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Amsterdam, 2010. Photo taken in secret. Almost spotted.

(thanks to Yin)

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Enter The Void (*)
as is also often the case with Catherine Breillat, the underlying disingenuousness and lack of real-life transgressive experience (beyond that of a febrile romantic imagination) is the imperative for masking Enter The Void with such excess: every aspect is exaggerated as a form of compensation for an underlying real-world naïveté (just as in Irreversible); and yet while people are creaming themselves over opening title sequences like classic rock fans to a Clapton guitar solo, or else bedazzled by psychedelic graphics condemned to age faster than a Windows 98 screensaver, or even worse, the interminable overhead 'ghost' shots of the streets of Tokyo, what really bothered me is that all this wankfoolery is a set-up for one of the most cringeworthily moralistic final acts I've endured in years

Jackass 3-D (***)
3D and the irrepressible Johnny Knoxville and comrades is a match made in heaven - this valedictory compilation of their latest stunts and pranks, while certainly patchy and played-out at times, does include some classic vignettes that Buster Keaton himself would have been proud of

Easy A (*)
what is it about Hollywood having to cast actresses in their mid-twenties as high school teenagers? I hate that, and I hate this incredibly dishonest film that makes issues out of teenage sexuality that surely do not exist

Our Guys: Outrage In Glen Ridge (*****)
featuring the inestimable Heather Matarazzo, Our Guys is a superb compelling TV movie dramatisation of real life events in which a mentally handicapped girl was raped with a broomstick and a bat, by members of the local high school football team

Farmhouse (**)
you know when horror films start out so promisingly only to fall apart halfway through? usually involving some incredibly silly chase scene - Texas Chainsaw Massacre and The Shining come to mind; well, Farmhouse trumps even that infamy with the most spectacularly gratuitous dissembling of an initially great narrative ever witnessed, it will blow your mind

Get Him To The Greek (*)
what starts out promisingly with a mildly subversive take on the mainstream music industry ends up as a dreary unsatisfying formulaic popcorn comedy

Machete (**)
the pro-Mexican immigrant message of the film, however laudable it may be, gets in the way of what should be basic popcorn retro mexploitation entertainment; also, there's nowhere near enough of a sex and sleaze component; and finally, the veteran Danny Trejo might look the part in stills but simply doesn't have enough on-screen charisma or acting skills to carry off the lead role, whilst the reinvigorated Don Johnson and Steven Seagal, in their respective baddie roles, manage to steal the show

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ANTICLASTIC 7

Un-Accorded.

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Mandingo!
the recent VBS documentary Mandingo! about the Floridian interracial swinging scene features a new Cut Hands track, one that isn't expected to be included on the forthcoming album - in case you're wondering which it is, it's the one in the film that doesn't sound like a Led Zeppelin remix

Bijin Tokei
am suffering from a mad addiction to these bijin tokei iDevice apps; not sure what's cuter - the ones with random girls in the streets of Japan, or the ones with the photos taken with fish-eye lenses of kittens and puppies; not to leave anyone out, there's even one with boys now, not to mention a porn incarnation (it had to happen sooner or later)

The Wire
I didn't envy David Keenan's herculean task of transcribing the 4+ hours of dialogue for the Invisible Jukebox, which then had to be edited down quite a bit; anyway, I thought he did a great and meticulous job of making it all work pretty well; there were just a couple of minor corrections I'd like to point out: of course, it was Robert Rental who sold me the Wasp synth (not Daniel Miller), and Bad Girls Get The Fuck Over It is in fact Whitehouse (not a side project as was suggested in the feature's introduction); the magazine also have posted an exclusive short streaming extract from 'Extralinguistic Programming'

Movies
it was time last weekend, once again, to dust off the 3D glasses for the (presumably) valedictory Jackass movie, review coming for that soon, along with Enter The Void and much more; nor has the promised Disney special been forgotten about, I know how much people are not dying to read that

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A lonesome symbol, vigil to tyranny's rubble.

(thanks to Mark for this one!)

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PRAVDA 11

Vladimir Putin Braves Formula 1 Race Car
Putin is so fucking alpha it hurts. Beautifully. Likewise, this exquisite collection of photo ops with various animals forms the basis for the construct of legends. In pictures with other world leaders, even with the most ostensibly fearsome tyrants, you can see what a mighty alluring presence he commands. As they squirm.

No One Wants To Work At Russian Police
What the article omits to point out is the glaringly obvious. It's all about the uniform.

Bizarre Deaths Can Be Traced Back In Ancient History
Oh, how cruel and sarcastic and poetic is the executioner of Death. Just like that so-called founder of scientific inquiry Sir Francis Bacon, who died as a result of stuffing snow into a chicken he'd just killed for the purpose of a 'scientific' experiment. And while Attila The Hun may have savoured his moment vanquishing all of Asia, it was only to die of a nosebleed on that most special of days, the night of his wedding.

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Noroi The Curse (*****)
as a big fan of the fake documentary shaky-cam horror genre, I'm not sure how I missed this; anyway, this Japanese film from 2005 is for me the best one yet - its two hour duration, so well paced, enacted, edited, and crafted, absolutely flies by as it hurtles towards the shocking climax of the final scenes

American: The Bill Hicks Story (**)
the worst thing about death is how all the parasites come out to feed on the sorry corpse: here we have Bill Hicks' parents, to help shore up their comfort in retirement, attempting a deeply hypocritical sanitised rehistoricisation of his brilliant but tragically short-lived career; a bunch of useless stand-up Houston and LA comics shamelessly revelling in the opportunity for some reflected glory; and documentary filmmakers far more focused on self-congratulation for their ludicrous annoying graphic flourishes than in keeping the viewer informed as to who's talking about what and when

Saw: The Final Chapter (*****)
a poor and pointless implementation of 3D, a couple of scenes that I sense have been gratuitously tacked on, and subpar casting for the new roles, are all irrelevant flaws; this latest edition is packed with tons of wonderfully gory new content with a subtle undercurrent of eroticism to the proceedings; there is also what amounts to a cameo role by the incredibly hot Tobin Bell, devastating in its impact, along with an even more badass than usual Betsy Russell, who is equally sexy; if only art installations were as good as the traps in Saw

The Loved Ones (**)
Robin McLeavy as the psycho-girl who doesn't take kindly to rejection by men is the best thing about this derivative Aussie horror, a film which starts promisingly before getting bogged down in a stupid chase narrative with utterly predictable results

Inception (*)
something for the big-budget special FX action-film popcorn brigaders to feel like they're intelligent - have you ever felt condescended by a dreadful script full of stoopid explanation and re-explanation?

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