It really is One Battle After Another

Silent Saturday #38 (belated) The Fall of the House of Usher (1928) A short version of Poe’s story made the same year that Jean Epstein made his surprisingly proto-Peckinpah feature length adaptation

Western Wednesday #38 The Thief’s Wife (1912) Ending my 2nd day in Madrid and I only have my phone to watch movies on, so I’m going with a silent short by Allan Dwan. This is from the second year of Dwan’s 50 year career, and was apparently a huge influence on John Ford

Martial Arts Monday #37 Ballerina (2025) John Wick is one of the most consistently excellent action series ever made, so I can’t say I’m especially excited about the one where they finally said “What if we hired a back to botch this one?”

Off to Europe for a month

Silent Saturday #37 (belated) Moods of the Sea (1942) More Slavko Vorkapich this week! I haven’t had much time for movies lately because tomorrow I’m going Europe for a month, so I’ve mainly just been incredibly stressed about that. And I’ve still got 100 pages of a library book to get through

The reason so many conservatives talk about “gay ideology” and “trans ideology” like those are coherent concepts with real world referents is that they’ve made their own cisness and heterosexuality into load-bearing pillars of their exterminationist ideology, and they think everyone is like them

Conservatism consists of exactly one proposition, to wit: Waaaah waaah I’m so scared

KIM KITSURAGI - "What is it, detective? Can you make it out?" BULLET - "if you read this you are gay lmao" 1. "It, um, doesn't say anything." 2. "Transgender ideology. My old foe." 3. [Espirit de Corps - Medium 10] "I think you should read it for yourself, Kim."

The Day the Nazi Died - Chumbawamba

Even the most cursory study would show you that this particular Pandora’s Box has not been closed for a single second of American history

I hate Israel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Western Wednesday #37 Frontier Pony Express (1939) One of the eight Joseph Kane directed Singin’ Cowboy movies that Roy Rogers made in 1939. In this one he’s a Union loyalist pony express rider who goes up against a Confederate gang trying to use the pony express for their own means

The hottest thing a woman can be is “kind of a bitch”

so while we're announcing stuff I probably ought to tell you about this. if you want to get a presale code as soon as it's ready, here is a link for that. been a while! Freo Social let's do this! laylo.com/mountaingoat...

Martial Arts Monday #36 (belated) The Kid with the Golden Arm (1979) More of the Venom Mob from Chang Cheh, this time asking the question “What if Lo Meng had golden arms?” Fight choreography by Lu Feng, Chiang Sheng, and Robert Tai (the guy who claimed Lau Kar-Leung couldn’t touch his fights)

It should be a capital offence to upload a 360p video called The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp | 1080p

Silent Saturday #36 (extremely belated) The Life and Death of 9413, a Hollywood Extra (1928) An experimental short by director Robert Florey and cinematographer Greg Toland attacking the Hollywood system. Heard nothing but incredible things about this one

Just for a second, take a step back, and remember that these are the actions of a 56 year old man towards a 17 year old girl.

Everyone here knew you and they were talking about you behind your back

Western Wednesday #36 The Mercenary (1968) The other movie that Sergio Corbucci made the same year as his masterpiece, The Great Silence. Reteaming with his Django star, Franco Nero, for a story about a cynical gun for hire during the Mexican revolution

A few weeks ago my older sister sent me a picture of my niece hugging her new pet lamb and every time I look at it I start tearing up

Martial Arts Monday #35 Diablo (2025) A two-hander from DTV action icons Scott Adkins and Marko Zaror. They both produced and have a story credit, and it was directed by longtime Zaror collaborator Ernesto Díaz Espinosa. I’ve been wanting to see Espinoza’s previous film Fist of the Condor forever

Silent Saturday #35 How A Mosquito Operates (1912) I usually try and do a full feature, or at least a couple of shorts, but I’m pulling a bit of a copout this week and watching one 6-minute short. This is the film Windsor McCay made just before his revolutionary Gertie the Dinosaur (1914)

My grandad was just telling me about my grandmother in the 60s getting into a fight with docents at the Sistine Chapel because they insisted she wear a shawl to cover her shoulders and she thought that was sexiest garbage. “She couldn’t speak a word of Italian, but she could argue in any language”

It’s dangerous to get too into movies because once you finish the Sight & Sound Top 250 you have to start watching movies with names like Kandagawa Pervert Wars

I love my idiot wife! I have to, I took an oaf

Western Wednesday #35 The Fighting Westerner (1935) Charles Barton, best known for Abbott & Costello comedies, directing a young Randolph Scott in an adaptation of a pulp story by prolific Western novelist Zane Grey. The 2nd Western I’ve seen from 1935 about brigands trying to steal a radium mine

Martial Arts Monday #34 Nobody 2 (2025) I quite enjoyed Bob Odenkirk’s first “family man is actually a dangerous killer” film, and Timo Tjahjanto is one of my favourite action filmmakers. His last two films haven’t been totally my thing, but I’m interested to see what he does with this franchise

Silent Saturday #34 (belated) It (1927) Didn’t get a chance to do this yesterday since it was my dad’s birthday. Never seen a Clara Bow film, so I might as well start with the big one (well, the big one that isn’t 2.5 hours long like Wings is)

Found a cool cave

Made the MC (anti-woke prop comic) mad by playing 25 minutes of Bitches Brew before the show started

Western Wednesday #34 Canyon Passage (1946) I like Jacques Tourneur, but I’ve never seen any of his Westerns. Dana Andrews is in a love triangle, Brian Donlevy is a scoundrel gambler, and Ward Bond, my favourite John Ford stock company player, is there. Sounds great

Bob Dylan being supportive as a guest judge on Drag Race: Slay lady slay

Putting my name forth at the AGM to represent The Lollipop Guild

Martial Arts Monday #33 Invincible Shaolin (1978) I’m not a huge Chang Chen guy. I don’t know if I really love any of his films except for hyper-violent Leone stylings of The Boxer From Shantung, but this is another of his Venom Mob films and I like all of those guys, especially Lo Meng

Pre and post-NZIFF top 25s of 2025

Just did the worst set of my life. Managed to alienate every single person in the room and then got played off because the tech guy could tell I couldn’t find a way to leave the stage

Silent Saturday #33 Working on the Douro River (1931) Last week I saw Manoel de Oliveira’s excellent 1993 film Abraham’s Valley, a melodrama set around the Douro river. This is his first film (62 years earlier), a city symphony of Porto, his hometown

Looking up 1-star reviews of my place of work and getting mad that none of them mention me

The most vulnerable thing I've ever done is show my friend a new type of kick I invented

22 episode television seasons were so good. House S5 goes directly from the first person POV gimmick episode to one where a main character commits suicide with no foreshadowing because the actor got a new job

Western Wednesday #33 Wagon Train (1940) The first of almost 50 Westerns that Tim Holt (soon to be star of The Magnificent Ambersons) would make for RKO from 1940-1952 In this one he’s hunting the man who killed his father, who also happens to be using his freight monopoly to cause a famine

The easiest way to get me incredibly mad is to make a minor factual mistake regarding a movie I absolutely do not care about. I just heard someone misstate the tagline for an X-Men movie I’ve never seen and I developed a medically dangerous neck twitch

Martial Arts Monday #32 Rapid Fire (1992) The last film Brandon Lee completed in his lifetime, this time directed by Dwight H. Little, who mostly pumped out sequel nonsense (Halloween 4, Anacondas, Free Willy 2), but also made the pretty good Murder at 1600

Silent Saturday #32 Mor-Vran: La Mer Des Corbeaux (1930) I really like Jean Epstein’s version of The Fall of the House of Usher (the scene where Madeleine Usher dies invents Sam Peckinpah’s editing style), so I’m excited to see what he does with this documentary about fishermen in Brittany

About to see the new restoration of Forgotten Silver on the big screen. This is one of my favourite things Peter Jackson ever did, so if he’s pulled some AI upscaling nonsense on it I’m going to be furious

Western Wednesday #32 (very belated) Day of Reckoning (2025) The film festival that’s completely occupied the last two weeks of my life is done now, so I can get back to what I’ve heard is a pretty middle of the road action movie about Scott Adkins fighting Billy Zane

Martial Arts Monday #31 (very belated) Showdown in Little Tokyo (1991) I’m skipping Laser Mission (1989) because it looks like shit and straight to Brandon Lee’s team-up with Dolph Lundgren. They play cops who have to take down the yakuza. Mark L. Leader also directed Commando and Class of 1984

Silent Saturday #31 (so incredibly late) Autumn Mists (1929) I really liked Dimitri Kirsanoff’s Ménilmontant a few weeks back, and this is the only other one of his silent shorts that survives.