© Words - CP Lee

In 1993 a man called Cliff Twemlow passed away. When he died at the age of 55 a whole mini-film industry died with him. But Cliff didn’t only just make films, he wrote the plots, scored the music for them and starred in them too. Oh, and he wrote paperback pulp novels as well. And before he made his own movies he wrote a couple of thousand tunes that were recorded and put out by DeWolfe Music. And he was a night club bouncer.

© Words Matteo Sedazzari

Some People, made in 1962 and released in April 1963 directed by Clive Donner (What's New Pussycat, Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, The Caretaker) is an early British film on Rock ‘n’ Roll.  Originally made as a film to get young adults to participate in the Duke of Edinburgh Award, as all profits went to the scheme, it is far from a propaganda film as it can act as a visual case study of the early days of British pop culture.

© Words William Goodchild

Oren Moverman’s follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Messenger sees the writer/director again not shying away from challenging subjects and the downright bleak.

Dave “Date Rape” Brown (Woody Harrelson) is an unapologetic misanthrope who is happy to dish out merciless beatings. Sometimes he even shoots people. He’s also a member of the Rampart Division of LAPD, which serves the mostly-Hispanic communities of Downtown Los Angeles. The “Date Rape” '

© Words William Goodchild

Just when I was tiring of Tarantino he puts a bullet through my heart, a hammer through my skull, and then blows me away with dynamite for good measure. Django Unchained is a film we’ve never seen the likes of before. It has everything: thrills, spills, highs, lows, horror, romance, spectacle, melodrama, and tenderness. (And of course - this being Tarantino - plenty of outrageous violence.) It also provides some big (unexpected) belly laughs I’d not experienced in the director’s ouevre since Marvin got his head blown off in the car.

© Words William Goodchild

It’s completely understandable if you have preconceived ideas about this film (in a not good way). But it’s best to put them aside. The poster, undeniably fetishising the bodies of the two leads, doesn’t exactly help. The mixed martial arts in this film is incidental. It is not a film about mixed martial arts. (Or rather, I should say, Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC.) Instead it offers a very moving story of a family torn apart, with the conduit of that story being men fighting in cages.