DEEPER THAN DEAD

Tami Hoag

Orion

IT’S 1985: A woman’s body is found, half-buried, in parkland by four 10-year-olds. The sleepy California town is shaken by the news that the murdered woman’s lips are glued shut; her eardrums pierced and her eyes blinded.

It becomes apparent that the woman is the third victim in a series of similar deaths—and that two of the three women had been residents of a women’s shelter. FBI agent Vince Leone is brought into the case by detective Tony Mendez, a cop who had taken one of Leone’s classes in the fledgling field of behavioural profiling, in a pre-DNA world, where prejudice of the ‘voodoo science’ of CSI and profiling is looked on with disdain by most older cops—especially by-the-numbers traffic cop Frank Farman—and with excitement by the new generation, such as Detective Mendez.

With the assistance of primary school teacher Anne Navarro, the FBI and State police interview the kids, their parents, and the centre’s staff in the hopes of discovering the killer. But in a town where appearance is everything, revealing the identity of a serial killer isn’t as easy as you might expect.

© VIVID.COM

ONE-ON-ONE

AJ BAILEY

The amazing American babe chats to Australian Penthouse about anthropology, living in Australia, and the adult industry

You’ve only been in the adult industry for a couple of years, and now you’re the new girl at Vivid.  Did you plan that?

No way! I got into the business in 2006 to pay for graduate school, where I was studying anthropology. I thought I had what it takes, so I answered a website ad for models and Vivid came soon after.

What have you been up to recently?

Work, work and more work! My first DVD, The AJ Bailey Experiment, was released a few months ago, and another, AJ’s Sexy Stories, is about to be released, so I’ve been doing a lot of press for both. It’s been really fun.

We hear you used to live in Australia…

Yes, I lived in Oz off and on for a few years. I would be there for about five months, then head back to the States for a bit – whatever my visa would allow. I originally went to visit a friend and loved it so much that I went back to stay.

What did you love most about life down-under?

The boys and the beaches! In fact, the best sex I’ve ever had was with an Aussie boy.

Do tell…

He was a really straight-laced surfer with a very unassuming package. I really like passion and foreplay because I get sex on set all day long, and this guy knew what he was doing. We did anything and everything. It blew my mind.

What were you like as a teenager?

Well, I dropped out of high school and moved to Australia by myself, if that’s any indication! I was very restless and bored with Midwestern life and was always pushing boundaries. However, just before my Aussie odyssey, I was a straight-A student, in the choir, and on the cheerleading squad.

What do you think you’ll be doing in 10 years’ time?

I would love to be a conservator for a historical organisation, looking after historic houses, manor homes or castles, or even museums. I’ve had so many different jobs – dog walker, waitress, collections manager, art seller. I also worked at a hair salon – the politics were brutal. I’m an anthropologist, so being a conservator really interests me.

But you’ll be staying in the adult industry for a while, right?

Yes, I love it. I love being a Vivid girl, I love the sex, and I love the glamour!

THEM CROOKED VULTURES
Self-titled
Sony

THE debut album for the supergroup of Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones. Whether you buy it out of curiosity or a genuine passion for the trio’s back-catalogue, rest assured that Them Crooked Vultures is no Audioslave.

Star amalgams have a record of revealing a glass jaw against the power of expectation. One might think that a band with Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss as its backbone would get it wrong as a collaboration, but while the influences of the trio are obvious in every track, the band never veers too close to its origins: there’s no cashing in on past glories; this is about breaking new ground. And it’s exciting to hear. The riffs are strong and dirty, the bass lines threaded with titanium, and the drumming unparalleled and kinetic.

Highlights include: ‘Dead End Friends’; ‘Very Ape’; ‘Scumbag Blues’; ‘Caligulove’; and ‘Nobody Loves Me and Neither Do I’.

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ABC television program Hungry Beast took the classification fight to the Attorney General’s office on Tuesday night when program reporter Kirsten Drysdale asked why women with genitals that don’t close “to a single crease” are deemed offensive by the Australian Government.

WATCH streaming video of the ABC’s Hungry Beast here: Hungry Beast

Australian Penthouse Pet, Bailey Banks, March 2010

WATCH video of an Australian  men’s magazine retoucher manipulating images to meet OFLC requirements here: Hungry Beast: Digital Retouching

Discover what the the Australian Government reckons is offensive when it comes to publishing images of adult nudity in Australia here:
OFLC guidelines

FIND out what everyday Australians think about women’s vaginas, here:
VAG POPS

READ ABC reporter Kirsten Drysdale’s blog, here: HEAL TO A SINGLE CREASE

Tinto Brass, director of skin-flicks as Penthouse classic, Caligula, and All Ladies Do It, says he has been inspired by the success and cope of James Cameron’s Avatar,  and has plans to make a 3D porno. No word yet as to what level Brass’ inspiration will begin or end.

MAVERICK MOTOCROSS

Australian stunt rider Robbie Maddison talks about breaking world records, jumping London’s Tower Bridge, and his V8 Supercar ambitions

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Animal Kingdom
Director:  David Michod
Star:  Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver
Madman Entertainment

Animal Kingdom centres around a Melbourne family of drug dealers—a popular topic post-Underbelly—and the extended family’s rapidly escalating violence with the police.

The viewer sees events unfold through the eyes of the film’s protagonist and youngest family member, 17-year-old Joshua (James Frecheville), an adolescent wrestling with his allegiance to his family and his conscious.

Written and directed by David Michod, what is so different about Animal Kingdom compared with many other Melbourne underworld movies and TV series of late, is that it doesn’t glorify the drug trade, or life “in the business”.

There are no dramatic gun scenes, no wads of money counted, no mountains of cocaine piled on table-tops. The movie instead focuses on the cascading errors in judgement shown by the family, coupled with the audience’s underlying belief that no good will come of the deaths and drug use—primarily via the expressive-yet-passive narration of Joshua throughout the film.

Ben Mendelsohn steals the show as the increasingly psychotic ‘Uncle Pope’, a man who delves deeper into paranoia, and eventually insanity, due to the mounting death-toll surrounding him and his trigger-happy, drug-taking antics. Winner of the 2010 Grand Jury Prize for World Cinema Drama at Sundance, Animal Kingdom presents Australian story-telling in a new light, and is definitely worth watching.

Animal Kingdom opens in cinemas nationally on June 3.