Thursday

Best Movie of the 90's??

My take on the "best movie". I like Shawshank. I think it is a perfect little gem of a movie, and it just gets to everyone who sees it. The only thing I'd change is to cut out the last ten seconds or so, where Robbins and Freeman meet and shake hands. I would have ended it when Freeman said that he hoped the Pacific was as blue as it was in his dreams. Two reasons. First, because the ending seemed anticlimactic to me. Second, because without that change, some of his monologue doesn't make sense. Freeman narrates, "I hope to see my friend" as if all his narration was occuring while he is on the bus to Mexico - but then he sees him in three seconds. Why say it at all? Obviously they changed their minds on this ending a few times, and some of the overvoice must have recorded when they thought the ending would be slightly different. Anyway, with that tiny change, I would deem it perfect. We, the audience, would be hoping right along with him, our identification with him perfectly sealed.

Shawshank is a worthy champion, but we must have screwed up our methodology somewhere, because some films ended up in the finals that shouldn't have been there (Independence Day, for example), and some of my favorites didn't make it because they didn't fit neatly into any category. (Notable examples being Wild Things and MIB, which I'd say were two of the top three junk/entertainment films of the 90's, the other being The Matrix. I don't think Wild Things fit into any category at all, and MIB was placed among the comedies for lack of a better idea.) Also, no foreign films made the list, and the 90's had some that could have. The other noticeable omission was "Goodfellas", which I don't much like, but which many critics placed in their top 10, and which at least one critic picked as his best film of the 90's.

The Gist and Lawdog
Publisher
Miss Spain, Helen Lindes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9) Publisher sent in his full set of large scans of the current Miss Spain in her controversial pre-pageant topless shots. Warning, #9 is monstrous - nearly 500k. A typical picture on this page is about half a million pixels 800x600), but this one is sixteen times larger (2000x4000), and it consists of three pages stitched together.
WhyScan's Page Three Report
Yesterday: Renee, 19, from Derby (1, 2, 3, 4)

Gold: Rita Pennington. Oct 8, 1977.(1)

Request: Linda Benson.(1,2)

Bonus: Wendy Richard, requested on the message board.(1)

El Kabong
Debra Murphree (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6) Another legendary one from El Kabong. This is the prostitute who was involved with evangelist Jimmy Swaggert. Don't check these out on an empty stomach, or if you are pregnant or have a heart condition. Debra is not often mistaken for Jaclyn Smith.
Blinky's Runway snaps
Hatlynn Cohen (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) no real flesh. The last two are swimsuits
RoSSoL.
Jasmin Mantyla Finnish-Indian model in the first poses where her breasts are visible through the fabric. (She wasn't aware of iot until after the shoot, according to RoSSoL)
Donbun
Kathleen Kinmont in "Rush Week". I love these, and have never seen this scene before.
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Jennifer Aniston one more from the new Vanity Fair. This one also quite a good one, from Stone Cold
Phoebe Cates more "Fast Times", from The Night
Alexandra Neldel in Secret Kiss, from Megabit
Hillary Humor
Hillary Humor
Hillary Humor

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"Sometimes They Come Back ... For More", from Johnny Web

And sometimes they come back, like this series, for less. Why does Stephen King allow his name to be used in conjunction with this derivative crap? Never mind, I think I know the answer to that. It has dead presidents' pictures on it. If you want to make Shawshank Redemption 2 as a buddy movie with Van Damme and Rodman replacing Robbins and Freeman, Big Steve will give you the green light if you give him the other green stuff.

To be honest, this film had some potential. The first few minutes had some real tension in a rip-off-of-John-Carpenter's-The-Thing way. People working in a renegade Antarctic research/mining station are eliminated one by one, because one of the crew members has gone inexplicably ballistic. For a half hour, while they maintained the shadowy mystery, this was a fine low budget film, marred only by the presence of phony snowdrifts which were really white sheets draped over mounds of dirt. If you have to make a low-budget film, the best way to hide it is to locate it in a setting that is small and can't change - like an Antarctic research station. I mean, the actors were competent, and the film stock was good, so what the hell could James Cameron do any different with a zillion dollars. It's just a grungy headquarters and a permafrost landscape, kind of like the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

Unfortunately, when the mystery revealed itself, it managed to be about the cheesiest possible explanation. It turns out that the killer is the son of satan, and he needs to kill and then re-animate the bodies to do his father's bidding, and to open portals from hell to earth, institute a new order ... you know the drill. And, as if that weren't enough cheese, it turns out that the guy sent by the army to rescue the party is, by sheer unexplained coincidence, another one of satan's kids, who has turned against his father's ways and wants to stop his half-brother. (Hey, different mom. That can make all the difference.) And then they have cheesy altars far beneath the surface, bodies that appear to be dead but still hang out, and other bodies which we thought were alive but turned out to be dead and working for satan. Then pretty much everyone in the cast turns out to be related to satan in some way, like his uncle Irving on his mother's side, a tailor who specializes in custom clothing to accomodate satan's tail through his pants. It's like the satan family reunion. And then they all play Family Feud against the Brady Bunch, and I don't know what else. It turns out in the end that satan's good son, who is more than a millennium old, falls in love with Corky from Murphy Brown, and she knows he's satan's thousand year old kid, but she's going to be with him anyway, because she really loves the big lug.

So now I realize why IMDb viewers rate this among the worst 100 movies ever made. Anyway, it does feature nudity, in non-Antarctic flashbacks, from Jennifer O'Dell, (#1, #2) who's now kindasorta famous as the star of The Lost World on TV.

"Naked in New York", from Johnny Web

Here's your cultural aptitude quiz for the day. "Life is Beautiful" is to Robin Williams as "Naked in New York" is to .....? The answer is Woody Allen. Just as "Life is Beautiful" is a Robin Williams movie that doesn't actually star or have anything to do with Robin Williams, "Naked in New York" is a Woody Allen movie that actually has nothing at all to do with Woody Allen. Neurotic, sexually clumsy, easily embarrassed, red-headed, Jewish New York writer has some raw writing talent, but not the social skills or appearance to market himself. He also tries to work out a relationship with a cute protestant girl whose lecherous boss, competing for her favors, is the suave and unbearably handsome Timothy Dalton. The narrator tells the story in flashback while looking directly at the camera and talking to the audience. Throughout the movie, he has conversations with imaginary characters in his past or elsewhere. No further comment.

The girlfriend is Mary-Louise Parker, who did an all-too-brief topless scene which I have never seen captured before. Sorry, this is VHS, not DVD. I wish they would get Grand Canyon onto DVD so I could do that scene, which was her only meaningful nudity that I can remember. (She also did one or two fleeting frames in last year's "Goodbye Lover", but she looks much different now, almost like a different person.)

"Sugartown", from Johnny Web

New release! Aging members of a once successful glam rock band try to mount a comeback, and deal with the real world post fame. It's a just-OK movie which you might enjoy if the subject sounds appealing. Not really worth commenting on, but I found it really fun to hear Beverly d'Angelo talk really dirty as a billionaire ex-hooker. There's just something inherently great about hearing Mrs Griswold say "oh, really? I thought it was my cunt"

The movie has some better looking women in it, but the only one who gave up the goodies was the frumpy Lucinda Jenney. Sorry, VHS again. One of those Blockbuster exclusives, not on DVD.

"Ladies' Room" (new release, no nudity)

Whatever you do, don't rent this. Without exaggeration, this is the worst movie of the 90's. Never even seen anything else close. Women find out that the ladies room is really purgatory, where they have to hash out the former lives ad infinitum. It's Sartre's "No Exit" as performed by an all-girl cast under the direction of Leo Gorcey and Huntz Hall.

Don't be fooled by the presence of recognizable names like John Malkovich, Lorraine Bracco, Molly Parker, and Greta Scacchi. It is simply awful. Malkovich shaved his head and did some kind of foreign accent which he really had no ear or enthusiasm for, so his creepy normal self kept slipping back through. At one point he did the old cartoon bit of running up a very long flight of stairs then, near the very top, slipping on the rug and falling back down feet first on his stomach, while trying to recover and go back upward. Be warned, I'm not kidding. This is the worst thing I've seen in years. No nudity.

Red Shoe Diaries - "The Written Word" - from Johnny Web

I'll be damned if I'll waste any time discussing this crap, but I do have one stock market tip for you. If you have any stock in companies that make gauze or gauze curtains, you better keep an eye on Zalman King's health. If he looks to be incapable of making more films, sell that stock, because that sucker is single-handedly keeping the world's gauze curtain makers in business. They are everywhere in his images. Here's what you need to know about this episode: Robbi Chong got naked, including an aparently shaved fontal - lower image in #1. (1, 2, 3)

"Incognito" from Tuna

John badham film. Art forger goes for the ultimate score - convincing people of a lost Rembrandt. One of the mnore interesting elements is that a painting deemed a priceless masterpiece one minute is considered a piece of crap the next, because th eartist is an unknown, not Rembrandt. There is a great blissful anarchy there, and disrepect for the art world, because it posits that paintings themselves have no intrinsic merit. In fact, it suggests that all the other Rembrandt's would become pieces of crap if scientists suddenly could prove them to be 19th century forgeries, even though "experts" have been pontificating on their intrinsic merit for years.

He's best known for "Saturday Night Fever" and "Stakeout", but Badham directed my favorite baseball movie. Whenever SABR votes on this topic, I am the only one who votes for it, and I have to write it in. "Bingo Long's Travelin' All-Stars and Motor Kings". Amazing that my favorite baseball movie would be the first film of a guy born in Luton! (He was raised in Alabama in his step-dad's home)

Tuna's thumbnails for this movie Irene Jacob (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11)

"Maximum Risk" from Tuna

What can you say? Jean Claude van Damme as twin brothers (Apparently stolen from a soap opera plot.), one of several times he's played multiple roles, obviously because of the subtle differences he can portray, ala Joey in Friends as Drake and Hans Remoray. If you thought Van Damme was bad with Rodman, imagine what he's like teaming up with himself. This was directed by Hong Kong legend Ringo Lam, although genre fans say that it has none of his characteristic fire. I haven't seen the film. Does the movie really matter? Henstridge removes her clothing.

Tuna's thumbnails for this movie Natasha Henstridge (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20)

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