Used Future's DVD Collection

I don't. I mean yes I like as much +rep and feedback as I can get, as it lets me know how many people are reading and hopefully appreciating/enjoying my stuff. However I'm really just having fun giving you a hard time.

So now you're saying you are a one note trash horror fan? And while I'm certainly not insisting I would very much appreciate any appearance you put in. And I'll try my best to avoid them but no promises.

Just looking through your DVDs and the last two films actually I've watched and reviewed are both ones you own - Sonatine and Coma. And the film I'm currently halfway through is also one you own.

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I figured as much. I've lost my cool and said things I regret to people on Mofo before, but I'm not going to bite anymore. I mean life's just too short to be losing your cool in cyberspace man

I write stuff on here mainly as a form of catharsis for pent up creative frustration. I get a sense of personal achievement when I review a movie and (whilst it hasn't always been so); these days that is enough for me. If someone read or replies, great. If not, no biggie. If people don't want to read/rep my stuff because I don't read/rep theirs; I understand, and that's fine too.

I called myself an exploitation loving idiot/one note trash fan to be jokingly self depreciating and keep the tone friendly. I know I'm not (one note or an idiot at least), but if other people want to think I am, again; no biggie. I like what I like and make no apologies for it. Nor should anyone else on MoFo.

But enough with this conversation now please. It's getting us nowhere, and I'm here to have a good time

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100 Favourites From The Future: REWIRED

Hello everyone.

You know the drill...it's been four months since my last update - time for some new photos...



Kicking off with some British horror classics all of which I've mentioned in various posts recently except for The Shout. A very odd, arty horror with John Hurt and Susannah York's couple menaced by Alan Bates' tramp who claims to be able to kill with a you know what. I streamed this one on Lovefilm before finding it second hand for £5. Definitely not for all tastes but the weird narrative structure and off beat nature grabbed me. Oh and just to be a real nerd - the film can be seen playing in the background during John Michael McDonagh's ace black comedy The Guard.



Again this is all stuff I've mentioned recently so not much else to say unless anyone has any questions. [EDIT] Those are the original 70's Walking Tall movies.



More familiar titles. Futureworld is the very underrated sequel to Westworld with Peter Fonda determined to prove Delos' new theme park (rebuilt after the disasterous events of the first film) is a danger to the public. This has a bigger budget and plays more like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers. Incidentally if anyone else has the Optimum UK disc please let me know if you noticed the huge continuity error (involving Pete and Blythe Danner emerging from a heating duct in different outfits, carrying guns). Not sure if this is a reel mix up or just shoddy editing. Otherwise it's a very cool slice of 70's sci-fi marred only by a token dream sequence appearance from Yul Brynner. The third film from the right is The Cassandra Crossing - one of my favourite 70's disaster movies.



Self explanatory again with Deadly Blessing probably my favourite Wes Craven film despite the stupid final shot (which he outdid with an even dafter twist in the barmy robot revenge crapfest Deadly Friend). The other films are the uncut version of Ruggero Deodato's The House On The Edge Of The Park which is rumoured to be getting a sequel soon (also helmed by Deodato). Plus Count Yorga, Vampire, and The Return Of Count Yorga.



The rest which I'll list are, The Deep, God's Gun a hard to find (at least in the UK) Spaghetti Western starring Lee Van Cleef and Jack Palance. The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again!, Drive (2011), Gordon's War, Off Limits, Daybreakers, The Rookie, Tightrope (very cheap R1 editions - couldn't let JayDee have all the fun with those two), The Thing(2011 prequel), The Silent Flute aka Circle Of Iron, Alien Nation, Cypher, Devil, and the underrated Surrogates.

Lastly that's the Hammer boxset which I finally shelled out for. It's a fantastic set with wonderful presentations of the films (all of which I've seen before) my only complaint being that it's always the same titles getting released in these sets. Would be nice to have some of the lesser know Hammer films included. Anyway here's a list of what's in the set.

Blood From The Mummy's Tomb
Demons Of The Mind
Dracula Price Of Darkness
Fear In The Night
One Million Years B.C.
Prehistoric Women
Quatermass & The Pit
Rasputin The Mad Monk
Scars Of Dracula
She
Straight On Till Morning
The Devil Rides Out
Horror Of Frankenstein
The Nanny
Plague Of The Zombies
The Reptile
Vengeance Of She
The Witches
To The Devil A Daughter
Viking Queen

Great post, as always, UF.

What's the Corman documentary like?

And, while I'm here, for anyone reading who hasn't seen it, can I recommend 10 Rillington Place. Chilling work.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

As an introductory celebration of the man and his work it's a lovely tribute, without really delving beyond the obvious. I got interested in Corman after stumbling across his book How I Made A Hundred Movies In Hollywood And Never Lost A Dime, in a charity shop years ago. Naturally the title piqued my interestand the rest is history.Yes it's a good watch, but you'll probably spend more time wondering if Jack's tears were genuine.

It's rather soon after my last post but I found a couple of cool shops in Canada (one in Burlington Mall called Cinema 1, and a second hand record place on a strip mall which I can't remember the name of). Suffice to say I spent around $60 on pre-owned movies. Got back to the UK and Manchester Fopp is having a massive sale on Arrow Cult Labs and Shameless dvds for £5 each - which is cheaper than Amazon!

Anyways this is what I picked up...



Beginning with some 70's crime movies the best of which has to be James Toback's overlooked 1978 masterpiece Fingers, in which Harvey Keitel plays a young man torn between a life of crime collecting debts for his mob boss father, and pursuing his dream of becoming a concert pianist. This one features a string of great performances from not only Keitel, but Jim Brown as a chillingly calculating pimp, Tisa Farrow as a space cadet hooker, and especially Michael V. Gazzo as Keitel's overbearing father. If you like gritty cinema in a Mean Streets/Taxi Driver vein then I really can't recommend this one enough. It was remade by Jacques Audiard in 2005 as The Beat That My Heart Skipped.

The Hot Rock is easily the best adaptation from Donald E. Westlake's Dortmunder novels(which I love incidentally) - a fast paced funny caper movie perfect for a Saturday afternoon. Hit! is a recently released to dvd 1973 blaxploitation/crime movie which I've wanted for a couple of years now. Haven't watched it yet but the presentation is very good if bare bones. The Onion Fiend is a riveting true story about a murdered police officer and the ensuing court case. Penned by real life police officer Joseph Wambaugh (who also wrote excellent fictional police drama The New Centurions) this has an especially powerful first half with James Woods on blistering form as crazed killer Greg Powell. The second half loses momentum getting bogged down in court proceedings and family melodrama, but overall it's still a fascinating watch. Last up are two decent little thrillers often (wrongly) categorised as 70's disaster movies. Chuck Heston has to foil a sniper at a ball game whilst George Segal deals with a bomber of you know what. Decent retro fun from my fave movie decade.



I Drink Your Blood is a legendary drive in/grindhouse number made on the back of Romero's Night Of The Living Dead but way gorier which is of course splendid (it was originally paired with I Eat Your Skin - a real piece of unsold 60's crap). Hilarious stuff with satanic hippies eating rabies infected meat pies before going on the rampage in ridiculously OTT style. Another film I've wanted for years and wasn't disappointed by - a real blast and must see for fans of lurid trash. It also features legendary grindhouse beauty Lynn Lowry in her film debut (best known for Cronenberg's Shivers, and Romero's The Crazies).

Anyone in the UK who's ever owned or rented a Vipco vhs or dvd will no doubt be familiar with Psychic Killer. A pretty awful (PG RATED!?) thriller about a freak who bumps people off with his powers of astral projection. This isn't the best dvd release available (being non anamorphic) but for $3 I wasn't about to argue. Haven't watched Lemora: A Child's Tale Of The Supernatural yet but have heard great things, i.e. that it's another one of those overlooked 70's horror gems long on style but short on budget. Pieces is Juan P. Simon's infamous Spanish slasher with the emphasis on sleaze, gore and chainsaw wielding gardeners who look like Bud Spencer. I'd also rate the final shot as one of the daftest twists in grindhouse history. Dolls and The Funhouse are two long overdue additions (and faves of the video rental era) from Stuart Gordon and Tobe Hooper respectively.



Yikes!!! Three infamous video nasties and three overdue giallo additions. I Spit On Your Grave I found in Value Village for $3.99. Never been a fan of the movie (for reasons concerning one of the most repellent rape scenes in movie history) but for the price I figured I had to own one of the video nasty era's most infamous titles. Island Of Death has been mentioned by HK recently. A sordid but goofy Greek exploitation movie that looks as if it were shot on home video, and is thankfully rendered on the wrong (or is that right) side of shoddy reducing the depraved proceeding to unintentional comedy. Just don't mention farmyard animals. Yuck. Don't Go In The House is by far the best of the three. A kind of disco era updating of Hitchcock's Psycho (minus the suspense) and precursor to William Lustig's Maniac. Dan Grimaldi plays abused mamma's boy Donny who freaks out after seeing a work colleague set on fire. Naturally he decides to build a metal room in his house in which he chains up bimbo's before setting to them with a flamethrower. Lovely bloke is our Donny, but this is nowhere near as graphic as expected and almost works as a rudimentary character study before climaxing with an effective surreal sequence involving charred victims returning to life. I first discovered this minor sleaze classic after buying Stephen Thrower's excellent tome Nightmare USA: The Untold Story Of The Exploitation Independents (also mentioned in the cover notes of this Arrow release). I highly recommend that book to any cult horror fans yet to own a copy. In fact pretty much all the cult/horror books put out by FAB Press are great.

I've mentioned the three gialli here so often I really can't be bothered to go into detail again. Suffice to A Bay Of Blood aka Twitch Of The Death Nerve is the best and Four Flies the worst of the trio. There.



Some compilation dvds and a laughable crap fest on Tarantino's now defunct dvd label. The Midnite Movies double was bought solely for my love of Shelly Winters doing her late entries into the Baby Jane cycle. I picked up the quadruple feature specifically for Oliver Stone's 1981 hoot-fest The Hand in which Michael Caine plays a cartoonist who loses his mitt in a car accident before experiencing the kind of phantom amputee horrors that would put Bruce Campbell's Evil Dead incarnation to shame. Check this one out it's a real blast with climactic scenes that surely influenced Sam Raimi and co. Deadly Friend is Wes Craven's best forgotten mash-up of Short Circuit and Frankenstein whilst Someone's Watching Me is John Carpenter's forgotten (for a reason) 70's TV movie. I know nothing about the other film in the set.




The rest are Demon Wind a better than you'd expect Evil Dead rip off with some amusing pre-CGI makeups and plenty of claret. Autopsy aka The Magician is an apparently whacked out giallo I haven't gotten around to yet. Beyond Re-Animator is Brian Yuzna's decent Spanish lensed continuation of Herbert West's experiments - in prison. Mackenna's Gold is another western I'll no doubt sit down to one Sunday afternoon whilst Joe Dante's Piranha and Bartel's Death Race 2000 are upgrades bought solely for the special features on offer. That just leaves erotic thriller Thief Of Hearts a mega cheesy guilty pleasure with an Italo disco style soundtrack; East End Hustle a rubbish Canux-ploitation hooker revenge drama given appalling unmastered pan and scan treatment by Troma dvd. And the uncut (for us Brits) R1 edition of Strange Days.

Until the next time...

Excellent as always, mate.

The Onion Field I haven't seen since I was a kid. I remember all the parents really liked that. It seemed like one of the houses on our road had a copy of that every week. I don't care for Rollercoaster. Two Minute Warning's not bad, though. Hit! used to be on TCM, back in the mid/late 90's.

Dolls is silly fun. I agree with you about I Spit On Your Grave. As I've said before, on the rare occassion I watch it, I used start with the last couple of minutes of the rape and then watch her go. I'm sure I've got a copy of Don't Go In The House, somewhere as part of a double bill. Somthing tells me it's Don't Answer The Phone, but I'd have to check to make sure. Island Of Death is, as you say, unintentionally funny and bizzare in equal measure, I think.

Not seen The Hand since I was a kid. I remember recording it on a late night BBC1 and getting up early to watch it the next day.

The Magician rings a bell.

I much prefer Rollercoaster which has better pacing and a really likable lead performance from George Segal as the righteous busy body. Two Minute Warning has a slow first hour with Chuck and John Cassavetes on screen for all of five minutes. Thankfully the last forty are quite exciting hence my purchase. I also like some of the nerdy in-jokes such as Walter Pidgeon playing a pickpocket a la his role in Harry In Your Pocket.

Hi folks! It's been a tough four months since my last post. We've recently moved to a nice new house, but had to stay with a friend temporarily due to unforeseen bureaucracy i.e. conniving estate agents (hate 'em). My dvd collection has spent the last two months in storage (and the most anally packed boxes you've ever seen). But now I'm happy to say it's unpacked, shelved and looking better than ever...oh and there's some new additions...



Kicking off with three 70's flicks, my favourite of which has to be Ulu Grosbard's Straight Time - Grosbard took over directorial duties from Dustin Hoffman. Excellent overlooked crime thriller with Dusty on top form as a small time hood who just can't quite shake his criminal past. Top notch support from the likes of Theresa Russell as his naive love interest, Gary Busy as the dimwitted best friend Willy; Cathy Bates (almost unreconisable playing Willy's wife); Harry Dean Stanton as a twitchy criminal accomplice (reminiscent of Jon Cazale's character in Dog Day Afternoon), and M. Emmett Walsh as a decidedly nasty parole officer - put this well above similar fare. Highly recommended.

The Panic In Needle Park may well the quintessential gritty 70's New York druggie movie, with Al Pacino and Kitty Winn giving virtuoso performances as young lovers throwing their lives away on smack. Brilliantly made in a semi-documentary style with loads of lovely authentic New York ambiance. This is both hopelessly depressing and remarkably uplifting in the best kind of way.

Next up is Mikey And Nicky: another low key off-beat gangster movie with real life friends Peter Falk and John Cassavetes providing the expected chemistry. Not to everyone's taste this is very rough around the edges in a Mean Streets kind of way, and the pacing is deliberate to the point of insanity, but it's still rewarding for fans of the stars and their humour - which I am. Incidentally this dvd has a poor quality transfer (it only cost me £1 pre-owned so I wasn't too upset).

Next up three Australian outings (love my Aussie films) beginning with Metal Skin; another cult flick that flew under most people's radars on release (probably due to the poor critical reception it received). Grim stuff as you'd expect from Romper Stomper director Geoffrey Wright, but all the ingredients for a cool-ass movie are in there. Nihilistic scummy characters, visual style to spare, violence,and fast cars. Need I say more?

Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story Of Ozploitation! is a somewhat superficial but highly amusing look at Aussie B-movies from the 70's and 80's, and hence right up my street. I already own many of the films featured and am desperately trying to track down one or two others. Road Games was a no brainer for the price on Amazon. A decent little homage to Hitchcock's Rear Window (and to a certain extent Speilberg's Duel), with Stacey Keach as an amiable trucker who picks up hitcher Jamie Lee Curtis who swears she's being stalked by another murderous truck driver. This one never quite goes where you think it will considering Custis' slasher credentials at the time. First saw and taped it late on BBC1 about eighteen years ago and am glad to finally own the dvd.



I've droned on about Dredd way too much over the past year, so I'll just say that as a life long fan of the comics, I dug it...a lot.

Sweeney! is the awesomely violent and politically incorrect big screen spin-off of British institution TV show The Sweeney. It's more 70's than a room full of moustachioed, pork chop sideburned lotharios in beige flares and brown plaid sports jackets. The remake's for poofs

Berberian Sound Studio is Peter Strickland's mouth watering homage to the Italian Giallo, and European horror cinema of the 70's. The David Lynch style conclusion isn't really up my street (though I think overall the film owes more to Antonioni's Blow-Up than anything by Lynch), but the wonderfully subtle giallo in-jokes most certainly are. Everything from obscure fare like Giulio Questi's Death Laid An Egg (that poultry), to classics like Argento's Deep Red and Suspiria gets a nod, right down to composers and actors. The casting is also superb with Toby Jones mild mannered Gilderoy the perfect foil for the often crass and obnoxious Italian producers portrayed. A true and wonderful assault on the senses and my vote for best British movie of 2012.

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? is a long time fave that has been OOP for a couple of years in the UK. Ironically I have a few films from the cycle of 'women in peril' thrillers it spawned, but only managed to track down the dvd second hand a few weeks back. A bargain at £2.

The Stepfather is another recently remade classic from the 80's that plays a bit like a TV movie (that awful cloying soundtrack), but features a fantastic performance from Terry O' Quinn as the titular 'dad' with a line in dodgy jumpers that makes Noel Edmonds look like John Galliano.

Lastly Of Unknown Origin is a really great little satirical horror thriller from the late George P. Cosmatos. Peter Weller plays a high flying banker at war with a giant rat that's regularly laying waste to his apartment. Blackly comic this is surprisingly restrained and clever; way better than you'd expect.



Ok I'm going to keep things brief for the rest of these, with three flicks that decrease in quality from left to right. Forbidden Planet is a worthy sci-fi classic, Saturn 3 a ropey semi-remake with an even goofier looking robot, and Nemesis, which might just be hack director Albert Pyun's best movie. A stupidly convoluted, but well choreographed and visually impressive cyborg action-fest, that shock horror; doesn't star Rutger Hauer.

Maximum Overdrive, Silver Bullet, and Cat's Eye are part of a Stephen King boxset I picked up on Amazon brand new for £3. Not great movies but for that price it's definitely worth the admission. Firestarter is the best of the bunch if only to marvel at George C. Scott's Peter Stringfellow inspired fashion sense.



The first three are more recent horror efforts that should need no introduction. Tucker & Dale V's Evil was pretty much an instant cult classic, with The Cabin In The Woods last years horror blockbuster, and Session 9 a more serious and superior (for the genre) affair.

Rain Of Fire aka Holocaust 2000 is an Italian made Omen rip-off from the 70's which I haven't seen yet. Still all the ingredients look to be there. Take An Easy Ride is another bonefide British cult 70's movie. At an event packed 44 minutes this is one part public information film, one part sexploitation horror in a Wes Craven's Last House On The Left vein. Well worth a look if you're a fan of the genre but hate being bored out of your brain for two thirds of the movie.

Lastly I already own the R2 Xtro trilogy boxset on the film2000 label, but plumped for the newer Optimum release of the first (and best) film for reasons of a more complete and better quality print.



Here's the rest which I'll just list...

The Sword And The Sorcerer
Hell Night
The Glass House
Django, Prepare A Coffin
Cutter's Way - slow but Jon Heard's performance is Oscar worthy in my opinion.
The Spy Who Came In From The Cold
The Quiller Memorandum
Killer Joe

Whoops! Almost forgot these overdue (but naturally seen many times before) additions to my Cronenberg collection - the crappy Fly II a 'meh' bonus.



Anyway it's good to be back in business on Mofo.

Until the next time...

Dredd!!

Recently made #2 on my New Top 100.

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Yup, it's a badass flick.

So many people I speak to love the stripped down simplicity and Karl Urban's interpretation of the character. Shame the film bombed in the states and we wont get a sequel.

Some amazing additions to your collection there!

The Quiller Memorandum
Panic in Needle Park
Dredd

Whatever Happened To Baby Jane? - I have this edition but was thinking of upgrading to the blu-ray digibook. Still haven't decided.

Session 9
Cabin in the Woods
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil
Berbian Sound Studio
Killer Joe

^ Fabulous.

I love Tucker & Dale vs Evil and Session 9.

Both are brilliant in what they attempt to accomplish.

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Nice collection nice to have you back

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Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship.
Buddha

Thanks for the comments everyone.

I actually forgot to add a few titles in the last post and only remembered when Nausicaä mentioned Baby Jane. For some reason I neglected to include the sort-of-sequel Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte.



Prometheus was an automatic purchase and improves with each successive viewing. God Bless America is Bobcat Goldthwaite's hugely satisfying rant on modern American pop culture. Excellent.

The rest are my only remaining videos. To the best of my knowledge TerrorVision hasn't had a dvd release, whereas The Kindred, and John McNaughton's The Borrower have only had the overly priced crappy vhs transfer treatment - both discs are rare to boot. Cool movies that need a decent dvd release in my opinion. The Sect aka La Setta is Italian horror maestro Michele Soavi's overlooked classic that I haven't got around to upgrading yet. I strategically placed some more of my movie books in the background for good measure.

Next, at the behest of my good lady wife who's an even bigger fan than I am...

Bond...

James Bond...



The boxset contains gorgeous special editions of every film up until the Casino Royale re-make. We've yet to add Skyfall but I'm sure Kathy will pick a copy up soon enough. Technically these are hers so I'm cheating a little, but she insisted they be included.

Only The Sweeney! there, for me, that's absolute top drawer. I'd recommend Sweeney 2, as well, but it's not as good. I liked Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story Of Ozploitation!, though I'm sure I learnt a lot more from it than you did.

I've still to see Berberian Sound Studio and Killer Joe, but both are films I'm looking forward to. I've still not seen Cabin In The Woods, either, and I (think) I'm still blissfully ignorant of just about everything about it.

Good to see you around the place again.

A damning indictment of my latest update sir!

Boo Hiss Boo!!! to you.

Back by unpopular demand (meaning none at all) it's time for another cavalcade of crap.

Can't believe it's been over two years since I darkened this thread. Plenty more unclassics where the last lot came from, but where to begin?

Decided to break this down into a series of posts and begin with a trip to Australia via the wild west...before arriving in fantasy territory...



Kicking off with the German release of Corbucci's The Mercenary (with crappy Django Unchained inspired cover art), and an excellent dual format edition of Solima's The Big Gundown which features the uncut English language version as well as Solima's Italian language cut. I already have a bootleg of the infamous Franco Cleef composite which mashes the two together, so plumbed for this region 1 version over the European release. Mannaja is Sergio Martino's underrated late genre entry (one of the very last spaghetti westerns made). Shot in Italy in their only remaining western town it's got atmosphere to spare (thanks to Martino shooting everything in fog to cover up the crumbling sets) plus Maurizio Merli throwing a big axe around. Cool.



Next we have a blu ray upgrade (kinda) of my Grand Duel and Keoma dvd's which I'm keeping for the extras. The Grand Duel transfer is significantly better than that of Keoma which is still serviceable. These are on the low budget Mill Creek label, but I picked it up in Dollarama for $3 so it's quite the bargain really. Lastly we have Ace High which is the second entry in Giuseppe Colizi's spaghetti trilogy (the disappointingly serious God Forgives, I Don't, and the tragically unfunny Boot Hill being the first and third entries). Like many films in the genre it's atmospheric violent and slow, but I like Terrence Hill and Bud Spencer (despite them looking rather grumpy in these) and this was the only one I hadn't seen. Elli Wallach is cool as a Greek gunfighter too.



Skin Game is on the Warner archive label and I reviewed it shortly before my sabbatical. Monte Walsh is a very depressing but no less excellent tear jerker about the end of the old west. It's similar to Will Penny in many ways but more downbeat and not as satisfying. The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean has become one of my favourite films, but had been OOP for a while before this Warner archive release showed up. The Missouri Breaks is a very offbeat western (given a poor transfer by MGM here) with Brando's dodgy Irish accent and bizarre choice of outfits providing the main source of entertainment. It's still rather good though.

OK time for some ocker madness...



Kicking off with the Australian release of Mario Andreacchio's 1986 exploiter Fair Game. This one plays like a weird precursor to Heneke's Funny Games, crossed with Zarchi's I Spit On Your Grave. Though it's a surprisingly non-graphic exercise in playful intimidation leading to the inevitable Mad Max insipred revenge. Not bad if a little on the slow side. I tabbed The Man from Hong Kong recently and will reiterate again how much I love this one. Infact I'll be adding it to my 100 favourites, where it will tie with Enter the Dragon which it's clearly emulating along with James Bond. This Australian release also has some great extras on disc 2 like Kung Fu Killers, a fun documentary made at the height of the 70's martial arts craze and presented by Grant Page. Awesome. Deathcheaters is yet another Trenchard-Smith/Grant Page collaboration that I haven't gotten around to yet.



Dark Age is killer croc movie with aboriginal mysticism and ecological undertones. A little short on blood, and the beastie looks ridiculous, but Ray Meagher (aka Alf Stewart from Home & Away) certainly brightens things up in a supporting role. Admittedly this 80's monster flick isn't the greatest (despite what Quentin Tarantino says) but looks nice next to my copies of Black Water and Rogue. In the middle we have the German release of The Chain Reaction aka Nuclear Run. The cheeky cover art tries to make this look like some Mad Max spin-off, what with Steve Bisley (aka the Goose) starring and Mel making a two second cameo as a bearded mechanic. Other cast members from George Miller's classic also feature; namely Hugh Keays-Byrne (Toecutter), Roger Ward (Max's boss, Fifi), and Tim Burns (Johnny the Boy). Another eco-thriller mixing elements of The China Syndrome, with Mad Max this is a weird little genre blend with a really cool electronic score. Lastly we have the US release of Harlequin aka Dark Forces. Easily the best of this trio, it's a hokey supernatural fantasy-melodrama set in the world of politics with Robert Powell rather good as a Rasputin inspired mystic. Well worth a look.



The Proposition really needs no introductions. Wake In Fright has been mentioned a lot on MoFo over the last twelve or so months. I reviewed it a couple of years ago in my thread. This is the US Drafthouse release which has an excellent transfer and extras. I'm just sorry I bought it six months before Eureka released their dual format R2 edition. Great film. The Hard Word is a somewhat under appreciated gritty heist flick starring Guy Pearce again.

Time for some fantasy...



Why doesn't anyone mention Warlock anymore? A video rental hit this low budget gem has been given a decent anamorphic transfer for the R2 release. Bare bones but the film is lots of fun with Julian Sands perfectly cast as the titular male witch and Richard E. Grant in spectacular oddball form as a pursuing hunter out to save the world. Sure it mixes elements of The Terminator and Highlander but it's very entertaining with some amusing cheapo effects. Check it out.

Next the R2 collectors tin blu ray of Ron Howard's Willow which I received in the post from Warwick Davis no less (my wife knows someone who has been working with him). Look closely and you can see he's signed it with the words believe in magic. Warwick also sent me a signed Star Wars magazine with Wicket on the cover, a signed copy of Leprechaun 4 and some autographed (personally to me) promotional art for Willow. What a lovely bloke. I'll be happy to post pics of the other stuff he sent if anyone's interested.

Lastly we have Dragonslayer which I tabbed recently. A rather great sword and sorcery epic from Disney with some impressive (for the time) stop motion animation and model work from Phil Tippet.

Coming up...sci-fi , horror, gritty crime, a little bit of artiness, and more grindhouse...

I'll be back to comment later on, mate. )

No one mentions Warlock for the very reasons you mention.

The Man From Hong Kong looks just like my kind of thing. How much did it cost you? It's on youtube atm, so I'll probably watch it there and then, if I like it, I'll look into getting a copy.

I hate Willow. Terrible bloody film. Warrick Davis always seems like a really decent bloke, though. Did you see him in An Idiot Abroad or Life Is Short? Good stuff.

For some reason Robert Powell playing a Rasputin-type figure is ringing bells for me, though I don't think I've seen that film. Maybe I'm getting it mixed up with Jesus Of Nazareth.

Looking forward to the next instalment. At least there won't be fantasy or Spaghetti Westerns.

If I've not said it before, it's great to have you back, UF.