FILLMORE DISCOS 52 - CHRISTINA LINDBERG SPECIAL

Christina Lindberg's acting career was predominantly in the 70s when she epitomised the sweet-looking and somewhat lonesome submissive young teenager whose voluptuous looks are an unwitting magnet for various types of sexual predator, both male and female.

Exposed (*****)
Catherine Breillat could learn a lot from this early 70s gem, her coming-of-age films whilst being never less than brave are consistently blighted by her own extreme naïvete and seeming lack of personal experience - Exposed ('Exponerad' in Swedish), much like the later Maid In Sweden but with harder and more forceful content, is a masterly look at feminine teenage sexuality that would probably now never be made

Maid In Sweden (****)
once you get past your expectations of Maid In Sweden being a routine 70s softcore entry and the hilarious accents (all the acting is in English with real time audio), you get drawn into what is a minor coming-of-age classic full of courageous touching honesty with extremely rare insights into the usually misrepresented female psyche

Young Playthings (***)
sexploitation director Joe Sarno's hard-to-find Young Playthings is one of the most incomprehensible movies you're likely to ever see; what starts out as conventional softcore fare soon gets indescribably arty weird as the two female protagonists get drawn into an apartment and involved in an arcane mime show - somewhat like Roger Watkins' Last House On Dead End Street without the gore

Sex And Fury (**)
pinky violence with Christina Lindbergh should deliver a lot more fun than the results - she pretty much delivers her side of the bargain seen here at her radiant best with huge anime eyes, unfortunately the whole is let down by a poor Japanese cast and some preposterously amateurish low budget action sequences

Journey To Japan (**)
traditional Japanese porno fare as Christina, after getting picked up by one of the many geeky perverts that appear to troll Tokyo's streets, is predictably subjected to various kinky assaults before falling, also predictably, Stockholm syndrome style, for her nerdy bespectacled captor

Anita: Swedish Nymphet (**)
Lindberg is fantastic as the 17-year-old nymphomaniac, one of her best performances - sadly, the film has dated terribly and is undermined by its ridiculous premise of a lonely teenage girl aggressively accosting random men for sex; this nonsense is made worse when a weedy youth becomes her self-proclaimed therapist attempting to wean her off the 'addiction' - Deep Throat's narrative is more believable than this

Thriller: A Cruel Picture (****)
don't be too put off by Tarantino (and others) referencing this as inspiration, Thriller is an entertaining yet thoughtful revenge action movie with some uncommon nastiness - Lindberg is perfectly cast as the beautiful young girl preyed upon to breaking point by perverts, pimps, and pushers

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AFTER SIGHT 11

SWAG

They seem to have abandoned any real attempt at customs checks upon arrival back home nowadays, but it didn't always used to be like that. Woe betide travellers returning from suspect locations like Amsterdam or Tokyo who could expect to suffer a 'thorough' examination. Drugs, pornography, nasty horror movies, you name it, it was banned in the UK. Thank god for the internet. It's a blessing to be the kind of person not to get stopped, even though that never helped an undeservedly guilty conscience. The shifty avoidance of direct eye contact, the stilted gait, and the SPS (Sweaty Palms Syndrome) is such a tell.

Enjoy some stills from a fabulous new exhibition, I'd love to be able to see it in person. My pick for the most disturbing is 'unknown meat in bottle (prohibited)', while the moral for would-be drug traffickers is not to muscle in on the CIA cartel.

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After undeservingly inflicting that sickening beige attack post regarding Hello Kitty onto you, here's something that's almost as scary (thank you to Steven). You have been warned...

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Pieces (***)
Boston, Massachusetts is an unlikely setting for a Spanish giallo cum slasher, and anyone familiar with Madrid will knowingly chortle at several of the locations; just as amusing are the dubbed voices for the actors, along with the insane narrative, and yet it's not only the sheer badness of this sleazy cult classic but its infectious energy that make it so much fun to watch: 'bastard! bastard! bastard!!'

Delirium: Photo Of Gioia (***)
an enjoyable and underrated latter-day giallo by Lamberto Bava, full of essential ingredients: insanely beautiful women, piles of sleaze and gore, red herrings, and thankfully not too much police drudgery; the movie is unusual in its use of a first-person killer perspective, you experience the crimes from inside his/her head

Death Walks At Midnight (**)
after a promising opening, Luciano Ercoli's lesser movie gets bogged down in the dreary details of police detective work and inexplicable narrative and character development; that said, it's eminently stylish with a superb score

A Blade In The Dark (***)
highly watchable Lamberto Bava weirdness - huge dollops of Hitchcock, boatloads of red herrings, fantastic electronic soundtrack, and a creepy plot device that presages Svankmajer's Down To The Cellar by a good decade

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SHORT BREATHS 8

Tectonic plates II
shock investigation? once again, it would be surprising were it to be otherwise - why so much resistance to female priests? religion's hypocrisy against homosexuality (amongst other things) is far more to do with the delicious exercise of power through denying others pleasure combined with a desperate fucked-up cycle of internal conflict between their own sexuality and an inherited set of bizarre beliefs; I blame that maniac Augustine

Tate Britain
on September 3rd I'm contributing what I'm describing as 'extralinguistic sequencing' as part of the Late At Tate monthly special event sponsored by Urbanomic, which is 'exploring the emerging philosophical paradigm of Speculative Realism and its impact on contemporary art practice' - also at the event will be new work by Florian Hecker, plus screenings, sculpture, and a panel discussion; it's a free event and I hope you can come, it'll be quite special

YDI
oops... after the critical failure to resurrect the old PS3, you'd think I wouldn't risk an attempt at replacing the cracked glass on my old iPhone - and predictably, after another self-inflicted botch-up resulting in a damaged LCD, am now getting the entire upper part replaced; the lesson has, finally, been learnt

Books
this is the update of remaining titles from List A - look out for a List B in a few weeks' time!

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BOOKS LIST A

The books for sale list (A) is now live and ready to download - all the necessary info should be contained within.

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Un Jeu Brutal (***)
an eminent scientist, also part-time serial killer, takes it upon himself to look after his attractive disabled teenage daughter in the French countryside after the death of her mother; what begins so promisingly gradually unravels into a tediously incoherent Haneke-like exploration of motive and moral imperative

Gurotesuku (*)
don't get too excited: this Guinea Pig clone may be the first film to be banned in the UK since Murder Set Pieces, but it gets really dreary really quickly, not just due to cheesy plot devices and dialogue but also for its obtrusively irritating use of MTV-style close-up camera work and Saw-style video filters

Penance (***)
a young woman saddled with debt is tempted by the easy money her friend makes stripping in private homes; that flimsy plot serves as a valid excuse for an energetic low budget shaky-camera outing that involves a fair amount of effectual gore and sleaze, and for that you can overlook its glaring faults

Psychopathia Sexualis (*)
MacBook movie-makers and porn-quality repertory actors combine in a dreadful misguided attempt at interpreting Krafft-Ebing's anthology of perverted sexual practice

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PRAVDA 10

The latest from Pravda. I suspect these three stories are connected in unimaginably horrific ways.

Chupacabra Devours Rabbits And Cats In Ukraine
On weekly visits to a local charity bookstore my third favourite shelf is the one they have dedicated to 'the unexplained'. It's populated with titles on alien visitations and abductions, mysterious natural phenomena, and best of all, on cryptids. Whether the folkloric Nessie is actually a plesiosaur or a giant sturgeon is less important than my urgent need to believe that there really are goatsuckers out there. Even better that they be from Ukraine.

Russia To Become Childfree Land Under Western Influence
Even by the extreme standards set by Pravda's opinion features, this one is out-and-out bonkers. You wouldn't want it any other way. I love the strident tone of its premise that couples are 'refusing' to have children, as if being threatened by some external force, and that it's misguided anti-abortion propaganda and the sexual promiscuity in TV series to blame for the increasing childlessness of Russia's couples. This is NLP.

Carbonated Drinks: Learn The Truth!
The success of the fizzy drinks industry is an extraordinary demonstration of the effective powers of marketing and advertising. Lidl sell their own brand 'cola' in huge 2 litre bottles for 29p and nobody will go near it, like it was some kind of contaminated brown mouthwash. Meanwhile, the ubiquitous and undoubtedly no less toxic products of Pepsi, Red Bull, and Coca-Cola are embraced like long-lost friends, damn the expense. Does anyone really know what Irn Bru is made of?

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Beige is that weird colour they use to clothe sex offenders in Californian penal institutes. It's also the colour of choice for serial killer footwear, if you look carefully, you'll spot them on public transport. It's even a creepy kind of word when you say it aloud and think about it. Beige. Go on, extend that vowel sound.

Even the normally reliably innocent and super-cute Hello Kitty, in her Tropical iteration, is transformed into a thing to be scared of. Never mind the troubling pink bikini.

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