I was watching Doctor Zhivago on telly with my mother one Christmas, the very time of year that innumerable family units across the country settle down to watch that grandoise, historical romance for the umpteenth time. Despite the fact that she had seen ...Read More
You might recall I was banging on about musicians appearing in films last month. When I was writing that, erm, piece I decided to limit my selection to include only films in which the rock and pop stars in question played straight acting roles; in other ...Read More
When we last checked in on Seijun Suzuki, he had just landed himself in some serious trouble with his employers at the Nikkatsu Company film studio. Having already warned the director that his films were getting far too weird, Suzuki offered ...Read More
The first thing wot I ever wrote for this here website was a little number about dystopian science fiction films. You know the kind I mean; films in which the future is depicted in ultra-pessimistic fashiom, with society having collapsed in on itself in a ...Read More
Seijun Suzuki is drinking in the Last Chance Saloon... Or rather, he is drinking in whatever the Japanese equivalent of the Last Chance Saloon is. The year is 1966, and Suzuki is the undisputed king of the B-movie in Japan. ...Read More
"The past is a foreign country" writes novelist L.P. Hartley (most famous for authoring Fly-fishing, of course) at the start of The Go-Between, and you've got to admit he was onto something. Certainly old films strike me as somewhat "foreign" and it's really hard ...Read More
Blah, blah, blah... Seven Samurai was remade as The Magnificent Seven by John Sturges in 1960... Yackety smackety... Yojimbo served as the inspiration for Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars... Blah, blah, blah... George Lucas ripped off The Hidden Fortress for Star ...Read More
One of the things that blew my mind most about BBC4's fairly recent documentary about Pink Floyd, Which One's Pink?, was the revelation that, way back in 1969, the BBC had roped in the prog rock pioneers to perform one of ...Read More
If you are of a "discerning" enough nature to visit this website regularly, then you may have noticed that I don't particularly like new films. The overwhelming majority of films I do like were made many, many years ago; in fact most of my favourite ...Read More
When I think of a classic "movie director" type, I always think of Samuel Fuller. While hardly wanting for favourable critical attention (not when you can count the likes of Scorsese and Tarantino as fans), it's a bit of a wonder that Fuller isn't more ...Read More
