Saturday

Tuna
"Shade"

Shade (2003) is a crime comedy/drama set in the legal and illegal poker games in LA, and is about the world of professional card players, most especially the ones less than honest. It was written and directed by a card "mechanic" and close up slight of had artist. The original plan was to make this on the cheap, but the script attracted some money, and they ended up making a proper film. The story is essentially The Color of Money, but poker rather than pool. Sylvester Stallone does a decent job in the Paul Newman role, and Stewart Townsend plays the Tom Cruise part. Thandie Newton and Melanie Griffith are love interest and fellow scam artists.

I don't want to revel any of the plot, except to say that it is all double crosses. The twists and turns were pretty engaging, and the performances were very strong, but the thing that made this special was that the actors did their own slight of hand. Their education included hanging around the magic castle, and they control the deck very convincingly.

Erika Nann Baranco shows her breasts during a cat fight set up as a distraction to cheat a casino at blackjack (based on a real scam). J. Katherine Novy, a friend of the director, shows breasts and buns as a pole dancer. IMDb readers have this at 6.7 of 10. It played a few festivals, and had a very limited (one weekend) release, and is now available on DVD. If you enjoy scam films, poker films, or slight of hand, you will enjoy this one, but you have to pay close attention to follow the plot. This is a solid C.

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  • Erika Nann (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
  • J Katherine Novy (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

    "Vampire Vixens from Venus"

    Vampire Vixens from Venus (1995) is a pretty cool title. Unfortunately, that is the only thing this titty flick has going for it. The Vampire Vixens, who look just like Michelle Bauer, J. J. North, Theresa Lynn and Leslie Glass, seduce Earth men and then drain all of their bodily fluids while they are sexually excited to manufacturer drugs. Bauer works alone, the other three work together. A British detective is supposed to provide a Inspector Clouseau type of comic relief. He is busy investigating the theft of 10 gallons of lavender paint, and the dead drained bodies.

    All four women give brief looks at their breasts. They are by far the most skilled performers in this mess. In the fight scenes, the punches don't even come close to connecting, and the reactions are all way too late. The person playing the inspector, Leon Head, had no comedy timing at all, either with line delivery or physical humor. The camera work is awful, set design sucks, and the story isn't, even for one brief moment, interesting.

    IMDb readers have this at 2.9 of 10. That includes 4 10s and 9 1s. This should be a 1, pure and simple. This is the easiest F I have ever awarded.

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  • JJ North (1, 2, 3, 4)
  • Leslie Glass (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
  • Michelle Bauer (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
  • Theresa Lynn (1, 2, 3, 4)

    • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    Club Dread (2003)

    I was a little bit disappointed by the Club Dread DVD.

    It isn't a very good movie. Couldn't decide whether to be a comedy or a slasher film. But it isn't a totally bad movie. It offers some guilty pleasures, and I kinda hoped there would be some behind-the-scenes featurettes or some deleted footage, or outtakes. It would be fun to see how they co-ordinated Jordan Ladd with the gymnast body double. It would be fun to hear how they created the pseudo-Buffett songs.

    There is nothing like that.

    The extra features consist of (1) Two versions of the film, differing only in the aspect ratio. One is a pan 'n scan full screen version, the other is the usual widescreen anamorphic. (2) Two commentary tracks by the various members of Broken Lizard.

    • Jordan Ladd (1, 2, 3)

    • Elena Lyons (1, 2)

    • Tanja Reichert (1, 2)

     

     

    UPDATES:

    • Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated

     

     

    OTHER CRAP:

    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.

    Shiloh

    Words from Scoop.

    .avi's from Shiloh.

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

    Various

    • Saffron Burrows in Tempted (.wmv, .avi). Nobody seems to know whether this is a body double. It does seem to be her, based on the body and movement, but I have not seen the movie yet.

    • Maryam d'Abo in Xtro (.wmv, .avi)

    • The L-Word's Mia Kirshner a few years ago, in Atom Egoyan's atmospheric, mysterious, nearly-forgotten masterpiece, Exotica.. (.wmv, .avi)

     

     

    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.

    Brainscan
    'Caps and comments by Brainscan:

    Andrew Blake directs the kind of movies that are shelved in that back room of your local video store unless it's Blockbuster in which case it isn't shelved at all. But he doesn't seem to like filming people doing the nasty. So he hires the latest exuberantly built Penthouse Pet and has her pose in ways that brought her to Penthouse in the first place. Production values are always good and the photography is often beautiful.

    Aria Giovanni, Pet for Sept 2000, has starred in several of these. I asked The Gimp if he would cap one but he declined. Something about liking some porn in his porn. Phillistine.

    So I capped it. And found it was a twofer. Two Pets fer the price of one. In addition to Aria, an active U. K. model named Kelle Marie Farmer, or just Kelle Marie, appears in this fine film. She was Pet o' the month for May 2001.

    Since there is no plot at all, just four or five vignettes with gals posing, doing some light lesbotronics and some even lighter BD work, I'll not bother to describe a thing. Did grab a whole mess of frames of Aria and stuck the best of them together into 23 collages.

    The first 14 are tame, in that they show only Aria's upper body... but what a fine upper body it is.

    The last nine up the naughty quotient significantly. Lots of bum, lots and lots of bush, and in links 3 and 4 especially, the very definition of gynocam.


    Kelle Marie plays around with Aria a lot (first two collages) and does some solo posing of her own (last two). She is a long, skinny blonde with no visible means of inhibition.

    • Kelle Marie (1, 2, 3, 4)

    Variety
    Daryl Hannah The paparazzi's flashes make her black dress see-thru, revealing both nipples. Thanks to Squiddy.

    Bobby Jo Moore Topless in scenes from and episode of the made for Showtime series "The Chris Isaak Show".

    Loretta Persichetti
    (1, 2)

    Paola Senatore
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

    		Marvin 'caps of both ladies going full frontal in scenes from the Italian movie "Il Ginecologo della mutua" aka "Ladies' Doctor" (1977).

    Isild Le Besco
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

    		Señor Skin 'caps of the young actress going topless in scenes from the French movie "Le Coût de la vie" aka "The Cost of Living" (2003).

    Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com
    Pat's comments in yellow...

    "THE ENGLISH PATIENT" WAS AN UGLY, GAY NAZI
    The Gay Part I Guessed - Newly-released World War II British intelligence files reveal that the real-life Count Laszlo Almasy, the handsome, dashing hero of the movie "The English Patient," was actually "very ugly and shabbily dressed, with a fat and pendulous nose, drooping shoulders and a nervous tic." In addition, he was an incompetent, bumbling Nazi spy. He was also gay.

  • He was Hollywood's very first "Extreme Makeover."
  • I said the same thing to my wife, but she dragged me to the movie anyway.
  • So if you snored through "The English Patient," just be glad it wasn't a documentary.


    ANTONIO AND JUSTIN CRY AND HOLD HANDS
    Yech! - Antonio Banderas told Britain's Sun tabloid that at the Cannes premiere of "Shrek 2," he and Jusin Timberlake held hands and cried. He said during the romantic ending, when his character of Puss-In-Boots says, "I want to cry," he and Justin were so moved, they started crying. So "we held hands for awhile," comforting each other. He said Justin's girlfriend Cameron Diaz "was just looking at us, thinking, 'What are they doing?'"

  • Later, they had a threesome...
  • No, she was thinking that they made a prettier couple than she and Justin.
  • No wonder he was chosen to play "PUSS" In Boots.


    ICE-T TEACHING HASSELHOFF TO RAP
    He Raps In Slow Motion - Rapper/actor Ice-T is taking on his biggest challenge yet: turning "Baywatch" star David Hasselhoff into a rapper. The two are neighbors who've become friends, and Ice-T says he's teaching him to rap and producing a rap album with him. He told The Sun, "The man is a legend, we are going to show a whole new side of him. He's gonna come out as Hassle the Hoff. The Hoff will surprise people with his rap skills and humor."

  • Or at least his humor: you'll die laughing.
  • It will be acclaimed the greatest rap album ever...by Germans.
  • Get the feeling Ice-T is only doing this so he can get introduced to all those "Baywatch" babes?


    BEST MOVIE DEATHS OF ALL TIME
    Death Becomes Her - Total Film magazine polled readers to list the best movie deaths of all time. Finalists included the Wicked Witch melting in "The Wizard of Oz" (#13) and Bambi's mother being shot (#6). The top five, in reverse order: Bonnie & Clyde, Alan Rickman falling off a building in "Die Hard," King Kong falling off the Empire State Building, Slim Pickens riding an A-bomb in "Dr. Strangelove," and at #1, Janet Leigh's shower murder in "Psycho." The editor said the music and editing rather than gore made it #1, and knowing the blood was Bosco and the sounds were a knife stabbing a casaba melon doesn't make it less disturbing.

  • In fact, maybe a little more...Because now, I'm thinking of a psycho killing, and I'm hungry.
  • Pouring chocolate syrup down a drain? Talk about disturbing!
  • Nobody wanted to think about Janet Leigh's melons being stabbed.
  • I say the best movie death is in "Jersey Girl," when J-Lo dies just 10 minutes into the movie.


    DATING SHOW HAS TRANNY TWIST
    The Girl With Something Extra - On "There's Something About Miriam," a new British reality/dating/ practical joke show, six bachelors will vie for a hot girl, not knowing she's really a pre-operative transsexual. They'll compete to impress her at physical challenges. The winner gets about $18,000 (US) and a week on a luxury yacht with "the J-Lo lookalike who's got it all."

  • And then some!
  • She's not impressed: she could beat any of them at the physical challenge.
  • It will air in America under the title, "Queer Guy For The Straight Guy."