The Punching Up Movie Podcast

Punching Up-Episode 33-The Odyssey

In case you haven’t noticed there is an obscure arthouse film on general release called The Odyssey that needs a bit of an extra push from the Punching Up Team.
So, Damian and Adam have graciously decided to give The Odyssey’s under resourced marketing team an assist by talking about it on their podcast.

Up for discussion are the place of fate and the will of the gods over free will and moral culpability in the Hellenistic world as interpreted by Christopher Nolan, the cinematic representation of martial chaos, Nolan’s grotesque Goyaesque creature design, and the extent to which Nolan navigates the contentious sexual politics of Homer’s original text vs the more progressive post-feminist demands of a 21st Century audience.

But by far the most important question under discussion is, which is better, The Odyssey or Jason and the Argonauts (or Conan the Barbarian)?  The answer should be obvious. I live, I love , I slay, I am content.  

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Punching Up-Episode 32-Halloween

For the first time in Punching Up’s relatively brief but illustrious history Damian takes a swing at a film Adam actually cares about, John Carpenter’s trend setting, genre launching slasher masterpiece (or should that be slash-ter-piece?), Halloween.

Adam first had the living dingles scared out of him by Carpenter’s OG serial killing bogey (or should that be boogey) man Michael Myers when he was a kid and has been serially creeped him out by him ever since.

Damian is clearly made of sterner stuff and isn’t remotely frightened by Halloween and it’s going to take more than an indestructible, William Shatner mask wearing, knife wielding embodiment of pure evil to get the D Man to soil himself anytime soon.

So, join the Punching Up team for kitchen knives at dusk and a proper Halloween carve up.

We also talk about the pedestrian Halloween 2, the really rather interesting cinematic experiment that is Halloween 3 and quite a bit more.

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Punching Up-Episode 31-Highlander

Here we are, born to be kings, we are princes of the podcast-verse.
And to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the head lopping, Queen scored, Sean Connery featuring, 1980s cult classic that made an unlikely star of Christophe Lambert, the Punching Up crew will be putting Highlander to sword.
On the chopping block this episode will be wayward Scottish accents, wayward Egyptian/Spanish accent hybrids, the weird appeal of Christophe Lambert, MTV editing, inexplicably crap swordfights and the bulletproof nature of Sean Connery’s superstardom.
We also discuss whether it’s a good idea to do backflips in the middle of a dual in a dirty 1980s New York underground carpark. It’s not all negative though.
Damian and Adam also take a little time to throw out some qualified love toward an Australian movie about a pig. And it’s not Babe. Because Babe doesn’t eat people. Confused. Don’t worry. It will all makes sense when you tune in. A lot more sense than the plot of Highlander.  

Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

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Punching Up-Episode 30-Deep Red

Look at the stars
Look how they shine for you
And everything you do
Yeah, they were all…..GIALLO…As in lurid, yet somehow tastefully composed, extremely violent, yet oddly beautiful to look at, Italian horror murder mysteries that make little or no actual logical sense even after everything has been explained.

And no giallo holds these contradictions in perfect tension better than Dario Argento’s 1975 elegant murder-fest Deep Red, also known as Profundo Rosso, also known as the Hatchet Murders (although I’m pretty certain no one actually gets killed with a Hatchet in Deep Red).

Beautifully confusing?

Well, that’s giallo for you.

So, swap your Coldplay for your Goblin, put on your black leather murder gloves and join Adam (defending) and Damian (attacking) for the first official Punching Up of the new year for a discussion of Deep Red and all things Giallo (or yellow).

Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

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Punching Up-Episode 29-The Best of 2025

Better late than never, the Punching Up boys present their best of 2025.

Fashionably late as usual, hear Damian and Adam go against their usual grain and talk about the films they actually…. what’s the word?...oh yeah.....liked… that’s the word, all the way back in the year Twenty Hundred and Fifty Five.

So, join them for a surprisingly relaxed, largely hate free, unusually unified discussion about sinful movies brandishing lots of weapons, having dreams on trains, singing songs about moons that are blue whilst reading short stories by Stephen King.

All of this and lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, more.

 

Get in touch :O) by sending us an email @punchingupmoviepodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @ punchingupmoviepodcast

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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

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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!!!

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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

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