All posts by Spank The Monkey

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About Spank The Monkey

Spank The Monkey has been talking nonsense about popular culture on the internet since 1998. He can be found doing that in long form on his blog, and in short form on BlueSky. He was a regular contributor to Mostly Film, where his specialist subjects were Asian cinema, cult movies and TV, and watching foreign films without the benefit of subtitles. He lives in London with somebody else.

MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2011: CHOON!

Art, MF Recommends, Music, Theatre

BY SPANK THE MONKEY

Graffiti spotted on Tib Street, Manchester, Saturday July 2nd (and crudely painted over by Sunday July 3rd)

Like the song says, Manchester is wonderful: and since 2007, we’ve been able to add a fourth item to the list of reasons why. The Manchester International Festival rolls up every two years, presents a whole array of world premieres across the entire artistic spectrum, and then leaves London to spend the next 24 months picking up the leftovers. Currently in its third season (until July 17th), it doesn’t take over the whole city the way that, say, the Edinburgh Festival does: but you get the impression that Alex Poots and his staff would take quality over quantity any day.

Mostly Film will be devoting a pair of articles to MIF 2011: this one will be concentrating on the music-based performance events, or at least the three that The Belated Birthday Girl and I managed to catch during a weekend visit to my old home town. Continue reading MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL 2011: CHOON! →

Great TV you’ve never seen: 32 Short films about Brian Limond*

Television,

* Oh, all right then, twelve

By Spank The Monkey

Limmy’s Show. Not pish

Remember that phrase you used to hear in continuity announcements, “…except for viewers in Scotland, who have their own programmes”? Limmy’s Show is one of those programmes. Up until a few years ago, a comedy show broadcast solely on BBC2 Scotland wouldn’t have raised even a flicker of interest south of Hadrian’s Wall. But technology’s moved on: thanks to a combination of comedy blogs, Twitter, BBC iPlayer, YouTube and those Sky channels that come just after the porn, Brian Limond’s sketch show has developed a small non-Scottish following.

Limmy has written, directed and performed in twelve episodes of his Show so far – six in the winter of 2010, and another six one year later. It would be far, far too easy to just link to a handful of YouTube sketch clips and let you work it out for yourself. So I’m a little embarrassed that this is exactly what I’m going to do. But let’s take a structured approach – one sketch from each episode, in chronological order – and use it to decide whether Limmy’s current relative obscurity is justified or not.

Continue reading Great TV you’ve never seen: 32 Short films about Brian Limond* →

Terracottadammerung

Film Festivals

by Spank the Monkey

Rina Takeda (left) and Tak Sakaguchi (right) hanging out in between screenings

For those of us who love Asian cinema, the Terracotta Far East Film Festival – which has just completed its third year – is an absolute delight. Its selections aren’t tied by national boundaries or by genre: drama, comedy, martial arts and horror all happily co-exist within its four-day span. And 2011 was the year when I was going to give it the justice it deserved, investing in a festival pass and seeing all fourteen movies in one huge blowout.

Continue reading Terracottadammerung →

Takashi Miike: On the Outside, Hacking In

Cult Movies, New Releases

A conversation between Spank The Monkey and The Belated Birthday Girl

The US poster for 13 Assassins. The UK one simply isn’t as good, sorry.

SPANK THE MONKEY: This Friday sees the UK theatrical release of Takashi Miike’s second film, 13 Assassins. It’s been a full decade since his debut Audition was in cinemas here, and it’s hard to understand why a director with such a low work rate has achieved the reputation that … oh, I’m sorry, I can’t keep this up. I’m just trying to see if I can write the single most inaccurate opening paragraph ever published on Mostly Film. You’ve got the IMDB stats there: how many films has he made?

THE BELATED BIRTHDAY GIRL: Between Audition and 13 Assassins, about fifty. I think we’ve watched about 33 of his in total, but a couple of them pre-date Audition, so we’ve seen around half of those fifty.

STM: That’s handy. It’s always good to establish your credentials before the jump, I think.

Continue reading Takashi Miike: On the Outside, Hacking In →

Man vs. Chick

Cult Movies, Home Video, ,

by Spank the Monkey 

In 1984, Alex Cox made Repo Man. It was about a suburban punk called Otto (Emilio Estevez), his induction into the repossession trade under the guidance of repo man Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), and the chaos caused by their attempts to find a vintage car with a lethal secret in its trunk. Its distributors considered it too weird for a proper release, and it spent months in limbo until the unexpected success of its soundtrack album gradually turned the film into a minor cult classic.

Twenty-five years later, Alex Cox made Repo Chick. It was about a spoilt rich girl called Pixxi (Jaclyn Jonet), her induction into the repossession trade under the guidance of repo man Arizona Gray (Miguel Sandoval), and the chaos caused by their attempts to find a vintage train with a lethal secret in its caboose. Its distributors considered it too weird for a proper release – and to give that judgement some perspective, this was a distribution company owned by David Lynch.

After nearly two years on the shelf, Repo Chick is finally creeping out on video without ever seeing the inside of a cinema. Does Cox have another minor cult classic on his hands? Comparisons are odious. Let’s make some.

Continue reading Man vs. Chick →