Art Machine
Just another former infatuation junkie

Apparently, we’re rockin’ and rollin’ over at The Anvil & Sprocket. Just a couple of days after I linked to reviews for Julie and The Castle of Cagliostro, it’s time for another update!

This time around, Anvil kicks things off with Amazon Women On The Moon – which, despite what you may think, is not an exploitation flick starring Misty Mundae.

Then, I follow up with the slasher classic Sleepaway Camp – a relic from the era when some horror directors thought it was a good thing for their movies to have an “R” rating.

Go! Read! Enjoy!

You know you want to stop by the Anvil & Sprocket, where you’ll find two new reviews.

First, I discover what it’s like to bounce to the Bollywood beat as I review Indian romance flick Julie. Then, Thud follows up with Hayao Miyazaki’s cinematic tryst with Monkey Punch’s Lupin III, Castle of Cagliostro.

It’s lots of fun for everyone involved. So, what are you waiting for? Go! Go now!

And now, the PrimeCog Players are proud to present: The Friday Ten.

*Because / Come Together – George Benson, The Other Side of Abbey Road *Stompin’ at the Savoy – Dick Schory, Supercussion *Devil Exit From Fashion – Messer Chups, Swingin’ Singles – Side B *Taking My Life In Your Hands – Elvis Costello & the Brodsky Quartet, The Juliet Letters *Bat Out Of Hell – Meat Loaf, Bat Out Of Hell *Blue Rondo A La Turk – Dave Brubeck, Time Out *Change The World – Strawberry Land, Ten; Ten *Last Mile – Cinderella, VH1 Big 80’s – Big Hair *Other Than – kéli, Tell An American To Vote *Ford Mustang – Serge Gainsbourg, Comic Strip

I no longer care where Todd McFarlane gets the ideas for his new lines of toys. What I really want to know is… who buys these things?

Obviously, they’re popular. The man keeps cranking out line after line of toys. At this point, he has not only done figures for his Spawn and Angela comics, but also of various anime figures, sports stars, The Wizard of Oz (which included – among other designs – Dorothy in bondage gear being branded by evil munchkins), and now traditional fairy tales.

Gretel: This German princess strikes a much more, uh, impressive pose than her fairy tale counterpart. Getting lost in the woods is the least of her worries.

You know, at this point I really don’t need McFarlane to even make the toys. I know what’s in his imagination. Scrawny guys, lusty babes in bondage gear, and plenty of entrails. There. I just saved you wondering about his next decades worth of toys. Sheesh.

Reuters reports that the FCC has received complaints concerning “lewd nudity” in the opening ceremony of the Athens Olympics (link contains nudity).

Male nudity, a woman’s breast and simulated sex were the subjects of shrill complaints about the opening ceremony on August 13 which were posted by the FCC on its Web site.

“Far from being indecent, the opening ceremonies were beautiful, enlightening, uplifting and enjoyable,” Angelopoulos wrote in a weekend commentary in the Los Angeles Times titled “Since When is Greece’s Culture Obscene?”

“Greece does not wish to be drawn into an American culture war. Yet that is exactly what is happening,” she said.

Complaints focused on a parade of actors portraying naked statues. Among them were the Satyr and the nude Kouros male statues, both emblems of ancient Greece’s golden age.

Created by modern Greek dancer Dimitris Papaioannou and broadcast in the United States by NBC, the opening ceremony was credited with giving the Games a vitally successful start.

“We also showed a couple enjoying their love of the Greek sea and each other. And we told the history of Eros, the god of love. Turning love, yearning and desire into a deity is an important part of our contribution to civilisation,” Angelopoulos said.

It’s interesting to think that this series of complaints has at its core one of the key issues with the FCC’s patrolling of the airwaves – namely, who decides what is and is not decent?

Culturally, Americans are taught to associate nudity automatically with sex, and the depiction of sex as pornography. Culturally, Greek culture has not made either association – nudity is not automatically sex, and the depiction of sex is not automatically pornographic. From a Greek standpoint, the actors portraying nude statues were not considered “lewd,” and neither was the depiction of the story of Eros.

From a (conservative) American standpoint, viewers thought they had tuned into The Erotic Network by mistake. The knee-jerk reaction to seeing so many naked people on screen for these viewers was, “Oh, my gawd! They’re broadcasting an orgy!”

Of course, for such viewers there was just about no way the ceremony could have been performed with the same themes and the same focus on Greek culture without offending them. Had the statues been clothed in briefs or loincloths, they still would have been considered lewd just by virtue of the amount of flesh they had on display. Had the story of Eros or of the “couple enjoying their love of the Greek sea and each other” been told by one actor or actress in an interpretive dance, the complaint would have been that they had a stripper on television. Had the television broadcast dithered the offending bits, the conservatives would have screamed that they had no right to stage the event that way – and those of us on the liberal side would have condemned them for treating the director’s artistic vision as though it were pornography.

Angelopoulos worries about Greece being drawn into a culture war. And she’s probably right to be concerned. The sad thing is that both cultures will always differ on who threw the first stone. On the Greek side, the uptight Americans freaked out because they couldn’t handle the depiction of a culture that didn’t have its roots in fundamentalist pseudo-Christian dogma and promptly accused their culture of being obscene and degenerate. On the other, conservative Americans will always claim that it was Greece’s fault for allowing all those nekkid people on screen.

And I guess from the way I wrote those two opinions, you can tell which side I fall on.

A culture war, frankly, is a war that cannot be won by either side these days – not even by genocide. With modern communications and travel, cultures have a tendency to bleed into and blend with each other.

But the end result of using the FCC to police the airwaves for “indecency” is, itself, culture war. When you draw a vague line in the middle of a windy desert and tell the whole world that you don’t care if they can’t see it – they had better not step over it, you have declared a kind of culture war. You have put somebody in charge of culture and given them the power and the license to attack whatever doesn’t fit into their view of the world.

And here’s the Friday… ten?

(1) Fire up your IPOD, MP3 or other digital media player (2) Set to random play (3) List the first ten songs

• 5 Years, 4 Months, 3 Days – Brian Setzer ‘68 Comeback Special
• Kill Meow – Text Adventure
• Don’t Forget Me – Harry Nilsson
• Home Cookin’ – Groove Tiger Blue
• Pussy Cat Dues – Charles Mingus
• Into White – Cat Stevens
• Ronin – DJ Bootsie
• T.V. Cowboy (Ballad of Wyatt Urp) – Bob Peck
• U Lied – Crea
• Looney Tunes – Larissa Pop

I own what?

There are many kinds of fame. There’s the fame that comes from saving a kitten who has been trapped by the landing gear of a 747. And there’s the cruddy kind of fame that comes from climbing to the top of a clocktower with a high-powered sniper rifle.

Somewhere between the two falls Thelma White’s fame – the fame of an actress who appeared in the classic film Reefer Madness.

Born in 1910, White was a carnival performer as a toddler, progressed to vaudeville, radio and movies, then worked as an agent and producer for many years. During her heyday as an actress, she appeared alongside such legendary performers as W.C. Fields, Will Rogers, Red Skelton and Jack Benny. What secured her place in Hollywood history, however, was a movie so awful that its memory still made her shudder 50 years later.

“Reefer Madness” was a low-budget propaganda film written by a religious group to broadcast the dangers of marijuana. It was relegated to the cinema waste heap for almost 40 years until 1972, when Keith Stroup, founder of the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws discovered it in the Library of Congress archives and paid $297 for a print. He then screened it in New York as a benefit for the advocacy group, unwittingly launching it on the road to cult-film history.

Thelma White passed away Tuesday.

I’m not a frequent viewer of Da Ali G Show, but I kind of like his act. It’s a bit like Candid Camera turned on end. His characters are at once so normal and so twisted that he gets some amazing reactions to questions like, “So, as director of Homeland Security, is you afraid of terrorists hijacking a train and driving it into the Pentagon?”

Of course, while many people do actually have a sense of humor, they’re not always willing to share in your joke. Take, for instance, the folks at the rodeo in Salem (which happens to be in the red state this Liberal blogger calls home).

Introduced as Boraq Sagdiyev from Kazakhstan, he was said to be an immigrant touring America. A film crew was with him, doing some sort of documentary. And he wanted to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” to show his appreciation, the announcer told the crowd.

Speaking in broken English, the mysterious man first told the decidedly pro-American crowd – it was a rodeo, of all things, in Salem, of all places – that he supported the war on terrorism.

“I hope you kill every man, woman and child in Iraq, down to the lizards,” he said, according to Brett Sharp of Star Country WSLC, who was also on stage that night as a media sponsor of the rodeo.

An uneasy murmur ran through the crowd.

“And may George W. Bush drink the blood of every man, woman and child in Iraq,” he continued, according to Robynn Jaymes, who co-hosts a morning radio show with Sharp and was also among the stunned observers.

I finally did it! I broke the long streak of vampire movies at The Anvil & Sprocket! Not only that, but I actually reviewed something other than a horror film or an exploitation flick. Check out the review of Guy Maddin’s grainy art-house flick, The Saddest Music in the World

Rolling Stone reports that Wal-Mart has decided that it’s paying too much for CD’s. To which the average music consumer replies, “You’re just noticing this?”

Less-expensive CDs are something consumers have been demanding for years. But here’s the hitch: Wal-Mart is tired of losing money on cheap CDs. It wants to keep selling them for less than $10—$9.72, to be exact—but it wants the record industry to lower the prices at which it purchases them. Last winter, Wal-Mart asked the industry to supply it with choice albums—from new releases from alternative rockers the Killers to perennial classics such as Beatles 1—at favorable prices. According to music-industry sources, Wal-Mart executives hinted that they could reduce Wal-Mart’s CD stock and replace it with more lucrative DVDs and video games.

“This wasn’t framed as a gentle negotiation,” says one label rep. “It’s a line in the sand—you don’t do this, then the threat is this.” (Wal-Mart denies these claims.) As a result, all of the major labels agreed to supply some popular albums to Wal-Mart’s $9.72 program. “We’re in such a competitive world, and you can’t reach consumers if you’re not in Wal-Mart,” admits another label executive.

I grew up on action cartoons in the 80’s. Shows like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, G.I. Joe, and The Spiral Zone. That’s basically why I dig websites like X-Entertainment, but that’s neither here nor there. I bring it up in this context because when I read this story, I flash back to a scene that appeared in practically every action cartoon of that decade.

It goes something like this. The two major villains who appear in the series (every cartoon that ran long enough had at least two major villains – it helped to sell more toys) have two separate plots that happen to fall on the same day. As a result of their conflicting plans and the hero’s strength and bravery, both are vanquished. Then, in some super-villain moment of lucidity, it occurs to them that they can avoid this situation in the future by actually co-ordinating their evil plans.

“Yes!” they say. “We will work together! A team until [name of hero] is no more!”

Then they each turn away from the other and mutter under their breath – simultaneously – “And, then, I will destroy you....”

The rank bastards of the RIAA have been doing everything in their power over the past few years to confirm their reservations in Hell. They’ve filed countless John Doe lawsuits, treated all of their customers like criminals, and meanwhile continued to cheat, exploit, and devour the very talent they depend on for new product – and they’ve gotten away with it because they’ve been a band of the biggest, meanest kids on the block.

Now the biggest, meanest kids on the block are going to be forced to hand over their lunch money to a new kid – one who’s been doing steroids. The monopolistic, cut-rate, small-business-decimating, worker-exploiting, union-bashing juggernaut that is Wal-Mart.

This could get very interesting.