The Betsy (1979)

A dream fulfilled, another shattered.

The fulfillment: Kathleen Beller did a frontal nude scene, and I had such a crush on her. Didn't everyone? It's hard to find a baby boomer who didn't have a crush on Karen Allen or Kathleen Beller, or both.

The shattering: One of my idols, Lord Olivier, showed serious chinks in his previously flawless armor. When I was a young actor, I wanted to be Olivier. I don't know how many times I watched Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, studying the way he approached those roles. I thought he was the acting god. Then I saw this movie, in which he proved incapable of producing even a poor facsimile of an American accent. Of curse it is very hard for British actors to play Americans unless they play Southerners. The "R" sound kills them. On the other hand, he was supposed to be Olivier, and he was therefore supposed to come up with something better than a bad impersonation of Johnny Carson doing Aunt Blabby.

That wasn't the worst of it. The film took place in the late 70s, but there were flashbacks to the 1930s. He looked absolutely ludicrous in the scenes where he had to play a younger man. He looked like one of those old guys who hang around the bars in the Miami Beach hotels, with their bad comb-overs and their hair soaked through with Grecian Formula 16. Olivier managed to avoid that look only because of two things (1) he was playing a rich man, so he didn't have to wear a pastel jacket with plaid pants (2) he was still Olivier - best legs in the history of acting - and was able to walk like a younger man for the short distances in which it was necessary.

I guess Olivier doesn't need me to be his apologist, but one must concede that it was difficult to deliver the dialogue they gave him. He had to  say colorful American old guy shit like, "by cracky", and "I've been hornswaggled".

The film is based on a Harold Robbins novel. Harold was the ruler of the best-seller lists for years with his lurid, sexy novels. I think he sold something like 750 million books. He knew how to write 'em so they'd sell: beautiful, manipulative women, powerful hunky men. This particular story is basically the TV series Dynasty, except it's about the car business instead of oil. In this case, four generations of a fictional Detroit family vie for control of the family company. Great-grandpa (Olivier) wants to build the next universal car, ala the Volkswagen and the Model T, a safe, fuel-efficient car that everyone can afford. His grandson is running the company, and doesn't want grandpa to succeed for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which is that his grandpa was making nice-nice with his mom, before and after his dad killed himself, and ...

Well, you don't really need any more to get the idea, do you?

Based on our system, this film is a D. Even if you love big, sweeping, weeping multi-generation epics, you'll still find this one hard going. It has a powerhouse cast of superstars, and some good production values, but it is laughably bad and had no value beyond Kathleen Beller's nudity. I would say "C-" if it was a good DVD, because the film is bad enough to have reverse entertainment value, but the entire DVD is nothing but a very poor full-screen transfer, filled with visual artifacts, undercontrasted, and just plain ugly.

• Kathleen Beller (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Leslie-Anne Down (1, 2)
• Katherine Ross

Road Trip (2000)

You've been going with the same girl since you were in kindergarten. Now, in college, you in Ithaca, she in Austin, you still send her a videotaped message every week. But lately, she's ducking your calls, and it's obvious she's breaking off with you. You drown your sorrows by having hot sex with another student, and she insists on taping it.

Complications enter your life:

1. Your girl isn't really dumping you. She didn't return all those phone calls because of a family crisis.

2. Your dumb-ass roommate mailed off the wrong tape - the hot sex tape - to your girlfriend.

Only one thing to do - drive across the country in a mad frenzy, to get her Monday mail before she does. Of course, bring along some friends and the guy whose car you have to borrow, and make it a Road Trip.

The required things happen, as per the Animal House Rules:

• wreck the car
• steal a bus from a school for the blind
• talk back to adults and parents
• donate sperm to get gas money

I think you have the idea.

That crazy Canuck, Tom Green, is the roommate who doesn't go along. He stays behind because someone has to feed the snake, and he enjoys watching the mice die. Plus he's never left Ithaca, and his name is Barry Manilow. Staying behind gives him a chance to do plot exposition in the form of his usual dazed schtick and his expected gross-out humor, at which he is the master. The entire story is narrated by Green in flashback, by the way, which is the ideal setup for inappropriate nudity and jokes because - well, he's telling the story and he'll tell it his way, dammit!

It's a pretty funny update of the college movie genre. You might say that Road Trip is to Animal House as American Pie is to Fast Times, or something like that. In my estimation, American Pie was an instant classic, actually a much better movie than Fast Times, joining the immortals in the coming-of-age market. Road Trip isn't a classic, but it has all the right ingredients for the genre, keeps the mood light, and is good, smutty fun with gross-outs and naked chicks, which is plenty to occupy my simple mind. I enjoyed it.

• Amy Smart (1, 2)
• Jaclyn DeSantis
• Aliya Campbell
• Aerica D'Amaro
• Unknowns (1, 2, 3, 4)
   

Updates:

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated.
• Revised encyclopedia volumes: Carre Otis, Amanda Ooms, Catherine Oxenberg, Miranda Otto, Gretchen Mol, Misty Mundae, Madonna, Virginia Madsen (no new nudity), Emily Mortimer, Mason Marconi

Other crap:

• Vietnamese prostitutes are studying English to increase their cash flow. At last, some use for a degree in English! "Me would love you long time, G.I. Joe .... But I have to go. I have my final in 19th Century Romantics tomorrow, and I really must cram some Keats, because I'm really missing several of his classical allusions."
• Teenage lesbian Russian singer update
• CNN is really angry at The Smoking Gun for posting those CNN obituaries of people who haven't died yet.. Hey, who can blame them? The Smoking Gun simply reported the facts, and CNN doesn't recognize that as valid journalism.
• the crazies at JasonRivera.com interview former Playmate Neriah Davis
• continuing the story about CNN's future obits, here's their farewell to Iraqi Info Guy, or so somebody would have us believe.
• top 100 signs that you are becoming a werewolf
• more naked protestors
• Playboy will reduce the nudity, and add more solid youth-oriented content. Yeah, that'll work
• Tremendous collection of celebrity high school pictures. Poorly constructed site. The navigation arrows don't work. You have to go back to the front page, then click on Page 2 or Page 3, etc. My favorite - Mr T, and I pity the fool who disagrees.
• English chicks get topless at the beach, The Sun is there.
• Former mouseketeer and Pepsi spokesperson goes shopping. The Sun is there.
• top 10 wedding songs to avoid. No mention of the Hokey-Pokey

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.

Scoops-

The best 4.2 seconds in nekkid celeb cinema boils down to Phoebe Cates in "Fast Times" and Nancy Allen in "Carrie". My choice is Nancy, and seein as how I had the DVD I figured, shoot why not?

I grabbed the best 18 frames in Ms. Allen's bush-revealing, towel-snapping scene and pasted them together in three collages. The full frontal part of it all is in collage 1; the other two show Nancy's upper yummies.

• Nancy Allen (1, 2, 3)

"Suddenly Naked" (2002)
Another film directed by Anne Wheeler who directed the lezzie romance "Better than Chocolate". Wendy Crewson shows all at the ripe age of 46 but still looks fine. From what I hear she recently had a lesbian scene with 24's Leslie Hope on "An Unexpected Love" which aired on the Lifetime network. DVD is only available from Canada, try http://www.amazon.ca

Wendy Crewson:
• see-though pokies, bare-ass shot
• topless in bodypaint taking off t-shirt
• boobs and butt during love scene
• nude, bush flash
• butt in shower

"Dangerous Touch" (1994)
A sexy thriller written and directed by Lou Diamond Phillips so he can have love scenes with Kate Vernon. WARNING: some of the caps show a bare-assed Lou Diamond Phillips. Kate Vernon:

• topless in outdoor car sex scene.
• sexy underwear, then topless.
• topless tied up by Lou Diamond Phillips.
• nude love scene with Lou Diamond Phillips.
• pokies and partial pubes in skimpy panties.
• start of lesbian scene with Monique Parent (who's full frontal).
• topless lesbian scene with Monique Parent.
• another nude love scene with Lou Diamond Phillips.

"Queer as Folk", season 3
Favorite lesbian couple Michelle Clunie and Thea Gill still going at it in the second episode of season 3. You can see even more of these two in the Queer as Folk season 2 box DVD set which was released earlier this year.

• Michelle Clunie: breasts in bathtub.
• Thea Gill: partial breast only.

Some other DVDs featuring Canadian actresses:

• Nicole Oliver (1, 2, 3) obscure voice actress is topless many, many times in "Faithless" (1998). And the bedsheets actually ride down below her hips (unlike the following actresses).

• Kristin Lehman: nice butt shot in "Dog Park" (1998).

• Tamara Podemski: Native actress from The Rez tv series is topless in "Johnny Greyeyes" (2000). The only known nudity by any of the Podemski sisters.

HANGOVER-REDUCING VODKA
Now You Can Get Drunk Again Right Away! - The Vinprom AC company of Bulgaria claims it has invented a new vodka that reduces hangovers. Shock vodka contains a mixture of Vitamins C, B1 and B2, honey, milk and other bio-active ingredients to speed the body's alcohol absorption and reduce hangovers. They say a US firm has already expressed interest in importing it to America.