Sword and sorcery movies are perhaps the purest distillation of a ten-year-old boy’s mind that a ten-year-old boy could ever hope for. Yes, yes, I know. Ten year old boys were too young to watch such filth. We were also too young to read Heavy Metal magazine, know who Sylvia Kristel was, and have opinions about the best Playmates. Sword and sorcery movies were great because not only could you stay up late and watch the R-rated ones, but even the PG ones were full of everything we wanted: monsters, gore, and big-boobed chicks wearing tiny fur bikinis, if they were wearing anything at all. And if that represents the purest distillation of a ten-year-old boy’s mind, then the movie Sorceress represents a sort of cask strength version of that particular spirit. Because Sorceress asks the question, “Sure, what if you had all that, but also the heroes are hot, naked twins?”

Regardless of whether or not the viewer is in line with When Women Lost Their Tails’ political viewpoint, I think he or she has to agree that it is a much more interesting film with it than it would be without. The cinematic landscape is littered with knuckleheaded sex farces set against a broadly satirical historical backdrop – with not an inconsiderable number set in the Stone Age among them. But, with When Women Lost Their Tails, what we get is like the lyrics of a Gang of Four song acted out within the context of a slightly naughty fanfic version of The Flintstones. If nothing else, it certainly makes for unique viewing, and offers enough in terms of audacity alone to keep one watching until the end.

Fascinated as I was with such claptrap, I kind of understood where Billy Idol was coming from when he made Cyberpunk. Pretty much everyone dismissed the album, Idol fans didn’t want to hear a bunch of computerized crap. Electronica and industrial fans thought Idol was jumping on a bandwagon, latching on to a word and a vague concept that had recently been discovered by the media. I was firmly with the latter, rolling my eyes and thinking to myself, “Oh brother.” It was quite a shock when the damn thing showed up in my mail one day. And it was a generous package, too: the CD, the album on vinyl, a remix album also on vinyl, and a 3.5″ floppy disk full of Macromedia Director nonsense that was doing its best to look all Blade Runnery or whatever.

In the course of making all of these records, hits and flops alike, Meek pioneered a sound that was largely achieved by applying too much of just about everything — compression, reverb, echo, distortion, close miking — that the finicky British sound engineers of the day prided themselves on using judiciously. His apparent need to make a guitar sound like anything other than a guitar, a drum like anything other than a drum, and a human voice like something distinctly non-human also spurred him to the creation of a number of gadgets of his own. Given this, I think it’s no exaggeration to say Meek paved the way for seminal, effects-heavy British post-punk bands of the late 70s and early 80s like The Cure, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Magazine, Joy Division, and even U2.

The film opens with Blindman (Tony Anthony) riding into a western town. It seems like a ghost town as all the streets are deserted. He rides back and forth, around and around. Finally a door opens and a scrawny looking fellow pops out. He approaches Blindman who climbs down from his horse. Blindman inquires about a man named ‘Trouble’ — get it? He’s looking for trouble! The scrawny man directs him to the undertakers where Trouble is holed up. Blindman walks down the street towards the undertakers, but to wake up the townsfolk and alert everyone to his arrival, as he walks, he shoots at the bell in the church tower. The ringing wakes everybody, and Trouble comes to greet the Blindman.

In 1867, with nothing more than $4 in his pocket (actually, I’m sure a lot of people would have enjoyed having $4 in 1867), a German by the name of Isaac Wolfe Bernheim made the big move from Schmieheim to New York with, I assume, big dreams. Things didn’t work out quite as planned, though, and he ended up working as a traveling salesman in Pennsylvania. It was a rough time to be an American. The Civil War that ravaged the country had only ended a couple years earlier, and much of the United States was still in a state of devastated exhaustion. Bernheim enjoyed some degree of success as a peddler, at least until his horse keeled over and left him with no means to realize the “traveling” aspect of being a traveling salesman.

For those not in the know, “peat” is basically the claylike mud that forms many of the bogs in Scotland (among other places). Composed of decayed vegetable matter (mostly), it’s like a softer version of coal, and its abundance in certain places means it’s commonly used as fuel for heating. Islay, an island off the western coast of Scotland, is full of peat, and as such, distillers back in the day used it for fuel whenever a part of the distillation process called for a little fire. What was quickly discovered was that peat infuses a particularly unique flavor to the whisky. And since the make-up of peat can vary depending on where you cut it from, the peaty flavor of whisky can vary just as wildly from one peated whisky to another. Smoky, earthy, seaweedy, salty, oily, meaty — lots of different flavors, but all of them are big and bold.

Needless to say, if you want to reenact the dance contest scene from Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster, Nippon Girls: Japanese Pop, Beat & Bossa Nova 1966-70 is the ideal soundtrack. Or perhaps it’s the swinging, strobe-lit nightclub from your favorite Pinky Violence film you want to recreate — you know, the type where Miki Sugimoto or Reiko Oshida might go to settle scores with a sleazy Yakuza boss who’s crossed them? In that case, this swinging compilation from the UK’s ever-reliable Big Beat label has got you covered as well, as it includes among its many delights pysch funk tracks marked by stabbing brass and crisp, wakka-wakka guitars. All the better for going about your dirty work while a crowd of blissed-out hipsters dances obliviously beneath the swirling lights.

And if there was one bone I’d pick with Neutron vs. The Death Robots, it would be that one: That the predictability of Neutron showing up — completely without explanation — whenever peril arises ends up robbing the film to some extent of drama and suspense. In a couple of cases, Neutron arrives so swiftly on the heels of the Death Robots that we don’t even have time to register the threat. On the other hand, though, I think that this is in part a result of the film’s approach to action being more about velocity than build-up, and scenes such as those certainly do contribute to an air of breathless excitement — almost as if we are watching a story projected directly from the brain of a sugar-addled eight-year-old boy who’s caught up in the excitement of recounting the action of the cartoon he’s just watched.

No, Coffey Malt has nothing to do with coffee. Nor does it, unfortunately, have anything to do with Coffy. Wat it does have to do with is the type of still that is used to make the whiskey. Single malt scotch whiskey is made in copper pot stills — bulbous at the bottom, with a narrow neck, though the shape of stills from distillery to distillery varies greatly and affects the taste of the whiskey. Coffey stills, also known as column stills, continuous stills, and patent stills consist of two long, cylindrical columns. The first column, or “analyzer,” moves the “wash” (think of it as raw whiskey, straight from the fermentation vat) down through several levels in the column while steam rises up through it. The second column, or rectifier, circulates the alcohol from the wash until it condenses.

As the studio sought directors to tweak the formula, Kobayashi remained as a clear and dependable connection to what had been and what was coming. A little heavier, a few years older, he slipped easily out of the rebellious youth roles of his early career and into the role of a more sophisticated and imposing man of action. Films like Velvet Hustler were redefining what Nikkatsu action was, still making callbacks to film noir and the French New Wave but infusing it with something less morose, snappier, and more in keeping in touch with the evolving go-go and rock ‘n’ roll culture. Kobayashi couldn’t pull off the “Sun Tribe with a gun” mood of those movies, but he had his own more grown-up version of cool that still appealed to younger viewers. And then everyone started watching James Bond movies.

Well, the fact that there’s no real answer to that question is part of the reason that the SWA is looking to make “pure malt” a taboo term. Unlike single malt, blended, and vatted (actually, the SWA just passed a whole slew of new laws that more specifically define whiskey categories, but that’s a subject for another article), there is no official definition for “pure malt.” Which mean sit could be anything. In the hands of a company like Nikka, one expects that you can trust them to be forthcoming. But other, less scrupulous marketers could slap “pure malt” onto anything. In the case of Nikka, however, “pure malt” seems to mean “vatted malt.” The Taketsuru Pure Malt is a vatting of different Nikka single malts. It’s named for the founder of the Nikka Distillery, and it comes in three standard ages: 12, 17, and 21 years old. We’re here to drink the 17 year old (43% ABV) tonight.