ANNIE SPRINKLE'S AMAZING WORLD OF ORGASM Dirs: Annie Sprinkle and Sheila Malone USA, 2004 Beta SP, 53mins "I like orgasms... doesn't everyone?" asks our on-screen host at the beginning of this fascinating and at times - a lot of the time - wacko movie about one of life's most intimate and intense pleasures. Being Annie Sprinkle, the woman who, in her one woman live stage show, notoriously lay back, spread her legs and invited torch-wielding male audience members to see just where the clitoris is, she takes our answer for granted and flings us through a cavalcade of twenty six sexual pleasure experts and devoted practitioners. How many different types of orgasm can you list? Annie's experts take us through the plateau orgasm, the tonic orgasm, the fusion orgasm, the rock and roll and tension orgasms. Also the fake orgasm, the no-touch orgasm, the figure 8, balloon, breath and laughgasms. Even feargasms! These experts generally deliver their pieces po-faced direct to camera, lecture-style, often with grainy up close porno imagery keyed in behind. The 'midwife of death' describes her calling of providing physical intimacy to the point of orgasm for people in their dying moments. A physically disabled man in a wheelchair haltingly expounds his joy of sexual pleasure while we watch him getting wild and sweaty with a female partner. Several hot lesbian and cute gay male couples demonstrate massage techniques. A mega-buxom woman with large round bells sewn into her skin and her ‘urban native,' pierced male partner take us into orgasm through a shamanistic path of pain and mysticism. But wait, there's more! An almost comically straight-laced sexuality researcher explains in endless medical and anatomical jargon how an orgasm occurs. The experience of giving birth is apparently just like an orgasm when it's done right, we hear. A grimly gothic child-woman tries and ultimately fails to make her point, while an older and rather jaded sex professional attempts to draw orgasms on a blackboard. And so on, for almost an hour. This is a slightly rough around the edges movie which is 100% unflinching in its approach to the psychology and physicality of male and female orgasms. Sprinkle is impish in a cheerful and cheesy manner, while her experts are for the most part compelling, for good and bad reasons - I'll leave you to decide which are which. There is a preponderance of kaftans, men's balloon pants, shaggy mustaches and ethnic jewelry which suggests the roots of these philosophies and techniques are very firmly planted in '70s California hippiedom, and although that shouldn't matter I found my flake-ometer was registering perhaps a little higher than it should have. But it's educational and I defy one sexually active person to come away from Annie Sprinkle's Amazing World of Orgasm without wanting to try a few new sexual tricks, or understanding why fathers watching the birth process sometimes faint (you have been warned!). Preceded by: FLUID Dir: Yusuke Iwasake USA, 2004 DVD, 24 mins. Short and rather unsatisfying, Fluid contains an interesting subject which is sabotaged by a lame script, Jeff Stryker-level acting ability, miscasting, and a shocking musical score. Complexity and misunderstandings, dishonesty and deception, vulnerability and opportunism are all fascinating human foibles upon which open (and in this case bisexual) relationships can founder, so bravo to this cast and crew for tackling them. Director Iwasake tarts things up a bit with some good camera setups and editing, but the result is still amateurish and emotionally disconnected. Shame. Jay Bennie - 1st June 2005