Previews and Reviews that are Z's Views
The Mist has one of the most horrifying and brutal endings ever. I love how this alt poster by Creepy Duck Design captures the scene. If you know, you know.
“It appears we may have a problem of some magnitude.” – Bud Brown
Leo Leibelman is a freelance artist who has provided art for comics, trading cards, novels, instructional materials, film storyboards and more. Leo Leibelman takes commissions.
Leibelman presents the movie that launched a franchise and made Arnold Schwarzenegger a star!
“Listen, and understand! That Terminator is out there! It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop… ever, until you are dead!” – Kyle Reese
Dead of Winter (2025)
Director: Brian Kirk
Screenplay: Nicholas Jacobson-Larson, Dalton Leeb
Stars: Emma Thompson, Judy Greer, Marc Menchaca, Laurel Marsden and Brían F. O’Byrne.
Tagline: Wrong place. Wrong crime.
The Plot…
Barb and Karl had their first date ice fishing on Lake Hilda in Northern Minnesota decades ago when they were young. They fell in love, were married and had a great life. Now that Karl has passed, Barb has returned to the remote lake to spread his ashes.
It’s the dead of winter. Lake Hilda is still a wilderness location. No cell service. No people.
Barb is shocked when she sees in the distance a woman with her hands bound trying to run from a man. The man catches the woman and takes her away. Barb follows them to a cabin.
If the woman is to survive, it will be up to Barb.
Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…
Emma Thompson’s daughter, Gaia Wise, plays young Barb.
Dead of Winter (2025) rates 3 of 5 stars.
The Guilty (2021)
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Screenplay: Nic Pizzolatto; based on Den skyldige by Gustav Möller, Emil Nygaard Albertsen
Stars: Jake Gyllenhaal, Riley Keough (voice), Peter Sarsgaard (voice), Eli Goree, David Castañeda, Adrian Martinez, Beau Knapp (voice), Edi Patterson (voice), Paul Dano (voice), Gillian Zinser (voice) and Ethan Hawke (voice).
Tagline: Listen Carefully.
The Plot…
Joe Baylor is a LA police officer regulated to the night shift at a 911 Call Center pending the outcome of a complaint filed against him. It is the night before a court decision deciding his fate. It’s been eight months of hell. It took a toll on Baylor and his family. He and his wife (and their child) are estranged.
Baylor’s shift is almost over. He cannot wait to get home and put this night behind him. Then he takes a call. A six year old girl is home alone with her baby brother. She’s afraid. The child says her father took her mother out of the house. As Baylor tries to find her location to send a unit for a welfare check, he discovers the father has a record — for assault. Now worried for the children and the mother, Baylor begins to try to locate the girl’s parents.
Joe Baylor is about to go down a path that he’s not expecting and will change his life.
Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…
The Guilty is a remake of a 2018 Danish film of the same name.
The Guilty (2021) rates3 of 5 stars.
I absolutely love Thobias Daneluz’s take on Sly Stallone as Rocky Balboa. It would be so cool to see Thobias adapt all of the Rocky films. Well, one can dream, right? Check out Thobias’ Instgram to see more of his art.
“Nobody’s ever gone the distance with Creed, and if I can go that distance, you see, and that bell rings and I’m still standin’, I’m gonna know for the first time in my life, see, that I weren’t just another bum from the neighborhood.” – Rocky Balboa
Check out the trailer for Tom Clancey’s Jack Ryan: Ghost War. I enjoyed the series and will check out the movie.
Deal me in.
Jack Ryan returns in a major movie event. Stream Ghost War – May 20 on Prime Video.
When CIA analyst Jack Ryan stumbles upon a suspicious series of bank transfers his search for answers pulls him from the safety of his desk job and catapults him into a deadly game of cat and mouse throughout Europe and the Middle East, with a rising terrorist figurehead preparing for a massive attack against the US and her allies.
This sweet John Wick: Chapter 3 – Paradbellum alt poster was created by Mark Levy.
“Are services still off limit to me?”
James Byron Huggins’ THE LAST HUNT (the third in the Hunter trilogy) is a hit! It currently has a 4.5 / 5 star rating at Amazon. Its Goodreads rating is even better – 4.65 / 5 stars.
Perhaps even more impressive is that THE LAST HUNT sits in Goodreads’ Listopia #1 spot on the list of Best Action & Thrillers Ever. Huggins is in the company of legends (Child, Clancey, Lundlum and Evanovich) and leads the pack! (See chart below.)
Long time readers of this site know that James Byron Huggins wrote HUNTER with Sylvester Stallone in mind as the lead character. In fact Sly discussed ideas with Byron prior to the novel being written and the second edition is dedicated to Sylvester Stallone.
Sly Stallone has held the movie rights to HUNTER since the start. A couple of times it appeared that the movie adaptation of Hunter would be soon on Sly’s agenda. But the movie business proceeds in mysterious ways, and HUNTER has yet to reach the production stage. Sly’s Balboa Productions still has the rights and hopefully fans will get to HUNTER as a feature film or television series.
Every book in the HUNTER trilogy gets my highest recommendation.
Matt Taylor created a very cool alt poster for John Wick: Chapter 4. You can see more of Taylor’s art here!
“Friendship means little when it’s convenient.” – Shimazu
Bronson (2008)
Director: Nicolas Winding Refn
Screenplay: Brock Norman Brock, Nicolas Winding Refn
Stars: Tom Hardy.
Tagline: The Man. The Myth. The Celebrity.
The Plot…
Since he was a small boy, Michael Peterson got into trouble. In 1974, at the age of 19, Peterson took a sawed-off shotgun and attempted to rob a post office. He was caught and sentenced to seven years in prison. His mother hoped he’d be out in four.
Michael Peterson is still in prison. Peterson’s continued savage acts of violence repeatedly added years to his sentence. He was sent to a psychiatric hospital, but the violence continued, so he returned to regular prison. Peterson has served over 50 years with the majority of them spent in solitary confinement.
Along the way Peterson changed his name to Charles Bronson and took pride in his notoriety.
This is his story.
Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…
Tom Hardy met with Charles Bronson several times prior to filming. After seeing the film, Bronson said that Hardy had his mannerisms, voice and personaity down pat.
If male frontal nudity offends you, avoid this film.
One of Bronson‘s taglines called it “A Clockwork Orange for the 21st Century“. I agree.
Bronson (2008) rates3 of 5 stars.
Here are the poster and trailer for One Spoon of Chocolate. I’m diggin’ ’em both.
Deal me in.
ONE SPOON OF CHOCOLATE Official Trailer (2026)
Quentin Tarantino Presents, RZA, Shameik Moore, Paris Jackson
The art above features Sly Stallone as Jack Carter teamed with Lono from 100 Bullets. It was created in 2016 by Megan Levens at HeroesCon. It is one of my first “team” pieces where Jack Carter is paired with another pop art character.
Intruder in the Dust (1949)
Director: Clarence Brown
Screenplay: Ben Maddow; based on INTRUDER IN THE DUST by William Faulkner
Stars: David Brian, Claude Jarman Jr., Juano Hernandez, Porter Hall, Elizabeth Patterson, Charles Kemper, David Clarke, David Clarke, Elzie Emanuel, Lela Bliss and Will Geer.
Tagline: None.
The Plot…
In the 1940s in a small Southern town, Lucas Beauchamp, a man of color, is falsely arrested for the murder of a white man. It will be up to a teenage boy, his lawyer uncle and an old woman to find the true killer before a lynch mob loses control.
Thoughts (beware of spoilers)…
The film was shot on location in Oxford, Mississippi. William Faulkner, who wrote the source novel grew up in Oxford.
William Faulkner won the Nobel Prize for literature for his novel INTRUDER IN THE DUST.
Intruder in the Dust (1949) rates 3 of 5 stars.
This cool art titled Meathouse Rocky was created by Dosbrak and is available as a signed, limited edition print with three variants.
“All I wanna do is go the distance” – Rocky
It is rare for a sequel to be considered a better film that the one that spawned it. The Bride of Frankenstein is one that gets that honor. Stephen Andrade gives us an alt poster with a Bride that would definitely get a rise out of the monster.
“Woman… Friend… Wife…” – The Monster