I know some of you were planning to watch that new FX show JUSTIFIED – what did you think? I thought it was a good first episode, taking advantage of that good side of Timothy Olyphant that we enjoyed in A PERFECT GETAWAY and other things, the opposite of the one that was in HITMAN. The pilot was adapted from an Elmore Leonard story that I haven’t read, and the moronic neo-nazi villains are definitely very Leonard. So we’ll have to see how much of that flavor they can retain with their original stories. But they’re definitely off to a good start with Olyphant’s character, a marshal who’s tougher and smarter than everyone around him, and who gets sent back to Kentucky after his Old West mentality causes trouble in Tampa.
Favorite conversation: when he tells the Jamaican priest about going to a Peter Tosh concert (he wasn’t into it). Favorite scene (easy): when he not only steals the neo-nazi’s shotgun and puts him back in his car, but suddenly bangs his head against the horn.
The pilot reminded me of KAREN SISCO, a surprisingly good Elmore Leonard based show they had on ABC in 2003. Sure enough both are by the same director, Michael Dinner (Mad Magazine’s hilarious parody character of DEATH WISH director Michael Winner). I thought they could never replace Jennifer Lopez as that character from OUT OF SIGHT (still my favorite Leonard movie I think, although JACKIE BROWN is a contender), but after watching a few episodes Carla Gugino became the definitive Karen Sisco for me. It helped that they had Bill Duke as her boss and Robert Forster as her dad. And they did a good job of supplying the criminal-of-the-week characters with personality.
Every time Carla Gugino has another TV show I think “hey, maybe it’ll be a hit and they’ll finally release KAREN SISCO on DVD.” But it didn’t work for THRESHOLD and whatever other shows she was on that got cancelled. So now we’ll just have to hope this one hits big and causes a demand for other Elmore Leonard TV shows. Rights holders please note that Academy Award winner Kathryn Bigelow directed one episode. Let’s see that DVD.
And while I’m at it I never saw that MAXIMUM BOB show either. That was supposed to be pretty good, wasn’t it?
I figured I should do a post on Oscars just so we have a place to discuss them. That is what I am doing write now, I am doing a post on Oscars.
Jimbolo kindly put this link in some comments, but it was cool enough I thought I should give it its own post. The cartoon band “Gorillaz” (who once named a song after Clint) have 
I get alot of nice emails from people pointing me to the big stories I should know about, announcements of new movies that they know I would be excited about and things like that. I appreciate you guys looking out for me but also I figured I should mention some of the big ones to save you guys the trouble of making sure I know about them…
Here in the U.S. Sunday was Valentine’s Day, yesterday was President’s Day, and today is BLACK DYNAMITE Day. If you didn’t catch it at a random film festival or in its limited theatrical release (or even if you did) today is the day when you can finally buy or rent it on DVD or Blu-Ray.
But I couldn’t really make out the last name on his signature there. Fortunately, a new ad has surfaced, featuring much neater handwriting on a parking ticket:
There you go. Harold Alexander Swan. No word on if Judge Moody or Thomas O’Malley are that ugly overbite/glasses guy. But we’ll learn eventually.
Apparently the ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK remake is still happening. You guys know how I feel about that. In the unlikely event that somebody good was doing it this could actually be a good story to retell. The problems are
hello everybody welcome to my first ever LIVE BLOG, I am watching E and there is alot to be said about this all new wave speed slimming ssystem. It is the most effective total body slimming system ever due to cardio, strength, speed slimming intervals.the reason why is the afterburn effect, it keeps burtning fat even as you sleep or drive. what i am getting at is they’re not announcing the thing yet
I know I keep reviewing movies that aren’t available yet or that people aren’t gonna bother to see in a theater. Well, I noticed that four movies I previously reviewed are out on DVD today so I though I’d steer people back towards those for further discussion.
Dear Jay Leno,
