Tag: ambush

Tokyo Pop

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 1 May 2025
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Director – Fran Rubel Kuzui – 1988 – US, Japan – Cert. 18 – 99m

****

A girl singer, fed up with being sidelined by the music business in New York, relocates to Tokyo and falls in with local rock band hopefuls there – select UK cinema screenings from Friday, April 25th prior to its Blu-ray release on Monday, May 5th

“Hey, Mike, when do I get to use my song?” asks the band’s disgruntled, leather-clad back-up singer, feeling redundant as she stands on stage holding a tambourine. Her music career in New York stalling fast, Wendy (Carrie Hamilton from Cool World, Ralph Bakshi, 1995; Shag, Zelda Barron, 1989) receives a “Wish you were here” postcard from her friend Jane in Japan and shoots back a reply: “Hope you meant it – ‘cos I’m coming.”

In Japan, a band does an English language cover of Blue Suede Shoes. When Wendy arrives in Tokyo, her girlfriend has moved on to Thailand. Barely speaking any Japanese, Wendy winds up in a cheap hotel in Itabashi the space of a small Japanese apartment where footwear is removed on entering and, as an Aussie resident tells her, everything operates on credit card and a shower is Y100 for ten minutes.… Read the rest

Tags ambush, angel, bath, bets, Blue Suede Shoes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Carrie Hamilton, catchphrases, censorship, chasu ramen, cheap hotel, composition, corporate toilet, credit card, demo tape, Diamond Yukai, exposure, fame, food bar, footwear is removed, Fran Rubel Kuzui, front office, gaijin, gorilla suit, grandpa, harbour, Hasumi Harukawa, heavy metal, Home on the Range, hostess bar, hotel, Itabashi, James Bond, Japan, Japanese, Japanese rock band, Japanese-American, karaoke, lavatory TV ad, leather, Makoto Fukuda, music business, music career, music producer, music venue, musician, New York, park, photographed, pick up girls, pick up lines, postcard, Red Warriors, religious shrine, romance, sexualised images, shower, singer, singing in English, singing telegram, support act, Taiji Tonoyama, taxi, Tetsuro Tanba, Thailand, Tokyo, TV porno, US, vocalist, Wish You Were Here, wrestling gig, You Make Me Feel (Like a Natural Woman)

Features Live Action Movies

The Lavender Hill Mob

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 26 March 2024
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Director – Charles Crichton – 1951 – UK – Cert. U – 78m

*****

A Bank of England employee stumbles upon the perfect means to rob his employer of the gold bullion he transports there on a daily basis– classic Ealing comedy is back out in a new 4k restoration in UK cinemas on Friday, March 29th

Holland (Alec Guinness) has a lowly job at the Bank of England supervising the transfer of recently minted bars of gold bullion to the bank’s secure vault by security van., He rides in the back and is forever asking the harried driver to check round the corner for suspected cars lying in wait to ambush the van. He is considered an honest nobody, an appearance he has cultivated for the best part of two decades. He has a mind to rob the van, if only he could work out how to smuggle the bullion out of the country.

Fate intervenes in the form of a newly arrived tenant at the downmarket Balmoral Guest House in Lavender Hill, where he lodges. Pendlebury (Stanley Holloway) runs a business selling tourist tat, including lead models of the Eiffel Tour for selling at that Parisian monument. He melts the lead down on his London premises to cast it into the models.… Read the rest

Tags 1950s, Alec Guinness, Alfie Bass, alibi, ambush, Audrey Hepburn, back projection, Balmoral, bank clerk, Bank of England employee and employer, bank vault, breathlessness incompetent police, bureaucracy, burglar, car chase, casting metal, Charles Crichton, collision, comedy, cops and robbers, crime, criminals, crooks, downtrodden, Ealing comedy, Eiffel Tower, England, English schoolgirls, evidence, factory, falling into the river, faux respectability, fugitives, gang, gangster novels, giddy, gold bars, gold bullion, Guest House, heist, honest nobody, humour, industrial process, kaleidoscopic, landlady, Lavender Hill, lead and gold, lodgings, London, melt down, mistaken for a thief; bound and gagged, mob, national newspaper stories, nursery rhyme, Old Macdonald Had a Farm, Paris, plucky little hero, police and thieves, police cars, policemen on the beat, post-war, promotion, pronunciation, pursuit, radio, rebel against the system, rescued, Rio de Janeiro, robbery, safe cracker, salacious, schoolgirls, security van, self-advancement, Sidney James, smelt, smuggle, snatch and grab, spiral staircase, Stanley Holloway, T.E.B. Clarke, the missing piece, the perfect crime, tourist tat, UK, whimsy

Features Live Action Movies

The Northman

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 13 April 2022
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Director – Robert Eggers – 2022 – US – Cert. 15 – 136m

*****

A 10th Century Viking prince vows revenge on his father king’s killer and sees it through to death – out in cinemas on Friday, April 15th

Young Viking Prince Amleth (Oscar Novak from The Batman) is thrilled when his warrior father King Aurvandil War-Raven (Ethan Hawke) returns with a line of prisoners in two to his fortified stronghold and Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman). Father and son are devoted to each other, participating in a private ritual involving bodily sounds and consumption of an hallucinogenic liquid that causes the boy to experience a vision of his family line: a tree of life where the trunk is a spine and branches are umbilical cords attached to grown kings as the viewpoint pans up reveal the boy attached to the highest cord. He is now prepared to take over the rule of the kingdom when his father dies.

He doesn’t seem to get on quite so well with his mother, who warns him never to enter her room unannounced. At a banquet in honour of Aurvandil, his dour brother Fjölnir (Claes Bang from The Square, Ruben Östlund, 2017) takes exception to court jester Heimir the Fool (Willem Dafoe).… Read the rest

Tags ambush, Amleth, Anya Taylor-Joy, arrow, avenge, banquet, beheading, berserker, Björk), body parts, CG, CG effects, CG FX, choreography, Claes Bang, court jester, cudgel, decapitation, dismemberment, drama, dynasty, earthy, Eldar Skar, Elliott Rose, environment, Ethan Hawke, family line, farm, fathers and sons, fight choreography, five-a-side, flee, fool, gore, Gustav Lindh, hallucinogenic, hamlet, husbands and wives, interactive, jester, king, king and queen, mayhem, menstrual blood, multiple camera coverage, murder, myth, Nicole Kidman, Oscar Novak, period, period detail, prisoners, pursuit, queen, regicide, research, revenge, revenge drama, revenge tragedy, ritual, Robert Eggers, seer, Shakespeare, single take, Slav, slave, slavery, stabbing, stronghold, sword, tragedy, tree of life, umbilical cord, vengeance, violent, vision, warrior, Willem Dafoe, woodland