Thursday

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• Netscape 6..2.1 is available free for download or on CD.
• MSIE 6.0 is available free.

Tillsammens (2000), or Together is a Swedish production from Lukas Moodysson (Show Me Lies), and is a very good sophomore effort. It is a slice of life about a communal house full of socialists in the mid 70s. Rather than focus on a particular character, the film portrays everyone nearly equally, and has a wide variety of interesting characters to explore, from a "please everyone" sort of man, and his partner who has gotten him to agree to an open marriage, to his sister who leaves her alcoholic abuse husband and moves in with her two kids, to the lesbian who wants her ... you get the idea.

The film is full of charm and wit, and the good and bad of the lifestyle is well balanced and represented in the film. Jessica Liedberg as the lesbian shows her bush in a hilarious scene where they are having a communal meeting, and she is bottomless and airing herself because of a yeast infection. Anja Lundkvist shows breasts in three different scenes as the wife in the open marriage, and Lisa Lindgren is scene in a bra when Liedberg is convincing her to stop sharing her pits as a social statement. IMDB readers say 7.9 of 10, and it did very well on the festival circuit, winning several awards and nominations. It is only available from the UK on Region 2 PAL so far. I found the film a delightful, easy watch, with a very rich color palate, and a lot of human insight. B-.

MOVIES

The Princess and the Warrior Very bold movie, big, operatic, mystical, symbolic. 130 minutes long. I really liked it, although I didn't know what the fuck was going on half the time. The latest offering from the director and star of Run, Lola, Run

• Christa Fast (deleted scene. I'm not 100% certain of the ID)

IN THE NEWS

Damn, I miss the Clinton Era. It was the Silver Age of Political Humor (the Golden Age being the Nixon Administration, of course). Clinton was the Comstock Lode of jokes about public figures, but so far there's really been nothing very funny in the Bush years. Baby Doc Bush has basically been engaged in helping Americans fight tough times, and that's allowed him to stay out of harm's way. Even his garbled syntax has been given the kid gloves treatment by the press. We have this thing about rallying around the leader during a crisis. And that's a good thing, I believe.

Of course, the Dems have been trying to make some political capital out of this Enron matter, and up until Monday I thought there was absolutely nothing to it except corporate greedheads lining their pockets - possibly by using perfectly legal, if totally unethical, means.

But Monday, my ears pricked up. If there is one one lesson I've learned in a lifetime, it is this - when a politician says these words "we must invoke executive privilege, and government officials have a right to discuss matters in private" - it is exactly the same as saying this: "I am GUILTY! GUILTY! GUILTY!" Same exact words, just spelled and pronounced a little different, like Danish and Norwegian. Dr Samuel Johnson once wrote that "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel". This is clearly not accurate. Based on Nixon's behavior in the final days, and Clinton's in the nearly-final days, we know the exact order in which a scoundrel's havens make their appearance:

• First, executive privilege
• Second, patriotism (usually "national security")
• Third, God
• Fourth, his dear, sainted mother.

Clinton never got to the last refuge, but he didn't need to.

So mark down my prediction, lads, and set a course for scandal - Cheney said something very, very embarrassing in those conversations. In fact, it may be nothing illegal, and it may have nothing to do with the current Enron scandal. When Nixon refused to surrender his tapes, it was partially because he didn't want the world to know that he called Judge Rehnquist an idiot or that he and Kissinger were studying an FBI investigation of the Prime Minister of Canada. Maybe what Cheney is hiding is just something like that. I don't know. But I now know two things for sure.

1) he said some ugly shit of some kind

2) he knows it's ugly shit, and he doesn't want people to know about it

That, I like! I'm not one of those guys who would have been panning streams in 1849 on spec. But when I know for sure that there's gold - my pickaxe is ready!

The following are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that I inexplicably determined there might be something of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

The movie...
If you go by the IMDb, this is genius film making by Michael Winterbottom (the director of the Kate Winslet movie "Jude"). However, I'm still trying to figure out if the IMDb readers saw the same movie I did!

The plot...
There really isn't one. It's one of those "slice of life" movies where we follow (literally with a shaky hand held camera) the lives of a group of very depressed, and dysfunctional people over a period of 4 days. The people are 3 sisters and the men in their lives, the parents of the sisters, a neighbor and her son, and some guy (who I think was the brother of the sisters) and his girlfriend.

Sound confusing? Just wait....

All of these characters are introduced individually in the first 20 minutes of the movie. That's a new character about every 3 minutes! When a new character is introduced, you do not know exactly who he/she is or how they fit into plot at first. Are they a relative or just a guy in a coffee shop? You have to watch for a while and see. I figured out how most of the characters fit eventually, but not all of them. In fact some characters serve no purpose whatsoever and simply waste screen time with over or under acting.

I guess the reason to watch this is as a character piece. I admit that most of the pieces were good. Saplings of complicated characters waiting to be nurtured on film. But by throwing so many people into the mix, no one character could ever develop. What is left was a stew of good ideas, but no real flavor. In the end, we the audience are left watching 7 or 8 depressed people for 100 minutes, and since we only see that side of these people, who cares.

The film...
Cinema verité. Or as I like to call it, pretentious crap. In each scene, Winterbottom used one, jerky hand held camera as he walked along side, walked around and sat and stood with the actors. Camera work that in some cases made me crave the long, slow and smooth tracking shots of the Blair Witch Project. Seriously, an 8 year old with a Sony could probably make a better looking movie.

The movie is purposely grainy as hell (as you can see in the 'caps) and was shot using only natural lighting. Sadly there is also natural sound. Basically they just took the cam-corder into the bars, apartments, and coffee shops and just hit record. So you have all of the ambient noise of real life. Also, from the looks of the people in the crowd scenes, I'm not so sure they knew a movie was being made. There are several people who just sit in the background and stare at the camera.

Now for the sake of symbolism, the graininess, occasionally poor sound, and crappy lighting do have a purpose. Essentially, the film technique is intended to correspond with the characters. Like I said there are some good ideas at work here. But overall, having too many people in front of the camera just mucks it all up.

Would I recommend it? Only if you think Ingmar Bergman movies are a little too bright and cheerful.

The 'caps...
Sarah-Jane Potts (Yanks know this UK actress from "Felicity") shows off a great body in her completely pointless role. Plenty of breast exposure, plus bare bum in links #5 and #6 and pubes in #2 and #7.

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• Sarah-Jane Potts (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

• Kristi Ducati (1, 2)

Into the mix I've thrown caps of Spanish actress Adriana Ozores in Penilune and Aussie Big Brother babe Christina Davis. Nekkid shower scenes are about the only thing that could save BB in the USA.

• Adriana Ozores
• Christina Davis

Unknown

From the movie "Cut and Run" (1985)...An Italian movie with American actors about a drug cartel working in the Amazon. The cartel guys are really bad, bad guys. So bad that they like to behead and rape people. According to Dann, the movie gained notoriety for it's brutal murder, torture, rape and beheading scenes. Dann also mentioned that the DVD contains scenes which were never included in the American (tame) version, so they were never dubbed into English.

Valentia shows breasts and bum, the other collage has plenty of full frontal nudity.

Catherine Zeta-Jones

MAN ROBS STORES WITH TREE BRANCH
Out Of His Tree - A man in Moroyama, Japan, robbed two shops in 15 minutes by storming in and brandishing a tree branch at the employees. At the first store, the clerk handed over about $1,400 (US), but when he hit a convenience store next, the clerk fought back and he fled with no money.

* Later, he robbed a bank...Not a real bank, but a branch bank.

* He'd never try to rob a nursery: those people are armed to the teeth!