Adaptation (2002) was reviewed by Scoop when it was first released, and I have very little to say that he didn't cover, except that I should have hated this film. It is constantly self-referential, violates the fourth wall, uses nearly constant voice-over, and even has an evil twin. Amazingly, I also found it to be one of the top films of 2002. The cast was spectacular, especially Cage, Streep and Chris Cooper. Cage was so into the twin roles of he and his brother that they didn't need to add any physical differences to help the audience know which of the two they were seeing. You could instantly tell with no more than expressions and body language which of the brothers you were looking at. The writing was very clever, the pace was lively, and the twists were not at all predictable. If you haven't seen this, do so. C+.

Judy Greer, Cage's favorite waitress, flashes her breasts in his masturbation fantasy.

Baba Yaga (1973):

Contrary to your expectations, Baba Yaga is none of the following:

• an exotic ice cream flavor
• a guru who worked with the Beatles
• a famous Beach Boys song. You got me rockin' and a reelin', Baba Yaga.
• a cannibalistic witch in Russian children's folklore, like the evil witch in Hansel & Gretel

Well, actually it is the last one, sorta, at least that's where the name of the film came from. The Baba in this film is a witch, but doesn't appear to be either Russian or cannibalistic. This particular witch is a murderous lesbian American woman with a B&D fetish. The movie is based on a popular adult comic by the Milanese artist Guido Crepax, and I guess the comic could be considered an Italian version of Phoebe van Zeitgeist. (One online source reports that Baba Yaga was a cannibal in the Crepax comics.)

The following plot summary can only be considered approximate since this is not one of those films which lends itself to an immediate grasp of its narrative. It's your basic supernatural horror film filled with dream sequences, laden with lesbian overtones and an overlaid murder mystery - pretty much like all Italian movies, except for the ones which are murder mysteries filled with dream sequences, laden with lesbian overtones and an overlay of supernatural horror.

In the first scene, a fashion photographer named Valentina (Isabelle de Funes) leaves a glamorous party. For reasons unclear to anyone but the scriptwriter, she asks her friend to drop her off about a half hour's walk from her apartment, even though it is three A.M. and she's walking through downtown Milan. This gives the director plenty of chances to shoot various Milanese street scenes of eerie nighttime beauty. More important, it gives Valentina a chance to meet Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker). Baba almost runs over a cute street puppy, but Valentina saves the puppy. Cheated of her puppy kill, Baba Yaga insists on ripping off Valentina's garter.

As near as I can determine, Baba Yaga's magical touch can create some kind of curse on an object, because when Baba comes to Valentina's apartment to return the garter and give her a doll, she seems to create some evil havoc by touching Valentina's camera. From that point on, Valentina's models start being murdered as soon as the cameras point at them. It turns out that the accursed camera took pictures of the murders, revealing that the murderess is the doll, which is capable of transforming back-and-forth from doll form to human form.

Since the police are not likely to arrest a doll and send it to the Big (Doll) House, Valentina has to take matters into her own hands, a procedure which basically consists of going over to Baba Yaga's apartment so she can be stripped, chained and whipped as a preliminary to lesbian sex with Baba and the doll/human. Baba Yaga has quite a place, fully equipped with a medieval torture chamber, an evil sewing machine, evil bric-a-brac, plenty of unreturned deposit bottles, and some carved wooden artifacts which appear to be salt-and-pepper shakers made in her childhood days at Witch Summer Camp. The relatively tiny apartment really adds an illusion of size by adding a bottomless pit which is a direct portal to hell itself.  That really opens the place up. I have to say that in all my years of apartment and house hunting, I have never seen a listing with its own direct portal to hell, but I'm guessing it would add about the same value as a swimming pool. I don't think Baba Yaga's portal is worth as much as it could be, however, since her apartment seems to be on the second floor. You'd think the apartment below hers would actually have the more direct portal.

During the time when her relationship with Baba is blooming, Valentina keeps having dreams in which she is a lesbian Nazi, or an American Indian fighting against General Custer in an Italian graveyard (the Custer scene goes on forever in the deleted scenes, but they wisely truncated it in the theatrical release). There are also the usual phony-baloney symbolism scenes which can be found in all Eurocrap movies, like Nazis in women's clothing sitting at stodgy oaken desks in knee-deep water at a public beach, or even women in Nazi clothing sitting at stodgy oaken desks in knee-deep water at a public beach (a bold reversal!), or people in period costumes running through 20th century streets.

The set and production design are pure 70s: lava-lamps, colorful polyesters, pure white apartments with bright purple and orange furniture, free-form jazz as background music, and black light posters of Che Guevara. In an interview on the DVD, the director says that the movie is now becoming quite popular as a time capsule of the styles and fashions of Italy in the 70s.

You'll be hooting out loud at the dialogue.

Baba Yaga: I'll be sure to return it ... (apparently forgot her line) ... tomorrow ... You just ... um ... remember my name ... my name is (very dramatic soap-opera style pause) ... Baba Yaga.

People who saw this in the theaters claim that the audiences roared with laughter every time the name Baba Yaga was mentioned, but I'll be willing to bet that the one quoted above got much bigger laughs than the others.

This DVD package is a must for genre fans. Although the plot, script and acting in this film are pure crap, this DVD is worth seeing for the following reasons (1) it is actually filmed very well, and is a real 70s time capsule (2) unintentional laughs (3) full-frontal nudity in the deleted scenes, including a clear frontal of Carroll Baker (4) an excellent interview with director Corrado Farina (5) first widescreen release of this film on home media, completely remastered from the negative.

If only they had possessed better source material for the deleted scenes!

• Carroll Baker's pictures are in yesterday's edition.
• Isabelle de Funes deleted scenes (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Isabelle de Funes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Ely Galleani (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
• Unknown 1 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)- probably Daniela Balzaretti, but I'm not sure. This character has a big part with a lot of lines, the biggest part among those I couldn't identify, and Balzaretti is listed first among the unknowns, and is usually listed in the principal cast, so it is likely to be her. Balzaretti is apparently now a big gallery honcho in the Milanese art world, but I couldn't find a picture of her. Even with a picture, after 30 years, I'm not sure if I'd recognize her.
• Unknown 2 - totally unknown

About Schmidt (2002):

Now on Region 1 DVD, About Schmidt is a good black comedy that comes very close to greatness, sometimes achieving it. The only thing that held me back from excessive praise of the film's intelligence and savage humor was the fact that I hated everyone in the film. If it doesn't bother you that the film has the icy cold heart of a serpent, you may find it to be the best film of last year.

• Kathy Bates (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Mailbox:

Scoop:

One female director I've not seen mentioned is Ida Lupino - who seems to have been an active director as well as an actress and screenwriter.

Lupino's directing achievements include many TV shows and:

1. (6.91) - Hitch-Hiker, The (1953)
2. (6.87) - Trouble with Angels, The (1966)
3. (6.29) - Bigamist, The (1953)
4. (6.29) - Outrage (1950/I)

================================

Scoop

The Larry Wachowski story will be published this weekend in the National Enquirer, so give them all the credit for the following:

*"THE MATRIX RELOADED" DIRECTOR IS GIVING UP HIS LIFE AS A MAN AND IS  PLANNING TO HAVE A SEX CHANGE OPERATION.

-- HIS ROMANCE WITH AN INFAMOUS DOMINATRIX  (Miss Ilsa Strix) BROKE UP WACHOWSKI 'S LONG TERM MARRIAGE TO HIS COLLEGE SWEETHEART, THEA: BUT WHAT CAN LARRY DO? HE'S A MAN IN LOVE WITH A DOMINATRIX

-- LARRY AND ILSA MET IN THE SUMMER OF 2001 AT A CLUB SHE HELPED MANAGE CALLED "THE DUNGEON" -- CUSTOMERS PAID $250 AN HOUR TO BE PUNISHED: WHIPPED, BEATEN, AND VERBALLY ABUSED

-- LARRY'S COME A LONG WAY IN THE PAST 10 YEARS -- BACK IN '93, HE WAS A CONSTRUCTION WORKER IN CHICAGO -- BUT HE AND HIS BROTHER ALWAYS HAD A DREAM OF BEING MOVIEMAKERS -- THAT HASN'T CHANGED EXCEPT THAT  BY NEXT YEAR AT THIS TIME THEY'LL BE BROTHER & SISTER.

--  LARRY HAS BEEN GOING TO A  DOCTOR IN L.A., AND GETTING HORMONE INJECTIONS FOR QUITE SOME TIME -- RECENT PICTURES OF HIS FACE SHOW IT TO BE EXTREMELY "FEMINIZED" (IT DOESN'T EVEN LOOK AS IF HE SHAVES-AND HE'S 37!) -- LARRY CLEARLY FEELS HE'S A MAN TRAPPED IN A WOMAN'S BODY -- HE FLEW HOME FROM AUSTRALIA (WHERE "THE MATRIX RELOADED" WAS FILMED) DRESSED AS A WOMAN - IN FACT, HE LIKES TO DRESS UP AS A FEMALE PRETTY MUCH  EVERY DAY NOW

(His dominatrix girlfriend works under the name "Ilsa Strix" --  Until this story started to break a few weeks ago, she was all over the internet -- but she's at the center of a multi-million dollar divorce -- so if you go to those sites now, she's no longer there)

I completely left out the part about her being married to a transsexual...it's just too much for the average person to grasp. Hell, it's too much for me to grasp!

Scoop responds:

I know how he feels. I feel like a young man trapped in an old man's body, but I haven't found any clothing or hormones that will do much about it - except getting people to laugh at me.

Other crap:

• Trailer for the long-delayed Christina Ricci film, Prozac Nation
• J-Lo fires her publicist for suggesting that she tone down her diva act. Also in the same article - Nicole Kidman is afraid of butterflies. Yeah, I can understand that. They're pretty fuckin' scary, with those pretty colors and that gentle fluttering. That has to take the prize for the dumbest celebrity phobia ever, edging out Billy Bob Thornton's fear of old furniture. Personally, I'm afraid of tulips and windmills. That pretty much killed my movie career in Holland. Well, that and a lack of talent and an inability to speak Dutch. "Three main weapons"
• Butt-kickin' women in skin tight suits.
• nearly 200 pictures of the Miss Universe contenders
• 50 years ago today, Everest was first conquered, and those who called it impossible were proved to be full of shit. Now the mountain itself is full of shit.
• Mariah Carey becoming more evil by the minute

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.

It's another "Babe in Bondage" day for the "Hankster" as we return to 1964 and another visit to "Olga's House of Shame".

A new victim today as the sadistic Olga has Ava Denning staked out and tormented in the great outdoors.

• Ava Denning (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

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