Punk Samurai, also known as Punk Samurai Slash Down (a title still retained on the main menu screen of this Blu-Ray release), is a title that evokes mental images of Jidaigeki or Chanbara epics, but with a modern twist, and in many ways that is exactly what it is… and […]
Comedy
Smoking Causes Coughing (Glasgow Frightfest 2023)(Review)
Anyone who found this winter’s cycle of Oscar-bait movies about the magic of cinema rather too middlebrow may find respite in Quentin Dupieux’s Smoking Causes Coughing, the opening film at this year’s Glasgow FrightFest. Rather than the sanctified work of John Ford or Gene Kelly, Smoking Causes Coughing is inspired […]
The Munsters (2022) The Gags are Creakier than Slowly Opening Coffin Lids (Film Review)
Stars in the Ordinary Universe & The Mad Writer (Slamdance 2023)(Review)
Following Mad Cats, Starring Jerry as Himself and the Underbug, we return to Slamdance for more coverage of a film festival that celebrates new, emerging and alternative voices within the world of art, film and beyond. Thus far, I have been trying to theme my articles and failing miserably because […]
MAD CATS (2023) Review (Slamdance Film Festival)
Clerks III (2022) An emotional gut-punch, and the end of an era (Review)
The Executioner Collection (1974) Sonny Chiba’s Lucky Stars (Review)
Japanese cinema carries with it a certain gravitas in the minds of many. It evokes images of great chivalry (Seven Samurai), dreams and heartbreak (Ikiru), honour and justice (Hara-Kiri) and the importance of family (Tokyo Story). Names such as Akira Kurosawa, Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujirō Ozu loom large over its […]
The Dead And The Deadly (1982) Sammo is on fine supernatural form (Blu-Ray Review)
Frightfest 2022: Incredible but true (Festival Review)
Quentin Dupieux is a fascinating multihyphenate. For my generation, he emerged with the puppet Flat Eric and his dance single, flat beat. Since then, he emerged as a filmmaker and his first notable cut-through came in 2010’s Rubber A.K.A. The killer tyre movie, and in the decade since he’s continued […]