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The Midnight Eye folks are at it again:

Two years after the highly successful and critically acclaimed book Agitator: The Cinema of Takashi Miike, author Tom Mes sheds his light on one of the most important and influential filmmakers to emerge from Japan in the past twenty years: Shinya Tsukamoto.

Unleashed with the now legendary black and white cyberpunk masterpiece Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto is truly one of Japan’s leading filmmakers. With visual assaults like Tetsuo II: The Body Hammer, Tokyo Fist and Bullet Ballet he has gained a worldwide following and paved the way for the international breakthrough of Japanese cinema. Despite his fame Tsukamoto remains fiercely independent, financing, writing, shooting, directing and often also starring in his own films. Shinya Tsukamoto is literally uncompromising.

Fully authorised by the director and featuring first-hand accounts from many of his close collaborators, the brand new book Iron Man: The Cinema of Shinya Tsukamoto is a fascinating and in-depth look at the life and work of an intense, groundbreaking filmmaker who counts Quentin Tarantino, Tsui Hark, cyberpunk novelist William Gibson and The Matrix directors The Wachowski Brothers among his most loyal fans.

I’ve been a fan of Shinya Tsukamoto ever since I first saw Tetsuo : The Iron Man - he really is one of the most incredible filmmakers of this, or any, generation. And given his influence, not only on Japanese cinema, but around the world, this is one book that has just shot to the top of my reading list.

Drop the Dead Donkey - written by Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin - was a unique combination of sketch show and sitcom in which the completion of the script was left until the last minute so that it could be made as topical as possible.

Set in the offices of Globelink News, the series - which followed the fortunes of the news crew following the company’s takeover by Murdoch-alike Sir Royston Merchant (never seen, but always present) who sets about dumbing the station and sensationalising its news output.

Hamilton and Jenkin were confident that they could make their approach work. And proved it, with a fast-paced, very funny series built on the sharply observed interplay between the main characters.

And now you can watch it all over again on DVD!

Nearly 30 years after it was made, Scum, Alan Clarke’s brutal depiction of life in a boys’ borstal, is now out on DVD.

The original 1977 TV series was deemed so disturbing that it was pulled from transmission and not broadcast until 1991, and the equally notorious 1979 film version was the target of a campaign by Mary Whitehouse.

Scum focuses on two borstal inmates who have different strategies for beating the system and features a triumvirate of career-defining performances from Ray Winstone as the ‘daddy’, Carlin, Mick Ford as the nonconformist intellectual Archer and Phil Daniels as the cowardly bully Richards.

Unmissable.

“Sexuality is limited by taboos and the domain of eroticism is that of the transgression of these taboos.” Georges Bataille

Since the first kiss recorded on film in 1896, erotic moving images have stimulated viewers and outraged public bodies. This book explores the meaning of eroticism and gives an overview of sex on the big screen by exploring different forms of sexual behavior or taboo-breaking in film. Included are intimate looks at ten of the most erotic movies ever made: including Last Tango in Paris, Betty Blue, In the Realm of the Senses, Romance, Law of Desire, Kids, Basic Instinct, Crash, The Night Porter and Y Tu Mama Tambien. Coverage includes erotic films from the silent era, pre-Code Hollywood, film noir, cheesecake and beefcake, the international art cinema, softcore and hardcore X-rated films, gay, lesbian, and New Queer Cinema, and the latest trend toward real sex in independent and art films. Readers will be able to relive some of their favourite erotic movie moments, and discover new ones as well.