Baxter Phillips

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t learn about a few films over the history this covers (to 1975, when it was published), and some of the images and graphic artwork were of interest, but the quality of the writing is mediocre at best. Phillips flits from one blithe comment to another over a pretty broad range of films, but there is very little depth, and at times his accuracy is not the greatest. He makes broad generalizations (“There are practically no straight sex films in Japan: all contain aggression, blood and perversion”), and while he seems to revel in all of the sex and violence he shows us, he also seems to condone censorship in later films that apparently had gone too far for him. He seems to have a lot of knowledge, but the book needed a more academic approach. As it is, it’s a mishmash designed probably to titillate, e.g. for readers to flip through its various salacious photos.… (meer)