In advance of a two-part set of movies starring Timothée Chalamet, Rebecca Ferguson, Oscar Isaac, Josh Brolin, Stellan Skarsgård, Dave Bautista, Zendaya, David Dastmalchian, Charlotte Rampling, Jason Momoa, and Javier Bardem targeted to come to theaters beginning this December from director Denis Villeneuve, a new three-book graphic novel series is heading your way this Fall from Abrams Books. Frank Herbert’s Dune: The Graphic Novel, Book One is now available for pre-order here at Amazon.
Review by C.J. Bunce
If there is a better writer of pulp crime fiction in the long history of the genre than Erle Stanley Gardner, I don’t know who it is. Yes, Mickey Spillane and Donald E. Westlake are in the running, too, but even if you push aside Gardner’s more than 60 novels featuring Perry Mason, you’re going to be challenged to find a better duo of detectives from the 1930s onward than Gardner’s Bertha Cool and Donald Lam. Gardner wrote 29 novels published in his lifetime featuring the larger than life Bertha of the B. Cool Detective Agency and loyal and well-trod upon employee Lam, the narrator of the tales who lost his license to practice law and uses his smarts to keep money coming in to the agency. Where the Hard Case Crime imprint is at its best is finding lost gems, and they have one in The Knife Slipped, written by Gardner and intended to be the duo’s second case, the publisher kicked it way back in 1939 because of Bertha’s brash, bombastic, and profane style. Maybe that attitude just reflected the era of the day, but reading the novel now it’s clear Gardner was ahead of his time.
Following on the heels of 2014’s Kingsman: The Secret Service and 2017’s Kingsman: The Golden Circle comes a prequel film, The King’s Man, and the second movie trailer has just arrived from 20th Century Fox (we previewed the first trailer here at borg last July). Delayed for re-shoots and because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the studio now has its sights set on a September premiere in theaters (we’re not holding our breath). Stepping into an early Kingsman of the type perfected by Colin Firth is the actor who should have played a Bond (but ended up as another M), the BAFTA-winning, twice Academy Award-nominated actor Ralph Fiennes. The young recruit that looks to mimic that series hero Eggsy played by Taron Egerton in the first two films this time goes to Harris Dickinson (Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance).
“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”
It’s the theme to many a science fiction story, back to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and revisited nearly 85 years later in H.G. Wells’ novel and cautionary tale, The Island of Dr. Moreau, creating one of science fiction’s most loathsome of villains. Now 125 years later after Wells’ book, writer Ted Adams, artist Gabriel Rodriguez, and colorist Nelson Daniel have revisited the novel and adapted it into a graphic novel as H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau, arriving this week from IDW Publishing in a hardcover edition.
Jim Henson’s The Dark Crystal Bestiary: The Definitive Guide to the Creatures of Thra is a new in-universe guide coming this Fall to whet the appetites of fans of the 1982 film and the expansion into Netflix’s television series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance. Will we get a sequel series? We hope so, but while we’re waiting to find out you can read about the critters and plant life lurking in the corners that didn’t get to be center stage on the screen. It’s all coming this Fall from Insight Editions, and you can see a preview of the book of fantasy stories and artwork below.
Usually we reserve Trailer Park for a pile-on of new movie trailers, but this year has seen a serious dearth of new both new movies and previews for new movies. So let’s highlight some true classics you need in your repertoire if they aren’t there already. Three standouts are airing on basic cable–depending on where you live and what you subscribe to–Saturday and Sunday. First up is the baseball comedy classic Brewster’s Millions. And then we have two different brands of war movie. So what are they?
Let’s get to it.
Just because San Diego Comic-Con 2020 was cancelled this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic doesn’t mean some of the convention exclusives won’t still be available, for those who know where to look. One of the best ideas we’ve seen from exclusives previewed so far is from Diamond Select and Entertainment Earth, and it hails from one of our favorite retro fixes: the groundbreaking 1982 sci-fi classic Tron. What says 1982 and Tron more than a VHS clamshell? Wait, it’s not just a clamshell…
National convention organizer Wizard World will be hosting key cast members from across the 56+ years run of the BBC’s Doctor Who today as part of its Wizard World Virtual Experiences tour taking place through the summer. From the 7th Doctor and his Companion, to a memorable sort-of Doctor, to the head of Torchwood, to members of the Paternoster Gang, and notables William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill and more–fans can see them all free on a live-streamed panel and/or check out individual opportunities for photographs and autographs for a fee. It all happens today, June 17, 2020, online at noon Central Time.
Eight years ago this week, LucasArts revealed footage for a next-generation video game, Star Wars 1313. It looked like it was going to be incredible (we previewed it here at borg). It had cutting edge graphics, but it got cancelled as a result of Disney’s acquisition of Star Wars. Flash forward to today, and after 17 other franchise game releases now the latest game preview for Star Wars is here: Star Wars: Squadrons. It arrives with some nice visual effects and a mirroring of play options. Players play one of five Rebel “New Republic” X-Wing pilots, including a Trandoshan alien (like the bounty hunter Bossk) or one of five members of an Imperial TIE-Fighter squadron. Lucasfilm and EA/Electronic Arts have partnered to create this first-person space combat game for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC, and playable via virtual reality (VR) on PlayStation 4 and PC. It is set after the events of Return of the Jedi.
Review by C.J. Bunce
You’ll find a lot familiar about the journey in the new sci-fi thriller Underwater, but it’s certain to keep you on the edge of your seat, trigger your claustrophobia, and get most of the beats of the survival thriller genre right. Most of that is thanks to Kristen Stewart, who stars as an engineer named Norah, working in an oil drilling facility seven miles down at the bottom of the ocean. Stewart makes our own recent tour of isolation seem pretty tame, as her world literally explodes due to some deep-sea fracking that causes an earthquake, breaking up the facility and severely minimizing the opportunities to leave for the surface. If that weren’t enough, the earthquake releases some kaiju-inspired beasties. It all allows Stewart to create a character as tough and heroic as Alien’s Ellen Ripley with a modern homage to the original sci-fi survivor.
