Sunday

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Lies (1999) - Once upon a time, the Supreme Court of the United States determined that smut was protected speech only if it contained "redeeming social importance," or, as Tom Lehrer put it in his march in favor of smut, "As the judge remarked the day that he acquitted my aunt Hortense, to be smut it must be utterly without redeeming social importance ..." We have since moved to the community standards criteria. In essence, the court said art is protected speech, porn is not art and not protected, but nobody can agree on what porn is, especially us, so you decide locally, and we agree before hand that you are right. Or, in other words, we are sick of hearing these cases, especially since we piss people off no matter what we decide, so we aren't playing anymore.

Lies, a soft core fetish film from Korea uses a strategy similar to the "redeeming social importance" scam to avoid a porn label. They added some minimal art film elements, like cinema verite hand held grainy camera work in parts, breaking into the film with an interview, and other unsubtle tricks. The odd thing is, just like introducing a film about nymphomaniacs performing every possible depravity with a shrink saying what a serious disorder nymphomania was actually worked, the Lies ruse (was even the title a jab at the idiots they were duping?) won this film some acclaim in the art house world. It was even nominated for a Golden Lion in Venice, and won a Critics award and Jury award in Uruguay. IMDB readers, usually pretty tough on soft-core, have it at 6.2 of 10. Apollo, both the reviewers and the readers, have it at 76%. It tells the story of an 18 year old girl who elects to lose her virginity to a 38 year old married man. The relationship gets through vaginal, oral and anal sex the first afternoon, and soon progresses to heavy S&M, including bludgeoning each other with hoe handles.

In the initial meeting, the film had some erotic energy, and some lovely lighting and photography. For me, all of the charm was lost when they started adding the artistic elements, and moved away from sex towards extreme punishment. It was Korean fashion model Kim Tae Yeon's first film. She shows all three Bs, but mostly breasts and buns. As near as I could tell, there was no penetration. I give this a D, even though I, like Tom Lehrer, am in favor of smut. Again, to quote from his song, "All books can be indecent books, though recent books are bolder, for smut, I'm glad to say, is in the eyes of the beholder. I could tell you things about Peter Pan, and the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man."

MOVIES:

When you consider that Kathleen Turner is considered one of the sexiest stars in history, with possibly the sexiest voice ever, the DVD world has not been very friendly to her. Her two big nude appearances, Crimes of Passion and Body Heat are available only on bare-bones DVD's. Body Heat is at least available in an anamorphic version enhanced for 16x9 TV's (as well as a full screen version on the same DVD), but it's not a good transfer at all. The Crimes of Passion DVD is a disaster. The transfer is a cheesy letterboxed widescreen version, the image quality is grainy, and the sound is mono!

Julia and Julia is still not available on DVD, and The War of The Roses comes out Tuesday.

Body Heat is one of the most widely imitated films in history. Just about every other "erotic thriller" is a variation of this film. Body Heat itself was not original, but was a brilliant revival of a long-dormant genre. The "duplicitous woman noir" was a popular B&W genre in the 40's, but disappeared for a while until Lawrence Kasdan brought it back in color, with his own flourishes, in 1981, casting Turner and Bill Hurt in the roles formerly reserved for Barbara Stanwyck and Fred McMurray. Add this to my short list of films where the casting director should have gotten a special Oscar. (The World According to Garp and Bridget Jones's Diary come to mind). The casting was sheer genius, right down to the minor roles (check out Ted Danson as the D.A. who wanted to be a dancer.). The dialogue is excellent, the plot twists were unpredictable at the time (although we've seen it copied so many times that it seems formulaic now), and it includes some of the hottest, sexiest build-up of sexual tension in film history. Who can forget the scene when Hurt grabs the chair from the porch, shatters Turner's glass door, storms through, and takes her.

• Kathleen Turner (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

In a sense, Ken Russell's films are all high-camp over-the-top comedies masquerading as dramas and biopics, although I'm not sure Russell himself was always aware of it. Finally, in Crimes of Passion, he acknowledged the comedic side of his personality, and brought it to the foreground. Very odd movie. Part of it is a seedy Tarantinoesque sex and violence film, part of it is a sincere whitebread plot about a suburban couple in a failing marriage, and part of it is undisguised high camp farce. Norman Bates sings, dresses up as a woman, and is a reverend who prays "Lord, forgive these douchebags"! The characters are all represented by distinctive color themes in the visuals (which are often garish), and each has his own corny theme music when he appears, as if it were a particularly campy episode of Wild, Wild, West with Dr Loveless or Count Manzeppi.  I'm almost embarrassed to admit it, because it is such an unapologetic  piece of trash, but I really enjoy this movie as a guilty pleasure.

Don't go buying or renting it just yet. This film really needs a new DVD. The current one is not anamorphically enhanced, the image quality is grainy, and the sound is monaural!

• Kathleen Turner (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

UPDATES:

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated
• There is a new Encyclopedia volume for Kathleen Turner

Here 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.

First I've worked my way through the Robocop Trilogy. Not much nudity to be found there. Robocop offers a short glimpse of a topless policewoman changing in the mixed locker room of the police station. Director Paul Verhoeven later elaborated this idea in Starship Troopers, as he indicates himself in the audio commentary. In the deleted scenes of Robocop two topless pizza girls can be seen. Robocop 2 has Belinda Bauer as the temptress but she stays clothed all the time. However I did manage to find some more revealing pictures of her in German magazine "Erotic Moments III" from more than 10 years ago. Ah, they don't make magazines like that anymore but luckily we have the Fun House now. No nudity either in Robocop 3.

Jr's Note:

One thing that I thank the first "Robocop" for is the creation and use of one of the best catch phrases ever! Throughout the movie they show bits and pieces of TV in the "Robocop" world, and several times you hear the phrase "I'd buy that for a dollar!" Lord only knows what it means since we only see the end of obviously silly sketches with that punchline as the only dialogue (delivered by the Crazy Eddie looking old guy seen in Topless Pizza Girls links 3 and 4). A very nice touch to the film is that some of the characters in the movie even use that catch phrase, just as we would in real life. Very subtle, but a very nice added touch of depth to the film.

Now on to the goodies....

• Belinda Bauer (1, 2)
• Unknown Cop
• Topless Pizza girls (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Next, I've scanned a page from Italian Eva Tremila showing Tom Cruise and Penélope Cruz in a scene from Vanilla Sky that will never make it to the big screen or video according to the magazine. Tom had them allegedly cut. I don't know why. He looks so passionate with Penélope that he might have stopped some vicious rumors about him by letting this scene in.

• Tom Cruise and Penélope Cruz

Finally, a scan from this month's French mag Photo showing Laetitia Casta as an Amazonian Indian.

• Laetitia Casta

• Christine Cattell topless playing poker
• Elaine Lakeman wearing a transparent brassiere
• Lisa Schwartzin underwear only

• A bunch of unknown actresses who provide most of the nudity
• Wendy Bushell has a fuzzy nude, shows some pokies, skinnydips. Not much nudity except that she looks great in a bikini.
• Christine Cattell shows some cleavage and some panty crotch shots.

• Assorted Unknowns (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Part 4 of "The Abductors".

Gerie Bronson is raped by one of the bad guys. Then Laurie Rose is abducted out of her bedroom, bound & gagged and lowered out the window. Laurie was billed in the movie as Jennifer Brooks but I went by the name she is more well known by.( "The Hot Box", "Woman Hunt"). Great boobs which we will see even better in tomorrow's update.

• Gerie Bronson, topless in all. Pubes in links 3, 4 and 6. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Laurie Rose, #3 has the best nip slip. (1, 2, 3)

• Nicola. Link #4 has an exposed breast. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

• Zoya Todorovich. Link #5 has pokies/semi-see-thru views. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)