East L.A. Warriors (1989)

Gangs in Eastern L.A. are fighting in some kind of reenactment of ancient Roman gladiatorial games. Yes this film is rather silly, and trashy and quite poor.

So i should love this film then, but I'm just not sure about it. It is executed so poorly and so weirdly it is like the awkward filler stuff in mid-80s pop videos stretched into a feature film.

That is not to say I did not enjoy a lot of it, it is cheesy and unintentionally hilarious throughout. The acting is also epically poor. So many strange pauses as if they were waiting to be told what to do next by the director... maybe they were. So it has all the ingredients of a trash classic but just lacks a certain something...

The action in the final act, the actual games, is often laughably poor, like bad pro-wrestling more than tough gang members fighting for supremacy. The gangs have cute matching outfits though, a bit like the legendary (and one of the best films ever) The Warriors - though only very slightly.

Tony Bravo is cool as the experienced but reluctant hero, well as cool as going around in a white vest can be anyway.

Death Occurred Last Night (La morte risale a ieri sera) (1970)

Catch a cool and sleazy slice of early 1970s Italy in this engaging crime drama involving the disappearance of a beautiful but mentally disabled young woman (Gillian Bray). She has apparently been dragged into the world of Milanese vice and policemen Frank Wolff and Gabriele Tinti have no choice but to trawl the city's brothels...

It is a dark film ultimately, a story with no happy ending. Poignant in depicting a father's (Raf Vallone) loss though without being gratuitous (well not too much anyway). It is unstinting in it's depiction of prostitution as a true dead end and a brutal sadistic life.

The film meanders at times but any flaws in the film are easily forgivable. Despite the often grim nature of the story the film is just so effortlessly cool. If you like late 60s / early 70s style and groovy music then you'll love this film. I did.

No Way Back (1949)

Based on a short story written by Thomas Burke as part of his Limehouse Nights collection No Way Back is the story of a washed up ex-boxer played by Terence de Marney who hits hard times and eventually ends up just another thug in a spiv's gang.

But the spiv's girl (Eleanor Summerfield) is his one of his ex-s and still has the hots for him - and soon romance is rekindled which doesn't go down too well with the spiv boss obviously...

At times this is a decent noir drama, though at others (especially with the police chase and siege at the end) it can be a bit silly. The scenes of post-war London are fascinating though with bombed out buildings still yet to be rebuilt. The film also has some odd charm at times.

The Square Ring (1953)

An interesting British film about boxing, set on one night at a boxing card in London, and following five different boxers - who fulfil various British/boxing stereotypes: plucky, washed up, wide eyed naive et cetera.

The film has plenty of star power and is an enjoyable watch (Jack Warner, Joan Collins, Robert Beatty, Sid James and Bill Owen among others) but it is all a bit too cliched and the "boxing is fixed" game is laid on a bit too thick.

The actual boxing scenes, especially the final title fight, are very well done and there is an undeniable sense of drama about the film despite it's shortcomings.

Up With The Lark (1943)

This is a musical comedy starring Ethel Revnell and Gracie West (who made their name as radio comedians) as inept detectives who accidentally begin investigating a gang of black marketeers. Their investigation switches to the countryside where they pose as a pair of Land Army girls and much hilarity ensues (well quite a bit anyway though it does become rather corny at times).

What kind of film is this? It's the kind of film where a gangster dresses as a skeleton to scare people away from a ruined church (used as the black marketers' base) - a lot funnier than it sounds.

Don't expect a proper investigation, the detective pair bumble their way along and succeed in the end despite their best efforts.

Hard Ticket To Hawaii (1987)

An Andy Sidaris film that includes lots of breasts, guns, more breasts, a snake and even more breasts. It is unashamedly low-brow but also high-fun but mostly because it is so ridiculous.

The film stars a couple of obscure actors with all female roles played by Playboy Playmates. To be fair to some of the latter their acting is not as bad as it could have been (though it is bad). The plot is bad too, involving diamond smuggling and a contaminated snake, but forget the plot - it is not that important in a film like this! The film is really a sequence of often bizarre scenes and lots of violence and gratuitous nudity. And boy is there a lot of the latter. The female cast strip off with great regularity and for little apparently reason.

It is a film where a blow-up doll is blown up with a bazooka, a snake explodes out of a toilet and secret orders are hidden in a sandwich (which is then set on fire). The film is a cult classic and deservedly so.

The Killer Shrews (1959)

A typical 1950s US monster movie complete with mad scientists and terrible special effects. James Best (who later played Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the Dukes of Hazzard) plays a ship captain who gets marooned on an island during a hurricane. There he discovers a small scientific community besieged by giant killer shrews...

The shrews (the result of an experiment gone wrong of course) have run out of other food and now are after human flesh. It's all very B-movie and low budget. The killer shrews are kept obscure for much of the movie probably because when they are finally shown they are completely ridiculous: basically barely disguised dogs.

All pretty formulaic and total nonsense but quite a lot of fun and at times quite scary. The human tank is genuinely innovative.