[<<] May 2005 blog (9) [>>]
Blog archive: here.
"Method of this work:
literary montage.
I have nothing to say only to show."
(Passagenwerk (1927 - 1940) - Walter Benjamin)Status: archived
2005, May 22; 20:46 ::: Carry On films
Carry On... Up the Khyber (1968) - Gerald Thomas
image sourced here.Carry On films
The Carry On films were a long-running series of British popular low-budget comedy films, directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rodgers. An energetic mix of parody, farce and double entendres, they are seen as a classic examples of British humour. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carry_On_films [May 2005]
see also: double entendre - farce - parody - sex comedy - British cinema
2005, May 22; 19:41 ::: The yellow pressYellow journalism
Yellow journalism is a term given to any widespread tendencies or practices within media organizations which are detrimental to, or substandard from the point of view of, journalistic integrity. "Yellow journalism" may for example refer to sensationalized news reporting that bears only a superficial resemblance to journalism. Journalistic professionalism, as now understood, is the supposed antidote.The Yellow press
The sensationalized human-interest stories of the yellow press increased circulation and readership heavily throughout the 19th century, especially in the United States. Early practitioners, such as Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, seem to have equated the sensational reporting of murders, gory accidents, and the like, with the need of the democratic common man to be entertained by subjects beyond dry politics. Two early yellow newspapers were Pulitzer's New York World and Hearst's New York Journal American.The term derived from the color comic strip character The Yellow Kid, who appeared in both these papers. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_journalism [May 2005]
Sensationalism
Sensationalism is a manner of being extremely controversial, loud, attention-grabbing, or otherwise sensationalistic.The term is commonly used in reference to the media. Critics of media bias of all political stripes often charge the media with engaging in sensationalism in their reporting and conduct. That is to say they charge that the media often chooses to report on shocking or attention-grabbing stories, rather than relevant or important ones. --http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensationalism
see also: giallo - journalism
2005, May 22; 19:41 ::: Mondo di notte oggi (1976) - Gianni Proia
Mondo di notte oggi (1976) - Gianni Proia
A rather dull shockumentary dealing with nightlife in different cultures around the world. Probably as a statement to show how liberal the world has become the film kicks off with a nice cosy scene of a family having dinner around a table with an erotic film showing on the TV in the background. No-one bats an eyelid. These days it appears that the average family are not shocked so easily. Out of boredom the young boy in the house switches over. To my surprise (and horror it has to be said), the program on the other side features the favourites of '70s British children's TV, Rod Hull and his hand puppet bird Emu. Who'd have ever thought they'd make an appearance in a mondo film?
After this rather surreal start the film gets bogged down into the usual excuses to show sexy Las Vegas night acts and Paris can can dancers. It all starts to wear thin very quickly. Perhaps at the time all this was considered scandalous but with stronger stuff shown on late night TV it seems so tedious nowadays. There is a bit of gay bondage, towards the end of the film that may shock some people.
The gay club scene is very funny, everyone looks like refugees from "The village people". In London, we are shown clips from a Paul Raymond sex comedy stage show and later in Japan there's some naked soapy massages. That's about it really, not much to recommend for thrill seekers I'm afraid. --http://www.so-sweet.cwc.net/Films/mondo_di_notte_oggi.htm [May 2005]
2005, May 22; 19:41 ::: Toto
Siamo uomini o caporali (1952) - A.Ferra-E.Passarelli
2005, May 22; 19:41 ::: Sesso perverso, mondo violento (1980) - Bruno Mattei
Sesso perverso, mondo violento (1980) - Bruno Mattei
Writing credits
Claudio Fragasso
Richard von Krafft-Ebing (book)--http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261986/ [May 2005]
2005, May 22; 19:41 ::: Piero Piccioni
Il dio sotto la pelle (1974) - Carlo Alberto Pinelli, Folco Quilici
Camille 2000 - Piero Piccioni [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Piero Piccioni
Italian jazz musician with more than 100 film scores to his credit
John Francis Lane, July 28, 2004, The GuardianThe Italian composer and jazz musician Piero Piccioni, who has died aged 82, wrote the scores for more than 100 Italian films, among them 13 by Francesco Rosi and most of the films that comic star Alberto Sordi directed or played in, as well as works by Luchino Visconti, Vittorio De Sica and Mauro Bolognini, among others. --http://www.guardian.co.uk/italy/story/0,12576,1270713,00.html [May 2005]
2005, May 22; 19:41 ::: Sesso in confessionale (1974) - Vittorio De Sisti
Sesso in confessionale (1974) - Vittorio De Sisti
2005, May 22; 19:15 ::: This Is America (1977) - Romano Vanderbes
European poster for This Is America (1973) - Romano Vanderbes
American poster for This Is America (1977) - Romano Vanderbes
Almot impossible to establish the background of this release. Indicated release dates vary between 1973, 1976 and 1977. No birthdate for director Romano Vanderbes.
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0141901
2005, May 22; 18:15 ::: Beethoven by Jan Švankmajer
Beethoven by Arcimboldo (1993) - Jan Švankmajer
image sourced here."Arcimboldo, with his anthropomorphic, cumulative methods, is one of the obsessions for which I am unable to find a satisfactory interpretation. What is it about Arcimboldo's methods that holds such an irresistible fascination for me that I do not even shrink from the imitation I otherwise so despise?" asked Svankmajer in 1994. Arcimboldo is undoubtedly one of the major influences on Svankmajer's work, with overt homages paid in the films A Game With Stones, Historia Naturae (suita) (which "quotes" the original paintings in the background of the credits), The Fall of the House of Usher, Flora (whose subject-matter derives from Arcimboldo's painting Flora) and above all Dimensions of Dialogue, the film whose opening sequence brings three Arcimboldesque heads (made, respectively, from fruit and vegetables, kitchen utensils and artistic materials) to unnerving and unforgettable life. Arcimboldo's influence can also be seen in the collage Vertumnus and Mona Lisa, the etching An Arcimboldesque Head and the busts An Arcimboldesque Head and Beethoven Portrayed by Arcimboldo. --http://www.illumin.co.uk/svank/biog/arcim/arcbio.html [May 2005]
The Collected Shorts of Jan Svankmajer, Vol. 2 - The Later Years (2002) - Jan Švankmajer [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
eviews
Description For the past forty years, Jan Svankmajer (Alice, Little Otik) has been hailed as one of cinema's most consistently surprising, wildly imaginative and remarkable surrealists of our time. Utilizing a delirious combination of puppets, humans, stop-motion animation and live action, Svankmajer's films conjure up a dreamlike universe that is at once dark, macabre, witty and perversely visceral. This collection of remarkable short works pays tribute to an artist that has mesmerized audiences the world over, inspiring filmmakers from the Brothers Quay to Tim Burton and Terry Gilliam. Volume 2 includes: "Dimensions of Dialogue," "Down to the Cellar," "The Pendlum, the Pit and Hope," "Meat Love," "Flora," "The Death of Stalinism in Bohemia," "Food," BBC Documentary: "Animator of Prague", Selected Svankmajer Poems.Moznosti dialogu / Dimensions of Dialogue (1982)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084362/see also: Arcimboldo - Jan Švankmajer
2005, May 22; 18:07 ::: Ken Wilber's quadrants
e.g., Freud
e.g., B.F. Skinner
e.g., Gadamer
e.g., MarxismEach holon has an interior perspective (an inside) and an exterior perspective (an outside). It also has an individual perspective and a collective (or plural) perspective. If you map these into quadrants, you have four quadrants, or dimensions.
To give an example of how this works, consider four schools of social science. Freudian psychoanalysis, which interprets people's interior experiences, is an account of the interior individual (or upper-left) quadrant. B. F. Skinner's behaviorism, which limits itself to the observation of the behavior of organisms, is an exterior individual (upper-right) account. Gadamer's philosophical hermeneutics interprets the collective consciousness of a society, and is thus an interior plural (lower-left) perspective. Marxist economic theory examines the external behavior of a society (lower-right).
Thus all four pursuits—psychoanalysis, behaviorism, philosophical hermeneutics and Marxism—offer complementary, rather than contradictory, perspectives. It is possible for all to be correct and necessary for a complete account of human society. Wilber has integrated these four areas of knowledge through an acknowledgment of the four fundamental dimensions of existence. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Wilber#Quadrants [May 2005]
see also: Ken Wilber
2005, May 22; 17:23 ::: A Dictionary of SensibilityA Dictionary of Sensibility: Introduction
In the eighteenth century, a linguistic big bang spun off a new etymological universe: the language of sensibility. "Sensibility" and its related terms either appeared for the first time, took on meanings unique to the period, or gained enriched connotations. The denotations of these new linguistic planets have proved as elusive as the rings of Saturn, however. This hypertext offers a new approach to understanding the language of sensibility, one that accounts for the multiple possibilities of meaning. Rather than attempting hard-line definitions, this project offers the tools for recognizing the multivalent connotations of such sensibilious words as "virtue," "sense," and "benevolence." Our hypertext groups excerpts from major words of sensibility according to 24 primary words; we imagine the sensibilious reader exploring these passages to glean a new understanding of the vocabulary and the literature of the period.R.F. Brissenden, tracing the evolution of the "family" of words related to sensibility and sentimentality, notes the extraordinary breadth and variety of meanings attributed to these terms in the eighteenth century--a linguistic as well as philosophic explosion. "Especially during this period they were charged with great and often vague emotive power--moral, sexual, political, often semi-religious. They represented or could be made to represent a constellation of highly significant general ideas and feelings; while at the same time they could be used with precision, delicacy and scientific neutrality. They operated across the broadest spectrum of thought and discourse: the same word in one context could be coldly empirical while in another it could radiate the most enthusiastic idealism. At the highest level they played a part, sometimes an essential one, in the languages of physiology, psychology, philosophy and the emerging social sciences. ... At the lowest level ... part of what Steven Marcus, in his study of sexual literature in the Victorian age, has characterised as the 'fantasies' of a period, that 'mass of unargued, unexamined and largely unconscios assumptions'" on which a society's world view bases itself (Brissenden 20-1; Marcus 1).
To explore the "fantasies" of the Age of Sensibility, click on to the "term list" below. From there you will have access to the 24 words of sensibility. The source bibliography provides our primary texts; the critical bibliography, our secondary sources. Clicking on a term in the term list will take you to an introduction to the word and a list of excerpts. Each excerpt provides links to other terms used in or implied by the passage. On the excerpt pages, primary material is in bold; our commentary, in roman typeface.
This hypertext is only the beginning of the Dictionary of Sensibility: We would like our World Wide Web readers to send in their favorite passages of sensibility, to be considered for incorporation. Please access "submissions" for details on how you can expand the Dictionary of Sensibility. --http://www.engl.virginia.edu/enec981/dictionary/g_introV1.html [May 2005]
benevolence - virtue - physiognomy - physiology - landscape - animals - heart - understanding - sense - sympathy - honor/reputation - delicacy/modesty - sublime - fear/terror/horror - imagination - spirit/enthusiasm/transport - character - compassion/pity - wit/humor/invention - communication - community - education - melancholy/madness - taste --http://www.engl.virginia.edu/enec981/dictionary/termlist.html [May 2005]
Taste
In one facet of its meaning, sensibility is synonymous with taste; in another, sensibility gives rise to the judgments of taste. Thus, clarifying the definitions of "taste" may be as complicated an endeavor as elucidating the meanings of "sensibility." Moreover, the metaphorical associations of "taste" set it in nearly as suggestive a constellation of significance as that of "sensibility."Hume, Burke, and Gerard, among others, write essays explicitly devoted to investigating taste, and in these works there is a constant slippage between the physical-sensory, aesthetic, and moral domains, which is facilitated by the two principal levels of the word's meaning.
In particular, Hume uses the term "taste" to segue between external and internal senses, and even to provide implicit justification for a fundamental analogy about between the internal and external domains. The external sense of taste provides a model for understanding judgments of art (and moral standards are vaguely but essentially tied to aesthetic ones). This model helps to address the problem of subjectivity in the artistic and moral fields by relating it to idiosyncrasy in the sensory field. It also provides the means to insist on the empirical solidity of the internal sense of taste and its independence on the operations of reason. --http://www.engl.virginia.edu/enec981/termpages/taste.html [May 2005]
Many things in the world have not been named; and many things, even if they have been named, have never been described. One of these is the sensibility - unmistakably modern, a variant of sophistication but hardly identical with it - that goes by the cult name of "Camp." -- Susan Sontag in Notes on Camp, 1964, Partisan Review
2005, May 22; 16:27 ::: Sensibility[May 2005]Related: emotion - experience - feeling - senses - sensation
List of sensibilities: aesthetics - avant-gardism - bad taste - camp - counterculture - classic - contemporary - controversy - cool - cult - decadent - drugs - eclectic - eccentric - eroticism - experimental - feeling - female - gay - good taste - gothic - gratuitous - grotesque - groovy - high - hip - horror - intellectual - kitsch - left - low - macabre - mainstream - male - modern - opposition - perverse - pornography - postmodernism - queer - right - sadomasochism - sex - sleaze - snob - subculture - subversive - theme - transgressive - underground - violent
see also: sensibility
2005, May 22; 16:27 ::: Julie Newmar
Julie Newmar
image sourced here.
2005, May 22; 16:02 ::: Sexy Killer (1976) - Chung Sun
Sexy Killer (1976) - Chung Sun
If you're a fan of blaxploitation movies, or just a regular reader of my reviews, you will probably have noticed that The Sexy Killer is a fairly faithful remake of Coffy. At one time it was fairly common for producers to just remake American films, since such imports had virtually no presence at the Hong Kong box office. Coffy, with all its grindhouse sleaze and violence, was a perfect candidate. --http://homepage.ntlworld.com/david.thomas41/Sexy%20Killer.htm [May 2005]
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0074435/ [May 2005]
2005, May 22; 15:03 ::: Media controversyMedia controversy is controversy involving forms of media, especially electronic media. Certain forms of media such as computer and video games, television programs, motion pictures, theatrical plays, comics, books, magazines, music, concerts, and Web sites, have been subjects of frequent controversy, involving parents and legal guardians, religious figures, and politicians. It is usually aimed at violence, profanity, sexuality, nudity, human castration, capital punishment, horror, drug abuse, thematic elements, and other forms of objectionable or controversial content. Occultism and religious content are aimed only by certain restrictive religious organizations. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_controversy [May 2005]
see also: controversial - media
2005, May 22; 15:03 ::: GrindhouseA grindhouse is a theater that shows exploitation films; it is also used as an adjective to describe the kind of films that would play in such a theatre. While just about any film that had too much sex or too much violence to play in a mainstream theatre was fair game for the grindhouses, the term has connotations of leaning more towards violent movies. Frequent fare for such theatres were low-budget Japanese and Chinese movies, specifically kung-fu and samurai movies, usually known for being exceptionally bloody. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grindhouse [May 2005]
see also: grindhouse
2005, May 22; 14:36 ::: La Distinction (1979) - Pierre Bourdieu
La Distinction, critique sociale du jugement/Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1979) - Pierre Bourdieu [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
La Distinction is a sociological book by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) based on his demographic research carried out in 1963 and concluded in 1967-8. It was originally published in France in 1979. It was translated into English by Richard Nice and published in America in 1984 under the title "Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste". In 1998, it was voted one of the ten most important sociological books of the 20th century by the International Sociological Association.
In this often densely-worded volume, Bourdieu discussed how aesthetic concepts such as "taste" are defined by those in power. Using research, he shows how social class tends to determine what our likes and interests will be, and how distinctions based on social class are reinforced in daily life. He observes that even when the subordinate classes may seem to have their own particular idea of 'good taste', "...[i]t must never be forgotten that the working-class 'aesthetic' is a dominated 'aesthetic' which is constantly obliged to define itself in terms of the dominant aesthetics..." (page 41)
Example: Titanic (1997)
La Distinction has influenced academics across disciplines. For example, the negative reputation of Titanic (1997, Cameron) can be explained as a backlash from its own popularity and position within popular culture. In his BFI monograph, David Lubin compares attitudes against the film directly to the main thesis of la distinction. He suggests that derisory attitudes against the film are a desire to disassociate the critic from fanatics who reportedly attended multiple screenings, and coverage in tabloids and teen magazines focussing upon the two main stars. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_distinction [May 2005]see also: Pierre Bourdieu - taste - sociology
2005, May 22; 14:20 ::: LinguisticsHistorical linguistics (also diachronic linguistics or comparative linguistics) is primarily the study of the ways in which languages change over time, by means of examining languages which are recognizably related through similarities such as vocabulary, word formation, and syntax, as well as the surviving records of ancient languages. Historical linguistics aims to classify the world's languages by their genetic affiliations and to trace the historic development of languages. Modern historical linguistics grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents. In its early years, historical linguistics focused on the well-known Indo-European languages; but since then, significant comparative linguistic work has been done on the Austronesian languages and various families of Native American languages, among many others. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_linguistics [May 2005]
see also: linguistics
2005, May 21; 19:53 ::: Lina Romay
Lina Romay, photocredit unidentified
2005, May 21; 18:53 ::: British exploitation cinemaThis article forcusses on three British directors: Lindsay Shonteff, Pete Walker, and Stanley Long.
Even as a Brit, when I think of exploitation cinema, I tend to think of Roger Corman, Russ Meyer, Mom and Dad, Ed Wood, Radley Metzger, and Chesty Morgan before I remember anything produced in my own country. I think of David Friedman, Al Adamson, I Spit on Your Grave, and Candy Stripe Nurses rather than the homegrown trash that circulated through the British fleapits and then briefly invaded hundreds of thousands of households in the first years of home video. I even think of European exploitation, of Jesse Franco, Jose Larraz, and Lina Romay, before I recall the Poverty Row sleaze that was churned out of Wardour Street, London, on a regular basis until the end of the seventies. --Julian Upton via http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/33/britishexploitation1.html [May 2005]
British sex film
Pete Walker and Lindsay Shonteff are largely representative of a number of producers and directors whose careers traversed the burgeoning sex film industry in the late '60s and attempted to branch into other genres, but Long remained pragmatically committed to the initially lucrative British sex film (although he certainly appeared to have no emotional fondness for it). His work is particularly representative of the tepid smut that passed for British soft porn in the 1970s. --Julian Upton via http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/33/britishexploitation1.html [May 2005]Sadly, Stanley Long is highly representative of why the British sex film was such a dire, gobsmackingly dull experience. He was personally dismissive of pornography, saying it didn't turn him on, and seemed generally uninterested in sex and nudity per se. This peculiarly British attitude to sex clearly permeated the genre. When director Joe McGrath, once famous for TV work with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, was, in his eyes, "reduced" to making adult comedies, he was known to direct sex scenes with his back to the set, appalled at having to earn his living from such a sleazy activity. This may have seemed a morally justifiable position for him to take, but it didn't do a lot for the films. And almost without exception, every British sex film of the heyday of exploitation is a dreary, embarrassing experience, thanks both to "artistic" attitudes such as this, and the British censors’ penchant for chopping out anything remotely dirty anyway. Still, at least their titles of Long’s films were occasionally inventive — Can You Keep It Up for a Week (1974), Keep It Up Downstairs (1976), I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight (1975), Let's Get Laid (1977).
see also: Peter Walker - sex film
2005, May 21; 18:53 ::: Phil Bloom
Phil Bloom, first naked woman on Dutch television
image sourced here.The first nude on Dutch (public for a lack of choice) television was in VPRO station's Hoepla youth programme, in 1967, when Phil Bloom careful closed a newspaper to uncover her breasts. She sat cross-legged in a chair and did not walk from it, if I remember well. The next infamous mass media nude after this piece of television was in the PSP (Pacifist Socialist Party) election poster, where a nude comes running towards the spectator from a meadow, with a cow in the background, under the ‘ontwapenend’ (‘disarming’) headline. This must have been around 1970, when the expression of freedom once and for all proved the left's moral decadence in the eyes of consensus politics. --http://www.nqpaofu.com/2004/nqpaofu81.html [May 2005]
2005, May 21; 18:53 ::: X-rated comediesX-RATED COMEDIES
Yes, we know we're dragging Creamguide's respectable name through the mud with this choice of subject, and we're very, very sorry. But, the fact that we can't think of anything else that starts with X aside, there's much worthy of exploration here, as these films provide not only a compendium of British comedy acting talent in its rent-paying dotage, but they also form part of the story of the British film industry's post-'60s decline as a whole. Oh, and it's the richest seam of film titles based around weak puns and ending in exclamation marks we know of, which must count for something, surely?
The story of the sexcom begins with former horror film cinematographer and exploitation entrepreneur extraordinaire Stanley A Long. Long made his name, in the law courts as much as the cinema, with 1961's WEST END JUNGLE ("The sex-film that London banned! Made in the actual places of vice!!") a breathless "exposé" of Soho's sex trade, made in a mock-documentary style that was to provide the blueprint for British sex films for a decade before comedy came into the equation. Various follow-ups appeared in short order, with titles like LONDON IN THE RAW and TAKE OFF YOUR CLOTHES AND LIVE! 1965's PRIMITIVE LONDON is a bizarre bit of salacious moralising indeed, with scenes of beatniks, kids and Billy J Kramer being interviewed about pop music and, of course, "free love", familiar enough from endless '60s documentaries, strangely intercut with gruesome footage of car crashes, operations and battery hens being slaughtered, and appearances from Barry Cryer and Mick MacManus.
This weird mix can be explained - sort of - by the still very strict censorship to which films in the UK were subject. Cheap exploitation fare had to show it was taking a moral stance, or at least paying lip-service to one, and hence films from this era are all "exposés" of the nefarious activities of wife-swappers, porn merchants and increasingly delinquent youth. Of course, it's all just an excuse to revel in the vicarious thrills these subjects provide, but the finger-wagging tone of the voice-over narration, coupled with the tabloidesque sleazing-up, ironically makes the films seem far dirtier than they actually are. They were extremely tame, and not only by today's standards. The following year's SECRETS OF A WINDMILL GIRL had Pauline Collins playing an ingénue showgirl at the celebrated eponymous theatre, agonising over whether or not to appear nude on stage, and finally deciding, er, not to bother. Martin Jarvis and Harry Fowler provide local colour from both ends of the spectrum.
Probably the first out-and-out sex comedy came from Long's Salon Productions stable in 1969, with former "naturist" film director and horror scriptwriter Derek Long at the helm. THIS, THAT AND THE OTHER! was a portmanteau comic trilogy (with stories called This, That and, er, The Other) every bit as effortlessly funny as that exclamation mark in the title might suggest. Genuine star names begin to appear - Dennis Waterman and Alexandra 'Champions' Bastedo among them. Probably the biggest at the time was Victor 'Not a drop of water touched me' Spinetti, as a suicidal depressive who hooks up with - hooray! - a saucy hippy girl. Elsewhere, cab-driving porn- hound John Bird crashes his carriage and suffers erotic hallucinations in what amounts to some very experimental film-making for the largely no-nonsense genre. The sub-Carry On quickfire style hadn't yet been purloined, but here already was the basic set-up that pretty much every sexcom would take - horny young bloke, lecherous middle-aged bloke, naive-yet-sexually-available nymphet and latently rampant older woman all find themselves thrown together in various perms and combs by unabashedly contrived circumstance, and Fanny's your aunt. --http://tv.cream.org/specialassignments/films/filmsx.htm [May 2005]
see also: sex comedy
2005, May 21; 18:53 ::: Roget's ThesaurusRoget's Thesaurus is the world's best-known thesaurus, created by Dr. Peter Mark Roget (1779 - 1869) in 1805 and was released to the public in 1852. The original edition had 15,000 words, and each new edition has been larger. The Karpeles Manuscript Library houses the original manuscript in its collection.
Dr. Roget described his thesaurus in the foreword to the first edition:
"It is now nearly fifty years since I first projected a system of verbal classification similar to that on which the present work is founded. Conceiving that such a compilation might help to supply my own deficiencies, I had, in the year 1805, completed a classed catalogue of words on a small scale, but on the same principle, and nearly in the same form, as the Thesaurus now published."Roget's Thesaurus is composed of six primary classes. Each class is composed of multiple divisions and then sections. This may be conceptualized as a tree containing over a thousand branches for individual "meaning clusters" or semantically linked words. These words are not exactly synonyms, but can be viewed as colours or connotations of a meaning or as a spectrum of a concept. One of the most general words is chosen to typify the spectrum as its headword, which labels the whole group.
Roget's Thesaurus can be seen as a classification system, as evidenced by the outline from the 1911 US edition, now in the public domain. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogets [May 2005]
dedicated to my friend Walter
see also: thesaurus
2005, May 21; 18:24 ::: Sherlock FreudCommenting on Freud's account of the "Wolf Man,"[2] Slavoj Žižek has noted analysts' fondness for detective fiction. In particular, the classical "English" methods of investigation practised by Arthur Conan Doyle's creation Sherlock Holmes were said to have informed many of the games and mechanisms that Freud used to uncover the roots of the patient's psychosis. As Žižek argues, the analyst's adoption of the role of detective, scrutinising the clues that will reconstitute totality and meaning to a scene, is pertinent. Both the detective and analyst are forced to piece together the truth from a series of fragments or clues which predate the investigation. -- Xavier Mendik via http://www.kinoeye.org/02/12/mendik12.php [May 2005]
2005, May 21; 17:52 ::: Cat
Il Gatto a nove code/ Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) - Dario Argento
image sourced here.
Il Gatto a nove code/ Cat o' Nine Tails (1971) - Dario Argento [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
2005, May 21; 17:28 ::: Ajita Wilson
Ajita Wilson in Sadomania (1981)
2005, May 21; 17:03 ::: Detective magazines, comic books and early fetish magazinesIn the early 20th century, "Detective magazines" covertly provided a way of publishing bondage imagery. Comic books often featured characters being tied up and tying others up, particularly in "damsel in distress" plots.
There were also a very limited number of specialist fetish magazines which featured images of bondage, such as the famous Bizarre magazine published from 1946 to 1959 by the pioneering fetish photographer John Willie, and ENEG's Exotique magazine, published 1956 - 1959. These disappeared with a crackdown on pornography in the late 1950s. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bondage_pornography [May 2005]
2005, May 21; 15:38 ::: Sexy
image sourced: here.USA advertisement for Succubus (1968) - Jess Franco
sex (n.)
1382, "males or females collectively," from L. sexus "state of being either male or female, gender." "Commonly taken with seco as division or 'half' of the race" [Tucker], which would connect it to secare "to divide or cut" (see section). Meaning "quality of being male or female" first recorded 1526. Meaning "sexual intercourse" first attested 1929 (in writings of D.H. Lawrence); meaning "genitalia" is attested from 1938. Sexy first recorded 1925 (as an Eng. word in Fr.), originally "engrossed in sex;" sense of "sexually attractive" is 1932. Sex appeal first recorded 1924; sex drive is from 1918; sex object and sex symbol both first attested 1911, the former in ref. to Jesus. Sexpot is from 1954. Sexpert "sex therapist" is from 1924. Sexploitation is attested from 1942. --http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=sex [May 2005]see also: Succubus (1968) - sex - succbus
2005, May 21; 15:38 ::: Attori
Barbara Bouchet, photo unidentified
Attori is Italian for actors.
ATTORI DI CULTO DEL CINEMA ITALIANO
In questo sito troverete un elenco dei principali attori che hanno rappresentato il cinema italiano tra la fine degli anni sessanta e l'inizio degli anni ottanta; ovvero il periodo piů creativo che si possa ricordare di questo paese. Sotto la guida di importantissimi registi, questi personaggi hanno contribuito all'evoluzione del cinema internazionale e sono tutt'ora rivalutati anche all'estero. Per ogni nome troverete una filmografia ( in alcuni casi non completa, ma indicante i titoli piů importanti) ,in alcuni una biografia, interviste e qualche immagine.ADOLFO CELI ANITA STRINDBERG ANTONIO SABATO BARBARA BOUCHET BARBARA STEELE CHRISTOPHER LEE DANIELA GIORDANO EDWIGE FENECH ENRICO MARIA SALERNO ERIKA BLANC EVA CZEMERYS FLORINDA BOLKAN FRANCO NERO GASTONE MOSCHIN GEORGE HILTON GLORIA GUIDA HENRY SILVA IRENE PAPAS IVAN RASSIMOV JANET AGREN JEAN SOREL KLAUS KINSKI LAURA BELLI LAURA GEMSER LUC MERENDA LUIGI PISTILLI MARC POREL MARIANGELA MELATO MARINA MALFATTI MARIO ADORF MARIO MEROLA MARISA MELL MAURIZIO MERLI NADIA CASSINI ORCHIDEA DE SANTIS PAOLA SENATORE PHILIPPE LEROY RAY LOVELOCK RENZO MONTAGNANI RICHARD CONTE SILVANO TRANQUILLI TOMAS MILIAN --http://xoomer.virgilio.it/omen/index.htm [May 2005]
2005, May 21; 15:38 ::: The Spaghetti Western Collection (Run Man Run / Mannaja / Django Kill / Django)
The Spaghetti Western Collection (Run Man Run / Mannaja / Django Kill / Django) [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Amazon.com
Starting with its very name, the bizarre international hybrid known as the spaghetti Western was always a bit of a joke--but a joke that packed a wallop, and left viewers with jaws dropping in a combination of disbelief, astonishment, and sometimes admiration. The stylistic hallmarks, nihilistic tone, weirdly Latinate atmospherics, and postmodern self-consciousness of its imaginative universe made for an intoxicating breed of pop entertainment that changed not only the Western genre but also popular culture at large.
Its vogue lasted a decade and then some, from Sergio Leone's 1964 A Fistful of Dollars (released in the U.S. in 1967) to Monte Hellman's 1978 art film China 9/Liberty 37. Often, fully half of the 300 films turned out by Italian companies in any given year were spaghetti Westerns, which could be trusted to sell tickets the world over--under a delirious variety of titles from market to market. They tended to be shown in sleazy grind houses, via spliced and tattered prints. What a pleasure to report that Blue Underground has gone back to the original, mostly pristine materials to produce the crystal-clear, gorgeously color-saturated, widescreen DVDs in this boxed set. Few audiences ever saw these movies looking better than they will on the home screen.
The present quartet affords an admirably varied and illuminating cross-section of the spaghetti Western as entertainment phenomenon and mirror of its troubled time. Sergio Corbucci's Django (1966), with a Gypsy-named protagonist (Franco Nero) dragging a coffin through a mud world of bigotry and double-cross, spawned sequels ad infinitum; this release is the first in more than 30 years to be struck from the original camera negative. Django, Kill! (1967) isn't "Django" at all--it's If You Live, Shoot! (how's that for existential absurdism!), a wildly transgressive fever dream set in "a totally guilty town" and boasting a band of flagrantly gay gunslingers, director Giulio Questi's variation on Mussolini's Black Shirts. The gem of the collection, Sergio Sollima's Run, Man, Run! (1968), features an infectiously funny performance by Tomas Milian as a knife-throwing scalawag who became an icon to late-'60s student radicals; this film of almost Leone-class visual grandeur has rarely been seen outside Italy. Director Sergio Martino claims that Mannaja: A Man Called Blade (1977) was "the last, perhaps next-to-last" of the spaghetti Westerns. The strain was showing--but even this preposterous fantasia about a hatchet-throwing eco-avenger (Maurizio Merli) exerts a goofy fascination.
Incidentally, the short documentaries spotlighting each film are very enjoyable in their own right. The scruffily aged Tomas Milian is a particular delight. --Richard T. Jameson
Description
Saddle up and strap on your holsters for this outrageous quartet of Spaghetti Western classics! Along with "Django, Kill!" (1967, 117 min.), "Run Man Run" (1968, 121 min.), and "Mannaja: A Man Called Blade"(1977, 96 min.), exclusive to this collection is the new special edition of Sergio Corbucci's classic, "Django" (1966, 90 min.), restored for the first time from the original camera negative recently discovered in a Rome vault untouched for over three decades! Franco Nero stars as the lone, coffin-dragging stranger who roams the West towards a destiny ruled by vengeance. A landmark classic packed with indelible images and some of the most shocking brutality of any Spaghetti Western ever made, this is the still-controversial epic that defined a genre, launched a phenomenon and inspired over 50 unofficial sequels! Also included for the first time is the optional Italian audio track featuring Franco Nero's own voice. Following two years of extensive restoration, this is the most stunning and complete version of "Django" you'll ever see in a powerhouse box set that'll blow you away! via Amazon.com
2005, May 21; 15:38 ::: Eurotrash paradiseDescription
If you've got a taste for sleazier, not-so-classic movies, you've come to the right place to discuss Eurotrash cinema on DVD, laserdisc, and videocassette.
---------------Mario Bava, Dario Argento, Paul Naschy, Lucio Fulci, Joe D'Amato, Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, Ruggero Deodato, Michele Soavi, Antonio Margheriti, Bruno Mattei, Sergio Leone. . .
---------------Ghost stories, giallos, Italian James Bond ripoffs, sexploitation films, cannibal flicks, German Edgar Wallace thrillers, spaghetti westerns, Mafia movies, postnukers. . .
---------------Rosalba Neri, Barbara Bouchet, Erika Blanc, Christina Lindberg, Klaus Kinski, Jack Taylor, Lina Romay, Howard Vernon, Marisa Mell, Eddie Constantine, Barbara Steele. . .
--------------- --http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/eurotrashparadise/ [May 2005]
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