City On Fire (1987)

Saxophone is the weapon of choice for Teddy Robin’s score to City On Fire (1987). I couldn’t help but think of the David Sanborn sax sound to the Lethal Weapon soundtrack. What I love about Hong Kong cinema in the 1980s (and into the 1990s) is that circuit loop, of taking on influences from western […]

Sometimes A Great Notion (1971)

My mother had a couple of books about Paul Newman that I would leaf through growing up, so a lot of his movies would intrigue me and I’d remember the titles of. Sometimes A Great Notion (1971) was one I was keen to track down since Newman directed it himself and it was based on […]

Next Of Kin (1982)

Not to be confused with the Patrick Swayze action flick, Next Of Kin (1982) is an underrated Australian horror thriller, which has been championed as a classic by Quentin Tarantino in his appearance in Not Quite Hollywood, the documentary about “Ozploitation” reappraising Australian of the 1970s and 1980s, and the soundtrack is renown in some […]

Blow Out (1981)

A biography of Quentin Tarantino that I owned when I was 15 informed me that Blow Out (1981) was Tarantino’s favourite performance by John Travolta, the film he cited to convince the actor to trust in his comeback with Pulp Fiction (1994). After so many years of hearing that it was great from critics (especially Pauline Kael’s loving review […]