Category: Movies

Z-View: Escape from New York #2 by Selba and Barreto

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Escape From New York is an on-going series published by Boom Studios.

Writer: Christopher Sebela

Artist: Diego Barreto

Colorist: Marissa Louise

Letterer: Ed Dukeshire

Between the escalation of World War III and being Number One on America’s most wanted list, Snake Plissken jumps borders and finds himself in the seceded nation of Florida. While he may have escaped the USPF, Snake finds himself in the middle of a whole new level of political corruption.

*** Beware – spoilers may be found below ***

The Good

  • Dan Panosian’s variant cover [see bottom of this post] rocks!
  • “That’s not him.  Look how short he is, Erick.”
  • “Morrell, Look under the eye patch.”  “How much you give me Rip?”
  • “What happens after that?”  “Ask someone who cares.”

The Bad:

  • I’m not a fan of the cover at the top of this post.
  • I have no interest in Romulus and Remus.  I realize EFNY characters are always extreme but the characters in this series seem to be written for little kids.
  • Being held prisoner in four submarines welded together.

The Ugly:

  • Meemaw.

 

Escape from New York #1 should appeal to fans of the movie, Escape from, oh, you know.

Rating:

Romero’s Night of the Living Dead “Origins” Moves Forward

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Variety reported earlier this week that Cameron Romero [George Romero’s son]  zombie movie Origins is moving forward!

The movie has his dad’s blessing and the elder Romero will serve as an executive producer of the film which will be a prequel to Night of the Living Dead.

I like the idea that Cameron has taken up the mantle and plans to carry on the Romero zombie tradition.

 

Sly Stallone and “The Drawings of Bob Peak”

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The Bob Peak drawing above is of Sylvester Stallone from Paradise Alley!

I discovered the piece as part of an advertisement for a new book of Bob Peak drawings being put together by Thomas Peak through Kickstarter.  Here’s the book’s description…

“THE DRAWINGS OF BOB PEAK”.  This new 160 page oversized soft cover book (14″ x 11″) curated collection of his best drawings is a comprehensive look into a rarely viewed side of Bob Peak with never before seen charcoal, graphite, art marker, pen, ink, pencil, and pastel drawings from the maestro himself.  This oversized book will take on the look and feel of the actual artwork with drawings large enough to study and admire the mastery of the artist Bob Peak.  A “Collectors Edition” of (100 copies only) is also available.  Produced by Art Works Fine Art Publishing which also produced the original “The Art of Bob Peak” book, this new book will be of the same high quality that you expect and I require.  I will produce nothing surrounding the legacy of my father Bob Peak that does not meet with the highest standards.  I appreciate your support.  You will NOT be disappointed.

I’ve backed the project and the book was well worth the bucks.  If you missed out, you can still find copies on Amazon.

Houdini’s Lost Film, “The Grim Game” Restored and Premieres in March!

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The Grim Game,  a film once thought lost will premiere at the TCM Classic Film Festival in March.

The Grim Game, made in 1919 was Harry Houdini‘s first starring role and considered by many his best film.  I look forward to see The Grim Game when it makes its fully restored way into rotation on the TCM network.

For the full story on the film and restoration, check out this piece at Deadline.com.

24 Things You Might Not Know About “Goodfellas”

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Adam D’Arpino presents 24 Things You Might Not Know About Goodfellas.

Regular readers know the drill: using just D’Arpino’s list, here are my three favorite facts…

5. The famous “funny how?” scene wasn’t in the script.

Maybe the most famous (and certainly the most quoted) scene in Goodfellas comes at the beginning, when Pesci’s Tommy DeVito jokingly-yet-uncomfortably accosts Henry Hill for calling him “funny.” In addition to being the driving force behind the scene on screen, Pesci is also responsible for coming up with the premise.

While working in a restaurant, a young Pesci apparently told a mobster that he was funny—a compliment met with a less-than-enthusiastic response. Pesci relayed the anecdote to Scorsese, who decided to include it in the film. Scorsese didn’t include the scene in the shooting script so that Pesci and Liotta’s interactions would elicit surprised and genuine reactions from the supporting cast.

8. Only five murders take place on screen.

Despite its reputation as a violent movie, the number of on-screen deaths actually portrayed in Goodfellas is a surprisingly tame five (Spider, Billy Batts, Stacks Edwards, Morrie, and Tommy), or 10 if you include the results of Jimmy Conway’s handiwork following the Lufthansa heist. Of course, it’s worth mentioning that violence, and the threat of violence, is a constant presence throughout the film. Still, compared to a body count of 214 in John Woo’s Bullet in the Head, released in the same year, or 255 in Saving Private Ryan, or even 24 in Scorsese’s Best Picture winner The Departed, Goodfellas isn’t terribly bloody.

13. The real life Henry Hill was just as surprised as you are that he never got whacked.

Henry Hill’s testimony against some of the most ruthless and powerful Lucchese crime family associates led to roughly 50 convictions, his stint in witness protection was short-lived, and as Hill learns from the very beginning, rule number one in the wiseguy world is “never rat on your friends and always keep your mouth shut.” So why was Hill able to live to be a (relatively) old man and die of natural causes, instead of ultimately meeting a violent end like so many of his past associates?

According to Hill, he had absolutely no idea. In 2010, he told the Telegraph, “It’s surreal, totally surreal, to be here. I never thought I’d reach this wonderful age,” and hypothesized he was still standing simply because “there’s nobody from my era alive today.” Following his death in 2012, The Guardian hypothesized that bureaucratic disorganization in the organized crime world or fame might have kept Hill standing.

Click here for the full list.

Source: Mental_Floss.

 

Top 10 Biggest Design Flaws In The U.S.S. Enterprise

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I got a kick out of Charlie Jane Anders and Diana Biller’s Top 10 Biggest Design Flaws In The U.S.S. Enterprise. 

Here are my top three design flaws using Anders and Biller’s list…

9. No Seatbelts

We get it. It’s fun to watch a dozen or so people get tossed around a bridge during a battle sequence — definitely more fun than just seeing a camera shake up and down while all the crew members remain safely strapped into their seats. But seriously, you’d think that after enough concussions caused by people falling out of their chairs, the Enterprise designers would just add some damn restraints. Class action lawsuit, anyone?

6. Only One Transporter Room

Especially early on in the series, when they don’t seem to have shuttlecraft yet, this is a serious problem. There’s only one transporter room, and if you put that out of action, nobody gets on or off the ship. In “The Enemy Within,” the transporter conks out, and Sulu and his team are screwed, notes Altman. Also, in “Wink of an Eye,” Kirk fiddles with one component on the transporter, and the Enterprise is cut off from the planet’s surface. The ship’s blueprints actually show more than one transporter room, but on screen there only appears to be one, and it’s easy to put out of action.

3. Super easy to make the Enterprise blow up

This is a big one. In “That Which Survives,” we discover you can make the Enterprise explode by screwing around with the bypass valve in the matter-antimatter integrator room, “adjacent to main engineering — which is easy to get in and out of, especially for beautiful women without midriffs,” says Altman. And here’s one area where the Enterprise-D is definitely not superior: there are at least a half dozen warp core breaches listed on Memory Alpha. So why aren’t there better fail-safes in place? The crew was usually left to try to either eject the core, which wasn’t a particularly reliable procedure, or to separate the starship. If they managed to do one of those things and prevent a cataclysmic explosion, they would still only be left with impulse and battery power. Surely there must be a better way. (More pleasant, but potentially just as lethal: the Warp Core Breach cocktail.)

Check out the full list for more Star Trek  fun.

Source: io9.