Annoying Andreja is fun (aka more Japanese cinema but still no Matsujun)

Being the sadist that I am, I felt compelled to write yet another Japanese cinema post which almost totally ignores Matsumoto Jun's existence. Hopefully Andreja is appropriately annoyed by this - I'll be disappointed if she isn't ;) Actually, even Kinga voiced her displeasure the other day when I told her I was in the middle of writing this post rather than one about Jun ;)
For those of you groaning at the thought of reading more gushing about a certain Japanese actor's face - rest assured, Matsuda Ryuhei doesn't feature much in this post either ;) This time, you will be treated to some Oguri Shun gushing!
As I think only Kinga has any idea who I'm talking about - Oguri Shun is the guy who plays Rui in Hana Yori Dango. That probably didn't help most of you, did it? :] Er... well Andreja should now know who I'm talking about and it's her I want to annoy ;) But just so everyone else isn't left out (and also because introducing him is a good excuse to put in a random video clip), Oguri Shun is another Japanese teen idol kind of star. AFAIK he's best known for his cool and brooding romantic heroes in Hana Yori Dango and Hana Kimi.
As for the random video clip - it's under 40 seconds, all in Japanese, but despite not understanding a word I still find it very amusing (actually there's a lot of clips from Japanese TV that keep my attention despite not understanding anything :] I'm not sure why that is). They're clearly joking about his height. In Japanese standards he's very tall - one source has him at 184cm.

Anyway, my latest study evasion tactic has been browsing the net for random bits of info about Oguri Shun. I thought Shun would be a lot less interesting to investigate than Ryuhei or Jun, but the very existence of this post proves that I was wrong ;)
I had assumed that his filmography would just be filled with brooding romantic hero types and maybe some comedic roles here and there. The most adventurous thing I considered was that he may have done a slasher film or two - he's got the physique for it and the brooding persona would fit in well. All of these (including the slasher bit) were there, but there were some things I hadn't expected and I'm weird enough to be amused by them (especially when there's too much school work to do ;-P). So here goes...

There are more vulnerable, pushover type characters in his filmography than cool, brooding ones
Apparently, the first part he got noticed in was a small part in Great Teacher Onizuka - a very popular Japanese TV series from 1999. Shun played the part of a boy who was bullied by the whole class. He was 16 at the time, but looked around 12 (and in direct contrast to the present day was shorter than most of his co-stars ;)). It's weird seeing him playing a wimp, but it works. From what I can make out (I'm far from having a full idea about his filmography :]) he got to play quite a few vulnerable, sensitive characters after that.
One thing that I'm particularly surprised with is that he's actually a good crier ;) I couldn't picture him doing big, unrestrained crying scenes well - maybe because what I saw of him was rather reserved and restrained (and when I saw him do something less so *cough cough* Gokusen *cough cough* I hated him in it :] ).
I don't think he got to play a cool and brooding kind of character until Hana Yori Dango (2005). This perhaps explains why the gossip is that Shun got the part only thanks to Matsumoto Jun threatening to leave the project if they didn't give the part of Hanazawa Rui to Shun. I always thought it was a bit strange that the producers didn't want Shun for it. If it was quite different to what he had played before it makes much more sense.

A psychological vampire movie
His first cinematic film - Hitsuji No Uta (2002) (and also his first lead - most of his career consists of supporting roles) is also kind of in the vulnerable, sensitive vein, though it has a darker twist.
It's the story of a boy, Kazuna, who is brought up by his uncle and aunt. His parents kept his older sister with them, but gave Kazuna away. He's never told why and doesn't get to see any of his family. When we're introduced to the character he's in his teens and his mum is dead. He's not seen his father or sister since the age of 2.
He starts having strange dreams and then one day he passes out all of a sudden at the sight of blood. He thinks he's just anaemic or something, but of course he's not or we wouldn't have a story ;) His sister (who he meets for the first time in many years) finally tells him the dark family secret. Their family has some sort of practically unheard of hereditary disease. It causes them to have attacks during which they crave other people's blood very, very strongly. The disease is incurable and in the end fatal (the attacks are very weakening), but also dangerous to people around because the cravings can get so strong that the person cannot control them. Kazuna was given away because it was thought he didn't have the disease, but it looks like in his case it just took longer to surface.
The trailer is here:

Usually I would go the legal route to see it, but there is practically no way to see it legally :] I mean no DVD with English subtitles exists. There is a Japanese version without subtitles, but it's been out of print for years. It's hard to find on-line, so if any of you think it sounds interesting you can check it out here.
The bizarre thing about this film is that while it might sound like your regular vampire film, it's so totally not. Usually in a vampire film you get lots of action, blood and gore and of course the sexy female vampires trying to seduce some poor innocent guy to get his blood. This film in contrast is very slow with almost no action at all. The gore is barely there - the scenes in which Kazuna has his cravings are about him trying to restrain himself rather than about him trying to attack somebody. In terms of sex it's more about sexual tension than anything else (and no seductive female vampires either).
The film deals primarily with Kazuna's insecurities. He's very ashamed and scared of the blood cravings to the point of withdrawing from normal life. It's also about the relationship with his sister - two outcasts, who need themselves because nobody else can possibly understand what it's like.
It's a rather strange film as you may imagine... Judging by on-line reviews I seem to be in the minority in liking it, but if it sounds interesting to you at all then I would recommend it :) Shun is really great in it and also, for any Hana Yori Dango fans - you get to see the girl who plays Shigeru in season two as Kazuna's older sister. It's a very different (muuuuch quieter) part and she's really good too :)

He's a stage actor
Apparently Shun loves doing stage work and has done quite a bit of it. Titus Andronicus which he starred in even played in the UK and was very well received there. There's a number of English reviews of the play on-line and all the ones I found were positive both about the play and about Shun. If you want to check some out then here's a selection - Reviews Gate, the Guardian, BBC and a nice one on somebody's blog. For pics see here. The play is very visually spectacular, so the photos are actually really worth seeing - I've certainly become curious about what Japanese theatre is like now. Also you get to see Shun being kissed and groped by a man on those photos, but that might not necessarily be as interesting to you as it is to me ;-P

And now the best part...
It looks like despite his teen idol status he's totally up for taking his clothes off ;) This is partly demonstrated on the poster for Caligula - one of his stage plays (ok, the important parts are photoshopped out with fancy, white, flowy bits, but still...).
However, you may be interested to find out that in the same year he was shooting Hana Yori Dango season one (one of his most popular teen romance roles), he was also shooting this:

The scene is from Neighbour No 13, which I hope to see soon. It sounds like an art house horror movie - I honestly have no idea how that's supposed to work, which is why I really want to see it :]
It's about a guy who was bullied at school in a very extreme manner when he was little. According to the amazon reviews, the bullies even go as far as forcing him to eat excrement, but the worst is when they hold him down and pour acid on his face.
X years later, the main character is a young man and he's working on a construction site only to find that the bully who did all of this to him is in charge of him. The bullying starts all over again and the main character snaps - he develops a dual personality, one personality is very vulnerable and the other is a murdering maniac. The two personalities are played by two actors.
Every now and then the two personalities appear in frame together. Specifically, the inner fight between those personalities is represented in that red room on the clip. Shun is naked because he's the vulnerable one.
When I wrote about Big Bang Love, Juvenile A I said that out of all my friends probably only Ziggy and Kinga might enjoy it. Well, with Neighbour No.13 I get the feeling that I am totally the only one ;) Ziggy is eliminated because in the end it's a violent horror movie - he's too snobbish for that ;-P Kinga is eliminated because it'll probably be too violent for her. So I'm totally alone with this one ;)
Apparently most of the film festivals turned the film down because of the excessive violence. At the same time the people who like gore didn't enjoy the film either because firstly they said it wasn't gory enough and secondly it was a bit too psychological and weird. According to what I read the violence is not *that* heavy in terms of gore levels (some of it even happens out of frame - not something you'd see in your typical exploitative horror film). But emotionally the violence is supposed to be extremely heavy and there's a lot of it.
For me hearing all of this is actually all the more of a turn on, but I think everybody knows by now that my film taste is just weird :] Anyway, the trailer is here:

The neighbour no.13
Uploaded by kazenoasia

P.S. If anybody reading this (though I doubt it ;-P) actually wants to see Oguri Shun in his "I'm too cool" mode to compare against the clips I put up then you can check out this fan video (very appropriately the clip author has a Shahrukh avatar *grin*).

How To Annoy Andreja: a tutorial ;) (Matsuda Ryuhei once more)

So... if you ever meet my friend Andreja and wish to annoy her (or in fact, it will suffice if you encourage her to read your blog - an actual meeting is not necessary ;)), there is a simple way to do it. All you need to do is write about the wonderful world of Japanese film & TV and choose to focus on someone who is not Matsumoto Jun ;)
I am therefore going to continue to annoy her for the time being, as I'm still rather into Matsuda Ryuhei right now ;)

Anyway, according to Amazon.com I should receive my irresistibly homoerotic and artsy Matsuda Ryuhei DVD on the 27th of May. Of course Amazon.com is totally wrong because I actually received it on the 9th of May. Strangely enough it came via Deutsche Post, to be more specific - from Frankfurt. This would perhaps not be so weird except that it's a region 1 DVD. I have tried to explain to my mum that getting to the bottom of these mysterious workings will help me understand the universe, but unfortunately I don't think she believed me.
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (the Matsuda Ryuhei film I received in this mysterious manner) is also trying to understand the universe, but I'm not expecting it to help my own personal quest to do so as I rather doubt I will ever understand the film ;) The good news is that I really enjoyed it anyway. I don't feel the inclination to write a proper, linear review (the film doesn't have a proper, linear story so why should it be reviewed that way ;-P), so I'll just be totally random and gush about Ryuhei instead ;-P

The bad news for Andreja is that now that I've seen two Ryuhei films I have concluded that his face is not the only thing that makes him interesting to look at on screen ;) I expect he may be appearing more on this blog if I manage to get hold of some of his other films.
Btw, I am clearly *not* alone in obsessing about his face. Here's a quote from the 'Making Of' feature on the Big Bang Love DVD, it's Ryuhei's co-star - Ando Masanobu (who is also very gushworthy) speaking:
With Ryuhei... since I've worked with him before, we work together well... and we hang out together outside of work. I like Ryu's face, so... even like this time... I've viewed him from various angles. He's maturing more and more, and getting more distinctive. It made me happy to see the sculptured, adult face of Ryu.
But enough about his face - as it happens I've discovered that Matsuda Ryuhei is actually a good actor ;) I kind of expected he might be (if he wasn't, I don't think he'd hold people's attention that well in Gohatto - even with that face ;)), but it's still nice to see it confirmed. Unlike this reviewer I found his part very different to Gohatto. I mean yes, it's similar in that he doesn't have much dialogue and mainly he "just is", but this is the case for all the actors in Big Bang Love - it's that sort of film. Otherwise it's very different to Gohatto. Unlike Sozaburo Kano, Ariyoshi Jun is a very vulnerable character and the whole body language is played like that. It's actually quite amazing how much information about the character Ryuhei can put through just by "being".

A random, but I thought interesting fact about the making of the film is the nude scene. In the special features Takeshi Miike explained that there wasn't any nudity in the script (it's a scene early on in the film when the two main characters are arrested - there's a strip search). But the costume designer strongly felt that there should be nudity there and that it was necessary for the film's artistic integrity. Miike liked her argumentation, but didn't really feel it was right to push the actors into it. The costume designer, however, felt so strongly about it that she started debating it with the cast. Miike had no idea how far the actors would go when they were shooting that scene and was positively surprised when they did strip.
The reason why I found this particularly interesting is that it sounds from this that nudity is a bigger deal in Japan than it is in the West. We are, after all, talking about a director known for making films with very extreme and perverse violence - Ichi, The Killer would certainly qualify as one of the most extreme films I've seen and I've seen a lot of "nasty" stuff. So to hear him express reservations about having his cast do nudity is interesting to say the least.
I've started wondering whether I've ever seen nudity in a Japanese film before and I don't think I have. In fact I only know of one other Japanese film (which I haven't seen) that definitely has nudity in it (full frontal at that) and that's The Realm of the Senses (1976). AFAIK to this day it has not been released in Japan uncut (I don't think it's the only country where that's the case, but still ;-P).
So I need Kinga's expertise here! Is nudity indeed a much bigger taboo in Japan or have I just been watching the "wrong films" and Miike is weird? ;)

In terms of other randomness, at the end of the 'Making Of' feature they asked everybody to say something about what film in general means to them (I actually felt most of the 'Making Of' was boring but that was one of the best bits). Ryuhei's answer is very quotable so I will quote it ;-P
I sometimes think... that all I'm about is acting. I go to movie sets, and there I discover who I am. Movie sets are like mirrors. Things you want to do, places you want to go... you confirm all these things there.

Finally, to totally scare you away from the film, here's a quote from Takashi Miike that made me lol:
Recently I've realized that movies that put me to sleep are good movies. Ones that bore me and put me to sleep. They give you tranquillity. There are things in the world that make you angry and sleepless. So movies that help you sleep are great. So if someone buys the DVD, absent-mindedly watches it, and eventually falls asleep... and between dozing and consciousness, the movie is still going, still flowing... as they enter the world of dreams; I think it's a piece that could be watched like that.

The MPAA and the BBFC - how the US and UK deal with sex and violence in films

The Venice film festival (which is the oldest film festival in the world and remains one of the most prestigious) came to an end the week before last and it was Ang Lee's Lust, Caution that won it.
While this might seem irrelevant to the topic of this post, I assure you it's not ;) The trailer should give you an idea where I'm going with this:


Anyway, the film has received an NC-17 certificate from the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America). Focus Features, the distributors of "Lust, Caution", have not appealed it or made any cuts for the American release which is very unusual. The NC-17 certificate is usually not regarded as an option even for less commercial films because this means many cinemas will not show it, many DVD rentals and stores will not stock it and many newspapers will not advertise it. While some art house films in the past have gone ahead with this certificate, it's the first time that such a mainstream director and a film that won such an important festival is going to be released as NC-17.

All the talk surrounding this has made me want to take a closer look at the MPAA and how the BBFC (British Board of Film Classification) compares. The MPAA has often been accused of double standards (Hollywood films can get away with more than art house or foreign films, sex is treated much more severely than violence).
Perhaps the strangest thing about the MPAA is that nobody knows exactly who rates the films. All the names are kept anonymous. In fact, the whole thing is so fishy that last year a documentary was made about the MPAA in an attempt to shed some light on it (they even hired a private detective to find out who was sitting on the board!). See the trailer for this documentary here.

Apart from being very secretive about their members, the feedback they give to both the filmmakers and the general public about why films received certain ratings is very limitted comparing to what the BBFC does these days. Check out the quote below from one of the MPAA FAQs:
CARA does provide explanations to the submitter of each motion picture of the reasons for the rating assigned to that picture. However, any such discussions concerning a particular motion picture will be only with the submitter and are also considered confidential. Thus, the substance of discussions about a movie being rated by CARA cannot be discussed with the press or anyone else other than, where appropriate, the submitter of the particular motion picture.
Unfortunately, the level of detail given to submitters often isn't enough for their needs. This timeline of MPAA controversies describes many cases, but one stood out to me in particular. In 1983 Brian De Palma edited his "Scarface" three times to get a lower rating, but none of those three cuts passed. Clearly if they had given him the information he needed, the first cut would have passed their requirements (and oh irony, in the end he received the rating he wanted for his original unedited version!).
In contrast, the BBFC lists quite detailed reasons for the rating and cuts made to each film on their website (the older ratings are less detailed, but the more recent ones are usually very much so) and it also invites the public to "make its views known to the Board at any stage of the classification process".

I have two of my own theories about the MPAA (which you can take seriously or laugh at - whatever ;-P). My first is a conspiracy theory - I think they're consciously giving indie and foreign films harsher ratings and that it's one of their methods of ensuring the domination of the big Hollywood flicks on the US market.
Before you roll your eyes at me (actually you probably have already, but before you do it again ;-P), check out how the MPAA is funded. Here's a quote from the FAQ on one of the MPAA's official pages:
The movie rating system is a voluntary system sponsored by the Motion Picture Association of America and the National Association of Theatre Owners
Since you're probably not familiar with these organizations, I'll "translate". You might already be confused how the MPAA can be funded by the MPAA, so maybe I'll start with clarifying that. For whatever reason, when one talks of the American rating system, one talks of the MPAA giving the ratings (that's how imdb has it for example), but actually the ratings are done by a smaller body called CARA (Classification and Rating Administration) which is part of the MPAA. The MPAA itself is an older and bigger body - you can read about it in more detail here, but it's basically a body created to defend the interests of the major American film production companies - you can see the list of MPAA members (the six biggest studios in Hollywood) on their official site.
The National Association of Theatre Owners is an association of all the movie theatres in the US - most of which are part of cinema chains owned by the six companies already mentioned.
This puts the accusations of bias against foreign and independent films in a totally different light, doesn't it? Clearly it is in the interest of the sponsors of the rating system for films made outside of the six big studios to be given harsher treatment. Wikipedia actually says that Miramax had lots of problems with the rating system while they were an independent company, but now that Disney has bought them out, their problems have ceased!

The BBFC is funded in a much more independent way. See the quote below from their policy (avaliable on their official website):
The British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) is an independent, non-governmental body funded through the fees it charges to those who submit films, videos, DVDs and digital games for classification.
On the one hand this means that British distributors have extra costs (unlike in the US, every film in the UK must be rated or else it is illegal to show it to the general public), but clearly it is a system less open to bias.

My other theory is a cultural one - I honestly believe Americans have a different attitude towards sex than we do here in Europe. Just as in India the general attitude towards sex and sexual behaviours seems to be a lot more prudish than in the West (kissing in public is considered obscene and even hand holding can be seen as vulgar), so in the US it seems certain things are a lot more taboo than they are in Europe.
I thought that it was fascinating to compare reactions to Daniel Radcliffe doing a nude scene in Equus (which I covered extensively on this blog ;) - just click on the Equus tag below this post). In the UK it was a big thing, but at no point did I feel there were any moral judgements about it. It was amusing, maybe shocking, but I don't think many people felt that it was somehow morally wrong of him to be doing it. The voices from the US were different though. Just reading through imdb there were many people who felt this amounted to pedophilia and were wondering how his parents could allow him to do such a thing. There were also those who said they would boycott the "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" film. I'm not saying that all the responses from the US were like that, but certainly it did seem to be somehow "a bigger thing" over there.
In this context, I also found it very interesting to read William H. Macy's comment about the reactions to "The Cooler" (this was one of the few art house films that was released with an NC-17 rating):
William H. Macy said that when the film was shown in European film festivals, afterward people mostly discussed the script and the characters, but when the film was shown at American film festivals, people mostly discussed how good Maria Bello looked in her nude scenes.
I think these different attitudes are reflected in not just the decisions of the MPAA and BBFC, but also their guidelines. I did a sort of comparison of the guidelines for each certificate, which you can download here. I wanted to put it straight up in my post, but the formatting I wanted wasn't possible (it's not a big file, don't worry :) ). Most of the guidelines have been just copied and pasted. Pretty much all the MPAA guidelines I found are in that file, but I only put up part of the BBFC guidelines since there were many which couldn't really be compared against anything in the MPAA ones. The full BBFC guidelines are here.

Finally, two random things that I didn't manage to fit anywhere else in this post. Firstly I thought this article was a great read - particularly the list of silly rating reasons (my favourite was "“PG-13 for intense depiction of very bad weather”).
And also I found it amusing to hear about Alfonso Cuaron's protest against what various rating bodies around the world were doing to Y tu mama tambien.

Chocolate Jesus exhibit cancelled

Here's the story as it appears on BBC.
But what really caught my eye was not that the Christian group was protesting against somebody making a chocolate sculpture of Jesus, but that they were protesting just as much about portraying Jesus naked:
Ms McCaffrey had called the exhibit "an assault on Christians".
"They would never dare do something similar with a chocolate statue of the Prophet Mohammed naked with his genitals exposed during Ramadan."

Firstly, with Islam it would be a whole different deal because *any* sort of portrayal of God or Mohammed is not allowed by Islamic law AFAIK.

Secondly (and this is what I really want to talk about), Christ most likely *was* naked on the cross. The whole idea of Christianity is that God made his own son suffer torture in a very humiliating way to clear humanity of its sins. And while generally the gospels do not specify whether they took his underwear off, all four gospels do specify his clothes were taken off.
The Wikipedia entry for Crucifixion actually says that the procedure usually involved nudity:
The victim was, if able, made to drag the cross or a part of it (usually weighing 150 lb or more) to the place of execution. At this point he was stripped naked, and was either fastened to it or impaled upon it, and left to die.
I'm not sure why there's this whole attempt of hiding the fact that Jesus might have been naked on the cross (surely it just adds to his humiliation and therefore to his sacrifice?), but the attempt goes much further than just not portraying him so in art...
If you look up John 19:23 on the Bible Gateway, you'll find that the New International Version, New American Standard Bible, New International Reader's Version, New International Version - UK and Today's New International Version all have some sort of wording indicating that only Christ's outer garments were taken off. None of the other versions (including two "new" ones) have any mention of whether it was just his outer garments and I don't think any of the other gospels have anything mentioned either (though I only checked the New International Version). I also checked out the Polish Biblia Tysiąclecia translation and again nothing specific mentioned. Some of those olds versions were really well researched (definitely the King James version for example), so can there be any other reason for these changes in the new versions?

Pornography, sexual content and obscenity

According to this and this (both articles in Polish unfortunately!) Poland might be facing a full ban on pornography in the near future. The new legislation that some politicians want to bring in (perhaps they'll be in the minority, we shall see!) will make it possible for someone to get a prison sentence not just for distribution but even for possession of any kind of pornography.
No definition of what constitutes pornography is given in this proposal, which sort of brings me to what I want to discuss (other than how stupid our current government is I mean ;-P). I've always felt that the limit of what's ok and what's not ok as far as sexual content goes is a fascinating discussion topic. Of course it's largely about taste and I don't think I'm going to come up with any reasonable conclusions, but if you have any thoughts I'd love to hear them :)

Not so long ago in India, there was a legal complaint against the kissing scene between Hrithik Roshan and Aishwarya Rai in Dhoom 2 (imdb page, trailer on youtube). A quote from IndiaGlitz reads:
According to the complainant, the women felt offended after watching the scene and it promoted vulgarity in society, especially among the youth.
Now for anyone who read the Polish articles on the pornography ban you might have noticed that those are almost the exact reasons for which some of PiS want a full pornography ban in Poland. In case you're wondering, here's the scene which we're talking about (the actual kissing happens late in the clip and sorry for the lack of subtitles but didn't find a clip with them):

It's not even as if there's no kissing in commercial Indian cinema, so it's hard to say why this particular kiss was so controversial. In the end, the kiss was cut.

But even a Western perspective of what's ok and what's not may sound just as ridiculous at times. Having been rambling about Equus on this blog I'm going to link to a Guardian article which uses Equus as a starting point to write about the history of nudity in British theatre. Apparently 40 years ago only female nudes were ok in the theatre and only if they didn't move. If they moved they were automatically considered obscene.
Not that people in the West don't have (what I would call) weird ideas about nudity even now. If you check out some discussions about Equus on-line, a lot of people (many of whom seem to be American) think that Daniel Radcliffe appearing nude on stage is enough to constitute child pornography because he's not yet 18 (he will be in about 6 months by the way). In accordance with US laws this might actually be true, I'm not sure, but I still feel it's a bit weird...

Of course so far I've been writing about stuff which nowadays only a small minority of people in the West would call obscene or pornographic (if at all that is - I'd be shocked if someone considerd the Hrithik-Ash kiss as such!). When we think pornography we generally think about stuff which is more explicit - usually photos or films which show people really having sex rather than just pretending. But there are films which would confuse us even there because they show *real* intercourse and yet they probably wouldn't be of interest to someone who is looking for pornography. One such film is definitely Lars von Trier's The Idiots (imdb page, trailer on youtube), another (although I haven't actually seen it) is Michael Winterbottom's 9 songs (imdb page, trailer on youtube). Both of these were shown at art cinema festivals and entered normal distribution in many countries.
And it's not just with films. If you ever check out some sites which specialize in fetish photography you'll find that most of the photographs are very artistic (sometimes - especially when we're talking about the violent stuff - very unsettling, but still artistic). I'm not sure what it is specifically about the fetish community but they really take photos which are way more than something that's just supposed to turn people on (in fact I've not seen many fetish pics which show people "in the act"). And yet when people hear "fetish" we usually think "obscene". Check out Incubus Choice if you want to see some stuff (though I am warning you - if you click on the link you are straying into territory that maaaany would consider porn, not that I think that should scare you but I'm saying it all the same).

Ok, so I've gotten from kissing scenes to real intercourse and photography portraying naked people tied up. Surely there should be a limit somewhere, right?
Lets look at the law then - I found this article very interesting and useful for this. Law is obviously different in different countries. But what I think is true pretty much everywhere is that it is illegal to supply pornography to people below a certain age (usually 18 or 16 though in Poland surprisingly enough it's 15 at the moment - however most Polish shops dealing with any sort of porn would not sell it to anyone below 18). It is also illegal to force the viewing of pornography on anyone (hey, I warned you about that Incubus site so I've done nothing illegal! ;-P ). The other legislations differ. Usually depicting bestiality is illegal (though I don't think that is true in the Netherlands - I think it is ok there as long as the animal is not harmed in any way). And of course there's child pornography which also has different restrictions and definitions in different countries. Mostly nobody below the age of 18 should be depicted although sometimes it is 16. Shockingly enough until 1999 Japan was extremely liberal about child pornography:
Prior to 1999, the only Japanese statute prohibiting actual child pornography was very limited in its reach, applying only to children under 13 who filed complaints within six months of an incident. A general criminal obscenity law protected minors over 13, but it also specified that the material must depict sexual organs to be considered illegal. Consequently, pornographic materials in Japan often resorted to showing other sexually oriented depictions of children, including abuse or torture, to avoid running afoul of the law.
Most countries also have laws against possession of child pornography (reading through the imdb boards, I'm not sure if this is true but apparently in the US anybody with nude pics of Daniel Radcliffe from Equus on their computer could theoretically be arrested for child pornography - not that there are many non-photoshoped pics of him floating around but I think even those are not legal under US law).
Many countries have laws which seperate child pornography into "virtual" and "actual" penalizing the virtual kind just as much. Virtual pornography is defined as depictions in which adult models are made up to look like children, and artistic or computer simulations of children involved in sexual activity. Now while I can see the logic of this I at the same time can't help but wonder if some of the stuff I've read or seen wouldn't be considered child pornography of the virtual kind. I mean particularly when I think about Harry Potter fan fiction and fan art... there's a lot of teacher-student relationships portrayed in those. To give you some examples, here's fan art showing Snape with Draco, Snape with Harry and another of Snape and Harry. I can see how for some people this might be considered totally sick, but is it harmful?
There have been (more about this in the long article I linked to) attempts at trying to find a link between watching porn and comitting sexual offences, but generally it seems the results depended on who tried to find this out (conservatives found a correlation and liberals did not).

I think I've finally come to the end of this post, but I don't really have a conclusion... I do believe people should be left with a choice as long as it doesn't harm anyone, but when it comes to "mental harm" it's very difficult to establish what is harmful and what is not (other than making somebody watch porn when they don't want to). Obviously if pornography causes sexual offences then something should be done about it (though I'm not sure a total ban would work), but we don't even know if it does (I've even heard claims that it actually makes the amount of sexual offences drop! but unfortunately don't have a link for this). Also I think even describing what pornography is is problematic. I'm not saying that any sort of porn is ok. There is definitely a lot of things happening in the porn industry which are not right - there are many reports of children and women being forced into starring in porn films (and in the case of children even if they did this willingly there would be reasons to say this is wrong).
On a final note, I think it's interesting that porn is apparently a huge economy booster and a pioneer in technology. The BBC article even says that the switch from Beta to VHS happened because of the porn industry.

More on Equus

Since I've had lots of fun posting about the Harry Potter nude story, I thought I'd follow it up ;-P

The play opened in London at the end of February and so far all the reviews I've seen have been good. Pretty much everyone who's seen the play says that by the time he takes off his clothes nobody cares because that's really not the point ;) Even those who dislike Peter Shaffer's plays or Daniel Radcliffe's acting in Harry Potter seem to be giving rather good reviews.

Here's an interview with Daniel Radcliffe and Richard Griffiths (who plays Uncle Vernon in the Harry Potter series and Dysart in Equus) after one of the shows:

Harry Potter nude and some even more exciting Potter news

I keep putting off writing anything because I've not written properly for such a long time and I feel I should write a long, clever post about something. The problem is I'm really not feeling clever or up to writing a long post ;-P
So I'll just be boring and write more of the usual. It's not that I don't have anything to write about - on the contrary, you wouldn't believe how many drafts I have on my blog (I just checked - the number is 80 drafts versus 43 published posts :D), but a lot of it seems just too much effort to write about just now ;-P
Therefore lets continue the topic of nudity (apparently it's the main theme of my blog since January 15th).

Harry Potter himself is appearing nude in a play in London and if you don't believe me I'm sure this article will convince you.
You can see some publicity pics for the play on the play's official site. And if like me you derive a certain amusement out of seeing people offended and acting as if it really is Harry Potter appearing nude rather than Daniel Radcliffe, then I recommend the imdb boards for Daniel Radcliffe. I particularly enjoy the comments in which certain Americans claim this is child pornography because according to American law Dan is not of legal age (no matter how many times they're told that under UK law he is, they still don't change their tone lol). But I think the people who think he's going to have real sex or masturbate on stage are even funnier (the arguments that there are no such scenes in the play don't seem to be getting to them ;) ).
On a more serious note, I do love the play. At least on paper it made a huge impression on me. It's the story of a boy who blinds six horses with a metal pick and gets sent to a mental institution. He is treated by a psychiatrist who has started doubting the point of his job. I really love the way the relationship between them is written out. I'm very excited about seeing it on stage (which I will in late April, wheee!).

But lets get to some more exciting and even more frontline Harry Potter news ;-P There is finally a release date for book7 "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!! :D Of course annoyingly it has to be on the 21st of July which is during the film festival in Wroclaw that I want to attend ;-P I'll probably try to force myself to wait until the festival finishes about a week later cause I want to be able to sit down and read it in one go (book 6 took me about 11,5h non-stop reading when it came out ;-P).
So far my favourite news tidbit about book7 coming out is enlikening two characters in the series dieing off to Take That splitting up in 1996 (it appeared in this article). Here's the relevant quote:
British book retailer Waterstone's is hoping to set up a helpline for distressed fans of the popular
Harry Potter series because two characters will be killed off in the final instalment, The Daily Telegraph reported.

"This could be a similar moment to when (pop band) Take That split up -- there could be a lot of upset teenagers out there," said Debbie Williams, a buyer for the book chain.

"We are looking to set up a helpline for them."

(for those of you who don't know - when Take That split up they set up a helpline because they were worried girls might get suicidal!)
But actually everything surrounding the release is absolutely amazing. It has shattered all pre-sale records and even before J.K.Rowling had finished writing the book, the bookies were already taking bets for who would kill Harry. Of course we don't even know if Harry will die! (personally I think he won't ;-P)


Very often when I say I don't feel up to writing anything long I end up doing what I say I won't ;-P (but when I say I'm not feeling up to writing anything clever I do mean it ;-P)
On a final off-topic note - Surya Bonaly chickened out, she was not nude at all.

Surya Bonaly to skate nude

Hopefully now that my heavy schoolwork period has almost finished I'll get back to regularly updating this blog.

For now, however, I have some fascinating figure skating news for all my readers (and since it's coming right after my celebrity nudity database post, I think I'm either going to lose or gain readers by giving the impression that this blog is about nudity ;) ).
Anyway, it's true - Surya Bonaly, a five-time European Champion is going to be skating nude to protect baby seals in North Canada. The news is in a couple of places, but the only English article I found is here (albeit it's a Russian site). The FSU forum is having a lot fun picturing exactly what Surya might do in her program. After all, she is the first ever woman to do a back flip on the ice, not to mention a wide repertoire of very bendy moves (she is an ex-gymnast). So enjoy whatever images this has brought to your mind ;)

Edited to add: Apparently Surya is not the first skater to do this. See here

Celebrity Nudity Database

I just found out that something like this exists and somehow it seems so absurd that I had to post it ;-P So here it is, the Celebrity Nudity Database.
No pics, videos or anything like that, it's just a database of which films have nude scenes with which actors and lots of people write reviews of the scenes.