Do Not Siege Walled Cities - 307
Printer Said No, No, No
GEHENNA DELAYED TO 7/2 BECAUSE THE PRINTER FOUND IT OBJECTIONABLE
It’s all in the headline. The printer Image had been using of late found GEHENNA: NAKED AGGRESSION #1 outside of their comfort zone. Refused to print it.
This will all seem rather ridiculous when you read the book yourselves. I am sad to report there is no graphic content outside of gun violence. It seems the Maria Llovet variant cover was the culprit. There’s a hint of some pubic hair on that one and I suppose that is over a line of some sort. Maybe they like’m shaved over there. I couldn’t say.
Printer is uptight and weird. It’s their business and they reserve the right to be uptight and weird. A bit of an inconvenience that it pushes our book back while it gets slotted at another printer. But ultimately no big deal.
And if that cover’s pubic hair presented a challenge for them, the next issue woulda fried their brains. Better to move now.
SEX CRIMINALS made national news when it came up against the same type of friction. Maybe if it was 2010, I’d be hashtagging posts with #pubicgate. But I prefer no ‘news’ if I’m being honest.
That said, I would love for this information to get out to as many readers as possible: If you planned on picking the book up on June 11, please be aware of this change!
UPDATE YOUR CALENDARS, DEAR READERS. GEHENNA: NAKED AGGRESSION IN STORES JULY 2nd!
PANEL OF THE WEEK IN MY INBOX
Pramono calls them studies. He is putting in work to land the grit on this book, but I think he’s already arrived. I think these can be repurposed as panels.
THINGS THAT MAKE ME GO HMMM…
In the Media Consumption portion of this newsletter, I offer a short review of Ilsa: Shewolf of the SS. In perusing the wiki entry for the movie, I came across this bit from an AV Club review by a guy who writes about movies but never makes them:
"has absolutely no sense of humor that might go where the obvious lack of moral purpose is"
This legitimately triggered me and I’d like to talk about why.
Art, as artists understand it, is self-expression. To which there is no moral purpose. If there was ‘moral purpose,’ or truly purpose of any kind, it would not be self-expression. Because ‘self-expression’ isn’t the same thing as “thing I wanna say.” If you knew what you wanted to say, you wouldn’t employ art to do it. You’d write it in the comments section like every other boob. Art is a process of tripping over things you MIGHT wanna say by process of NO PROCESS. A critic can’t truly understand this because their craft is saying rather than creating.
Asking for art to have a ‘moral purpose’ (I almost spit every time I type it) is like asking what the moral purpose of a river is. And only someone so divorced from the process of creation could contemplate a thing. ‘What is the agenda of this cloud?”
If this is you, if you are a person who claims to love and understand art, but you still find yourself asking “what’s the social benefit of this?” then I ask you to consult history. The men who ask “what’s the social benefit of art?” typically wear silly uniforms and find themselves hanged after war crimes trials.
There is no moral purpose to art. Anyone trying to tell you otherwise is twisting you up to serve their own ends. Ilsa is a movie. Which is a commercial product wearing art as a skin suit. If there was a moral purpose to the thing, it would be pitiful and transparently fraudulent.
Critic, heal thyself.
MEDIA CONSUMPTION
Between flights and drives, I’ve been consuming a dangerous amount of media. I’ve been working my way through Frank Miller’s DAREDEVIL and will do a deep dive on it at some point. Until then, here’s the the films I’ve been watching:
Never Back Down 2 was quite bad. I think anyone coulda anticipated that. I did, but I went in anyway. And I might do it again on Never Back Down 3. I did like the fact that the outsider kid we’re meant to empathize with turns into a villain.
Witchfinder General, on the other hand, was a treat. Maybe not great. But a fun period exploitation film that deserves its status as a cult classic. Main takeaway: being a woman in the 1700s really sucked.
Now for a completely different type of fun period exploitation that also caught me. I’m doing the Ilsa films as part of a study for an upcoming book. Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS isn’t exactly a ‘joy’ because there’s too much torture. Same with Ilsa: Haremkeeper of the Oil Sheiks, which I enjoyed even more. Love a villain as a lead, and these films never break her. She is legitimately cruel and without redeeming qualities. Hint for film critics: you aren’t supposed to like her. It’s ok to have a villain at the center of the movie. You can dislike protagonists. Despite what Hollywood tells you, there is no law against it.
Black Emanuelle 2 was better than I expected. I’d been avoiding it because it’s the only one in the franchise to not star Laura Gemser. In fact, this may not be a real sequel at all. And it is quite bad, in fact, with the type of psychoanalysis you only see in movies from the 70s and 80s. But, it’s worth mentioning, I was never bored. I find it interesting that this is lead actress Shulamith Lasri (credited as Sharon Lesley)’s only film appearance and there’s very little information on her beyond this credit.
Crimes of Passion, unlike the films above, is supposed to be something. Art, perhaps. But I think the humoring of Ken Russell went a little far during this era. This is exploitation with delusions of grandeur. Truly sucks.
Back to regular ol’ expoitation, we’ve got Sweet Sixteen. A thriller with slasher elements, it’s got more of that 80s psychoanalysis with all the attendant insensitivities. With that title, I was a little concerned the film was was gonna lean into something I’m not comfortable with. But outside of one lingering shot, it doesn’t go anyplace too gross and is just a standard “who is stabbing all these boys 30 times apiece??” film.
London Fields was terrible. Amber Heard and Jim Sturgess are an all-time stinker combo. Just brutal. Every part of this was butt. The artificiality of the thing was gross. The rank pretentiousness of it had the effect of making everything goofy. I think in some strange way this movie radicalized me. I watch bad movie after bad movie, but rarely do they offend me with their intentions. This pile of dog shit wanted to be profound. An instinct which should always come with a pallet of bricks to throw at the thing. Wishing the worst for everyone involved.
END
I’m in Europe. Why do they all smoke here? I miss my family. Have a good one. Do for self.
i get that the application or search for morals or social benefit to every piece of art is bad analysis, but aren't you discounting the extensive history of, say, expressly political art? Steinbeck said his explicit purpose for writing The Grapes of Wrath was “to put a tag of shame on the greedy bastards who are responsible for this" i.e. the depression and the breakdown of unrestrained capitalism. Charlie Chaplin, Victor Hugo, the list of artists who set out to make art with clear moral purpose is endless. i guess unless you simply dislike that entire canon?? there's certainly such works of art that are moralistic and didactic and bad (Ayn Rand), buuuut, i dunno how "art is only what you might wanna say by process of vibing yourself to a point instead of having clear intention" stands up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. even Guernica which might look like a guy fuddling his way to an idea started as a pretty deliberate response to Franco's atrocities. none of this is to discount that there is still discovery of expression while making political or "purposeful" art.
cigs forever