Better late than never, but it's a crying shame that I only caught Mike Hodges' superb neo-noir Croupier for the very first time this month. Would have been a worthy entry for my 101 G.O.A.T British Films list, otherwise.
Other notable discoveries were the second film in Nicolas Winding Refn's Pusher trilogy, and the yakuza tragedy Big Time Gambling Boss.
In terms of more recent films, Candy Land and M3GAN were both a very fine start to 2023. Looking forward to Brandon Cronenberg's Infinity Pool whenever that comes out.
Film:
The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947)
Cash on Demand (Quentin Lawrence, 1961)
Big Time Gambling Boss (Kôsaku Yamashita, 1968)*
The Eiger Sanction (Clint Eastwood, 1975)
Absolution (Anthony Page, 1978)
The Medusa Touch (Jack Gold, 1978)
Don’t Answer the Phone! (Robert Hammer, 1980)
Saturday the 14th (Howard R. Cohen, 1981)*
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Red Spell Spells Red (Titus Ho, 1983)*
The Lost Empire (Jim Wynorski, 1984)*
American Rickshaw (Sergio Martino, 1989)*
Beware: Children at Play (Mik Cribben, 1989)*
Hitcher in the Dark (Umberto Lenzi, 1989)*
964 Pinocchio (Shozin Fukui, 1991)*
Tiger Claws (Kelly Makin, 1991)*
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
The Stöned Age (James Melkonian, 1994)
Croupier (Mike Hodges, 1998)*
Conversation with a Devil (Andre Nickatina, 2003)*
Pusher II (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2004)*
Hatching (Hanna Bergholm, 2022)
Candy Land (John Swab, 2023)*
M3GAN (Gerard Johnstone, 2023)*
Television:
Behind the Beat Special: Public Enemy (Terry Jervis, 1988)*
Ghosts - Seasons 1 - 4 (Matthew Baynton, Jim Howick, Laurence Rickard, Martha Howe-Douglas, Bill Willbond & Simon Farnaby, 2019 - 2022)*
Mastermind - Episodes 15 - 19 (Bill Wright, 2022 - 2023)*
*First time viewings.
Dada Debaser Notes:
- The last few minutes of Beware: Children at Play are the only memorable scenes from it.
- I can totally accept a Sergio Martino film where rickshaw pullers are akin to celebrities in Miami, or Donald Pleasence shape changing into a pig, but my suspension of disbelief is broken when the female lead is a flat-chested topless dancer that happens to be popular.
- Always remember seeing Saturday the 14th in various video shops in the early eighties. Finally watched it and it wasn't worth the effort.
- Umberto Lenzi has got to be one of the most non-PC film makers of all time. Naively expected Hitcher in the Dark to have been a much tamer effort from him, but it got real dark.
- Red Spell Spells Red was a blind watch where I had no idea it contained so much actual animal cruelty. Bizarrely borrows Jerry Goldsmith's compositions from The Omen (1976) and First Blood (1982) for its score, too.
- Always loved Clint Eastwood's underrated The Eiger Sanction, but I've also appreciated it for being the source of a killer sample by The Beatnuts.
- Separated at birth: Marty from Slaughter High (1986) and Arthur from Absolution (1978).
10 comments:
😄 @ Nickatina's movie making the list. Good album too.
Good spot on the Beatnuts sample. Do you like Ghosts then? I'm assuming you must do if you've watched all 4 seasons.
Movies:
Cash On Demand
Where Has Poor Mickey Gone?
Cisco Pike
Empire Of Light
TV:
Early Doors (series 1 & 2)
Riptide
How Hip Hop Changed The World
Only Connect
Awaiting The Martorialist's Best of Andre Nickatina compilation. Conversation... was more entertaining than most of the other SoV films I binged last year.
Enjoyed Ghosts a great deal. Pat, Julian & Robin are my fave characters.
Only caught a few mins of How Hip Hop Changed the World. Any good?
I've only watched 3 of the 4 episodes, but it's pretty good. Standard retelling of Hip-Hop's origins and story, but looks at it from a more sociopolitical perspective without being boring.
Robin is the G.O.A.T ghost. Dukka dukka.
I'm hardly a Nickatina expert, but my two faves are his The New Jim Jones album from the 90s when he was known as Dre Dog, and Conversation With A Devil.
Was initially put off by the politics, but might give it a watch. MC Lyte looked well old in the brief clip I caught.
Only really familiar with I'm A Pisces, but I've dug old tracks like Nickatina Says and a couple of others in more recent times.
Also, tried watching The Witchfinder, but couldn't make it through the first episode.
Nickatina Says is such a choon. His Khanthology best of compilation is a good starting place too, though it's missing some of the best Dre Dog era tracks.
Cheers, I'll check it out on Spotify. His old material costs a fortune on CD.
The days of coppin' old rap albums on CD for dirt cheap from Amazon third party sellers appears long gone.
Tell me about it. I only have 3 Nickatina albums on CD and 1 of them is a Bork reissue.
Speaking of Borks, I didn't realise they expanded from obscure boom bap to more regional artists until I checked out that site selling the Children of the Corn album.
Yeah, there's a pretty big market for regional gangsta-rap reissues nowadays. Currently it's like 40% good shit stuff that's now too pricey for the originals, 60% generic shit which nobody would care about if it wasn't rare.
Somehow the rap game reminds me of the blu-ray game.
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