The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone (2003):

Roman Spring of Mrs Stone, unlike most Tennessee Williams screen adaptations, is not based on a Tennessee Williams play, but rather on a Williams novella about an elderly ex-beauty who starts a new romance in Italy when her husband passes away. It was previously made into a film with Warren Beatty, Vivien Leigh, and Lotte Lenya, three people who were custom made for acting in the Tennessee Williams oeuvre.

This time the role of the young Gigolo is played by Olivier Martinez, an exquisitely handsome man with minimal acting skills and no appreciable hint of a personality, kind of like a young Richard Gere, albeit with an outrageous accent. The fading beauty is played by Helen Mirren, a terrific actress who looks great for her age, but does not look like a middle aged woman who used to be a great and glamorous beauty. She looks like what she is - a middle aged woman who used to be an average looking woman with a great chest.

The role of the old Contessa is played with total incompetence by Anne Bancroft. Bancroft seem to specialize in playing old gypsy crones these days, and she plays one here as well, with the same look and accent as the others. Unfortunately she is supposed to be playing an Italian countess. Although she is of Italian ancestry, she isn't able to muster up anything resembling an Italian accent. Bancroft only has one accent, and that is "vaguely Eastern European". Although Bancroft has actually lived a privileged life, she is also unable to convey the breeding of a woman who either is or is pretending to be a countess. Her personality seems like that of a low-rent scam artist, and she only needs a crystal ball to make her amateurish characterization complete.

In short, the entire production seems like a local dinner theater adaptation of the 1961 movie, which wasn't too good to begin with. Because the play wasn't actually written by Williams himself, it doesn't even have his sense of high style and decadence (or, depending on your point of view, his inevitable rendering of  high period camp with bloated faux-poetic dialogue).

Skip it. I can't come up with one reason to see it.

• Helen Mirren. God bless 'er, she still looks pretty damned good in the buff. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

OTHER CRAP:

• Lots of great photos and videos of the destruction of Veteran's Stadium in Philadelphia
• You have to love this "expert" pick from SI.com at the NCAA Tournament Bracket - he called Gonzaga over Stanford in the final.
• A helluva weekend for Alabama basketball - Alabama beats #1 seeded Stanford. Alabama-Birmingham beats #1 seeded Kentucky! The Cinderella teams are now those two plus #10 seeded Nevada.
• "'If it is reasonable to think that a Supreme Court justice can be bought so cheap, the nation is in deeper trouble than I had imagined,' the justice scoffs." "That's for sure."
• The first review of Scooby 2
• Can VH1 make a comeback as a nostalgia channel?
• MovieJuice! takes a look at Taking Lives.
• Indecent Proposal - funny short film
• The Economics of Faking Orgasm
• Did you know? Obscure movie trivia.
• Zombies Down "Passion"
• The 100 funniest jokes of all time
• Nostalgia: Robert Bonfils - lurid paperback covers
• Dying words of famous people
• Paramount options Book of Job. In the wake of Mel Gibson’s smash hit “The Passion of the Christ,” Paramount Pictures today announced that it had optioned the exclusive motion picture rights to The Book of Job as a vehicle for comedy superstar Adam Sandler.

  To acquire the “Job” rights, Paramount reportedly ponied up $8 million to its author, God, who is represented by The William Morris Agency.

  William Morris beat out several other top Hollywood talent agencies two weeks ago in the competition to represent God, whose literary properties have never been in greater demand.

  “Signing God as a client was huge,” said one Morris rep. “It really made up for losing Chloe Sevigny.”
  
  

• The former Mrs Rodman likes to play the drums naked.
• Tomb Raider star Angelina Jolie is ready to quit acting to become a humanitarian pilot. The 28-year-old, who plays action woman Lara Croft, is training as a pilot so she can ferry aid workers and food supplies to around the world.
• Crayola presents: America's 50 favorite crayon colors.

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

Click here to submit a URL for Other Crap

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.

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

.wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

Classics from three generations

• Your Oldsmobile: Ludvine Sagnier in that Water Dripping thing. Her face is not spectacular, but her body may be the sexiest in the world today. (.avi version,  .wmv version)

• Your Oldsmobile: Cerina Vincent in the sex scene in Cabin Fever. (.avi version,  .wmv version)

• Your father's Oldsmobile: Jane Seymour in her pre-G days showing her butt to Magnum P.I. in Lassiter. (.avi version, .wmv version)

• Your grandfather's Oldsmobile: Jane Fonda in Barbarella. ( .avi version, .wmv version)

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.

 

When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger, and slightly lower quality.

Two quick questions:

1) A while back I wrote in to see if anyone was able to locate and post the nudes of Amber Frey, mistress of Scott "Lacy's Missing?" Peterson?
and...
2) Ditto for the home porn video done by Gena Lee Nolin and former hubby Greg Fahlman?

I've never seen either. Hopefully someone out there can dig 'em up.

-Sleuth

Be sure to pay the Sleuth a visit at www.csleuth.com

• Bridget Carney doing some topless dancing and playing her breasts. (1, 2, 3, 4)
• A .wmv of Bridget Carney dancing

• Dana Bentley, topless
• Dana Bentley, topless in .wmv form

• Former Page 3 Babe turned actress and publisher, Gail Harris stripping down to her panties. (1, 2)
• Gail Harris .wmv

• Melissa Anne Moore, topless in a shower scene.

• Michelle Verran aka adult actress Barbii, showing off her robo-hooters. (1, 2, 3)
• A .wmv of this scene

• Shannon Wilsey aka adult star Savannah, showing breasts and a thong view. (1, 2)
• A .wmv of Savannah stripping

• Stacia Zhivago, the busty babe showing all 3 B's in a shower scene from her one and only movie. (1, 2)
• A video clip of her in the shower.

• Stacia Zhivago and Melissa Anne Moore in the shower. (1, 2)
• Zhivago and Moore .wmv

Jennifer Jason Leigh
(1, 2, 3)