Homework (1982) is a coming of age film meant to be a bitter sweet story with the ring of truth about a group of High School students discovering themselves. The main character is dating a girl whose only interest is making the swimming team. Unfortunately, she is not very good. Her mother was played by Joan Collins, and the punch line of the film was her seduction of her daughters boyfriend. He is obsessed by the fact that he hasn't had sex yet. He and a friend start a garage band, and get a young black girl to sing lead. Her military father is right square in her face, as he wants her only singing in the church choir. Another girl in the group loses her virginity to a rock star, and ends up with the clap.

There are lots of flashbacks, including Collins flashing back to her teen years in the 50s, and fantasies by the male lead, Michael Morgan. Producer Max Rosenberg felt, and still feels like he wrote a good picture, but that is not how things worked out. Director Jim Beshears was incompetent, as was most of the crew, especially the DP. Joan Collins added to the problems by refusing to do the nudity that she had agreed to when she accepted the $25,000.00 to do the film. Finally, the distribution company put the last nails in the coffin. Rosenberg made the film with his own money ($700K), yet the production studio, despite appearing on 2,800 screens before they went bankrupt (with another 4,000 bookings) managed to lose $12M on prints and advertising, including $3M of Rosenberg's money. One of their big mistakes was to graft Joan Collins face onto someone else's body in a poster, causing her to sue.

Joy Michael, as the young Joan Collins, and also as her double, shows breasts, as does Michelle Bauer with two other women in a fantasy sequence, and Barbara Peckinpaugh in another fantasy sequence. Several other women also show breasts. IMDb readers have this at 2.6. I agree with Rosenberg. The script was fine, and the cast was excellent, but the crew butchered it. This is a D.

Dirty Filthy Love (2004):

This was a nice treat for me. Pretty good movie. New. Never seen the caps before. Nice nudity. Beautiful woman.

Just about everything you need in life ...

... except a more sensible title.

The current title makes it sound like a 70s drive-in flick when it is actually a sensitive and intelligent film about a man with Tourette Syndrome and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (He always thinks his hands are dirty and filthy, and he always talks dirty and filthy as well! The perfect combo.)

Mark is his name, and he is attempting to survive in the world after he loses his job and his wife. Given the nature of his OCD, Mark then focuses his obsessions on his estranged wife, stalking her constantly. His best friend sees the increasingly erratic behavior, but feels helpless and scared when he sees an occasional mind-boggling glimpse into Mark's troubled thought process.

At first, Mark doesn’t really know what’s wrong with him, only that his habits are not shared by the world. For example, he's terrified of sitting down too quickly, is compelled to take the stairs in a bizarre sequence, and tends to wash his hands until they bleed. With the additional strain of his divorce and unemployment, he is also starting to twitch uncontrollably, yelp like a dog, and swear out loud with alarming frequency. He is fortunate enough to be noticed by Charlotte, a woman who is dealing fairly successfully with her own OCD, and who runs a self-help group for her fellow sufferers. She recognizes the nature of Mark's mental state, integrates him into the group, and allows Mark to see that he is not alone in the world, because the group of colorful characters provides mutual psychological support to its members away from an outside world where their obsessions are ridiculed.

In dealing with these themes, it would be easy to be maudlin, or satirical, or condescending, but the script does none of that, or at least not much, simply because one of the co-authors suffers from OCD and was able to use his own experiences to ground the film in objective reality. In fact, if the film had stuck to OCD, I might declare it brilliant, but the author didn't choose to stick to the single problem that he knew well, instead opting to layer in Tourette as well. The character was just given too much psychological weight to bear in this story. His additional Tourette problem meant that he was wandering through genteel public places barking, twitching, and shouting "cunt". The other OCD sufferers in the film were able to appear more or less normal for long periods of time, despite their eccentricities, but Mark ended up behaving like one of those crazy street corner Jeremiahs who inhabit most large cities. If Mark had been more like the others in his group sessions, the script could not only have dealt less melodramatically with the individual character, but could also have allowed the author to stick closely to his own experiences and thus develop a more empathetic audience identification with the problems of OCD sufferers in general.

In general, I found this to be a good movie with a brilliant lead performance from Michael Sheen, but the character's combination of problems meant that every stranger treated him like a lunatic, and that tended to change his story from pathos to bathos. The script would have done more by doing less.

• Anastasia Griffith (1, 2, 3, 4)

Other Crap:

• The Official BitTorrent Home Page has added a search engine
• Mozilla Foundation to ban Firefox derivative browsers?
• A Short "Tom and Katie" Flash Animation from Radar Online
• The new episode of Celebrity Jeopardy from the recent Will Ferrell show
• Playboy has opened its first freestanding Concept Boutique in Caesars Palace
• Bucks get lucky, draw the #1 pick in the NBA draft.
• This is a really funny clip. "Jules from Pulp Fiction coaching hockey"
• e3girls.com - booth babe pics from e3 expo
• The Singing Star Wars Storm Trooper Nerd Kid
• In my mind a big ass truck is not complete without a nice set of BUMPER NUTS hanging off the hitch.
• URL says it all: MovieMistakes.com
• Weekly World News: "RUNNING OF THE BULL DYKES"
• The Vagina Lady
• Great list. The best Captain Haddock Curses
  • He is a character in the Tintin comics who loves exclamation points. "Visigoths!" "Subtropical sea louse!"
• Trailer: A first look at Guy Richie's latest, Revolver.
• E! falsely reports Jessica Simpson divorce filing. (This link goes to a screen grab of the since-deleted story.)
  • E! says the network "deeply regrets that a draft report ... was accidentally disseminated. The couple has not filed for divorce. E! apologizes to Nick, Jessica, their families, and their fans for any distress this may have caused."
  • A draft report? You mean they prepare divorce stories on volatile couples in advance, sort of like writing the advance obits on old geezers? I didn't know that.
• Get a free e-mail address at budweiser.com
• Tremendous little chart, showing the President's approval rating on every major poll since he was elected, against a time line of current events.
• Borowitz: GROUP SEEKS BAN OF TWENTIETH CENTURY FROM KANSAS SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS ... "Last Century Just a Theory," Activists Say
  • "Elsewhere, actors Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes denied that their romantic relationship was a publicity stunt after a trailer for their wedding appeared in over 3,000 theaters."
• What is the size of the particles in Saturn's rings. Tiny ones nearest and farthest from the planet, but big chunks toward the center. A beautiful illustration.
• The Da Vinci Code will actually film in Lincoln Cathedral and The Louvre. (Lincoln Cathedral will play the part of Westminster Abbey.)
• Eminem defends "offensive"video
  • "Eminem has defended his 'offensive' new video, which pokes fun at stars, including Gwen Stefani, Britney Spears and Elton John. The video features puppets of the stars making idiots of themselves, matching lyrics like: 'Britney Spears has shoulders like a man'"
  • I had to join the marchers. I was offended by the fact that the video was not nearly offensive enough.
• "This web site is dedicated to my utter hatred for Dimes."
• A new set of stills from Aeon Flux
  • "Based on the MTV animated series created by Peter Chung, Aeon Flux is set 400 years in the future, when disease has wiped out the majority of the earth's population except for one walled, protected city-state, Bregna, ruled by a congress of scientists. The story centers on Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron), the top operative in the underground 'Monican' rebellion - led by The Handler (Frances McDormand). When Aeon is sent on a mission to kill a government leader, she uncovers a world of secrets."
• Conan O'Brien bids a tearful farewell to the hunky newcomer.
• The trailer for Me and You and Everyone We Know
  • "Me and You and Everyone We Know is a poetic and penetrating observation of how people struggle to connect with one another in an isolating and contemporary world."
• The trailer for Rebound
  • "Old school meets middle school in this feel-good family comedy starring Martin Lawrence ('Big Momma's House') as the ultimate 'fish out of water.' Lawrence plays a high-strung college basketball coach who must redeem himself following a public meltdown, by leading a junior high school team."
• The trailer for Disney's Sky High
  • "When you're the son of the world's most legendary superheroes The Commander (Kurt Russell) and Jetstream (Kelly Preston), there is only one school for you - Sky High, an elite high school that is entrusted with the responsibility of molding today's power-gifted students into tomorrow's superheroes. The problem is that Will Stronghold (Michael Angarano) is starting with no superpowers of his own and, worst of all, instead of joining the ranks of the 'Hero' class, he finds himself relegated to being a 'Sidekick.' Now he must somehow survive his freshman year while dealing with an overbearing gym coach (Bruce Campbell), a bully with super speed and an dangerous rebel with a grudge (and the ability to shoot fire from his hands)... not to mention the usual angst, parental expectations and girl problems that accompany teenage life. But when an evil villain threatens his family, friends and the very sanctity of Sky High, Will must use his newfound superpowers to save the day and prove himself a 'Hero' worthy of the family tradition."
• URL says it all: BodyPaintMag.com
• Yarrr. Researchers think they may have found Blackbeard's shop

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links 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.

.Email Scoopy Jr. if suggestions for future polls.

Here are the results of our previous polls:
The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2004
The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 80s
The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 90s
Which actress has been the most convincing playing a stripper.
Who has the best bum in Hollywood?
Best All Time Television Comedy
Best Nudity in an Oscar-winning performance
The Top 20 Best Straight Sex Scenes
Best Lesbian Love Scenes

Today we feature Rosanna Arquette in "Voodoo Dawn".

We see Rosanna in her underwear, a see thru skirt, topless in the bathtub and restrained in handcuffs while being felt up, plus some pokies.

• Rosanna Arquette (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)

Today from the Ghost, a nice collection of zipped .wmvs featuring Diane Keaton topless in several scenes from the 1977 movie "Looking for Mr. Goodbar".

• Diane Keaton (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

MICHAEL JACKSON TRIAL UPDATE
Jay's Headlines - Jay Leno testified in Michael Jackson's trial Tuesday, but it was a letdown for the defense. They'd told the jury that Leno would say the accuser was being coached by his mom over the phone and was after money. But Leno said the boy never asked him for money, and the woman he heard over the phone might have been his nurse or someone else. But he did work in a few jokes that amused the jury, and as he left, he plugged Renee Zellweger's guest appearance on "The Tonight Show" that night.

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