FILLMORE DISCOS 46

Definitely a bit of a mixture here - for clarity's sake, I've added the year to the more vintage entries.

Who Can Kill A Child?, 1976 (*****)
brilliant highly atmospheric 70s low budget film from Spain about a couple who find themselves on a beautiful Mediterranean island taken over by violent feral children - others have since tried similar plot devices but never with as much unsettling menace and ambiguity of conventional morality

Foxes, 1980 (****)
Adrian Lyne's first feature film is a remarkably honest study of a group of young fairly average teenage girls growing up - and it's thanks to accurate observation and, dare I say it, a brilliant performance by Jodie Foster, that its poignant final act can easily catch you off guard; plus you get the treat of seeing glam rockers Angel doing live their disco hit Twentieth Century Foxes

Une Femme Infidèle, 1969 (**)
Chabrol's story of the tragic outcome of a married woman having an affair has nowhere near the class nor sophistication of Adrian Lyne's wonderfully nuanced 2002 remake Unfaithful

36 Fillette, 1988 (**) / À Ma Soeur! (****)
although she likely considers herself, and is considered by many, as having radical cutting-edge feminist credentials, instead I see Catherine Breillat's attitudes and obsessions with teenage sexual development as rather old-fashioned, betraying a quaint naïvete and lack of real world experience; what you end up with therefore are several of these undoubtedly brave studies of young girls coming of age, whilst employing tediously extended dialogues that are clearly just Breillat's written ponderings - 36 Fillette particularly suffers from this, neither its flimsy virginity plot nor its male or female characters' actions or dialogues are ever for one moment believable; À Ma Soeur!, on the other hand, whilst seeming to go down the same disingenuous path, boasts an extraordinary final half an hour which culminates in the most incredibly perverted happy ending, a true revelation of a uniquely female dimension

Street Trash, 1987 (****)
riotously funny unlegit horror as the local bums and winos end up melting after resorting to the neighbourhood liquor store's dollar-a-pop Viper drink - for such a low budget movie it's amazing how much energy and devotion have clearly been invested in the special effects, the sound, the script, and the acting

Entrails Of A Virgin, 1986 (**)
totally incompetent, yet at times pleasingly bonkers, sleaze-horror-comedy-porno-fest something-or-other from Japan

Capitalism: A Love Story (**) / Let's Make Money (****)
the former is yet another flat propaganda exercise by smug egomaniac Michael Moore, a man who's as much part of the problem as capitalism or any of the other soft targets he leeches from; there are far better documentaries on global finance (assuming one has any interest whatsoever) and the Austrian ueber-serious Let's Make Money is one such - a vastly more considered, wide-ranging film that goes much further than scoring cheap points; much of its content and understandings were new to me, and you never feel a party political subtext being rammed into you

FILLMORE DISCOS 45 - '70s RARITIES 3
FILLMORE DISCOS 44
FILLMORE DISCOS 43 - '70s RARITIES 2
FILLMORE DISCOS 42 - '70s RARITIES 1

UNLEGITIMATE 2

What ever did we do deserve the unremitting dreck served up by music TV and radio here? Meanwhile in Japan they get the deliciously unlegit Berryz Koubou and C-ute. It's just not fair.

FILLMORE DISCOS 40 - GIALLO SPECIAL 2

Another wholesome helping of decidedly unlegitimate italosleaze goodness.

What Have They Done To Solange? (*****)
sensational movie with a terrific international cast; the tone -whilst not without welcome moments of giallo sleaze- is relentlessly dark, containing shocking plot developments that nowadays nobody would dare touch, and all leading to an extremely satisfying finale

Death Walks On High Heels (****)
a gloriously creepy, if at times convoluted, giallo set in a remote unnamed English coastal village with a superbly bizarre cast of support characters and extras

Tenebrae (****)
Dario Argento has lots of amazing wonderfully wild cinematic ideas; his direction however, like the quality of the women he casts (comparatively speaking), is pretty rough around the edges - that said, Tenebrae is arguably his best and notable for its memorable climax, Goblin's fantastic soundtrack - oh, and a very scary dog

Forbidden Photos Of A Lady Above Suspicion (*****)
what it lacks in gore, Forbidden Photos more than makes up for in sexual intrigue, its feisty script and glossy cinematography, and above all, Dagmar Lassander's array of cripplingly beautiful outfits and sezzy looks

Who Saw Her Die? (***)
this thematically dark giallo set in the magisterial ambience of Venice (like Roeg's later and derivative Don't Look Now) is simply astounding leading up to the second shocking murder; unfortunately, the direction then becomes somewhat incoherent, Lado perhaps trying too hard to stick to the genre's formulae

Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key (*****)
you've got it all here: stellar cast featuring a perfect role for Edwige Fenech and an outrageous performance by Luigi Pistilli, finally a male actor up to the task in hand; some top-class sleaze; a twisty satisfying plot; some gorgeous cinematography; an astounding baroque Bruno Nicolai soundtrack.... and a black cat

All The Colors Of The Dark (***)
it's testament to the beguiling charisma of Edwige Fenech that she manages to single-handedly carry what would be an otherwise mediocre giallo, here, as she is caught up with some Satanic crusties in London and an unlikeable husband

The Strange Vice Of Mrs. Wardh (****)
even Conchita Airoldi is upstaged by the magnetic painful beauty of Edwige Fenech - classic giallo, set in Vienna and a still-Francoist Sitges, which explores unusually brave themes regarding female sexuality; Nora Orlandi, a Morricone cohort, provides a memorable, at times experimental, soundtrack to the proceedings

Strip Nude For Your Killer (***)
for what 'Nude per l'assassino' lacks in terms of plot cohesion, character development, and plausibility, we are amply compensated by the quality of sleaze on display

FILLMORE DISCOS 39 - GIALLO SPECIAL 1

UNLEGITIMATE

As the opening credits of the film documentary Smells Like Teen Spirit are emblazoned with the dreaded credit to 'UK Film Council', your hopes sink. And with good reason. This sloppy work is watchable thanks only to the remarkably fun phenomenon that is Eurovision, and thanks to the ability to augment from YouTube all the requisite footage that's shamefully omitted. (By the way, Romania got my 12 points.)

Britain has never been able to get it, Eurovision; we're a nation always fighting through our own invisible patina of self-loathing supercilious cynicism (typified by the tacit support for xenophobic prats like Terry Wogan and Graham Norton) and our own continually spurious attempts at wider musical legitimacy. This documentary is no exception to that.

I mention all of this because it lies at the heart of something I've discovered and learnt in the wake of my series of posts regarding the paintings of Congo the chimp. It's what makes Eurovision so much fun and the Brit awards or Turner Prize or Oscars so cringeworthy. It's what makes the satellite music channels like Viva Polska and Music Box Russia so watchable next to the wretched MTV. It's what makes Italo Disco so magical, yet 90s Britpop so awful. It's what makes everything from Wire magazine to Rolling Stone, books by writers such as Simon Reynolds and Jon Savage, Guardian and other broadsheet rock and pop critics, BBC music documentaries, and more, so fucking depressing. And of course it goes beyond music into the worlds of literature, art, performance, pornography, film.

It's this continually insufferable attempt to legitimise; the compulsion, through endless rationalisation, to give art some kind of special worthiness or moral weight. (And yes, it does have quasi-religious connotations.) Music, film, books, pictures should not have to justify their existence. Far better that they should not.

The act of attempting to legitimise one's own or others' work betrays the questionable underlying intent of trying to justify a belief system, a set of superstitions, a worldview. It says almost nothing else about the aesthetic value of the art. That's why it comes across as so overbearing and pompous and smug. It's an impure artistic intent.

LEGITIMATE
that which is considered as having unique irreplaceable worthiness, beyond its core artistic worth, rationalised by the creator or by others (i.e. legitimisers)

UNLEGITIMATE
that which is considered as disposable, or replaceable by other similar examples, spanning the full spectrum for popularity and potential for personal satisfaction

ILLEGITIMATE
that which is considered artistically unpalatable or unworthy by legitimisers, not on grounds of disposability or replaceability, but for a perceived threat to pre-established moral convention

Feel free to fill in your own examples for these categories according to taste.