Bride of the Wind (2001) -- Like most people my age, I was a huge fan of Tom Lehrer in the mid 60s, and his song about Alma Mahler made me very curious about exactly what kind of woman managed to have affairs with nearly every important or talented man in Western Europe, and go so far as to marry three of them. I awaited this release anxiously, expecting to finally find out, essentially, how she did it. Scoop reviewed the film the day before I would have, and gave it such a negative review, that I put it aside, and just discovered it covered with dust in my "maybe someday" pile. Unfortunately, Scoopy was completely right. The first major mistake they made was in not answering the question that anyone who knew about Alma had. Rather, they went for a feminist theme that would appeal to a much smaller audience. Even that would have been ok, but they did a very poor job of developing the theme they were going for -- so bad, in fact, that almost nobody even caught it.

As the film opens, Alma is attending a ball, and is berated by her father for going unescorted. Next, she is invited to a dinner, meets Mahler, and the two end up in an affair, and become engaged. Here comes a podium kicker. (A podium kicker is an important lecture point. Military instructors kick the podium to wake up the class when they are about to say something that will be on a test). Mahler requires that she give up her music before he will marry her. She does this grudgingly. Then, he ignores her as a woman in favor of his music. They lose a daughter, she goes to a spa, and (podium kicker) has an affair with Walter Gropius, who is attentive and appreciative. After Mahler dies, she has an affair with artist Oskar Kokoschka, who is possessive and tries to control her. When he is lost in battle, she marries Gropius, but he also stifles her, and is boring as well. She ends up with poet and author Franz Werfel, who not only loves her without "owning" her, but encourages her to start composing again. As the film ends, (podium kicker) she is in the audience where one of her works is being performed, and is jubilant and ecstatic with Werfel by her side.

And there we have the theme. They were trying to show a liberated woman who was looking for emotional, sexual and artistic fulfillment and lived at a time when women were a possession of their husbands, and had no right to have such expectations. While, even properly done, this would be a disappointment, and far less interesting than the "how did she do it" story, it could have still been a tolerable film, but it was badly scripted, poorly acted, the Austrian accents were awful, and Alma was not at all likeable as portrayed. She was the sort of character that couldn't have gotten laid in the boys locker room of a high school stark naked. I will give them points for locations, some of the sets, and the score, but this film is best when none of the performers are visible, and there is no dialogue.

Sarah Wynter as Alma shows breasts in two scenes, and some bush partially covered by props. Several unknowns show anything from a single breast to full frontal as artists models. IMDB readers have this at 4.9 of 10, and critical response was even more brutal. This film is an F, and there is still room for a good film about Alma.

Updates:

• New volumes: Cynthia Brimhall, Kate Beckinsale, "Just Say" Julie Brown, Stephanie Beacham, Beate Jensen, Maren Jensen, Jewel, Samantha Janus, Janet Jackson, Elizabeth Jagger, Jade Jagger, Anais Jeanneret, Jeanne Manson, Frances McDormand, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Candice Rialson

Other crap:

• Jane Krakowski's spectacular appearance on Broadway
• An artist has put up shutters painted with portraits of nudes to deter vandals from breaking his shop windows
• This Hong Kong tourism ad now seems direly prophetic in light of the SARS epidemic.
• Headline says it all: Steve Martin's Banjo Dance Party
• Mariah Carey says she hasn't had sex in two years. In a related development, she hopes to supplement her fading income from singing and acting by getting the job as Iraq's new information minister.
• Michael Douglas has launched an unprovoked attack on some of his wife's former boyfriends - branding them idiots.
• GREAT IDEA! Rolling Stone has placed all their nude and semi-nude photos into one free collection
• something dear to our hearts. The B-Movie Hall of Fame

Mailbox:

This retraction appeared in the NY Post, in the Cindy Adams column: "CEASE e-mailing me to report Adrien Brody thanked Roman Polanski for "The Pianist" and that Roman also thanked Adrien for "The Pianist" and that they're so devoted they want to live together, move in together, spend eternity together. Roman already faxed word that stories of their supposed dissatisfaction "stunned" him. I've not seen Roman since we picked Miss Universe in Hong Kong a lifetime ago, but this Holocaust child, who later lost others he loved, was convicted of rape, fled the country, suffered hideous legal problems and headlines, has lived in exile, is not one "stunned" by a column item.  May his p.r. people get a life. We're at war. Stop bothering with this."
 

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 Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

"More Married People Single Sex" is a sequel to MPSS Returns, which is a sequel to MPSS 2, which is a sequel to... So, okay, you get the picture. We are talking franchise, here. A direct-to-video franchise. Think of it as the Pizza Hut of soft-core videos. As Tuna made clear from the MPSS Returns incarnation there just isn't enough nekkidness to make up for the miserable plot in these things. That plot, if I might be so generous for a moment, consists of black and white interviews intercut with over-wrought melodrama, featuring a bunch of witless twenty-somethings. Take one part marriage on the rocks, one part open marriage, one part serious marriage, mix thoroughly with lots of T, some A, precious little B and voila! MPSS Googleplex.

Three babes get their kits off.

Flower Edwards does a triple-B performance but ever so oddly for her, each of the B's is barely shown. Blink and you would miss 'em all. This from a woman who has done extreme gyno-cam in previous performances. All I can say is WTF?

Four collages. Extreme pokies in 1, a peak at one nip in 2 and 3, bum and bush in 4.

• Flower Edwards (1, 2, 3, 4)

Next up is Hefmate for April 2001, Katie Lohmann, as the unmarried object of infidelity. Katie is doing her best to match Shannon Tweed's record for on-screen Heffer exposure, as this is her sixth clothing-removal role in 2 years. Ten collages from two scenes, robohooters in the first eight, a bare bum sighting in 9 and 10. BTW, these scenes suffered mightily from the worst DVD transfer in the history of binary code (a feature it shares with its predecessor). Camera motion combined with object motion left behind motion chatter, and the camera moved incessantly in the sport-humpin scenes. As a result I grabbed fewer than 20 frames and some of them were tres difficult to work with. A real tragedy, on the same level as the crash of the Hindenburg.

• Katie Lohmann (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

A woman by the name of Netalee Sharon Weizman (you read that right--Netalee) does most of the heavy nekkid lifting in this grand opus. Lots of scenes, nice natural bod, a peak at the nether regions... a real winner of a performance. Netalee plays a liberated gal who likes recreational sex, does women and gets off on pictures of couples doing the nasty. In other words, she plays an average guy. Twelve collages. Hooties throughout, some bush and borderline gynocam things in 3, 4, 5 and 7.

• Netalee Sharon Weizman (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

And while we're on the subject of former Hefmates, here are a couple of collages of Ola Ray (Miss June 1980) in the Charles Bronson cop drama, 10 to Midnight. The caps were provided by the master of all DVDs, Tuna.

• Ola Ray (1, 2)