Monday

Tuna
"The Last Word"

The Last Word (1995) is billed as sort of a romance/crime thriller, and while those are elements in the story, it is really more about ethical choices made by fledgling screen writer Timothy Hutton. He is a journalist working in Detroit, specializing in tales of shady underworld characters introduced to him by his childhood friend, Joe Pantoliano. Pantoliano is into the mob for 100 large. He has just published a collection of these stories in a book. Her marriage is basically over, they just have yet to make it official. Hutton meets stripper Michelle Burke, and decides he has to do her story. After he publishes it, the two become an item, and she decides that she is not comfortable with her story after all. Seems she has a dark past. We will find it is much darker than Hutton even suspected.

Pantoliano secures a deal for him to write a screen play in Hollywood, which he hopes he hopes will get him out of debt, a give them both a golden future. The two head for tinsel town with Burke in tow. The studio, it seems, was especially enamored with the stripper story, and insists that it be included in the screen play. Hutton resists, but discovers more about Burke's background.

That gets the ball rolling, and since I did not find this 100% negative, I will leave the rest of the plot for you to discover. Act one was passable, as they set up the plot and introduced the characters. Act three contained some very powerful and surprising revelations. The problem was act two, with basically showed Hutton's inner struggle. While this was necessary to the plot, it was very slow going. Had the upped the nudity and sex content in act two, it might have gotten around the problem.

Burke shows breasts and buns in her strip act, and is naked, but with crossed arms and carefully staged positions in a sex scene. Brittany McCrena, as "massage girl," shows breasts in a sex scene with Hutton. Two unknown strippers also show breasts. IMDb readers have this at 4.3 of 10. The acting was fine, and the act three payoff was nearly worth the time, if you are able to stay awake through act two. If you decide to try this relatively obscure film, I suggest keeping the remote close for some fast forwarding. Strong D+.

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  • Brittany McCrena (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
  • Michelle Burke (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
  • Stripper #1 (1, 2)
  • Stripper #2 (1, 2, 3, 4)

  • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    Untamed Heart (1993):

    Untamed heart is an offbeat fairy tale of a love story aimed for the female tween and young teen market. It isn't a cool movie. If you are only into hip neo-violence, you will find that this film is about as far as possible from Pulp Fiction and Leon: the Professional and The Boondock Saints.

    It is a quiet, sad, reflective story about two unlucky working class stiffs in Minneapolis. She works as a waitress in a diner. He is the dishwasher/busboy. She is not interested in him at first because she's a regular good ol' gal, and he seems kind of creepy. Nobody seems to think he can speak. Everyone generally assumes he is "slow," or perhaps that he is missing a few face cards from his mental deck. To everyone in the crew, he's just a fixture, part of the diner's furniture.

    The story begins by focusing on her. She's the kind of good-hearted Midwestern gal who is looking for love in all the wrong places, giving her heart to a steady succession of guys who don't appreciate her, and end up dumping her. It's not that she's a loser. She's generous, and attractive, but she's looking for true love, and doesn't know a worthwhile prospect when she sees one, so she dates the wrong guys until they move on.

    Our two heroes don't have much contact until one day when she is attacked by two rapists while walking home, and the busboy comes to the rescue and carries her home, as if he were a medieval knight and she a damsel in distress. She is ambivalent about the rescue, grateful to have been saved, but filled with questions. How the hell did her knight happen to be there, far from their diner, and how did he know where she lived to carry her home? Had he been following her constantly? Was he somehow in league with the rapists?

    Suffice it to say that she answers all the questions to her own satisfaction, and finds out that he is not creepy at all, and in fact can speak very well. There is nothing slow about him. In fact, his apartment is filled with books. He is, however, every bit as strange, and asocial, and naive as everyone thought. Moreover, he is walking around with a time bomb of a diseased heart. She ignores all the negatives. She even finds his negatives to be charming and gallant and refreshingly innocent. They fall in love ...

    To say more would be spoiling.

    This film an odd one. On the surface, it could not be more mundane, filled with everyday life in Minneapolis. The denizens of the diner have long discussions about the cigarette machine and fishing lures and the weather, always the weather. Indeed, the weather plays a significant role in the film, casting a dreary pall on many scenes which take place on old urban neighborhoods covered with patches of ice and snow, sometimes in snowstorms, and sometimes in bitterly cold rains on days when people gasp for breath.

    The kind of conditions that native Minnesotans call "July."

    Kidding. It's Christmas time.

    Beneath the everyday exterior, the film is at heart a fantasy, because the busboy is not like the others. He is not a normal person who ruminates about his ice fishing techniques. He is an angel sent to teach us a lesson, or perhaps he is a fierce warrior with the heart of a baboon as he says, and as he really seems to believe. The existence of this frog-turned-prince of a character lets the waitress escape from her humdrum world into his extraordinary life. At least for a while.

    I think that's pretty much the essence of what a "young chick flick" is supposed to do, and this film does it quite well, moving slowly, tantalizing, pulling back, circling, scoring, then letting everything play out the way it really would have if a mortal woman loved an angel with a diseased baboon heart.

    Some trivia from IMDb:

    A hot property before it went into production, stars like Geena Davis, Demi Moore and Brad Pitt were all vying for roles. Madonna had been particularly interested in the film, lobbying hard for Jason Patric to land the male lead. However, she finally quit trying when the studio decided to go with William Baldwin instead, although ironically Christian Slater has the part in the finished film.

    It's not a cool film, but is a very sweet one, basically a variation on Beauty and the Beast. Marisa Tomei and Christian Slater play the working class lovers very competently. Slater understates the role appropriately, acting from the heart and using none of the ultrahip faux-Nicholson mannerisms that would later stereotype him. Tomei does a complete job with her character, including quite a convincing Minneapolis accent. (Slater and Rosie Perez don't even try the accent, not that it matters. People living in Minneapolis could be from anywhere.) Granted, this film is not for dad or junior, but the women in your family might find that it hits the spot if they are into tragic, sweet, and odd love stories requiring a full box of Kleenex.

    • Marisa Tomei (1, 2, 3, 4)

     

    Kyra:

    A couple of zipped .wmv files. Kyra Sedgwick has not been liberal with the nudity in her career. Now here she is, 39 years old, with nudity in back-to-back flicks. Whoda guessed?

     

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    Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links above, since it's sorta in real time.

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    MOVIE REVIEWS:

    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 there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
    • A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
    • If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

    Jr's Polls


    Here are the results of our most recent other polls...
    The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2004
    The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 80s
    The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 90s
    Which actress has been the most convincing playing a stripper.
    Who has the best bum in Hollywood?
    Best All Time Television Comedy
    Best Nudity in an Oscar-winning performance.
    Email Scoopy Jr. with nominees, comments or suggestions.


    Spaz
    'Caps and comments by Spaz:

    "Woundings" (1998) aka Brand New World
    Weird British movie available on DVD in North America and Europe but not the UK. Although this movie is noted for Emily Lloyd showing her boobs what was overlooked is a lesbian relationship between Julie Cox and the supermodel Twiggy.

    • Emily Lloyd (1, 2, 3): topless showing her milk jugs.
    • Julie Cox (1, 2): upskirt with no underwear, breast flash.
    • Sammi Davis: having sex on dance floor.
    • Twiggy Lawson: soldier grabbing her crotch, lesbian kiss with Julie Cox.
    • Kate Whithers: one-timer nude having sex.


    "Piranha" (1978)
    Classic b-movie horror and Jaws spoof.


    "House of the Rising Sun" (1987)
    Dreary drama about a reporter turned undercover hoe.


    "Home Movie" (1992)
    Light comedy about some method actor and actresses taking a movie script too seriously.


    "Linzi Drew's Striptacular" (1991)
    Bargain basement video featuring UK Playbird magazine model and sometimes stripper Marie Harper (Playbird is not associated with hefmag).

    • Marie Harper (1, 2, 3, 4, 5): topless, hamstercam, then beavercam.

    Oz
    'Caps and comments by Oz:

    "Who is Cletis Tout?"
    Corinne Jenneer is a topless stiff in Who is Cletis Tout? but it could a prosthetic.


    "Henry Fool"
    Melanie Vesey and Denise Morgan are topless strippers in Henry Fool, although I don't know who is who. Dina Ruppe drops her pants and gets vomited on, and there's some interesting caps of Maria Porter and Parker Posey.

    • Melanie Vesey and Denise Morgan (1, 2,
    • Dina Ruppe (1, 2)
    • Maria Porter
    • Parker Posey (1, 2,


    "2 Fast 2 Furious"
    No nudity in 2 Fast 2 Furious. However, lots of cleavage and bikinis by Eva Mendes, Devon Aoki and some unknowns.

    • Eva Mendes (1, 2, 3)
    • Devon Aoki (1, 2, 3)
    • Unknowns (1, 2, 3)


    "Gothic"
    Lots of topless nudity in Gothic, particularly by Myriam Cyr and Pascal King. A bit of cleavage by Natasha Richardson.


    "Return of the Killer Tomatoes"
    No viisble nudity in Return of the Killer Tomatoes. There is some see-though nipple shown by Teri Weigel and (almost) by Karen Mistal. There are also some pokies and bikini shots of some unknowns. Of course, we also see George Clooney with his pre-fame 80's hair.


    "Borderline"
    Pokies and cleavage by Gina Gershon in Borderline.

    • Gina Gershon (1, 2, 3, 4)


    "Blue City"
    There is stray nipple shown by Ally Sheedy in Blue City

    • Ally Sheedy (1, 2, 3)

    "Red Rock West"
    In this 1992 Nicolas Cage we see Lara Flynn Boyle in black undies.

    • Lara Flynn Boyle (1, 2)

    Variety
    Cynthia Gibb
    (1, 2, 3)

    Mr. Nude Celeb takes us back to the 80's with these 'caps of Gibb topless and showing some nice rear nudity in a love scene from the Rob Lowe/Patrick Swayze movie "Youngblood" (1986).

    Christina von Blanc DeVo 'caps of von Blanc going full frontal in scenes from the Jesus Franco film, "Virgin among the living dead" (1973).

    Natasha Mealey
    (1, 2, 3)

    Kitt 'caps of the busty model baring her big'uns in scenes from the DVD "Maxim Uncovered! Vol. 2" (2004).

    Rosanna Arquette
    (1, 2, 3, 4)

    Señor Skin 'caps of the oldest of the Arquette siblings briefly baring breasts and bum in scenes from "I'm Losing You" (1998).

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