Under The Radar

Easily one of the oddest movies ever made, Little Johnny: The Movie takes on an Australian tradition known as 'Little Johnny' jokes. They usually involve Johnny saying something obscene or being exposed to something obscene. In the good old days, folks would howl at stuff like this. Nowadays, they laugh behind their hands.

The animation is limited and not everything works, but if you're ready to go where most video viewers have never gone before, you'll enjoy this ribald delight.

Directed by Ralph Moser, a well known Aussie production designer, the film runs a scant seventy-eight minutes and boasts mountains of good-hearted "wrong". Mr. Moser ought to be anointed with a crown of some kind for persevering with a project so clearly non-PC as this.

This Shout Factory release snuck quietly onto the market very recently and has remained quiet ever since.

Why?

It's a bloody revelation of British rock flicks. Directed, no less, by Richard (Brimstone and Treacle) Loncraine, and starring a classic rock band, it takes a completely unexpected route for a rock flick starring a band at the height of their powers by being about the sleazy and destructive side of the business. 

The Slade members play another band called 'Flame', and the movie documents the band's rise and fall as London's criminal underworld gets its hooks into management. It's more The Long Good Friday than Kiss and Attack of the Phantoms, that's for sure, and it's a good thing, too, because the drama rocks and the Slade members acquit themselves well in roles tailored to their strengths.

The DVD also features an extensive interview with Noddy Holder, who comes across as a charming chap who never took himself too seriously. 

Based on a series of crime novels by Martina Coles, this British TV series is pretty darn amazing, and little seen outside the UK. In fact, during a recent trip back to Australia, I found a vanilla DVD of it selling for $5 out of a bargain bin alongside public domain cartoon compilations.

It stars Tom Hardy as a brutal wanna-be crime kingpin who bullies his way through a family torn apart by violence, jealousy and betrayal. Easily as violent as anything seen off-TV, it's a towering achievement for a burgeoning genre.

The Martina Coles follow-up is The Runaway.

Terrific doco focusing on the thinking, production, and aftermath of Floyd's 'Wish You Were Here' album.

Although focusing on one album in particular, it's a rare look into the world of the band and its place in rock history.

The latest from Sion Sono, shot in the ruins of Japan's recent disaster, is a scathing but beautiful love story set in a world of ecological disaster and  -- worse --  homosapien brutality.

The film focuses on the consequences of indifference, of allowing ourselves to disconnect from other human beings.

Like the previous films of this totally original director (Cold Fish, Guilty of Romance, Love Exposure), it tells its story using a unique blend of music, audacious camera movement, subtle performances, and unexpected turns of narrative.

For mine, this is the 2012 viewing experience to beat.

Also known as 'The Murderer', this powerful crime thriller has yet to be released on BluRay in the US, so the UK BluRay is the one to get.

It's a brilliant and bloody misadventure named for a section of the Pacific lying between China and the Korean peninsula.

There are close to a dozen rousing action sequences with a gory knife fight between multiple participants being a highlight. 

Epic Chinese war flick in the tradition of Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War, The Front Line, 71: Into The Fire, and Saving Private Ryan.

The film explores a survivor's guilt at being the only survivor of a massacre. It is brutal and powerful stuff.
 

This is a strange love story that incorporates unexpected sci-fi elements, but it never telegraphs its turns. It's so well written, you enjoy watching matters develop between the leads, and I didn't once feel that the romance was being contrived.

I'd rather not say too much about this for fear of revealing too many of its virtues.

It was released fairly recently alongside a bigger budget Kiera Knightly flick called Seeking A Friend For The End of The World.  I was originally confused by these films because, although this film is titled Safety Not Guaranteed (a bad title choice ,I feel), the plot and marketing campaign relied on a personal ad the lead male posts that begins: "Wanted: Someone to go back in time with me..." I guess the tones of both movies played silly buggers with my head.

For the record, Safety is way better than the Knightly film (which also stars Steve Carell). Although Seeking begins with a great concept (the world will be destroyed in 21 days!) and offers a very funny scene where a boss is offering a CFO job (and other titles) to any staff member who will take it (all decline!), the script quickly abandons the comic possibilities of nihilism and settles into a predictable romance between Knightly and Carrel.

Although it's not a total success, it's audacious enough to warrant serious attention.

The lead character, Andrea Dunbar, wrote a play called 'The Arbor' about a teenager abused by her alcoholic father. Dunbar herself was living in an outer suburban British shithole at the time.

The film details her life via re-stagings of her plays and lip synced interviews (by professional actors) with people who raised her and knew her.  The zoophile doc Zoo, about the demise of the infamous 'Mr. Hands' employed a similar technique.

The film has received scant distribution outside the UK, but it's well worth your time.

The Current State of Mind

For the past few months, I've found writing about movies a difficult proposition. Only one film, Sion Sono's brilliant Himizu, has truly captured my head and heart; the rest -- and I'm talking The Dark Night Returns, The Campaign, Lawless, The Expendables 2,  The Master, and Samsara -- have fallen short.

Is good cinema in decline, or have I become jaded after hitting close to 5000 movies seen (!)?

I'm afraid I can't answer that one.

I'm looking at X-rated cinema with different glasses, too.

For the first time in decades, explicit depictions of sex are boring me to tears. In the past, I'd pick up special editions of Golden Age porn flicks like Inside Annie Sprinkle as soon as they hit the stands. Have I put money down for the same company's  The Private Afternoons of Pamela Mann? Not yet. Does the upcoming restoration of Chuck Vincent's Roommates and Misty Beethoven excite me? Somewhat. And I'll pick it up eventually. But the thrill has diminished.

Then there's my recent reaction to another type of porn

My face hit the pavement two years ago when a good friend introduced me to a series of really harsh web porn segments going under titles like Facial Abuse, Deface Her Face, etc. I've always been curious to see everything I can get my hands on as a type of tolerance test, but these vids just depressed me. They depressed me even more than usual. I expose myself to a lot of traumatic material, and I never know how I'll react to it, but these vids made me sad for the "performers" who are paid probably next to nothing by asshole porn producers who get off on debasing these girls.

Yes, the girls are getting paid and are signing release forms, so I'm not saying that anything illegal is happening, although that could be debated, but I am saying I don't find it titillating or engaging to watch a bullying asshole belittle, verbally insult, and ruin a young woman's day (or month, or year) under the cover of a "professional job".  As a human being, I find it hard to watch such harsh treatment of fellow human beings. This stuff isn't "acting" -- it's mean-spirited reality.

I don't think most porn is debasing. The majority of it is pretty vanilla with little actual "abuse" content. The depressing part was seeing cute young ladies "abused" with no thought to their pleasure at all. These are not roughies like Forced Entry, Hot Night in the City, or Weekend Fantasy -- they're just cheap vids shot in a room with crappy production values, a single camera, and a single male hurling abuse, while having his ugly penis sucked by a crying girl.

What bothers me most about porn of the face-fucking variety is its totally one-sided construction. And most of the guys in these videos come across as bullying assholes, which they clearly are, and I never get any sense that they actually like women. Remember the late Jamie Gillis? He made some harsh movies, and many of them involved rape scenarios and brutal games. But one never felt that Jamie actually disliked the women. On the contrary, he was deeply into these women, and the scenarios always came across as even-handed, even when one partner was dominant and the other was submissive.

Yes, there's a market for this stuff, but that doesn't mean it's not depressing to watch, especially if you view sex as the most fun when its reciprocal or at least "controlled" by both parties.

The one thing I've never liked about porn of any kind is the emphasis on blow jobs. I hate porn blow jobs. I don't want to watch some guy's penis being sucked in a big close-up. I also don't want to see a close-up of another man's hairy balls swinging as he saws in and out of a lass's insides. I prefer the emphasis being on the women. That's probably why lesbian porn appeals to men. It's totally female-focused. We see the female body without some guy's ass crack obscuring the view.

Personally, I love seeing women pleasing other women with their tongues. It's super-intimate and the women usually love it if it's done right. For me, at least, it pushes the right buttons. I have no trouble deriving vicarious pleasure from the act of one woman loving another.

My current blah attitude to porn has a lot to do with the lack of true affection on screen. I want to see people who are really, really into each other. When a guy is hot for a gal, there are no limits, no boundaries, no excuses. That's true desire, true lust, true passion. How many current porno flicks reflect that? How often are deviancy and fun mixed together? How often is the passion out of control? Not often.

The Facial Abuse flicks are the opposite of passion for me. They're mean spirited. They're about hurting people. About dominating vulnerable women without her express co-operation or "permission". They're not even bad Sado-Masochism. They're just ugly and monotonous.

Even Max Hardcore had more style, game, and humor than these guys.

As my tolerance for seriously one-sided hard porn diminishes, my affection for classic porno novel covers, extreme art, guro, and Japanese erotica intensifies.

Why?

Context. And it's all in the imagination.

Perhaps I'm going full circle.

How about you?