Mike: Films, Films, Films and a dash of Horror

By sizemore Last edited 220 months ago
Mike: Films, Films, Films and a dash of Horror
Firecracker-Mag.jpg

Drop a stone over the edge of the Internets and odds are it'll hit about a hundred horrible movie sites for every good one and around five thousand unreadable blogs so being given the opportunity to point a few more (thousand) people at some of my faves is just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Let's get the shameless self promotion out of the way - or try and sidestep it at least - by taking a look at Firecracker Magazine.

I've been writing for these guys for a couple of months now, but feel free to ignore the stuff with my name at the bottom and just dip into the rest of one of the best film websites around. The brainchild of Nick North and Erika Franklin, Firecracker covers the very best in East Asian cinema. They fill a very real gap in the UK film press as well as putting on a yearly festival that puts most other London events to shame. Each month they hit some wonderfully interesting people for interviews and cover just about all the big screen and DVD releases that prove there's life outside of your local Blockbusters.

And have you ever seen a cleaner more user friendly website? The beautifully simple design goes a long way in keeping with the cream of East Asian cinema that they champion so well. And there are big plans afoot for next year too…

Similarly if you want an in depth look at Japanese cinema then you need to keep Midnight Eye only a few keystrokes away. Another great looking website with just so much damn information it’s no surprise they had to put a couple of wonderful books out as well as taking charge of the Japanese strand at this year's Raindance.

These are all Londoners putting their time and money where their mouths are and actually adding something to the cultural calendar in the city each year. Can't recommend them strongly enough.

Websites aside, my favourite film blog at the moment has to be Twitch. I try and see maybe 20% of the films that Todd and his team throw up on here and that’s enough to keep me busy almost seven days a week. There’s just so many cool things that they bring to my attention that I sometimes wish them ill health simply so I can try and catch up with all the stuff I’m missing. Who else is going to champion the Bollywood remake of Old Boy and still have time to bring you trailers for a million horror films that will sadly probably never see the light of day in the UK?

Speaking of horror… Halloween may be over and done with for another year, but for some people it’s a full time job. Dark, But Shining has been one of my favourite horror blogs for a while now, but even I was surprised when they raised the bar to the roof this October with the kind of coverage you just don’t expect to find on a blog. In the last 31 days or so Kevin, Rick and Sam managed to serve up the low down on everything from giant ants to Gwar with King Kong, flying monkeys, John Carpenter, Angel, werewolves, body snatchers, William Golding, Cat Power, a fistful of competitions and of course zombies added to the mix along the way.

And if that is your cup of tea then please pop over to The Groovy Age of Horror where everything born after 1979 is beautifully ignored.

Of course all these websites are informative and well written, but the main strength in all of them lies in the passion they feel for their subjects. It really is the best of the web.

And for those that were just expecting me to link up something weird... go read the entire archive of Sexy Losers and then spend the weekend trying to scratch the images off your eyeballs.

Last Updated 04 November 2005