Watch Out Loki! Or Zoolander Will Hit You With Blue Steel!

What is up with that look Derek Zoolander Bruce Banner is giving us?

It's No HUMAN TARGET but PERSON OF INTEREST Delivers Your Weekly Action Fix

Remember the end of THE DARK KNIGHT, when Batman/Bruce Wayne uses the technology at the disposal of Wayne Industries to turn Gotham City into a giant surveillance device so he can find The Joker? Well, TDK screenwriter Jonathan Nolan sure did because he takes the same basic concept – a secret, citywide surveillance network – and expounds on it in the new CBS vigilante action series PERSON OF INTEREST.

Co-created by Nolan and JJ Abrams (LOST, FRINGE), the show unites two men the world thinks are dead in a battle against crimes that haven’t happened yet. There’s Mr. Finch (LOST’s Michael Emerson), a slightly crippled billionaire genius who created the government’s shadowy Big Brother in the wake of 9/11. John Reese (Jim Caviezel – looking like a young, friendlier Eric Roberts) is ex-military who has coped with the loss of a loved one by falling off the face of the earth and seeking solace in a bottle.

A chance encounter between Reece (in full wino mode) and some subway gang bangers lands him in the office of a detective (Taraji P. Henson) who wants to know more about this derelict with lethal moves. Before she can run the cup she obviously lifted for prints (ham-fistedly shown a couple times for slower viewers), Finch’s lawyer has sprung Reese and the journey towards the two working together is under way.

Though PERSON OF INTEREST lacks the humor and chemistry that made FOX’s HUMAN TARGET (RIP) such a treat, the show should ably satisfy my weekly action fix. Caviezel is slick and confident as he deals with everything from dirty cops to a blink-and-you-miss-him William Sadler as a gun buyer; and scenes of our hero loading a rocket launcher in the back of a cab, then coolly hopping out to take down an SUV in the middle of Manhattan are a hoot.

PERSON isn’t groundbreaking by any stretch but if it turns into THE EQUALIZER MEETS THE FUGITIVE for the 21^st century I’m okay with that.

What Happened to the Summer of ACTION?! and Other Notes

Okay, so the Summer of ACTION! didn't turn out quite the way I'd hoped.

Though the umbrella project featuring everything from comics and action flicks to vintage TV and men's adventure novels started strong (and with the best of intentions), by August the real world had intervened and while I kept reading and watching I never quite found the time to write. Add in a week without internet (due to the hurricane) and several extended beach trips and well, you know how it goes.

So, what happens now? Does the SoA! come to an end? Get "retired" like an assassin whose conscience is getting to him? Do we put it on ice – like Dolph Lundgren in the snappy action flick UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: REGENERATION – only to thaw it out next June in the hopes that the intervening months haven't made it crazier than it already was?

Hell no.

Though it might be getting dark earlier and fall temperatures aren't far off, the Summer of ACTION! will continue. Like five o'clock, it's always summer somewhere.

So, what else is happening in the world of Exploitation Retrospect?

Work on our Revenge of Print edition is currently under way and thanks to a hard drive bulging with awesome contributions it's likely to be the biggest issue of ER ever produced. I still have some design decisions to shake out – particularly whether to go with a digest or full-size layout – but we're still on track to have the issue wrapped up before the end of 2011.

I've also decided to make some changes in how reviews appear both on this blog and at our site. Recent discussions with a friend who is just tackling the whole blog thing made me realize that I've been keeping one foot in "traditional" publishing for far too long.

The original ER website was put together in the mid-to-late 1990s and my approach to it shows. With the current "system" I gather reviews as they come in from contributors and update the site (when time allows) with a couple dozen reviews. In other words, the site has become a bit like the zine that led to its creation – no real deadline for publication and it only gets worked on when I have a huge block of time to handle the formatting, linking and updating of the home page.

It finally dawned on me that nobody ever said I had to wait till I had two dozen reviews to update the site, that all the new reviews had to go up at once, or that I couldn't roll reviews out here on the blog first.

Hopefully, this change in approach will lead to a couple things. First, reviews of new releases will appear here and on the site in a more timely fashion. Second, the site will get updated more frequently. And, third, I won't have to make the foolhardy attempt to carve three or four hours out of a weekend in order to do a sweeping site update.

That's about all for now. Thanks for your continued support of this blog and the site!

Mya PAGANINI Set Available for Pre-Order

I picked up the 2-disc Region 2 PAL set of Klaus Kinski's directorial debut (and swan song) PAGANINI a few years back at a horror film convention. The long-gestating film was Kinksi's dream project and at times he even tried to get longtime collaborator/frenemy Werner Herzog on board to direct.

Eventually, Klaus got behind the camera and directed himself as the fiery composer and violinist. It's a wild flick, I'll say that, with Kinski delivering an intense performance that's hard to take your eyes off... even when the flick around him falters.

Now the folks at Mya Entertainment, who brought us EVIL FACE (aka THE HAND THAT FEEDS THE DEAD) a couple years ago are finally making PAGANINI available in the United States and it appears that the two-disc DVD set due out in early November contains most if not all of the material found on the Region 2 PAL set.

Here's what the TCM website has to say:

At last-see the Klaus Kinski movie Werner Herzog refused to make! Who else could direct his final performance but Kinski himself, in this crazed and erotic biopic of Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini? As daring and innovative as its subject, writer/director/star Kinski's film about the controversial musician (and the demons he battled while astonishing the world with his artistry) is equal parts maddening, baffling, and unforgettable. Co-stars Nicola Caprioglio and Nikolai Kinski (his wife and son), Eva Grimaldi. Theatrical version; 84 min./Director's cut; 98 min. Standard; Soundtracks: Italian Dolby Digital stereo, English Dolby Digital stereo, French Dolby Digital stereo; behind-the-scenes footage; deleted scenes; photo gallery; theatrical trailer. In Italian; no subtitles/Dubbed in English. Two-disc set.

You can pre-order the set now at Amazon.


(Exploitation Retrospect receives a small commission for purchases made through Amazon. Thanks for your support!)

Blogus Interruptus

One of the many branches and limbs
deposited in our yard by Irene.

Hoping all of our readers made it through Hurricane Irene ok. I was feeling pretty bold on Saturday night. After six-plus hours worth of rain and tropical storm winds that were shaking the 60-year-old trees around our house like maracas I finally went to sleep with power, cable TV, Internet, etc.

When my 4-year-old woke me out of a deep sleep on Sunday morning with a series of taps on the shoulder I discovered that sometime during the night we'd lost our cable and cable-powered Internet connection. We still had power – and only lost it for a brief moment on Sunday afternoon – but cable and Internet never returned.

In a house with a 4-year-old, one spouse who works in news and another who runs two companies from a home office, the lack of cable and Internet can make things a little tense. Thank god for local fast food joints, coffee shops and office supply stores who willingly supplied free Internet access (big shout outs to Office Depot, Starbucks and Caribou Coffee).

That was almost a week ago and as we left yesterday for an end-of-season weekend at the beach, power was finally being restored to the unfortunate souls in our area who had gone without since the storm peaked on Saturday night.

But we still didn't have cable/Internet, despite Comcast's optimistic message – displayed since Sunday – that the "temporary disruption" in our service would be fixed "momentarily".

Apparently, Comcast and I have different views of what "momentarily" means.

Now, I know that when your neighbors are sans power and the UPS guy is confessing that he bought 60 lbs. of beef on Saturday only to watch his power go out that night it's hard to bitch that your kid can't watch Max & Ruby and you're unable to send e-mails to customers or thank PR people for the latest care packages of DVDs and BBQ Sauce.

But now that power has been restored to our 'hood is it ok for me to bitch? Just a little?

For now, though, I'll enjoy the sun, sand and surf, hoping that when I return home I'll find a working cable connection.