbook. Chiaroscuro is 70 pages full of Francesco’s black and white work. It features everything from quick sketches to more detailed work of characters like Hellboy, Batman, Kong, Marv, and so many others. It arrives securely packaged [which is a major plus knowing my mail carrier] and the last page contains the quick sketch.
Francesco has another sketchbook available. Schermoscuro is a classic horror movie guide in artbook form. Francesco offers the same deal on it. How could I pass up such a bargain? I couldn’t. I love that Francesco tied my drawing to the sketchbook’s theme by making Jack Carter a zombie.
I recently discovered that Francesco Francavilla was offering a free quick sketch with every sketchbook purchased from his blog. Since I’d been a fan of his work for a while, I decided that the time was right to take advantage of the deal. I checked to make sure that he was down for a Stallone piece [he was] and then Paypalled him some of my hard earned smack-a-toons for a copy of Talk about a great deal — the sketchbook and original piece of art for twenty-three bucks including postage! I plan to go back for the second sketchbook, Schermoscuro Volume 1 after the first of the year. Check out Francesco’s web site and you may want in on the deal yourself.
PS — I plan to post Francesco’s Cop Land piece this weekend.
The poster isn’t great, but the trailer for Operation Fortune looks pretty good. It should with that cast and director.
Operation Fortune – Only in theaters March 3, 2023. Starring Jason Statham, Aubrey Plaza, Josh Hartnett, Cary Elwes, Bugzy Malone, and Hugh Grant.
Super spy Orson Fortune (Jason Statham) must track down and stop the sale of a deadly new weapons technology wielded by billionaire arms broker Greg Simmonds (Hugh Grant). Reluctantly teamed with some of the world’s best operatives (Aubrey Plaza, Cary Elwes, Bugzy Malone), Fortune and his crew recruit Hollywood’s biggest movie star Danny Francesco (Josh Hartnett) to help them on their globe-trotting undercover mission to save the world.
My Name is Vendetta (2022)
Director: Cosimo Gomez
Screenplay: Sandrone Dazieri, Franco Fraternale, Cosimo Gomez
Stars: Alessandro Gassmann, Ginevra Francesconi
The Plot…
Santo, a former mob hitman, has been living a quiet life with his wife, daughter and brother for years. When his former boss learns where Santo lives, a hit team is sent in to kill him. The team takes out Santo’s brother and Santo’s wife. His daughter gets away. Santos arrives home to the massacre. He finds his daughter and then begins to take revenge…
Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…
I was expecting better for My Name is Vendetta.
Santos’ daughter creates the situations that leads to her mother and uncle’s death by not listening to her dad. Then after they are murdered she disobeys him again causing their location to be known again. This makes her character pretty unlikeable from the start.
The action ranges from good to boring. The fact that Santos’ former mafia employers have access to technology that can find him so easily is just too unrealistic. The ending was also unsatisfying. All of these issues point to a need for tighter writing.
My Name is Vendetta earns 2 of 5 stars.
The Poison Rose (2019)
Directors: Francesco Cinquemani, George Gallo
Screenplay by: Richard Salvatore, Francesco Cinquemani, Luca Giliberto
Starring: John Travolta, Morgan Freeman, Brendan Fraser, Famke Janssen, Ella Bleu Travolta and Robert Patrick
Tagline: A Private Eye. A Public Murder. A Perfect Crime.
The Overview: Beware of spoilers…
Carson Phillips (Travolta) is a Private Eye who drinks and gambles too much. Both vices have always caused him problems. Carson used to be a hotshot college quarterback until he was caught shaving points. Carson left town in disgrace and never went back. Now he’s been hired to return on a missing person’s case.
All Carson has to do is go to a sanitorium to verify that Ms. Poole is alive and well. Carson is given the run around by Dr. Miles Mitchell (Fraser), the sanitorium’s director. As Carson digs deeper he begins to suspect Ms. Poole is dead and evidence points to a conspiracy involving an influential rich behind-the-scenes player named Doc (Freeman). The same man behind Carson’s fall from grace.
Travolta is good as Carson Phillips. Brendan Fraser steals every scene he’s in and I wish he was in more. It’s good to see Robert Patrick, even if his role is a small one.
There’s one scene that should have never made the final cut – Carson is being shot at by a man with a rifle from the top of a stadium. The sniper keeps missing Carson despite having a rifle with a scope. Carson’s handgun runs out of bullets so he picks up a football and throws a perfect spiral hitting the would be assassin in the face. In a later scene the assassin returns with a broken nose. C’mon, man.
The Poison Rose earns 3 of 5 stars.
Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking (2021)
Director: Francesco Zippel
Screenplay: Francesco Zippel
Starring: Oscar Micheaux, Chuck D, Jacqueline Stewart, Morgan Freeman and Mario Van Pebbles..
Tagline: None.
The Overview: Beware of Spoilers…
Oscar Micheaux was a writer, director and producer of both silent and sound movies. Micheaux has been called “the most successful African-American filmmaker of the first half of the 20th century.”
Oscar Micheaux has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, was honored by the Director’s Guild of America, the Producers Guild of America has an annual award named after him, he is in the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, his image has appeared on a US postage stamp, and there are multiple Film Festivals named after him! Sadly all of these accolades came posthumously. Outside of serious fans of film history, few know about Oscar Micheaux.
I first learned of Oscar Micheaux because he was the writer/director of Body and Soul starring Paul Robeson. Thanks to Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking, I now know the life story of Micheaux. What an amazing story it is.
Micheaux didn’t let any obstacle hinder him. At a time when there weren’t as many opportunities for people of color, Micheaux was able to raise funds to create films that he would write, direct, produce and even personally distribute from town to town! He would then use the funds from his current film to finance his next movie. More importantly Micheaux created films of substance that still resonate today. Micheaux’s films dealt with race relations and featured complex characters in modern day settings. I wish more people knew about Oscar Micheaux. Thanks to Francesco Zippel we can.
Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking rates 4 of 5 stars.
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.
Today Mondo is releasing the five Universal Monsters prints (as well as variant editions). They are really nice and include…
It is worth a click over to see them in a larger size to enjoy their beauty!
Yesterday we got a look at Francesco Francavilla’s classic Universal Monsters posters. It seemed only natural to follow them up with Dell Comics adaptations of the same.
Above is Creature from the Black Lagoon, but if you click over to The Bristol Board you can see larger versions of it as well as Dell Comics covers for Dracula, The Mummy and Frankenstein!
