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"Eyes Wide Shut", from Tuna
Tuna picks up where I
left off, and tried to get some frames I missed.
He pointed out an important point that I failed
to discuss. Between the gutless Warner Brothers
and the artless MPAA, they managed to sabotage
Kubrick's intentions and some of our fun. Oh,
they didn't cut anything. Instead, they did an
Austin Powers, and digitally added additional
people in two or three camera set-ups, positioned
solely to obscure our view of the ol' in-out. You
may have seen this in the past if, for example,
you have the r-rated and the unrated versions of
"Last Tango". Bad enough that they did
that to get their R rating. Worse still that they
had to, because the silly MPAA would have given
Kubrick the same NC-17 they would give some
hard-core sex flick. (I really hope that Philip
Kaufman and Winslet throw in a few hard-core
scenes in that DeSade thing, and submit it
unrated. They'll get my money.) But the worst
part of it is that Warner left the digital extras
in the DVD print because of (1) their corporate
policies (2) Blockbuster's refusal to carry any
more NC-17 or unrated flicks. I suppose (and this
is only my surmisal) that Blockbuster's policies
were more important than their own. If
Blockbuster's policy was changed so that they
refused to carry any films altered from the
director's cut, for example, I'm sure Warner
could have considered a policy change of their
own. And if the MPAA weren't so unyielding, and
had given an R to the original version, both
Warner and Blockbuster could have saved face.
Mind you, I don't care about the scenes. It's
just some guys' butts pumping up and down, and I
don't want to see that unless it's my own in the
mirror as I plunge into Joan Severance. But all
this could have been avoided. Wouldn't you think
that being hired by the MPAA would require (a) a
love of films (b) some backbone (c) the
intellectual subtlety to make distinctions
between a Kubrick film and a Julie Strain film?
Beautiful work by Tuna,
by the way. Absolutely gorgeous.
NEW FEATURE. If you love Tuna's
work but are daunted by the quantity of his
output, this might help. Click here for a
thumbnail index of all of Tuna's pics from this
film. Study the index first, the download the
ones you want
Julienne Davis (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10) The Orgy (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9) Nicole Kidman (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14) Leelee Sobieski (no nudity) (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8)
"Interlocked",
from Tuna
This is a movie with a
moral lesson. Remember "Outrage", the
Banderas movie that taught me never to rape a
professional circus sharpshooter and leave her
alive? Did your dad ever explain that to you?
Probably not, and it's an important life lesson.
This movie has an
equally important one, namely that if you are
going to cheat on your wife, then dump on your
lover. (1) don't give the lover your real name
(2) make sure the lover isn't some kind of
computer hacker genius.
Because if she knows how
to use computer networks, and knows who you are,
she can change your tax return, shut off your
power, cancel your credit cards, steal from a
bank and blame you, and possibly even mess up
your access to Uncle Scoopy's Fun House.
Tuna points out that
there is no good reason to watch this flick. Even
the image quality stunk it up, and he had to work
extra hard to get good images. So enjoy the
fruits of his labor, and skip that rental. And if
you're going to take on that lover, make sure she
has no computer skills and tell her a false name.
I always use "Bronco" Billy Studd, or
Luther "Love Boat" Johnson, or William
Jefferson Clinton, if you want to borrow those.
The funniest one I ever heard comes from Fred
Exley, the great writer from upstate New York,
who used to tell women his name was Doctor
"Pay-knee" -it's French, you know, and
it's spelled P-E-N-I-S. First name Harry goes
well with that one.
Schae Harrison is best
known for her continuing role on The Bold and The
Beautiful and the Cook and Her Lover, in which
she plays Darla Einstein, Albert's kooky yet
brilliant stripper/physicist daughter. Schae was
born in that memorable year 19??, probably a few
cribs down from Mimi Rogers. According to IMDb,
she used to be a Seattle Seahawks cheerleader.
By the way, speaking of
Mimi, did you notice that Mimi Rogers' entry in
IMDb has been changed, I suppose in response to
my comments. I've been pointing out for many
years that, based upon the fact that my college
roommate's younger sister went to high school
with Mimi and I know what year she graduated,
that in order for Mimi to be born when the IMDB
said she was, she would have to have graduated
high school at 14. So you know how they changed
it? Instead of changing the birth year, they now
specifically claim that she graduated from high
school at 14! It's good to see the contribution I
have made to mankind's pursuit of truth and
knowledge.
I surely appreciate Mimi
much more now. With an intellect like that, she
could have pursued a career in particle physics
or genetics or mathematical chaos theory, or
perhaps have become a Joyce scholar. But did she
selfishly choose these routes ordained by her
genius? No. Instead, she gave us "Full Body
Massage" with Bryan Brown. And I, for one,
am glad. Geneticists all-too-rarely get naked in
public.
NEW FEATURE. If you love Tuna's
work but are daunted by the quantity of his
output, this might help. Click here for a
thumbnail index of all of Tuna's pics from this
film. Study the index first, the download the
ones you want
Schae Harrison (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)
"Year
of the Gun", from Johnny Web
I like political
thrillers. I view them as easy-to-take history
lessons which use the power of film to convey the
feel of a particular time. John Frankenheimer is
probably the king of these, since The Manchurian
Candidate is the real masterpiece of the genre.
He's still making them. "Ronin" is his
movie, and "The Manchurian Candidate"
and "Seven Days in May" date back to
the early sixties, so he's been churning them out
for forty years. This one is in the middle of the
road somehere, in terms of both chronology and
quality.
The subject is the
infamous Red Brigade kidnapping and murder of
five-time Italian prime minister Aldo Moro. The
brigade was a people's revolutionary movement
which opposed the increasing gulf between the
rich and poor in Italy. They had some support
from sympathetic students and leftist
intellectuals. They even had some funding from
successful people who supported their ideals, if
not their tactics. It was a bad time for Italy.
The Moro kidnapping was basically the end of the
road for the Brigade, because it stripped away
their ideological purity and exposed them as
brutal thugs, so their support quickly
dissipated.
Andrew McCarthy is an
impoverished and apolitical American journalist
caught in the middle of it all, Valeria Golino is
his lover who turns out to be more than she first
appears, and Sharon Stone is a gutsy and smart
photojournalist who pretty much has the players
figured out, but can't prove it. McCarthy is
writing a novel, and he accidentally creates a
plot that parallels the Red Brigade's real plans.
This attracts the attention of the police, Stone,
and the Brigade itself. Although he is telling
the truth, nobody believes him.
Not a bad flick, with a
twist at the end that came as a complete surprise
to me - caught me totally off-guard. Stone looks
as good as she has even looked in her life,
absolutely tanned and trim and stunning, but her
exposed flesh was restricted to one nipple-slip.
Booooo!
Sharon Stone. Number 1
is the nipple. Number three is a brief and mostly
obscured look at her butt. I'm not sure, but I
don't think anything showed up in #2, although
she's getting taken from behind. (1,
2,
3)
Golino (first four show breasts, five and seven
show some rump. Six is just a hint of a nipple.
Not the best image quality, but not the worst
either.) (1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7)
A
couple from Graphic Response
Sheryl Lee did a complete
full-frontal in "Angel's Dance". It was
brief and far from the camera, but in excellent
light, and GR nailed it. One more look at Carol Ducey in
the x-rated French movie, "Romance".
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