CBS Home Entertainment this week released seven Best of samplers from their library after letting the fans pick which episodes should be included. On Monday and Tuesday we looked at the six sitcoms but since the last one was a one-hour action show, we set that one aside.
Since its debut in 1985, MacGyver has been a fondly recalled series for both its inventiveness and for its appealing lead acting, Richard Dean Anderson. What’s interesting is that a cocreator for this was Henry Winkler who, 20 years earlier, became a smash success on Happy Days, also a part of the set. The show was popular enough to make through the 1991-1992 season and the lead’s ability to take common place elements to get out of tricky situations was popular enough to be parodied elsewhere. (more…)
A long time ago – in 1959 – in a galaxy far, far away – well, actually, just over the Bayonne Bridge on Staten Island – I met Kara Zor-El.
I was six. She was 12 years old … in Earth years.
I could walk, run, ride a bike, and ride a horse. She could fly.
I was always getting numerous cuts and scrapes and bruises. She was invulnerable.
I had 20-20 vision. She had X-ray vision, telescopic vision and heat vision.
I would get in trouble for not hearing my mom or dad calling for me to come in and eat supper. She had super-hearing.
I was fast. She could break through the time barrier.
I got kicked out of Girl Scouts (remind me to tell you why – it’s not what you think). She joined the Legion of Super-Heroes.
My mom gave me money to go rent a horse for an hour so I could ride. She had her very own horse. Okay, he was actually a handsome man from another planet, but let’s not get Freudian here, okay?
I didn’t have a dog. I really wanted a dog. My parents said no. Okay, she had a cat. Not a fan of cats. Why couldn’t she have a dog?
I wasn’t Superman’s cousin. She was.
If Superman got in trouble, I couldn’t do a damn thing to help him.
She was his secret weapon. Which meant that he depended on her to pull his green-glowing ass out of the Kryptonite frying pan time and again.
No wonder I loved her.
Kara Thrace.
A long time ago – 150,000 years ago – in another galaxy far, far way, she fulfilled her destiny and led the rag-tag fleet led by the Battlestar Galactica – all that was left of the human race after its destruction by the Cylons – to a new beginning on a new Earth.
Stogie-chomping, card-sharking, Viper-jockeying, Kara Thrace.
Hard-drinking, troubled, two-timing, bitchin’ Kara Thrace.
Killed in action, resurrected, disappearing-into-thin-air Kara Thrace.
Call sign: Starbuck.
Frakkin’ Kara Thrace.
No wonder I loved her.
Buffy Anne Summers.
Not that long ago – 1992 – in still another galaxy far, far away, an apt description of California to some – a fifteen year old girl who lived in Los Angeles met her destiny while sucking on a lollipop on the steps of her high school. Soon after she burned down her high school gym. Her parents divorced and she and her mom moved to Sunnydale to start over.
Only Buffy couldn’t start over.
For “in every generation, there is a chosen one. She alone will stand against the vampires the demons and the forces of darkness. She is the slayer.”
For seven years, Buffy took on the natural and the supernatural, the unworldly and the all-too-real world, took on and stood up to and faced it all.
Vampires. Robots and a cyborg. Witches. Demons. Gods.
High School. College. Relationships. A job she hated.
Welcome to our website dedicated to the documentary film Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle and the original silent motion picture classicTarzan of the Apes. Please take a few moments to visit the entire site.
The character of Tarzan™ turns 100 years old this year. In celebration of that milestone, Bossier City’s Al Bohl and his daughter, filmmaker Allison Bohl now of Lafayette have teamed up to produce a feature-length documentary entitled, Tarzan: Lord of the Louisiana Jungle.
In August of 1917 an eclectic band of filmmakers, actors and circus acrobats fought malaria, unbearable heat and the swamp of the Louisiana Atchafalaya River Basin to bring to the silver screen the best-selling book Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs. It was an instant hit with audiences, considered one of the top six motion pictures of the silent era, and one of the first 10 films to earn over one million dollars at the box office. The film was shot in Morgan City, Louisiana.
Over a period of four years, Al and his daughter combed through hundreds of photos and documents and videotaped up to seventy hours of interviews and locations. They interviewed scholars, authors, historians, fans, experts in merchandise, actors, an expert in primates, the curator of the Burroughs’ collection and the family of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Their travels in Louisiana included Morgan City, New Orleans, Patterson and Baton Rouge. They also gathered interviews in Los Angeles and Tarzana, California. More footage was taped in Ohio, Kentucky and Chicago, Illinois.
In addition, the Bohls re-edited the original Tarzan of the Apes silent film and added an entirely new orchestral musical score written by Kermit Poling of Shreveport. The success of the movie Tarzan of the Apes spawned over 40 authorized sequels and 6 television shows.
The countdown clock has ticked down, and there’s a new message:
So, you’ve found us.
If you support us, if you support Spider-Man, now is your time.
Follow the Twitter accounts of our operatives in each of these cities. They’ll tell you where to go to uncover the next step. For this pursuit we ask that you please be over the age of 18.
Back in the day, sports pulps, including boxing pulps, were as common as Westerns or Romance magazines on newsstands everywhere. People thrilled to action-packed, fist-flying tales of fictional sports heroes in action. And anyone who knows their pulp history might tell you that those days are over.
Well, they haven’t read Paul Bishop’s Felony Fists!
Move over James Ellroy, there’s a new kid roaming the dark alleys of 1950s Los Angeles. Part of the Fight Card line from Fight Card Productions, Bishop’s Felony Fists, published under the byline Jack Tunney, tells the story of Patrick “Felony” Flynn a hardnosed police officer with the LAPD and boxer. Flynn can’t resist a good scrap and is trying to parlay his impressive arrest record into an invitation to the Hat Squad – the elite crew of detectives keeping La-La Land’s streets clean. So when Chief Parker wants to put a crimp in Mickey Cohen’s plans to take over the fight game, he turns to the best boxer on the squad. Flynn’s task is no piece of cake. He has to beat Cohen’s title contender and beat him soundly.
What follows is one delicious slice of bygone Los Angeles. Felony Fists is a winner on every level. The book is lean, mean and authentic and it’s one no fan of hardboiled fiction will want to miss. The boxing scenes are visceral, bloody and you feel like you’ve gone toe to toe with Flynn’s opponents by the time you’re through. Throw in some fine police work, corruption, intrigue, blackmail and deception and Felony Fists lays out an irresistible buffet.
Paul Bishop is the real deal, folks. If you’re a pulp fan, boxing fan or just love a hard-hitting, down and dirty mean streets pot-boiler, then Bishop has your poison. Without doubt one of the best New Pulp releases of 2011. This was my first Bishop work and it won’t be my last. I give Felony Fists my highest recommendation. Do not miss it!
Punch. Block. Counterpunch. Duck. Uppercut. Jab. Haymaker. Clinch. The staccato machine-gun lingo of boxing that taps across the brain like a dance choreographed by battling gladiators.It is a ballet of flying fists, controlled mayhem performed by all manner of combatants with something to win, prove or defend.Of the entire classic pulp sports genre, the boxing magazines were by far the most popular and prolific. Now a group of today’s finest new pulp scribes have come together to recreate the blood, seat and tears of those canvas arenas in a series of short novellas under the guiding hand of accomplished novelist, Paul Bishop.
Bishop has an extensive resume from his long career as a police officer then detective for the Los Angeles police department, television and movie scribe and finally mystery/crime novelist.Recently he’s gotten into the new pulp movement and it’s clear by this tale just how much he loves the old school boxing tales.This story has the atmosphere and feel of an old Warner Brothers black and white flick from the 40s & 50s and one can easily envision actors like Spencer Tracy and John Garfield in the roles of his characters.It is that evocative of the time and setting; L.A. in 1954.
Patrick “Felony” Flynn is a young cop on the force who is also an amateur boxer, having been taught by a tough-minded Catholic priest in the Chicago orphanage he and his brother were raised in.Coming out of WWII and the Navy, where he continued his pugilistic ways, he swaps one blue uniform for another in getting back to civilian life.His goal is to eventually become a detective and member of the famous anti-mob unit led by Chief Parker and called “The Hat Squat.”
Through a series of fateful events stemming from his boxing prowess, Flynn is recruited by Chief Parker to help stymie mobster Mickey Cohen’s plans to infiltrate the boxing world via his heavy-weight fighter, Solomon King.If King can whip Archie Moore, the reigning champion, then Cohen will have established a foothold in the city as well as the sports community.Something Parker obsessively vows to stop at any cost; including making Flynn a detective in his elite team providing he becomes a professional boxer and takes defeats King.No small tasks any way you slice it up.
What follows is a thoroughly enjoyable, fast paced, knowledgeable yarn that was a pure joy to read start to finish.Bishop never misses a beat; again, knowing his melody by heart and relishing every single sentence, paragraph and chapter like a superbly orchestrated fight strategy.“Fight Card: Felony Fists” is a sensational opening to what this reviewer expects is going to be a truly amazing series that will revitalize a classic pulp genre in a bold new way readers are going to love.Me, I’m in his corner all the way.
Back in the early days of cable, movies were rerun endlessly so if you liked one, you could burn their frames onto your retinas and it became a part of yourself. As a result, I’ve always had a soft spot in my heart for 1974’s Busting. You sit there, scratching your head, and can’t recall the film and there’s no shame in that.
Written and directed by Peter Hyams (The Star Chamber, Outland), it is a buddy cop film before that became in vogue and is very much from the era. It has a nice grainy film stock, makes the cops and the thugs slovenly and a visual shambles. While most of Hyams’ peers set their gritty tales of big city corruption and the only honest cops’ efforts to bring down the kingpin of crime in New York City, Hyams set his in Los Angeles, although you’d be hard-pressed to tell. This is a totally urban LA, one without starlets or the Hollywood sign glimpsed in the distance. It’s a grimy city of pimps, pushers, hookers, strippers, and a few good men.
The men happen to be Elliot Gould and Robert Blake, a year before he became a big star on Baretta. They are companionable detectives, taking no guff from anyone and with a casual attitude, begin working their way to Rizzo (Alan Garfield), the man effectively running the city. Their superior tries to protect them but has given up, throwing his hands into the air, and warning the guys to stay away from the criminal. This is clearly Gould’s film as more is revealed about him and his life than Blake, but they are watching one another’s backs from gay bars to strip clubs.
I’m not giving anything away by saying they get their man, but the lessons the detectives learn along the way, and the harsh reality Rizzo reveals in the final scene gives the film an edge and poignancy missing from many of its contemporaries. Hyams’ script is sharp in subtle ways. As a director, he has some impressive tracking shots notably during the set piece, set inside a sprawling farmer’s market as the detectives hunt down three gun-wielding thugs.
The film received good notices when it first came out, with The New York Times noting Hyams “brings off something of a feat by making a contemporary cop film that is tough without exploiting the sort of right-wing cynicism that tells us all to go out and buy our own guns.” It clearly made an impact on me but it also heavily influenced Aaron Spelling, who more or less ripped off entire sequences frame by frame for his television series Starsky & Hutch. If you want a stronger version with some fun performances and more than a few comics references, Busting is finally available from MGM’s direct-to-disc Limited Edition Collection.
Thursday July 19 midnight shows for The Dark Knight Rises: The IMAX Experience have already sold out at New York’s AMC Loews Lincoln Square theater. The AMC Loews Universal City cineplex in Los Angeles has sold out all seats and all but two wheelchair slots, according to seating charts for advance sales via Fandango. No additional screenings have been scheduled yet.
I don’t think we’ve ever had movies sell out over six months in advance, have we? This film could be a MONSTER– and that’s saying a lot for the Batman franchise.
Sixty three year old Max Collins has been at this writing game for a while coming onto the mystery private-eye scene with his 1994 Shamus Award winning “True Detective,” published the year before.Since that monumental debut, Collins has gone on to produce several continuing series both in comics and prose; these include his comic book female P.I. Ms. Tree and the morally ambiguous hit-man, Quarry. The one fictional character Collins is most recognized for is Nathan Heller from his historical crime novels.Heller is a Chicago based investigator who over the course of his career rubs shoulders with personalities such as Al Capone and Eliot Ness and worked on such mysteries as the Lindberg baby kidnapping and the disappearance of aviatrix Amelia Earhart.His most recent Heller case was the critically acclaimed “Bye Bye Baby” wherein the fiftyish shamus becames involved with the death of Marilyn Monroe.All of these books are excellent and worthy of your time and attention.
Over the years Collins, at the request of anthology editors, also penned short stories featuring Heller.With the assistance of his research colleague, George Hagenauer, Collins adapted true crime stories and then wove his tough guy hero into their fabric so that the history and fiction elements become indistinguishable.This volume has taken that baker’s dozen and for the very first time presented them in chronological order from the first which occurs in 1933 to the last set in 1949.The settings range from Chicago to Cleveland and Hollywood.Here is a sampling of what is included between the covers.
“Kaddish for the Kid,” Heller is hired to protect a retailer from a crooked union scam in reality a protection racket.During a street shootout, his young partner is killed and the angry private dick goes after the killers with a vengeance.
“The Blonde Tigress,” has Heller investigating a trio of stick-up artists led by a female boss who tries to manipulate him into aiding her escape justice.
“Private Consultation,” has a well known Chicago doctor accused for murdering her daughter-in-law and her son hires Heller to investigate. What he uncovers is a sad testimony to a loveless marriage where none of the participants are innocent of wrong doing.
The Perfect Crime,” finds Heller in Los Angeles to help a friend. Before he can pack up and head home, he’s hired by the beautiful blonde star, Thelma Todd to act as her bodyguard. Miss Todd suspects mobsters wish to do her harm for refusing to allow Lucky Luciano to use the top floors of her famous restaurant as a casino.When she is found dead in her garage from carbon monoxide poisoning, Heller knows the coroner’s accidental death ruling is pure bunk. He decides to extend his trip to catch a killer.
In “House Call” a caring doctor is brutally murdered while answering a night summons to aid a sick child.This time Heller joins forces with the Chicago P.D. to hunt down the vicious killers and bring them to justice.
“Marble Mildred” tells the story of woman trapped for fourteen years in a loveless marriage who discovers a humiliating secret which she’d rather go to the electric chair rather than having it made public.A tragedy Heller is helpless to prevent.
“The Strawberry Teardrop” is based on the case of Cleveland serial killer, the Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run and how he was finally caught by the famous lawman Eliot Ness.
There is not a lemon in the batch.Collins writing style is terse and economically efficient.He uses words like a scalpel carving up the psychological motivations that induce people to do bad things.All the while Nathan Heller is his surgeon, meting out equally doses of justice and compassion.The title, “Chicago Lightning,” is gangster slang for gunfire and is only fitting as this book comes heavily loaded with pure pulp pizzaz.Don’t miss it.
One wonders if somebody at Marvel is thinking about doing the same thing to comic pirates…
A New York man has been sentenced to a year in federal prison for illegally uploading and distributing a copy of “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” before the movies premiere.
Forty-nine-year-old Gilberto Sanchez was sentenced Monday in Los Angeles federal court. The judge also imposed a year of supervised release and numerous computer restrictions.Sanchez pleaded guilty in March to one count of uploading a copyrighted work being prepared for commercial distribution.
Prosecutors say he admitted uploading a “workprint” copy of the 2009 film about one month before it was released in theaters, then publicizing the upload on two websites.Prosecutors said in court documents that the film proliferated like wildfire throughout the Internet, resulting in up to millions of infringements. Sanchez has a prior conviction for a similar offense.
CBS Home Entertainment this week released seven Best of samplers from their library after letting the fans pick which episodes should be included. On Monday and Tuesday we looked at the six sitcoms but since the last one was a one-hour action show, we set that one aside.
The character of Tarzan™ turns 100 years old 
