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It’s safe to say that a lot of my fellow cinephiles reading this have at least one cinematic obsession. You may devote a lot of time and money building up a library of films and merchandise relating to that specific obsession. Some devote Facebook pages, blogs and books to their cinematic pride and joy. Then of course you get people like Andrew Leavold. For around 15 years he owned Trash Video, Australia’s largest cult film rental shop. Not only that, but he is a filmmaker and of course, all round film nut. One of his upmost passions is Filipino cinema. So much so that he has lectured on the subject at universities all over the world and has a book on the subject soon to be released. His vast research on the subject even helped form the basis of Mark Hartley’s documentary, Machete Maidens Unleashed. Not only obsessed...

Monster Pictures have released the brand new trailer and poster for Andrew Leavold’s feature documentary The Search for Weng Weng – Leavold’s obsessive quest to find out what happened to Weng Weng, the 2’9” kung-fu kicking ‘James Bond’ of Filipino cinema and one of his country’s biggest stars in the 1980’s.

Fresh from it’s success at Udine Film Festival this month, The Search for Weng Weng was shot over seven years in Manila. Leavold’s search plunged him into the history of Filipino ‘B’ movies and even took a surreal turn to land him at Imelda Marcos’ birthday party, as he tried to uncover what happened to the diminutive star, known also as ‘Agent 00’. The film will premiere at the Cannes Film Festival market on Tuesday 20th May, and has been selected for Sheffield Doc Fest next month.

Almost a decade ago Australian trash cinema aficionado Andrew Leavold...

Another week, another Monday. So it’s time for the rundown of DVDs and Blu-ray’s hitting stores online and offline this week. It’s another packed week, with plenty of movies waiting to take you money, so let us breakdown the new releases and highlight what you should – and shouldn’t – be buying from today, April 2nd 2012.

Picks Of The Week

The best of this weeks releases include the UK DVD debuts of two movies not available to rent.buy since the days of VHS and a brand new zombie comedy…

Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama (DVD)

There are no freshmen in the college of love, and they’re about to graduate to madcap mayhem when a sorority prank goes crazy. Out to steal a trophy from a local bowling alley, the kids accidentally unleash the imp – a sadistic little spirit with a diabolical sense of humor. He...

Is it an impossibly sad hour in this lonely, pathetic little world when a guy who claims to be an aficionado of cinema boldly declares that a picture as goofy as Eddie Nicart’s surreal 1981 action/comedy “For Your Height Only” renewed his interest in the medium? If so, hang your heads and mourn the minutes, dear readers, for Weng Weng is responsible for saving this wayward sheep’s wavering cinematic soul. The film — and I use that term loosely — is, at its core, a cheap, one-note exploitation job featuring rising cult icon Weng Weng, a two-foot-nine Filipino martial artist who seemingly has the ability to slide across smooth surfaces with the speed, grace, and agility of a buttered baked potato. The story is utterly senseless; all you really need to know is that Agent 00 is hot on the trail of a shady organized crime syndicate which seeks to peddle cheap drugs to innocent,...

When documentarian Mark Hartley, the guy behind the excellent Not Quite Hollywood, set his sights on the violent Filipino machete wielding babe sub-genre I immediately said “What Filipino machete wielding babe sub-genre!?” Because that sounds like something I’d be interested in. I immediately thought about sitting in front of Not Quite Hollywood, pen and pad at the ready, taking copious notes on all the Australian films I had to track down. So naturally I grabbed my writing instruments and went into Machete Maidens Unleashed expecting a list of films for my sexual gratification and entertainment. My first reaction to Mmu was “that was fun.” It played like a greatest hits collection of clips, interspersed with some very excellent commentary from the likes of Roger Corman, Joe Dante, and Sid Haig, among dozens of others. There were plenty of glimpses at bared breasts, a whole lot of stabbings and gunshots, and...