Murder on the Orient Express was the surprise hit of 2017, earning critical praise and taking in over $350 million at the box office. A combination of COVID-19 and some casting controversy delayed follow up Death on the Nile until 2022, although with anti-vaccination crank Letitia Wright and Russell Brand also in the cast, the question must be asked: was everyone a bit too hasty when it came to tearing chunks out of Armie Hammer? However we can now put…
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Pulgasari 1985
Pulgasari is probably the most widely known North Korean film, which I admit might not be saying much, that's probably like talking about Moldova's most famous pop act, but here we are. The story of its making, whereby agents of Kim Jong-il kidnapped Shin Sang-ok, a famous South Korean film director and imprisoned him and his wife in a re-education camp for several years before forcing him at literal gunpoint to make movies for the state before they finally escaped…
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Stunt Rock 1978
For something that isn't actually a proper film, Stunt Rock, surprisingly, makes the grade as an entertaining movie. Usually you have to read up on the behind the scenes stuff or watch really closely to see all the compromises made to get a production like this happening, however with Stunt Rock it's right there in front of you. Famously the result of a burst of shower-based inspiration, Brian Trenchard-Smith's pitch of "Famous stuntman meets famous rock group, much stunt and…
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Havana Widows 1933
A recommendation from my classic Hollywood guru, Anna, and what a delightful bit of pre-Code fluff this turned out to be. There's too much plot that's resolved with a few too many coincidences but that's not the main event. No, the real appeal of Havana Widows are our blonde gal pals, as played by Joan Blondell and Glenda Farrell. This was the first of five movies the duo made as a comedy team, and their chemistry and banter makes all…
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The Batman 2022
Like most non-hardcore fans my response when this film was announced was to wonder aloud in strongly expressed terms whether we needed yet another Batman film. Especially given we just wrapped up the previous iteration of this character last year, and since Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises hit cinemas in July 2012, we're now on our third different caped crusader in less than a decade. Still, as with almost everything in life it's about quality rather than quantity, and…
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Zerograd 1988
No one seriously predicted the Soviet Union would ever collapse the way it did. Sure, there was hope from democratic and/or nationalist activists inside the USSR as well as in those nominally independent states that were still in effect ruled by the Kremlin through the Warsaw Pact just as there was from the USSR's geopolitical foes without, but these hopes were tempered by an acceptance that nothing was likely to change. That is to say hardly anyone in 1988 would…
