Friday

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To see and use all the Funhouse features, you need Netscape 6.+ or MSIE 5.+.

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

The Key (1983) is a top notch soft core from Tinto Brass, probably best known for the original Caligula. It is based on a novel by Junichirô Tanizaki, and is about an older man and his younger wife. The wife is rather prudish, and makes love with the lights off and under the covers. He wants more from her physically, and hits upon the idea of writing a diary about his longings, and leaving it where she is sure to snoop.

Her initial reaction is very negative, and she starts her own diary to vent, which he discovers. Meanwhile, he discovers the Polaroid, and uses it to capture the parts of her body that she has hidden from him after she goes to sleep. Her daughter's friend, a photographer, develops higher quality explicit photos of her for her husband, and she finds out about the photos. She finally realizes what her husband is after, and decides to play along by seeing the young photographer. Although they stop short of intercourse, they enjoy everything else, and she finds it liberating. She is finally able to give her husband what he has wanted, but it proves to be more than he can handle at his age.

This is a fairly complex premise for a soft-core, and the production standard and acting are far above the norm. Stefania Sandrelli as the wife shows everything, including some gyno shots, several times during the film. The DVD is only available from the UK on Region 2 PAL. IMDB readers have it at 5.6/10, but with only a few voting. It is a very high quality film for the genre, but, as soft-core, gets the max, C+. To me, it was worth the effort of buying it from Europe.

MONITOR CALIBRATION

Tuna and I have been discussing this issue in the past two days. We have been researching the available info on monitor calibration. Go to these links for some interesting adjustments.

Test 1. This one is for brightness only. There is a middle bar which is nearly black. If you see only black, you need to brighten your monitor until you can barely see the zebra stripes. If you already see them, darken your monitor until they disappear, then brighten again until they just start to appear. (If you never see the stripes, then the monitor is adjusted wrong inside or the system "gamma" may be set wrong on your Mac.)

Test 2. This is the US Gov't calibration chart. It is used for both brightness and contrast. Now that you have your brightness about right from test 1, fine tune the contrast with this one. There are two lines of greyscale. There are 11 shades in the top row, 7 in the bottom row. Your monitor is within acceptable range if you can see a distinction between all shades.

MOVIES

Captain Corelli's Mandolin (new to DVD) is a romantic melodrama set in WW2. This is not for you unless you liked Shakespeare in Love (same director) and The English Patient (same kind of movie). It does have Penelope Cruz naked, which I like a lot, but I was disappointed in the DVD. Madden's Shakespeare in Love made for fabulous DVD captures, and this DVD was clear, but not very colorful at all. The pallette seemed too muted to me. I'm sure Tuna will do it in the next day or two, so we'll see if he can coax better colors out of it.  He's the man, if anyone is.

• Penelope Cruz (1, 2, 3)
• assorted hookers (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Ghost World (new to DVD) is the "I was a teenage outsider" film with Thora Birch. Although the box office take was exiguous, the reviews were ecstatic, and it's a dark horse candidate for an Oscar Best Picture nomination. Sorry, no nudity, and none in the deleted scenes

The Smokers (new to DVD) is an obscure, virtually unreleased movie about prep school girls who rape men at gunpoint. There are some interesting actresses (Thora Birch yet again, and Dominique Swain), and the film carries an R rating, but there's no nudity at all (except Joel West, and I'm going to guess that you don't want to see his arse!)

I did take another look at a first generation video tape of Pretty Maids All in a Row .The quality of the images doesn't really warrant any captures until we get this on DVD, at least not at my skill level, but at one point Angie Dickinson rolls over in bed, and I'm quite sure we see a flash of pubes, and a frame of nipples here and there, so it will be something to look forward to on DVD.

UPDATES

Charlie's site is updated

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.

• Rachel Weisz showing a bit of bum in a brief scene from "Enemy at the Gates". Click here for Scoop's review.

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

• Kristi Ducati (1, 2)

• Neriah Davis

• Devin De Ray (1, 2, 3, 4)

Today's scenes are from my favorite producer of bondage movies, ZFX

First we have Heather Lee and Sierrra Stuart tied up and being manhandled in "Peril Age".

• Heather Lee shows breasts, bum (link #5) and pubes (links 5 and 6).
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Sierrra Stuart, topless. (1, 2, 3)

Then we go to Candi Licks taking her licks in "Video Pirates-5".

• Candi Licks...*FAIR WARNING* there is some seriously f'd up stuff in these images.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Link #2 is her mega-cleavage pose from a recent cover of Rolling Stone.