R.I.P. LOU GOSSETT, JR.

You commenced humbly, but when you hit it big, your success was on a level that most could at best envy. 

Your entire, cinematic landscape is, in fact, impressive: J.D.'s Revenge; An Officer and a Gentleman; Iron Eagle I, II & III; Iron Eagle on the Attack; Bram Stoker's (Legend of) the Mummy; The Punisher 1989; The Deep; Jaws 3D; The Lazarus Syndrome; Solar Attack; Momentum; Firewalker; The Fuzz Brothers; It Rained All Night the Day I Left; Jasper, Texas; Dangerous Relations; The Guardian 1984; The River Niger; The Laughing Policeman; The Choirboys; The White Dawn; The Landlord; The Skin Game; A Raisin in the Sun; The Bushbaby; Finders Keepers; Toy Soldiers; The Principal; A Good Man in Africa; The Wall That Heals; The Highwayman; The Fighting Man; Managua; Curse of the Starving Class; The Color Purple 2023; Terminal Countdown; The Lamp; Dog Jack; The Grace Card; Cover; The Perfect Game; Delgo; Why Did I Get Married Too?; Shannon's Rainbow; Undercover Grandpa; Three Months; Supervised; Double Play; The Undershepherd; Boiling Point; The Cuban; Little Ladies of the Night and The Dependables. 

On television, you were every bit as dynamic, starring on Resurrection Blvd; Boardwalk Empire; Bonanza; Little House on the Prairie; The Invaders; Extant; The Six Million Dollar Man; Stargate SG-1; The Dead Zone; Roots; Longstreet; Own Marshall; Daktari; Psych; The Partridge Family; Love, American Style; The New Land; The Mod Squad; The Rockford Files; Police Story; The Rookies; McCloud; Petrocelli; Harry O; Lucas Tanner; Saturday Night Life; The Family Guy; The Batman; The Jeffersons; Good Times; the almost unseen Black Bart; and as the mentoring regular, Walt Shepherd on The Powers of Matthew Star. 

Of all your fine performances, my favorite is that of Jerry the Drac in the Robinson Crusoe on Mars variant, Wolfgang Petersen's Enemy Mine. Your nuanced, reptilian performance played well, as you rejoined your Jaws 3D costar, Dennis Quaid, in what clinched the movie as one of science fiction's most compelling. 

Of course, your hard work and perseverance is what most will remember you for, Mr. Gossett, for the evidence thrives in your impressive queue, one designed and destined to stand the test of time.   

HAPPY, HOLY EASTER 2024

 

LOVE IN REVERSE'S KEEP UPRIGHT 2ND SINGLE: SUMMER OF HORROR

I really sunk my audio teeth into Love in Reverse's "This Heavy Feeling," the first single from the band's upcoming album, Keep Upright (see February 2024 post). 

The second single has sprung, and it's just as emotional. However, I believe that "Summer of Horror" works on two, perceptible levels, while achieving a similar, rage-ridden result. 

On one level, it's a companion piece to "This Heavy Feeling," drenched in lament as it questions a rueful status quo. Thanks to Ferentino's honest lyrics, "Summer of Horror" essays a love that's crashed and burned, or perhaps never existed. The pain, in all its glaring glory, presses through: identifiable to all who've yearned for a significant other, only to be ignored. 

On another level, "Summer of Horror" would be ideal as a musical backdrop for a new Friday the 13th or Texas Chain Saw chapter (if only through a peripheral graze of its lyrics), or it could just as well act as a clever insert for The Burning or Twitch of the Death Nerve, where the warm tides break to welcome sprees of carnal slashing. 

No matter the interpretation, "Summer of Horror" holds a hard, swirling vibe that's emblematic of Love in Reverse. The track also shoves, reels and provokes its way toward its defining agitation, doing what the band does best: turning discomfort into positivity through melodious irony.

There's no doubt that Ferentino, Andres Karu and Dave Halpern have once more hit it outta the park. If Keep Upright's inducing singles are any indication, the forthcoming Love in Reverse album could well be the band's greatest success yet!

BTW: For those itchin' to experience "Summer of Horror," it's available for a listen at the below link, accompanied by a landscape-shifting video-collage by the ultra-artistic Michael Mooser. I've watched the contrasting footage more than a dozen times and still can't get enough. Like the song, the imagery is open for interpretation and all the more contagious for it. Enjoy!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NcoufSHfcmE

PIN-UP TIME: ALICE EVE IS CAROL MARCUS

Monster Team-up Reflection: I saw Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

Toho Studios planned to sequelize King Kong vs Godzilla. Such fell to the wayside, but that hasn't stopped Legendary Films from continuing their clashes.  

Director Adam (V/H/S) Wingard's Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, which he wrote with Terry Rossio, Jeremy Slater and Simon Barrett, picks up where Wingard's Godzilla vs Kong left off, introducing a new calamity that forces the titular duo to rejoin.  

The renewed team-up occurs due to an orangutan-like Skar King being stirred from the deep depths of Hollow Earth. He was a bastard in prehistoric times when he ruled a boundless, creature-feature empire, and for having been imprisoned over the vast "eons," has grown much surlier. Shimo is his coerced "pet," an icy sort of ankylosaurus/stegosaurus, who Skar uses to seize control. 

Godzilla and Kong must prevent the mounting assault, with the great ape gaining more screen time than his finned costar. Their quest for victory comprises a thunderous path, albeit with a generous sum of sweetness shoehorned in, thanks to Kong's feisty, adopted son. 

For continuity, several of the previous chapter's cast return: Rebecca (Iron Man 3) Hall's Ilene Andrews, Brian Tyree Henry's Bernie Hayes and Kaylee Hottle's Jai. Dan Stevens joins the group as a dynamic veterinarian named Trapper, capable of mending monster wounds. Though these humans play an important role in the adventure, they take an understandable back seat to tale's Titans, in particular the cyborg-gloved Kong, who the humans nudge to squash the adversity.

In truth, Kong doesn't need much nudging and nor does Godzilla, for their sense of duty is innate, leaving them to mimic Batman and Superman or Captain America and Ironman on a save-the-day stint. New Empire is, therefore, more of a special-effects-laden, comic-book tale than one of conscientious contemplation, with broad strokes of Planet of the Apes and Quest for Fire, padded by classic rock. On this basis, for all the grim demolition it delivers, New Empire rolls with mish-mashed levity. And why not? As Toho taught us, there's nothing wrong with fun for fun's sake, in particular when combative colossuses participate. 

With this said, New Empire smacks of Ishiro Honda's sprightly, Cain-and-Abel War of the Gargantuas (or on a more fundamental level, Willis O'Brien's founding concept, King Kong vs Frankenstein/Prometheus), where two hairy behemoths slug it out. New Empire also inserts aspects of Destroy All Monsters (with a noted, though overused, Titan cameoing toward the end), so that it's quite possible a follow-up might mirror that beloved free-for-all. Then again, wee Kong is sure a cutie (just as he was in 1933), and a marginal offshoot could come even sooner. 

No matter which way it turns, there are no doubt sequels in the works, but it all lies on New Empire's box-office tally to decide if and when they're made.

TERRIFIC TEAM-UP: GIANT-SIZE DEFENDERS

TERRIFIC TEAM-UP IMAGE: FERRIGNO & BIXBY/HULK & BANNER

 

WISE WORDS:

I saw Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, directed by Gil (Poltergeist 2015) Kenan, who cowrote with Jason Reitman, is a sequel to the renewed franchise's sentimental Afterlife and the fifth in the cinematic series.

This time, Carrie Coon's Callie Spengler nurtures her paranormal-partial kids, Finn Wolfhard's Eric and McKenna Grace's Phoebe, at the famous, NYC, firehouse headquarters, where they're re-teamed with original, crew members, Bill Murray's Peter Venkman, Dan Aykroyd's Ray Stantz, Ernie Hudson's Winston Zeddemore and Annie Pott's Janine Melnitz, capped by Paul (Ant-Man) Rudd's father-figure Gary Grooberson, who like his main squeeze, Callie, loves his save-the-day job. William Atherton's Walter Peck re-emerges within the mayhem, joined by Celeste O'Connor, Logan Kim, Patton Oswalt, James Acaster, Kumail Nanjiani (as a significant yet humble firemaster) and Emily Alyn Lind (as a woeful, friendly ghost).

So, what have the Ghostbusters been called upon to quell this time? It appears a mysterious orb has been lifted from its imprisonment and (of course) tampered with to wreck a Day After Tomorrow, freeze down across the city, led by a vengeful, neo-Gozer/Steppenwolf-ish fiend named Garraka, aka the Death Chill.

The entertainment doesn't rise as much from the daunting scenario, which may be the most cataclysmic of any Ghostbusters flick or animated adventure, but rather the crew's reaction to it. (To succeed, any Ghostbusters chapter must be character-driven, and Frozen Empire proves no exception.) Also, as with Afterlife, the new strand isn't an all-out laugh riot, even if comic relief does occur (e.g. Slimer's gooey resurgence, accompanied by a gang of mini, Stay Puft Marshmallow Men; Nanijani is often quite the hoot, as well).

Frozen Empire could be considered a gift to the Alternative 3, conspiracy-theory crowd, which maintains that the world is changing enough to end. Such prophesized threats never quite seem to reach fruition (thank goodness), but at least Frozen Empire delivers the non-warming goods and with no less than a welcome onslaught of spiffy effects. It's a little, major film with a big heart, and as long as one perceives it along the lines of Haunted Mansion 2023 and not Dune: Part 2, it should more than serve its intimate intent. 

Also, let's not overlook the fact that Frozen Empire works as a cool (pun intended) springboard for yet another sequel. I mean, if something ain't broke, there's no shame in tapping it for all the spectral cheer it's worth. 😁