There’s an iconic photo taken on the shooting of “Apocalypse Now” of director Francis Ford Coppola holding a pistol to his head, his eyes locked with the camera in a bestial, glazed look. That pose may well have been a joke, but it’s served to encapsulate the passion and terror behind “Apocalypse Now” a director […]
At some point between making “Audition”, “Ichi the Killer” and “Dead or Alive”, notorious Japanese director Takashi Miike managed to direct the outlandish film “The City of Lost Souls”, a crime and gangster film that depicts the rotten underground of Tokyo. Of course, this is all tedious stuff for Miike, who has been firmly entranced
This week, I was surprisingly entertained by Ben Stiller’s latest comedy, “Tropic Thunder”, a movie about the making of a movie that goes native in the jungles of Vietnam. Quite obviously, the movie parodies “Apocalypse Now”, with its tale of madness in the Heart of Darkness. While “Tropic Thunder” makes a few jabs at Francis
It is of no small importance that Umbrella Entertainment decided to release the 1974 sci-fi film, “Silent Running”, on this year. At the very least, interest in the movie was piqued by Danny Boyle’s latest movie, “Sunshine”, which draws heavily from “Silent Running”. The 1974 film depicts a bleak future, when the Earth has become
Richard Green was in Long Bay Prison in New South Wales when director Kriv Stenders approached him for a part in a short film, and would use Green to star in “Boxing Day”, a ferocious Australian film with teeth made of razor blades. Green is an Indigenous spoken word poet, with a powerful voice and
For today’s Friday Filth, we have the raunchy 80s comedy, “Hamburger… The Motion Picture”, a title that was chosen because, apparently, just “Hamburger” would confuse moviegoers into ordering burgers at the cinema. The 80s were a wonderful time for useless, ridiculous comedy, and the sex comedy was the king of the hill. Many fond memories
In 1979, Werner Herzog remade the 1922 silent German film “Nosferatu”, bringing the movie into full colour and sound, but keeping much of the atmosphere and look of F.W. Murnau’s classic. Herzog considered the original “Nosferatu” to be the most important German film, and, on the receiving end of a large budget, wanted to make
“Dark Star” is an odd science fiction movie from 1974 that features a ship manned by four miserable spacemen, an alien that looks like a beachball, and an argumentative bomb. It’s a terrible movie, really, especially since sci-fi has been built, since then, on the shoulders of giants. Why, would Umbrella Entertainment release the movie
This movie has a special place in my memory, it came out in 1986, and for a couple of years, it was the funniest movie on the playground. I hadn’t seen it, of course, but I could quote the hell out of it. Movies from the 80s are a tricky proposition having rewatched some ‘classic’
Yesterday, I criticized Guardian film critic, Ron Bergan, for being too pretentious about the ‘art of cinema’. Though reading his posts is similar to being reprimanded by your father for throwing dirt in the street, he does have a wide knowledge of film, and his recommendations are probably worth watching. Bergan recommended The Story of
