A letter I wrote to my favorite director on his 80th birthday.

I love you, John Waters.

Excellent stuff

John Waters on camp, Trump and being Mr. Know-It-All The cult filmmaker received the Pardo d’onore Manor career achievement award at Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival. It was a nice excuse for a chat.

Happy Birthday, John Waters, my one interviewee for The Face (RIP)
theface.com/culture/john...

State of Statham Address Assessing the current state of the Jason Statham film industrial complex

My State of Statham Address is up at Old New: oldnew.substack.com/p/state-of-s...

Every single time I read a new @angelicabastien.bsky.social piece, I want to hang it up. Nobody better right now.

John Waters wearing a bright red suit in a blue room. He is blowing into a party noisemaker and next to him is a cake with an "80" candle on top for his birthday

It's John Waters' 80th Birthday...and where would cult cinema, midnight movies, and queer film be without him? By celebrating kitsch, filth, and the enduring power of good bad taste, he continues to inspire so many to go do the damn thing. Make depraved art today (and always) in honor of John.

Korean Cinema’s Celluloid Fever: The 1970s This May, FLC and Subway Cinema explore a transformative time period in Korean cinema and its influence on the films of today, including rare archival prints and new restorations of some of the most d...

Fantastic season of classic Korean cinema coming to Film at Lincoln Center next month

Not overselling: This is fucking incredible

It’s the colourful poster for Zombie For Sale which shows the family and zombie boy

Rewatched Zombie For Sale (aka The Odd Family: Zombie on Sale / 기묘한 가족) - it’s still very funny, everyone in this is allowed to be dumb and goofy and that’s wonderful, the flying kicks still made me gaffaw.
Jung Jae-young, Lee Soo-kyung , Kim Nam-gil and Uhm Ji-won all with perfect comedy delivery

oops - *life* affirming…

There’s an exceptional essay on the new release of THE KILLER from @priscillapage.bsky.social: ‘neo-noir poetry, blood-drenched opera, soapy Sirkian melodrama. Greek tragedy with sub machine guns and geysering squibs…’ - wonderful stuff that verbalises just how beautiful and affirming this film is

Book cover: Lost Futures by Lisa Tuttle

Our fifth release by the great Lisa Tuttle is now up for preorder! LOST FUTURES (1992), originally part of the cutting-edge Dell Abyss line, is the story of a woman who suddenly finds herself living several lives simultaneously in different realities. www.valancourtbooks.com/lost-futures...

This was - for me - one of those ‘bring everything in the past to the forefront’ moments - and it adds weight to that whole Matt Smith era - which is, remarkable and really quite wonderful

Exclusive news/covers: “THE FOG” and “ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK” novelizations coming back from Echo On Publications. https://ow.ly/IxcG50YLx6L

Nathalie Baye lights a candle in François Truffaut’s THE GREEN ROOM (1977).

Nathalie Baye, an anchoring presence in films by Truffaut, Godard, Pialat, Chabrol, Sautet, Tavernier, and Blier, has died. She was 77.

veritas.enc.edu/news/disappe...

Haha - the ‘running over with the stretcher’ is great

That’s Nasty! The Bogey Man (1980) In 1983, the Director Of Public Prosecutions published its first list of movies which were tagged with the tabloid-friendly label of Video Nasties. These cinematic outliers were deemed to have to p…

Darren at Warped Perspective is doing some retrospectives of video nasties I'd urge people to check out (plus the site in general)

warped-perspective.com/2026/04/6856...

There is value in scarcity. Having access to unlimited media at all times keeps us shuffling back and forth between options that thereby lose their distinctiveness. Physical media carry weight because it’s a choice, a commitment.

I moved to digital films/music for a while for space reasons (housemove) and ‘lose their distinctiveness’ is exactly right.
I’m back to carefully chosen physical: tangible, booklets, artwork, extras (and loanable) they’re more meaningful.
Much like seeing something on the cinema screen is an ‘event’

Posters for MANTIS, THRASH, NOISE and THE GREAT FLOOD

Pretty underwhelming films this week, mildly diverting but nothing that really stood out for me

#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched

I preordered this in April 2025 lol hopefully that means it is coming here SOON TOO

I’m aware nostalgia plays a massive part in rating it so highly, I don’t think I could actually judge this anything close to objectively (although I know it’s very very good).

I’m even fond of the dub because that’s how I saw it the first couple of dozen times…

Delivered in time for Friday night viewing, this is all-time top ten - possibly top five - for me

Disco Elysium isn’t this ^ kind of game - it’s very slow and half the fun is in the ways that your character fails as much as succeeds at anything. I haven’t finished it yet but am highly enjoying the journey

It’s a snippet from an email that says - ‘Your parcel from Arrow Films is due to be delivered: Today, Friday 17 April 2026 Delivery is estimated between: 10.35am and 2.35pm”

“Yo Yo Yo Meth, where my Killer tape at?”

OpenAI: We’re burning money like the Joker. A miracle needs to happen for us to turn a profit

Microsoft: Please please use our AI systems, we’re teetering on the edge here

Anthropic: I wonder what’ll kill us first: lawsuits, regulations or model collapse

Media and universities: AI is here to stay

“I Would Save and I Would Be Saved”: Folk Horror, Masculinity, and a Sensible Heroine in Eye Of The Devil Bellenac’s vineyards are failing and the solution will not be a new strain or a scientific intervention. The farmers seek an older solution: a willing sacrifice.

"One of the great unexpected pleasures of Eye of the Devil is that the protagonist is a middle-aged woman who investigates an occult mystery to save the husband she loves." culturalgutter.com/2026/04/09/i...

55 birds drawn in white line on a black background

tweet tweet

I heard this - hopefully true - rumour too…

(from your post)

It’s the posters for the films for HUMINT, Hard-Boiled, Project Hail Mary and The Ipcress File

Two rewatches and two first-timers, all are incredibly entertaining and Hard-Boiled is *still* one of the all-time greats…

#LetterboxdFriday #LastFourWatched