Heston? Doesn't have quite the same ring to it as 'Bronson', does it? You'd be mistaken for a service station or a weird chef. Yet we learn from Nicholas Winding Refn's extraordinary and distinctive film Bronson that Britain's most dangerous prisoner, real name Michael Peterson, actually considered 'Charlton Heston' as a tasty pseudonym in his bare-knuckle days, before opting for 'Charles Bronson'. Actually, you feel that the prisoner is now bestowing hard-man kudos on the late star of the Magnificent Seven, rather than the other way round. Peterson's psychotic antics in prison seem a darn sight more frightening then the squinty-eyed vigilantism of Death Wish. But perhaps it's Tom Hardy's pit-bull powerhouse of a performance in Winding Refn's film that makes me think that. Art imitating life imitating art, and all that.

Actually, I don't think the idea that Bronson (the film, not the prisoner or the actor - keep up) glamourises violence rings true. We see Bronson (the prisoner) metaphorically and literally banging his fists and his forehead against every obstruction in his path: prison officers, bars, walls. The references above to psychosis and pit bulls are deliberate. He has been denied, or is unable to formulate, any other sort of response. And it's not pretty.

The problem is the poster quote heralding Bronson as the new Clockwork Orange. Nothing innately wrong with that. Both films critique the state's inability to respond to brutal elements with anything other than equal brutality. The violence in Clockwork Orange is horrible. You'd have to be a very sick puppy in the first place to find its murder or rape scenes "glamorous".The problem was that Stanley Kubrick, acting on scaremongering media reports of copycat gangs emulating his droogs, withdrew his own film from circulation, thus giving credence to the "glamourising" argument. It just goes to show, you've got to be careful with your poster quotes. Or your quotes in general. I once tried to damn a Philip Kerr novel with faint praise by describing him as "England's answer to Michael Crichton". They put it on the cover of the paperback.

Talking of glamourising violence, I loved Not Quite Hollywood, the documentary about the "Ozlploitation" comedies, sex romps and violent biker and horror flicks churned out of Australia in the 70s and 80s. I came out of it wanting to see at least 20 of the films referenced. Especially Howling III: The Marsupials. And the film about a rock band full of magicians and a stunt man. Mark Hartley's garish, fast paced but also highly informative film placed Mad Mad in its rightful place within the a cultural canon for me.

And a quick note: I fear the long, looming Horne/Corden backlash will finally arrive once Lesbian Vampire Killers hits the screens this week. But it did give me an idea for my own cheapo horror film, about a building suffering from lycanthropy. Any backers out there for Curse of the Were-House?