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From the Publisher’s description:

From Barbarella to Barb Wire, The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen, by Dominique Mainon and James Ursini, the author of more than twenty books on film history, traces the public’s seemingly insatiable fascination with the warrior-woman archetype in film and on television. Through more than 400 photos, entertaining and lively writings, and sidebars about trends, style, and trivia, the warrior-woman image throughout the past five decades is vividly explored, from the “fur bikinis and jungle love” of the iconic Raquel Welch in the prehistoric adventure fantasy One Million Years BC, to Pam Grier, the first African-American woman to play a warrior woman within the action movie genre (Coffy, Foxy Brown, and Sheba, Baby).

Complete with an extensive filmography of more than 150 titles, it encompasses the warrior women of fantasy including Grace Jones as Zula in Conan the Destroyer, classic Amazons such as Xena Warrior Princess, superheroes including Wonder Woman and Angelina Jolie as Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, sci-fi warrior Sigourney Weaver as Ripley in Alien, supersleuths and spies such as Charlie’s Angels, gothic warriors including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the “girl power” of comics, cartoons, and video games such as the Powerpuff Girls. In addition, the book highlights Hong Kong warriors such as Angela Mao (Enter the Dragon) and Zhang Ziyi (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and sexploitation films including the Ilsa trilogy.

The Modern Amazons: Warrior Women On-Screen also relates a brief background on warrior women in history, myth, and literature, chronicling the effects of male fantasy and societal values on their portrayal in film and on television, and their overall portrayal in Hollywood. Revenge and loss of father, Oedipal conflicts, sisterhood?just a few of the themes that underlie warrior-women movies?are also discussed. Special features include topics such as the “Weapons of Warrior Women,” “Final Notes: Occupational Hazards of Superheroines,” and the representation of women as felines (”The Feline Woman”) and as snakes in myths and history (”Woman and the Serpent”).

From the supplier’s description:

The “Sanpo” Totoro music boxes created by Studio Ghibli have been such a hit that the Academy Award-winning Japanese anime studio has released a series of music boxes featuring their favorite films, all with scenes recreated in painted ceramic and featuring a beloved song from the soundtrack. Detailed and entirely faithful to the movie, these recreations recapture the spirit and will become a valued collector’s item as well as an attractive display item. This particular music box is from the movie “Princess Mononoke” featuring the strange and child-like Kodama marching through a forest scene. The song that’s featured when you wind up the box is Mononoke Hime (Princess Mononoke), the theme to the movie. Approximately 2.5″ high (7 cm), this official Studio Ghibli product will be packed carefully by our Japanese staff for you to enjoy.

It’s been fifty years since the English-language debut of Edogawa Rampo, arguably the most influential figure in Japanese fantastic literature. The man behind such twisted stories as The Caterpillar, The Hell of Mirrors and The Human Chair is still a force to be reckoned with in his homeland, as witnessed by last year’s superior omnibus film Rampo Noir, which was based on his work.

This year sees Rampo’s very welcome return to the English-language book shelves, with the publication of The Black Lizard and Beast in the Shadows.

Two Golden Age classics from Japan’s grand master of mystery. Edogawa Rampo (pseudonym of Hirai Taro, 1894-1965) is the acknowledged grand master of Japan’s golden age of crime and mystery fiction. In the early part of his career, he created the Japanese gothic mystery, developing the work of Edgar Allan Poe and related nineteenth century writers in a distinctly Japanese form. This part of his career coincided with a great flowering in Japanese literature and culture, a relatively free and uninhibited popular press being a defining feature of the times. In this context, Rampo’s dark vision and extravagant grotesquery found an avid readership, and had a profound influence on other writers. The Black Lizard, a master criminal as deadly as she is beautiful, wagers all in an epic battle with a master detective. A mystery writer vows to protect the woman he secretly loves from the Beast in the Shadows, but disaster strikes when he turns detective himself.

Unmissable for anyone wishing to know where modern Japanese came from. And where it might be going.

From the publishers description:

Cinema has been a fortunate art form. It had the immense good fortune to seduce Orson Welles and Marcel Pagnol away from theatre, Pasolini and Jean Cocteau away from poetry, and Stanley Kubrick away from chess. It was a comparable stroke of luck that Luis Buñuel, one of the most brilliant representatives of the surrealist movement, chose to make films and was able to make them with unflagging fidelity to his principles for fifty years.

After an audacious Parisian showing of Un Chien Andalou in 1929 (Buñuel carried stones in his pockets in case he needed them to fend off the audience), Buñuel’s subsequent career in Spain (Las Hurdes), Hollywood and Mexico (Los Olvidados, Robinson Crusoe, El, Nazarin) before returning to France (Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire), showed that the only subjects he cared to make films about were the three that are never supposed to be discussed in polite society: sex, religion, and politics.

This book was made with full access to Luis Buñuel’s archives.

As you would expect from Taschen, the illustrations - a selection of stills, production shots and publicity posters - are both lavish and well selected. This book is well worth getting hold of.

Here’s another one for fans of Hayao Miyazaki - a ceramic music box taken from the end credits of Porco Rosso.

Remember the 80s? Breakdancing, hair bands, Cannon films and the cutest little alien monster to break into celluloid. Yep, the little gremlin known as Gizmo.

Now celebrating its 20th anniversary, the folks at Jun Planning have produced this cute otedama (soft juggling ball) filled with a bean padding making him easy to cuddle up to. Measuring at 11 cm (4 inches) in the seated, this adorable character has a large ear span of 14 cm (5 inches) and is covered with a high quality plush material. He sits here with a whimsical smirk on his face waiting for you to bring him home from Japan. A stuffed plush doll that’s easy to take care of. Just make sure not to feed him after midnight.

Bettie Page was the most photographed Pin Up of the 1950’s and has become the Cult model of the last decade. Bettie was known for her distinctive haircutm her sense of fun and - of course - her photos.

In the period of 1951 until 1956 she appeared in 3 feature length burlesque films (Striporama, Varietease and Teaserama) as well as several 8- and 16mm Exotic Dance, Fetish, Bondage and Catfight films.

Now available on 2 DVDs: Bettie Page Pin Up Queen, Bettie Page Bondage Queen and a newly remastered pictorial bonus DVD 100 Girls By Bunny Yeager featuring Bettie Page.

I saw this and thought Fantastic! And then I noticed that this is Volume 17. And it’s a Region 1 DVD.

I think we should start campaigning to get one of Britain’s most groundbreaking characters back onto a Region 2 DVD collection.

In the meantime…

More Ghibli goodness, this time derived from the timeless My Neighbor Totoro.

Taken from the magical scene of the Miyazaki film where Totoro, Satsuki, and Mei wait for their respective buses in the rain, this display recreates it with incredible detail, also containing the rusted bus stop sign and the toad who looks on through the scene. Made with ATBC and ABS materials fixed onto a wooden display stand, this is certainly a figure set to treasure. With a display base approximately 6.5″ x 9″, this Totoro item also has an engraved plaque featuring the logo from the film in Japanese. This deluxe set is a very special tribute to an incredible movie that any Totoro fan will enjoy. Approved by Studio Ghibli.

From the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts to the Medusa in Clash of the Titans the stop motion animations of Ray Harryhousen are instantly recognisable to anyone who watches films.

In this book, Tony Dalton brings together a collection of drawings, storyboards and photos created by the critically acclaimed animator. The text is brief, but informative, and the book as a whole is well worth reading.