Punching Up Episode 28-The Goonies A first for the punching up team. Damian and Adam have somehow acquired a special guest, Matthew Chernov, the estimable LA film journalist, screenwriter and presenter of the magnificent How The West Was Cast podcast. Matthew is an enormous fan of The Goonies, that beloved 1985 family friendly (if you discount that bit where the federal agent gets murdered and his corpse is locked in a freezer with a child, as well as the ceramic penis joke) Spielberg produced adventure movie. It’s fair to say that Damian is not fan. And despite being a teenager in the 1980s, Adam hadn’t actually seen The Goonies until the day before recording the pod and is keeping his cards close to his chest. So, will Adam stand by his friend of 35 years and stick one on The Goonies and Matthew Chernov. Or will he tag-team Matthew and gang up on Damian, metaphorically throwing his old mate under the bus in defence of Mikey, Brand, Mouth, Chunk, Data, Andy and the Goonie nobody likes very much that was played by that girl who happens to be David Carradine from Kill Bill and Kung Fu’s niece? Join us and find out. Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast Support Us on Patreon: Punching Up Patreon (Punching Up Patreon)  

Episode 27-The Way of the Dragon In 1972 martial arts legend Bruce Lee wrote and directed The Way of the Dragon. On the surface, a simple tale of a Hong Kong kung fu prodigy sent to Rome to protect his uncle’s restaurant from gangsters, culminating in an epic fight to the death in the Roman Colosseum with seven-time world karate champion Chuck Norris. The Way of the Dragon is regarded as one of the greatest martial arts movies of all time. But The Way of the Dragon is so much more than this. Bruce Lee was also disseminating his own unique martial arts philosophy  into the fabric of an action film, making The Way of the Dragon a martial arts manifesto revered by Lee fans as the Master’s most profound and personal work. Really? Punching Up’s Adam calls bullshit. So do not look at all this heavenly glory, or you’ll miss the fact that The Way of the Dragon is maybe a really shitty movie. Fighting talk? You betchya! So, for one episode only the Punching Up Podcast becomes The One Inch Punching Up Podcast as Adam and Damian indulge in the art of podcasting without podcasting and take on the King of Kung Fu. Kiyaaaaaaa!!! Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 26-Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels What do you get if you cross a posh public school boy who wants to be a Cockney geezer, an actual football playing geezer who want to be an actor, and a future action movie star who come from Derbyshire but talks like a geezer for a bit and then talks like an American who sounds a bit like a geezer, or a geezer who sounds a bit like American? It’s all very confusing.You get Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, Guy Ritchie’s geezer gangster hit starring Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham, which also happens to be one of Adam Nightingale’s least favourite movies of the entire 1990s.  But what does Damian think? Actually, he hates it as much as Adam does, but he likes Danny Dyer, who isn’t even in the movie. So, tune for a discussion of all thing geezer, and gangster..........and Danny Dyer. Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 25-The Holy MountainIt’s been a while. Did you miss us? Did you even notice we had been away? Well, after a longer than normal hiatus the Punching Up Movie Podcast is back. And this episode is magic. I mean literally. The Punching Up duo discuss Alejandro Jodorowski’s cult sensation, shamanistic cinematic odyssey, The Holy Mountain. Magic, horror, nudity, spirituality, political commentary, freaky production design, nudity, outlandish costumes, more magic, and nudity.  Adam hates it. Damian has mixed feelings.  Magical Mystery Tour, or Tragical Mystical Bore? The ultimate midnight movie, or a pseudo spiritual cinematic excuse for looking at lady’s bosoms? So, free your mind, expand your consciousness, tune in, find out, and meet the movie that nearly broke Adam Nightingale. Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast  

Episode 24-Moulin Rouge Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome! The moment is here. The hour is now. The time has arrived. It’s our long threatened, much delayed musical theatre episode where Damian unleashes his full fury on Baz Luhrmann’s 2001 cinematic juke box musical Moulin Rouge. It’s been brewing for a while and Damian doesn’t hold back on Nicole Kidman’s acting and dancing, Ewan McGregor’s singing and acting, and, most of all Baz Luhrmann’s hyperkinetic, coked to the gills, MTV on absinthe editing and directing style. This is an episode for the ages as Punching Up’s Mr Nice goes very, very dark indeed. Tune in. I promise you it will be spectacular….spectacular.   Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 23-January 2025-Some New Movies Happy 2025 Movie Lovers and Punching up listeners  Did you miss us?  Well, have no fear, we have a proper, actual, honest to goodness full-length episode hovering in the wings (next week).  But for those of you who simply can’t wait to hear our Punching Up thoughts on….Moulin Rouge (which will be next week), here’s a bonus episode of some chit chat about some of the movies released this January 2025: Better Man, Wolf Man, William Tell Man, Nosferatu Man, and a few others that Damian likes but that Adam hasn’t seen yet.  But listeners beware, both Damian and Adam spoil the absolute living daylights out of The Wolf Man (It's not even called THE Wolf Man.)  You have been warned.   Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 22-The Best of 2024 It’s still the Season of Good Will and so the Punching Up Team are going to use their powers for good this time and wax lyrical about which films they loved in this year of 2024. It’s a long one as there is a lot of affection to go around in this atypical end of the year love fest. And lest we forget that this is still the Puncing Up Podcast, there is still enough room left over to hate on a few movies that have really tested our patience, I’m talking to you Francis Ford Coppola. So, that’s a whole lot of love, a little bit of hate and a few splashes of disappointment in the best one hour and forty minutes you will spend outside of  singing Auld Lang Syne in an overcrowded bar and telling a complete stranger that you love them. Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 21-The Shape of Water Wanna see a movie where the Creature From the Black Lagoon gets it on with Mrs Brown from the first two Paddington movies? I don’t. But Adam (who doesn’t seem to mind a bit of interspecies fantasy love action) has forced me to watch The Shape of Water again. I find Guillermo del Toro’s 2017 Oscar winning modern fairy tale, unoriginal, twee, borderline plagiaristic, largely miscast and a little bit queasy when it comes to matters of human/ amphibian copulation. Adam loves it. But then again, he’s a massive pervert. Tune in for a lengthy discussion of this and all things Guillermo del Toro in the latest episode of Punching Up.  Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 20-The Terrifier Franchise Damian and Adam Art we a pair? I live in Nottingham, England He lives somewhere over there  Sydney, Australia But Damian doesn’t like Art the Clown But I like Art the Clown Will it be over? We can’t agree On the obvious future cult classic status Of Terrifier 1, 2 and 3Cause Damian doesn’t like Art the Clown But I like Art the Clowwwwwwnnnnnnn Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com   Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 19- A Nightmare on Elm Street Are you ready for Freddy? No, not really. I’m a big horror fan but not a massive lover of Wes Craven’s 1980s classic A Nightmare on Elm Street. Razor fingered demons with stripy shirts who kill you in your dreams, a telephone that comes alive and licks your face and Freddy Krueger’s elongated Big Bird arms don’t really do it for me. I’d much rather watch Art the Clown kill people with his big black bin liner full of weapons in Damian Leone’s Terrifier movies. Damian Asher feels differently. He saw Nightmare on Elm Street when he was a wee nipper, and it scared the living daylights out of him. Damian is also, possibly a little ambivalent about Art the Clown and his more recent, ultraviolent shenanigans. So, it’s Freddy vs Art and Adam vs Damian for the ultimate movie monster smack-down in our post Halloween, pod cast horror-thon. One-Two Adam’s coming for you.  Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 18-RRR Flying tigers, Indian freedom fighters and evil English scumbags.Bloody battles, numerous songs, one spectacular dance routine and a very brutal flogging.  What’s not to love in S.S Rajamouli’s Tolly (not Bolly) Wood breakout international action hit? Nothing, if your Adam (despite repeatedly mispronouncing the director’s name in the podcast). Plenty, if you are Damian (who only made it through the first twenty minutes on his first viewing). So, what will it be? RRR or GRRR!?!  Tune in and find out. Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com   Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 17-Gladiator For those about to listen, we salute you. In this epic episode of the Punching Up Movie Podcast Adam unleashes hell (and a couple of hungry man-eating tigers) on Gladiator, Ridley Scott’s tale of Roman revenge and arena combat. Adam quite likes Scott but really doesn’t like Gladiator. Damian likes Gladiator but has an axe to grind with Sir Ridley. Let battle commence. Will either of them earn their place in Elysium? Probably not. But Adam might get into Valhalla on a technicality, because of the amount of time he namechecks the (in his opinion) far superior Conan the Barbarian. So listen, by Crom, or Jupiter will get you.   Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com   Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 16-Dr Strangelove What could possibly be worse than Peter Sellers? Peter Sellers times 3. In Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 nuclear war black comedy, Dr Strangelove, England’s greatest comic actor plays three separate characters and Damian Asher doesn’t like it. Does three times the Sellers = three times the hate from the normally benign Stanley Kubrick uber fan Damian? Combine that with the usual radioactive malice of myself, Adam Nightingale and will the Punching Up squad accidently trigger a chain reaction of spite that will consume the world in a permanent nuclear winter of white-hot Peter Sellers hatred? Or alternatively will they simply run out of horrible things to say about the man and sheepishly admit that he’s actually quite funny.  Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com   Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 15-Bram Stoker's DraculaWho is the best Dracula? Is it Bela Lugosi’s suave count, Christopher Lee’s aristocratic Prince of Darkness, Max Shrek’s rat faced Nosferatu… or Gary Oldman’s lovelorn immortal who has crossed oceans of time to romance Winona Rider in Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula? Well, if you're Adam Nightingale it is most definitely not Gary Oldman, as the Lord of the Undead goes twelve rounds with the punching up team.  It’s a long one as Damian and Adam cover all things Dracula and still have oceans of time left to mention drama school dance workouts, dirty vampires vs clean vampires, David Soul’s pop career and how Damian Asher saved Adam from Christian rock music in the early 1990s.  You would be Vlad to miss it.   Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com   Follow us on Instgram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

Episode 14-Kill Bill Vol 2 In the second part of our first two-parter, Punching Up punches up at its first sequel, Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill Vol 2. Damian perpetuates his beef with QT’s roaring, raging, rampage of revenging but narrows his focus to the eponymous Bill himself. Damian doesn’t like David Carradine’s performance. Adam tries manfully to defend the late martial artist movie star who can’t do martial arts, who once adorned yellow face to play a Chinese criminal named Wang Dong and died under very dubious circumstances in a Thailand hotel room (which we gallantly do not mention in this episode). Who will win this roaring, retributive, rampage of retribution-ism-ing.  Tune in and find out.  Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com

Episode 13-Kill Bill Volume 1 In this episode Damian and Adam don’t so much punch up but chop down, with a katana sword (or to be more precise, a Hattori Hanzo sword), as it is time to kill Kill Bill, or kill Kill Bill Volume 1 (to be even more precise), Quention Tarantino’s martial arts masterpiece of retribution and revenge. So, expect 450 gallons of blood, a million cult movie references, a hundred million needle drops, multiple flying body parts, and attractive ladies naked feet…so, so many attractive ladies naked feet. It’s going to get bloody and it’s going to get weird as Damian and Adam cross swords (and play footsy) with the great Q T.   Get in touch :O). Send us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com

Episode 12-Bande a Part In the immortal words of Thin Lizzy (or that blues band that played in 48 Hours), The Boys Are Back In Town. That's right, Punching Up The Movie Podcast is back.This week we take shots at one of the pioneers of the French Nouvelle Vague cinema, Maoist essayist and intellectual contrarian, Jean Luc Godard and his supposedly most accessible film Bande a Part. Will Godard’s fourth-wall breaking tale of two guys, one beautiful girl, smoking, shrugging, dancing and petty crime expand Damian and Adam’s intellectual horizons? Or will it be the most boring and pretentious 90 minutes they have ever collectively endured. Listen in and find out.Get in touch :O). Send us an email @ punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com

Episode 11-EASY RIDER (1969) Two men went looking for a podcast and couldn’t find it anywhere. On this episode Adam takes a swing at the biker movie, road movie, hippytastic gamechanger that singlehandedly launched the New Hollywood, 1969’s Easy Rider, not realizing that it is one of Damian’s favourite movies.  Will their friendship survive, or will they (in the paraphrased words of the immortal Peter Fonda) Blow It?  Why does Damian like Easy Rider so much? Is it his innate love of counter culture and the magic herb? Why does Adam hate Easy Rider so much and what has he got against travelling troops of Hippy actors? Does it have something to do with his murky Christian drama group past?  Hold on. Is it therapy time, again???? Come on Adam, let the sunshine in. In the paraphrased words of the immortal Stephen Schwartz: Join Us and find out. Get in touch :O) Send us an email @: punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com

Episode 10-THE DEPARTED (2006) What has poor Martin Scorsese done to annoy the Punching Up team? Our series hasn’t been going that long and this is the third time around for America’s greatest living director. It’s beginning to look like a lot like bullying. This time it’s the turn of The Departed, Scorsese’s Boston-based Irish-American remake of the Hong Kong thriller Infernal Affairs starring Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson. Damian doesn’t like remakes and dislikes The Departed.Adam doesn’t like remakes but really likes The Departed. Damian doesn’t like remakes but likes Scorsese’s remake of Cape Fear.Adam doesn’t like Cape Fear but loves Juliette Lewis.But at least there’s one thing they can both agree on, neither Adam nor Damian like Ray Winstone’s ropey America accent in The Departed.    Enjoy the carnage. Get in touch :O) Send us an email @: punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com

Episode 9-HARD BOILED (1992)Can an action movie have too much action? Punching Up’s Adam thinks so.   Is John Woo’s cop vs triads cult classic, Hard Boiled really better than a dozen Die Hards, or does it suffer from a terminal case of the try-hards?  Adam thinks it does. Is John Woo really the Mozart of Mayhem, or is he actually the Andre Rieu of Chinese Gun fu?  Adam reckons he might be Rieu, making the case that two hours of wall-to-wall gun fighting (however exquisitely choreographed) can be quite boring.   As always, Damian disagrees with him. So, grab a 45 in each hand, put a matchstick in your mouth, release the doves and listen to Damian and Adam dance their slow-motion bullet ballet for your listening entertainment to determine whether Hard Boiled really deserves its Punching Up status.   Get in touch :O) Send us an email @: punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com   First person to email with a question or comment gets a special prize!!!!!!!!