The first two films of Sadao Nakajima’s sprawling Japanese Godfather focused on the blood-soaked acquisition of territory by the Nakajima crime syndicate. Conclusion is about what it takes to hold this territory, the futility of legitimacy, and the capricious nature of power, and then death.

I need to source Toshirō Mifune's yakuza on holiday shirt before my next trip abroad.

Tonight's film

Bloody hell.

Ben Johnson is great, isn't he? In everything. Not doing much. Just great. This is a low budget Cinecolor western from John Rawlins and Louis Lantz starring Johnson as a Union veterab who has come west to get revenge for the death of his brother. It is fast-paced, short, and nearly great.

Second film of the night

A brilliant film. I thought it was a touch overwritten, and wasn't necessarily sold on the futility of mercy that ending leaves ambiguous, but everything else works tremendously. It has the energy of the saddest and most angry screwball comedy ever.

Tonight's film

How I felt watching The Outrun.

One of my three favourite films. 🥰

Really?

"Off my back, chick - I'm tired." Mike Hammer, unpleasantly psychotic, drives around LA for long stretches, when he isn't beating people up or trying it on with a variety of women. The most American of heroes is up to his usual stuff in My Gun is Quick.

Tonight's film

I have been slowly working through Star Trek Strange New Worlds over the past couple of months, and I am halfway through season 2. Easily my favourite Star Trek after DS9. It is such an easy pleasure to watch. It is a shame it is confined by the constraints of being a prequel.

Another deeply pessimistic crime film from China. Directed Diao Yinan and set around the sprawling city of Wuhan. It has almost parodic elements (Hu Ge memory setting up the plot), but settles into being a man hunt in a police state, where parallels are drawn between the cops and criminals.

This afternoon's film

Dreadful. Makes Denzel Washington's Fallen look like Memories of Murder. Nowhere near as good as Christopher Lambert's Resurrection, and that is saying something.

Second film of the night

"...What results is a thrilling family adventure, with notes of (for the era) graphic violence, sly references to slavery, and even a sideways look at the then current geopolitical situation..." My Letterboxd review of THE THIEF OF BAGDAD #FilmSky boxd.it/dpDduv

It's really quite something, I thought.

Some of the absolute best crime neo-noirs in the last decade have come out of China - Black Coal Thin Ice, Ash is Purest White, and few others I have to see - and Only the River Flows is in the same style and of high quality.

Tonight's film

Unlike All Us Strangers which has a similar premise of travelling into your past, The Five Devils is a less melodramatic and more mysterious story. It is a small-town magical realism romance, that spins on the idea that is impossible to really know your parents.

Now watching: ‘Série noire’, dir. Alain Corneau, 1979. Based on a novel by Jim Thompson. 🎬🎥

Tonight's film

Rex Harrison was a cast-iron shit so it’s hard to wish his birthday to be happy but he was a fine actor. Preston Sturges’ dark comedy Unfaithfully Yours has him seething with jealousy, running from murder to slapstick, his revenge literally conducted to Rossini and Wagner with his orchestra. 1/2

It is 1977 Japan. You are making a follow-up to your marvellous yakuza film, Japan's Don. Who do you cast in the sequel as a rival yakuza? That's right - Toshirô Mifune!

The greatest car crash I have ever seen in a film. The Appointment is remarkably unsettling. Great movie.

Tonight's film

The first film in this trilogy is absolutely fantastic. I have the second one lined up to watch tonight.

Amazon has made a Young Sherlock TV show. And it was released today! I really love the Amblin film from the 1980s...and this one comes from the Guy Ritchie production factory. Well, I guess I can give it an episode.

Trying to remember the plot of Japan's Don, so I can watch Japanese Godfather: Ambition tonight.

A proto-giallo co-written and co-directed by Ernesto Gastaldi that is notable for being Giancarlo Giannini's debut film. The film is a taut psychological mystery, that would work reasonably well as a stageplay, though it is given cinematic value with its coastal setting and haunted house vibe.

UK boutique labels; 4kUHD of this eye wateringly gorgeous film asap. Please...

Tonight's film

Still cinema's greatest opening 3 seconds.

1. Jealous 2. That poster kind of makes it look like Jamie Fox is Animorphing into a diplodocus

Off to the cinema to see

John Ford's The Irishman. Top five Ford film, for me.

I have seen a few Richard Rush films - Colour of Night (his masterpiece...), Freebie and the Bean, Getting Straight - so I wasn't expecting a straight-ahead film but the mix of tones and styles of The Stunt Man still caught me slightly off-guard.

Tonight's film

There is a new Yellowstone spin off released! Marshals. Can't wait to see how ridiculous this one is. Will be watching tonight.

Impressive spectacle, with Cossacks riding to war, and well-handled by J. Lee Thompson but almost everything else is terrible. Tony Curtis particularly bad, and Yul Brynner's performance mainly consists of him laughing loudly. They are the worst father and son duo imaginable to build a film around.

Yul Brynner is playing Tony Curtis's dad, aye right.

Tonight's film

I thought this was a really remarkable religious intimate-epic. A wonderful musical, strikingly rich in ambition, and with an ability to overcome the structure of a biopic. I wish that it embraced a few more spiritual flights of fancy, but it a really rich film. Amanda Seyfried is utterly superb.

Off to the cinema to see

"By the time CHARISMA has reached its apocalyptic end, you can no longer see the wood for the trees": my favourite of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films is on Shudder UK from today. projectedfigures.com/2018/03/17/t...

It's another film that survives very much on the charisma of its star and its time capsule nature - yeah, I covered it too... boxd.it/8KG8ox

My top 15 Steve McQueen performances from 5 years ago holds up quite well. Still basically what I think. letterboxd.com/dancedanceda...