Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwaPJUtZBYc&]
Tokyo Decadence (1992) – Ryu Murakami
This is a film I chose in the mid 1990s at the video store because of its cover, not being familiar at the time with the work of Murakami (Coin Locker Babies). The key scenes are four sex scenes (see more at the wiki). Three out of these heavily feature drugs. The most exquisite one, featured in the Youtube remix above, is soundtracked by Xavier Cugat music. The audio used in this particular Youtube remix is not included in the original film. I wonder what the music is. Anyone? (De temps en temps is a song (André Hornez / Paul Misraki) voiced by Josephine Baker.)
The film’s only rival in terms of my favourite film of the 1990s is the Japanese film Audition, which is also written by Murakami.
Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.
[Youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=RBJYQMntyRg]
“Amigo” (1980) – Black Slate
I was going to give you the rarer track “Sticks Man” (robberman … why you do dat?), but it’s not on Youtube.
Notice in this clip the use of Spaghetti Western imagery, which was quite common at the time in reggae circles and exemplified by Lee Perry’s late 1960s and early 1970s output with The Upsetters.
Previous World Music Classics.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgCxCZNkQ9E]
Fantastic Planet (1973) – René Laloux
Fantastic Planet is the English title of La Planète sauvage (literally “The Savage Planet”), an animated 1973 science fiction film directed by René Laloux. Based on a novel, Oms en Série, by the French writer Stefan Wul, the film was an international production between France and Czechoslovakia and was distributed in the United States by Roger Corman. The film is chiefly noted for its surreal imagery, the work of French writer and artist Roland Topor. Alain Goraguer provides a fitting early electronic soundtrack.
Previous “World Cinema Classics” and in the Wiki format here.
Jeff Bark (born 1963) “Untitled (Dusk)” (2004–05), of the Abandon series, provided me with an immediate frisson. It laterally depicts a kneeling woman, her hands stretched out over a sofa, something that appears to be a whip to her side. The colors are very suede-like.
“The Belt“, a short story by Italian author Alberto Moravia, provided me with a very similar frisson.
Previous entries in Icons of Erotic Art here, and in a Wiki format here.
Tip of the hat to L’@mateur.
Strut is a British record label dedicated to unearthing the lost gems of dance music past. Disco Not Disco is the title of their series of avant-garde disco compilations published since the early 2000s. They feature late 1970s and early 1980s atypical dance music and have highlited the work of Arthur Russell with tracks such as “Kiss Me Again“.
The subtitle of this third volume is “Post Punk, Electro, & Leftfield Disco Classics 1974 to 1986” and the CD features the tracks “Mind Your Own Business” [1] by Delta 5, “Crunch Cake” by Isotope, “Your Life (party mix)” by Konk, “Launderette” by Vivien Goldman, “My Spine Is The Bassline (12″ edit)” by Shriekback, “Contort Yourself (August Darnell rmx)” by James White & The Blacks, “Love Tempo (rmx)” by Quando Quango, “Sharevari (inst)” by A Number Of Names, “Silent Street/Silent Dub)” by Maximum Joy, “Shake It Right” by Six Sed Red, and “Los Ninos Del Parque (12″ mix)” by Liaisons Dangereuses.
A foretaste of the CD and World music classic #19
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xonezVB_4xI]
“Mind Your Own Business” (1979) Delta 5
Also, there are five more days to listen to an Arthur Russell interpretation by Arthur’s Landing [1] (a group of musicians who knew and played with Russell)
Previous World Music Classics.
[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vACvafOvq0&]
“Rotation” (1979) Herb Alpert
This is a slow groove and an eternal up-market dance floor classic, for a similar track see Wally Badarou’s releases of the early eighties on Island Records, especially “Chief Inspector”, which I’ve posted here.
Previous World Music Classics.
Once Were Warriors is 1994 film based on New Zealand author Alan Duff‘s bestselling 1990 first novel of the same name. The film tells the story of an urban Māori family, the Hekes, and their problems with poverty, alcoholism, and domestic violence, mostly brought on by the family patriarch Jake Heke. It was directed by Lee Tamahori, and stars Rena Owen and Temuera Morrison.
Previous in the Wiki format here.
“I don’t know how to kill Harold Crick.” –Emma Thompson
I watched the American film Stranger than Fiction tonight, a good piece of metafiction but not as good in its mix of lightheartedness and tragedy as Waiter by Warmerdam, which premiered a month earlier in 2006.
If you’re into Kaufmanesqueness, Stranger Than Fiction, Waiter and von Trier’s The Boss of It All have been must-see films in 2006/2007.