A screenshot of Roger Ebert’s Letterboxd cast/crew page, showing that he wrote both Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

He wrote both of them

Starting an NZ cinema themed brunch spot called Breakfast of Campions where the most popular menu item is A Bagel at My Table

Japanese poster for Crime Hunter - Bullets of Rage

Young nun Lily (Minako Tanaka) holding detective Joker (Masanori Sera) at gunpoint

Lily and Joker on the ground in a gunfight

Joker holding another gun. I don’t know. There’s tonnes of guns in this movie

Tomorrow night at The Classic Film Club, Action April continues with Crime Hunter - Bullets of Rage. Launching the careers of V Cinema stars Riki Takeuchi and Seiji Matano, Crime Hunter is 59 minutes of cool dudes, explosions, jazz, nuns with guns, and a bizarre dance scene

7pm, entry is free

Very excited to watch this. These videos have been my favourite thing on the internet for the past year or so

Just got back from seeing The Mountain Goats with my mum. Incredible to finally see them live after loving them since early high school. John played You Were Cool during the solo set and I got so happy I teared up. Such a great show

Anyone in Auckland want a ticket to The Holy Mountain/The Devils double feature at 6:30pm tonight? I have to work and can’t go anymore

The only culture that my son, Orson Fugazi Nicolas, will be allowed to consume is the original runs of Calvin & Hobbes and The Muppet Show. At 14 he may choose to duel me to gain access to dub reggae and the films of Rainer Werner Fassbinder

I’ve been to Melbourne a bunch, both alone and with friends, and I’ve never had an easier time getting around a city

Basically all tram travel in the CBD is free, although I’m not crazy about the prices further out.

Screenshot from Wikipedia that reads: Deneuve began smoking in 1960 at age 16, and has been known to smoke up to three packs a day. She quit in 1985 with the aid of hypnotherapy, but started again in 1996. She quit again after her 2019 stroke, but by 2025, had resumed the habit using an electronic cigarette.

Catherine Deneuve, 82 year old confirmed vaper

A two-by-two grid of blurays (clockwise from top left): The Pit & the Pendulum, Dark Angel: The Ascent, Castle Freak, Head of the Family

A two-by-two grid of blurays (clockwise from top left): Made in Hong Kong - Volume One, The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb, The Films of Hisayasu Sato - Volume One, Castration Movie Anthology i. Traps

Recent arrivals from Full Moon and Vinegar Syndrome

Thursday is the one night I’m not working, so it’s the only time I can do it

I’d love to have you there if you’re ever free, but I totally understand if not

Had the third of my Classic Film Club screenings last night, showing The Vampires of Poverty and The Murder of Fred Hampton, and had a bigger audience than the first two screenings combined

Gary Cooper and Claudette Colbert in a promotional still for Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife (1938)

7pm tonight at The Classic I'm showing Bluebeard's Eighth Wife, Ernst Lubitsch's rom-com about a woman who finds out that her millionaire husband to be has been divorced 7 times before. Lubitsch's playful, progressive sensibilities make his battle of the sexes comedies totally unique and timeless

The Japanese poster for Sister Street Fighter: Hanging By A Thread (1974)

Martial Arts Monday #8

Sister Street Fighter: Hanging By A Thread (1974)

Very charmed by the first of these films. I was expecting it to be more of a romp than the mainline Street Fighter films, but it was still plenty brutal and bleak

If you use Tubi there are loads of fun b-Westerns from the 30s and 40s that are all about 60 minutes long. Under Western Stars (1938) has singing cowboy Roy Roger’s fighting corporate power for his town’s water rights. I also like the Hoppalong Cassidy films: Border Patrol (1943) is a good start

Some great and lesser seen Ford Westerns: Two Rode Together, Fort Apache, Wagon Train

Day of the Outlaw, a brilliant snowbound suspense Western

Anything by Anthony Mann, but especially Winchester ‘73 and The Tin Star

The Hired Hand

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

Open Range

Man Without a Star

An image from Daisies (1966), featuring the disembodied heads of Ivana Karbonová and Jitka Cerhová against a collage background

Starting this Thursday and then running every 1st/3rd/5th Thursday for the rest of the year I’ll be hosting The Classic Film Club, a free screening series at The Classic Comedy Club

Our first film will be Daisies (1966), Věra Chytilová’s masterpiece of femanarchist surrealism

Very excited for this

My hand holding the Arrow Blu-ray of the Sister Street Fighter collection

Martial Arts Monday #7

Sister Street Fighter (1974)

I’ve had the Sister Street Fighter films languishing on a shelf for the last four years, so I figure now is a good time to finally watch them. I enjoyed Etsuko Shihomi in the Street Fighter films, so it’s nice she got her own spin-off series

Horses take their census with a Gallop Poll

Western Wednesday #4

Sons of the Great Bear (1966)

East German Western about the plight of the Dakota Oglala tribes in the 1870s, probably full of very well meaning stereotypes and German guys playing Native Americans

Yuen Clan films are known for their outrageousness, their flashy special effects and wire-work, but there’s almost none of that here. The actual matches are obviously heightened, but outside of a couple of gags it’s all surprisingly grounded. There’s just tonnes of really impressive soccer playing

Structurally, this is just like any other kung fu film of the period, with soccer teams and matches taking the place of rival schools and competitions. The opening credits, with Yuen and Cheung Kwok-Keung demonstrating football tricks plays like a sports parody of a Lau Kar Leung credits sequence

Small-town hick Lee Tong (Yuen Biao) flees to the big city after humiliating a local bigwig. In the city he accidentally embarrasses soccer star The Football King (Dick Wei), who brings Lee onto his team to humiliate him in return. Lee becomes a soccer star, but must contend with triad match fixing

Martial Arts Monday #6

The Champions (1983)

New arrival today, a Yuen Biao starring soccer comedy with direction and fight choreography by various members of Yuen Woo-Ping’s family, the Yuen Clan

I gained a new appreciation for Biao last year and I’m excited to see lesser known Yuen Clan stuff

The actual final fight between Sean and Spencer is really interestingly shot, lit from beneath as they’re battling over a grille, casting a lattice of shadows over both men. In general there’s a bit more ambition with lighting and shooting than you’d expect

The climactic fight sequence is a bit disappointing for a Rothrock fan, as basically all 4 of the bad guys she beats are just unceremoniously knocked over railings to their deaths

But other than that it’s a pretty sturdy and watchable DTV programmer. Rothrock’s fights here pit her against groups of men at night, muggers and “won’t take no” bar creeps. My favourite bit in these scenes is when she kicks one of the creeps into a car door so hard that it comes off its hinges

Martial Law II: Undercover, is, to my great surprise, a fair bit better than the City Cops. There’s a bit of a laxness to the fights, not so much in the choreography or performances, but in the way that it’s shot/edited. Despite skilled performers, a lot of the fights seems stagey and weightless

LA cop Sean (Jeff Wincott) is promoted to detective and moved to a new precinct. When his new colleagues turn out to be in the pocket of local crime lord Spencer Hamilton (Paul Johansson), he calls in Billie (Rothrock), his best friend and fellow cop, to go undercover and help him take them out

Her biggest fight scene is against Japanese gangster Shikamuka (Luk Chuen), where she combats his katana with a pair of sai. Lots of focus on her impressive high kicks. She really should have some more fights, but time had to be made for the gag where she and Tai get turned on while eavesdropping