“28 Days Later”: The Intimacy of Horror
28 Days Later: The Intimacy of Horror is a well made examination of how Danny Boyle amped up the horror through the use of intimacy.
18 Things We Learned from John Carpenter’s “Rio Bravo” Commentary
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 18 Things We Learned from John Carpenter’s Rio Bravo Commentary. Here are my three favorites…
2. Hawks is Carpenter’s favorite director, and this is one of his favorite films ever made. He’s long credited it with being the inspiration for his own Assault on Precinct 13.
8. Robert Mitchum’s brother, John, plays the bartender in the scene where Chance and Dude enter the bar in search of the wounded bad guy.
9. The belt buckle Wayne wears during the film was a gift from Hawks upon the completion of their first film together, Red River. It features the brand from the ranch his character owned in the film.
The Official Trailer for “The Fate of the Furious”!
Here’s the Official Trailer for The Fate of the Furious!
I’m a fan of the series but have a hard time with the idea that Dom has turned his back on his family. Everyone knows he hasn’t. Still with the great cast and way over the top action it should be a fun couple of hours.
The Real Reason ‘Hudson Hawk’ is So Bonkers
Even Hudson Hawk‘s most devoted fans would admit that the movie goes waaaay over the top.
Guess what? It wasn’t always meant to be like that!
During filming of Hudson Hawk, testing on Bruce Willis’ previous movie, The Bonfire of the Vanities, showed that audiences loved Willis. They were even going to re-edit Bonfire prior to its release to make Willis’ role bigger.
Suddenly Bruce Willis had much more say on Hudson Hawk so it kept getting wilder and wilder. I’m not complaining since I’ve always enjoyed Hudson Hawk but it is interesting to consider what it would have been like as a more conventional heist film.
Check out The Real Reason ‘Hudson Hawk’ is So Bonkers by Fred Topel at /Film for the complete lowdown.
The Top 5 Movie Mistakes for “John Wick”
Here are The Top 5 Movie Mistakes for John Wick.
10 Self-Defense Tips from Boxer Jack Dempsey
Jack Dempsey, the Heavyweight Champion who many call the Greatest Heavyweight Fighter of the 20th Century wrote a book on self-defense.
Jake Rosen and Mental_Floss present 10 Self-Defense Tips from Boxer Jack Dempsey. If you click over you can see all 10 tips as well as a pdf of Dempsey’s book. In the mean time, here are my top three tips from the Champ…
3. KNOW YOUR ENVIRONMENT.
Has a hooligan drawn you into a physical confrontation? Before you even think about raining blows upon him, consider your arena: “Let me suggest that any time you are about to be drawn into a fight, keep your head and make a split-second survey of your surroundings,” Dempsey cautions. “Decide immediately whether you have fighting-room and whether you have good footing. If you haven’t, try to force your opponent to shift to another battleground, where your knowledge of fighting will leave the percentage in your favor. Yell at him, for example: ‘Okay, wise guy! You want to fight! Let’s see if you’ve got the guts to come out into the street and fight me like a man!’”
This, Dempsey says, will allow you to avoid obstacles and crowds, “so that you’ll be able to knock his head off when you get him where you can fight without footing handicaps.”
7. NEVER SWING, UNLESS YOU WANT A RIDE IN A HEARSE.
Any pro will tell you that straight punches are the key to victory: Wild, looping punches dilute your guard and lack precision. Dempsey is no different. “Some current fighters attempt a long-range right upper-cut called the ‘bolo’ punch. They even attempt to lead with it. Let me warn you that the bolo is more showy than explosive. It’s more dangerous to the user than to his opponent. The bolo, or any long-range uppercut, is merely an underhanded swing. And you know that any type of swing, against a good straight puncher, signals to the mortician.”
10. FINISH IT QUICK.
The number one obstacle to victory in any altercation, Dempsey writes, is fatigue. “True, your opponent also may be getting fatigued; but you can’t be certain about his exact condition unless he’s blowing and staggering. You know for sure only that you’re nearly ‘all in,’ and that he’s still out there swinging at you. Accordingly, the longer he keeps fighting, the less chance you have of winning; but the greater chance you have of being battered, cut up, knocked down, knocked out, or injured.”
The “Manassa Mauler” has practical advice to combat this issue. “Because of the danger in a fist-fight, it is imperative that you end the brawl as quickly as possible; and the best way to do that is by a knockout. The knockout is far more important in fist-fighting than in boxing, YOU’VE GOT TO KNOCK ‘EM OUT IN FIST-FIGHTS.”
The 30 best TV Shows Ever
Daniella Lucas and GamesRadar.com present The 30 best TV Shows Ever. Lucas’ list is a good one, with the understanding that for the most part, we’re looking at dramas. Otherwise you’d have to include at least one of the following: The Honeymooners, Andy Griffith, Seinfeld, All in the Family, etc.
With that said, it is still tough to limit the list to 30. Using just their list, here are my top three (in alpha order) and reasons…
- Breaking Bad – The first time I can ever remember seeing the main character’s arc take them from being a good character to someone so evil. Also my first binge-watching series.
- The Shield – I was rooting for the bad guy each week. Wha-what?
- The Walking Dead – Love the genre. Was a huge fan of the comic from the first issue. AMC took a chance and made the series into a huge hit.
Shows I would have included had they been on the list: The Wild, Wild West and Justified.
The 25 Best Action Movies to Get Your Adrenaline Pumping
Gem Seddon and GamesRadar.com present The 25 Best Action Movies to Get Your Adrenaline Pumping. It’s a good list which includes Terminator 2, First Blood, Hard Boiled, Raiders of the Lost Arc, The Matrix and more. Very, very tough to narrow it down to just the top three but I did. Here they are in alpha order…
- Aliens
- Die Hard
- John Wick
I chose these three because they really redefined the genre.
Aliens took a haunted house movie and turned it into a war picture.
Die Hard confined the action to a building. Movies after that were summed up as Die Hard on Air Force One; Die Hard on a Boat; etc.
John Wick just took the action to an all-new level.
Please be aware your mileage may vary and these choices are subject to change… but for now, these are my picks for top three.
1966 Batman Pre-Production Art!
Today we have a detail from pre-production art created for the 1966 Batman tv show by artist Leslie Thomas. You can see more of Mr. Thomas’ Batman pre-production pieces here.
TCM’s Noir Alley!
Film Noir fans are going to love TCM’s Noir Alley. Each week at 10am Eddie Muller will introduce a classic film noir that will then run on TCM. Fans will live tweet as enter “a shadowy cinematic world populated by tough guys, femmes fatales and assorted thugs and slugs.”
First up is the Maltese Falcon staring Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet in the classic adapted (from Dashiell Hammet’s novel) and directed by John Huston.
Ken Meyer Jr.’s Ink Stains 43: Steranko & More in FOOM 1, 2 & 3
If you’re a fan of fanzines, then you’ve got to check out Ken Meyer, Jr.’s monthly column Ink Stains. Each month Ken (who is an amazing artist) posts… well, let’s let Ken explain…
I have a collection of over 200 fanzines from the 60’s-80’s that I plan to scan and talk about, one at a time. I hope to have some of the participants answer a few questions. Many of those participants are established comics professionals now, while some have gone on to other things. I will show a few snippets from each zine and give you a link to download a pdf of the whole thing, which I hope all of you will do!
For Ink Stains 43, Ken took a look at FOOM 1, 2 and 3 from 1973 from Marvel Comics.
FOOM 1 features –
- a Steranko Spider-Man envelope
- Stickers and a membership card
- a double-page Steranko poster of 15 major Marvel characters
- Photos of Marvel creators, puzzles, games, previews of coming comics & more
FOOM 2 features –
- Steranko Hulk cover
- Photos of Marvel creators, fan art, previews of coming comics and more
FOOM 3 features –
- Photos and Bios of John Romita, Gil Kane and Frank Giacoia
- Fan art, puzzles, previews of coming comics and more
Ah, the memories of the glory days of fanzines. Thanks to Ken Meyer, Jr. for making these available!
15 Fun Facts About “Crocodile Dundee”
Roger Cormier and Mental_Floss present 15 Fun Facts About Crocodile Dundee. Here are three of my favorites…
4. ONE OF THE WRITERS DIDN’T THINK THE “KNIFE” LINE WAS VERY FUNNY.
“It wasn’t funny on paper,” Shadie admitted about the line “That’s not a knife.” The quote was a collaboration between the three writers, and it became one of the movie’s most memorable scenes.
11. 20TH CENTURY FOX (RUDELY) SAID “NO” TO ACQUIRING THE AMERICAN RIGHTS.
John Cornell showed the movie to a 20th Century Fox executive while he was in Hollywood trying to sell it. ”There was some idiot who sat with his feet on the desk and watched it for about 20 minutes, looked at this watch about eight times and told me that it wouldn’t work,” Cornell remembered. ”He was extremely rude. I sometimes get pleasure from thinking about what the look is like on his face at a time like this.” Paramount ended up acquiring the rights.
15. HOGAN AND KOZLOWSKI GOT MARRIED IN REAL LIFE.
They wed in 1990 and had a son, Chance. Kozlowski filed for divorce in 2013.
39 Things We Learned from Bill Paxton’s “Frailty” Commentary
Rob Hunter and Film School Rejects present 39 Things We Learned from Bill Paxton’s Frailty Commentary. Here are three of my favorites…
8. He made the film for multiple viewings. “The first time you sit through Frailty you get pulled into the story kind of subjectively, and there’s this whole kind of creep factor. But on your second viewing there’s a lot of satisfaction as there are a lot of clues laid out in front of the viewer.”
35. The script originally showed the visions — each demons sins — at the time of their abduction/murder, but James Cameron watched an early cut and suggested they shift them all to the end. “He said ‘You gotta remember film is so literal that you’re going to split the audience, and a lot of them are gonna believe that dad really is seeing all this stuff, and you don’t want that to happen because you want them to go with Fenton.’”
36. Why is the ax called Otis? One, he wanted audiences to know that the ax adult Adam uses in the end is the same one his dad used, “so I wanted to mark it some way.” And two, giving it a name anthropomorphizes it and makes it a character of sorts.
The Visual History of the Superman Logo!
The chart above shows the various incarnations of the Superman logo. My personal favorite is the 1952 Adventures of Superman version. It’s big and bold… just like Superman.
Source: Classic Pics.
“Enter the Dragon” Comic Strip Movie Ad
I’d never seen this Enter the Dragon comic-strip style ad until today. Very cool and makes me think about how awesome a comic adaptation of Enter the Dragon would be.
Source: Felipe Henriquez.
