Gross Misconduct (1993)

Complete spoilers:

Gross Misconduct is stuck in limbo somewhere halfway between a morality play and an erotic thriller. That is not a good limbo to be in, because those two things simply cannot go together without hypocrisy. All the cautionary vibes splash cold water on the eroticism, while the gratuitous shower scene tends to expose the sermonizing as fulsome.

Jimmy Smits plays a charismatic, goody-two-shoes philosophy professor in Australia who, in a moment of weakness, gives in to the sexual advances of a pretty student (Naomi Watts) with a crush on him, even though he is ecstatically happy in his marriage. The lovemaking is pictured as tender and gentle, but the next morning we see the student looking battered. She says that her professor raped and beat her.

Of course, the professor's dream life crumbles into ruins even before his trial, because he has to admit the affair, although he denies the rape. The film's dramatic tension hinges on whether he committed the rape and whether he will be convicted of it. It is obvious that either the student or the professor must be lying, but if she is lying, her motivation is not immediately evident. Could she have been raped by someone else the very same night she made love to her professor? If so, by whom? Her jealous boyfriend? But if the boyfriend did it, why didn't she simply implicate him instead of the professor? Nothing seems to add up.

The "mystery" derives from one hole card which is almost completely hidden from the audience.

Frankly, this is a ham-fisted film. It reminds me of the Sunday morning religious dramas that used to be on TV when I was a kid, where the hero always turned out to be innocent of the mortal sin he was accused of, but hid something else shameful which made it seem that he did the more important thing as well. The lesson always seemed to be that he would not have gotten into major trouble if he had been a good boy and hadn't committed the venial sin in the first place. Gross Misconduct is the film for you if you really enjoyed those "made for guilt" dramas like "Lamp Unto My Feet," and think they would have been perfect entertainment if only they had been 90 minutes long and filled with topless scenes.

The good news is, of course, that those topless scenes were performed by a 24 year old Aussie starlet named Naomi Watts who had the good fortune to become a major international star about a decade later, thus creating some value for her early film exposure. The depressing news is that the film is dark and grainy. I don't know if is the fault of the original film, a weak source medium, or a bad transfer, but those options all work out the same in the end, don't they? The result is that the film's only real positive, nudity from a youthful future star, is ruined because said nudity is depressingly dank and dingy.

 

Naomi Watts

The film is now available in America from an importer, but it is not a Region 1 DVD. It is Region 4, PAL. Click on the pic for info.

...

Paradise Lost (1987)

A brilliant adaptation of Milton's epic poem, starring Marina Sirtis.

As the baritone says in the trailer, "Counselor Troi IS Satan."

I'm kidding. Milton had nothing to do with this.

It is really a no-budget eco-parable. And when I say there was no budget, I'm not kidding. They show a crop-spraying plane flying far overhead, then they show two people from the waist up, dusting themselves off, apparently shaking off the crop spray. We know this because they tell us, with witty dialogue like, "What about that pesky crop spray, eh? Here, let's shake it off." The production values are exactly the same as those mid-1970s Saturday kid's dramas like Mighty Isis, Electra Woman, and Shazam.

I've covered this before, but went through it again to look at another version of the Region 2 DVD. No improvement.

William Forsythe plays a mega-developer who wants to place the world's greatest resort in the middle of the jungle. His plan is to spray a super-duper new defoliant which will instantly clear the jungle. Marina Sirtis plays a biologist/archeologist/chemist/physicist/physician, Mrs. Wizard, who is working in the jungle studying ...  um ... important jungle stuff that involves microscopes and Bunsen burners and numbers scrolling on computer screens. She has an inquisitive little kid who hangs around and asks her questions ("Gee, Mrs. Wizard ..."), and that is the clumsy way in which the script handles off-camera exposition and pseudo-scientific explanations.

Marina teaches Forsythe that science must be evil, and that progress is bad, and that we would all be happy if we could just hold hands and sing that "teach the world" Coke song, except without the Coke, and live in harmony with nature as the Toltecs did ... well, at least until nature kicked their asses and made them disappear forever.

And while she's at it, Marina also teaches Forsythe to love.

And what happened then? Well, in Whoville they say ...

... that Forsythe's small heart grew three sizes that day.

The love part gave the movie its only redeeming feature - Counselor Troi's bare chest. She had exposed the girls in several movies way back before she got the Star Trek job, but this is the only time she exposed her breasts on film after playing Counselor Troi, and the only time she did a nude scene as a mature woman. She went 14 years in between topless scenes, making Death Wish 3 when she was 25 and this movie when she was 39. In addition to her grainy, dark topless scene (which is further marred by the fact that she is in motion), she also has a lot of screen time standing still in a white t-shirt, and those scenes were shot outside in sunlight.

By the way, did you know that her last name is supposed to be pronounced "sir-tay"? I had no idea, but that's what her IMDb bio says. I'm pretty sure this is some kind of bullshit, because in the bonus features on the DVD for Blind Date, director Nico Mastorakis refers to her as "Greek Cypriot Marina 'sear-teece.'" Mastorakis and Sirtis are both Greek, both their names end in "-is", and Nico is obviously an intelligent man who speaks Greek, so you'd think he'd be able to pronounce it right. Something doesn't add up here.

Anyway ...

Did I mention that the film also has some silly looking monsters that are about half human, and they are always shown in shadow, holding their hands aloft to look more impressive. Actually, that's not completely true. There are also some close-ups of their eyes, with maybe a single tear, like that Indian in the famous public service ad. Well, anyway, it turns out that they are not monsters at all and that their DNA is quite a bit closer to human than William Forsythe's. You see the moral, kids? If the evil Forsythe had gone ahead with his project, he would have destroyed an entire unknown species - people who are just like us, except hairy and scary, like your Uncle Mike after he has too many drinks at your family's Fourth of July beach party. Would you like Forsythe killing your Uncle Mike, kids? Hell, no! He gave you twenty bucks for your birthday, and he once showed you his Playboy collection.

Not to mention, as Counselor Troi reminds us, Forsythe might also have destroyed that elusive plant she has been looking for - the one which might cure cancer, AIDS, and Republicanism.

If you take away Marina's topless scene, the film is really just a preachy, G-rated episode of Mighty Isis without the superpowers. Think about it. Looks like it was shot on video tape; female archeologist; kid around to ask her questions; science and respect being taught though the plot; special effects which consist of shaking the camera a little (at best); important moral lesson learned at the end.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Now that I think about it, if Joanna Cameron had taken off her top once in a while, Mighty Isis would have been pretty cool.

This movie, however, is not.

Marina Sirtis

This one is also available from an importer. Region 2, PAL, originally from Scandinavia.

Chained Heat (yes, again)

I reviewed another DVD of Chained Heat, hoping that the Dean Wormer rape scene had been left intact. It had not. You do NOT want to order this version of the DVD:

Not only is it cut, but the quality is no better than VHS. On the other hand, the Anchor Bay edition which I reviewed last week is absolutely gorgeous, and has approximately the same amount of cuts as this one, so get the one from Anchor Bay UK, Region 2, if you have to own one.

However ...

This edition has one positive. The Anchor Bay edition has a widescreen theatrical A/R, while this one is a full screen version - the good kind which uses the entire 35mm negative. For practical purposes, that means that the Anchor Bay version cuts off Linda Blair's breast in the shower scene. While this one is poor in quality, it does show the entire frame, and that means all of Linda' breasts.  (It also shows, hilariously, that Sybil Danning wore pants in the shower!)

Chained Heat is an excellent over-the-top exploitation picture with a top-notch cast for the genre (Dean Wormer as a sex-crazed warden - how great is that?), and I'd love to see a worthwhile DVD. Alas, we are still waiting for a DVD with these three characteristics: (1) top-quality (2) uncut (3) full-frame. So far, none of the existing issues has fulfilled more than one of those three criteria!

Anyway, here's the extra Linda Blair nudity:

Linda Blair

A couple of videos:

• Here is that famous xxx video that Julie Smith and Lorissa McComas did, in which Julie violates Lorissa with an enormous strap-on. (Note: 52 meg, Zipped .avi)
• Here is Debra Wilson flashing her big 'uns in that TV show about Drew Barrymore. (zipped .wmv)

Other Crap:

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

Here are some clips from the 1993 video, Teasers. This one involves a couple of guys who find a wallet and use the poor slob's credit card to hire one stripper after another to come over and strut her stuff.  End of plot.  A bunch of B-movie gals did the stripping, including Julie Strain (1, 2, 3, 4.  Say want you want, but the gal has legs up to her ears and when she was the on the good side of 35 she was impressive), Lisa Comshaw (1, 2) and Ashlie Rhey (1) ... most of the performances are of the triple-B variety.  Be advised, however, that this magum opus comes in VHS format only and so the clips are a long way from crystal clear.

 

More tomorrow
 

Friday at the Statue of Liberty, the world's largest cruise ship, Freedom of the Sea, was christened with a bottle that held the equivalent of 34 regular bottles of champagne.  The ship carries 4,000 passengers and is already booked up through 2008.  It's so big, even the captain says he's still discovering new parts of it.  It has 2,000 deck chairs, a 9700-square-foot gym with boxing ring, an ice rink and a big wave pool with simulated surfing.  The
bow stands above the water higher than the elevation of the Eiffel Tower,
and can carry 160,000 registered tons, about four times more than the Titanic. 

* But don't worry: this ship is so big, if it hit the iceberg the Titanic hit, the iceberg would sink.

George Michael finally got his Range Rover back after his recent traffic infractions, so he went out cruising London bars again Thursday night.  The Sun tabloid reported that he fell asleep at a traffic light and it changed four times before one of the many drivers stuck behind him angrily rapped on his window.  Michael woke up, moved forward, knocked over a highway post, then drove on.  A witness described him as sweating heavily, looking wasted and driving with his iPod on.

*  Obviously, George just doesn't care how many times he gets rear-ended by
strangers.



On Mother's Day, the US government announced that for the 10th straight
year, Emily and Jacob are the most popular baby names.  For some reason,
Ava has risen from #952 in 1990 to #9 last year.  And in Texas, the most
popular baby name was Jose

* Well, to be precise, that was the only baby name in Texas.