Saturday

Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

Junior is on holiday, so I am your acting compere for a couple of weeks.

9 Songs (1980):

More of Margo Stilley in the arty hardcore porn flick directed by mainstream director Michael Winterbottom. Smaller clips again today. Almost finished. One more long clip left for tomorrow.

 

 

 

Point of Origin (2002):

Very good suggestion by one of our readers. Fairly interesting movie and some nudity from Ileana Douglas. Before seeing this, I thought the closest she ever came was this sequence in Grace of My Heart.

Warning: this entire review is one big spoiler.

Point of Origin, an HBO film, is the (mostly) true story of a legendary arson investigator, John Orr, who turned out to have started many of the fires he investigated. At one time, many people believed that he had a nearly supernatural gift for finding the point of origin and the incendiary devices. As it turns out, he was not a genius. He just knew where to look and what to look for. He was eventually nabbed because he had been writing a work of fiction about the very situation he was involved in - an arson specialist who turned out to be investigating crimes he himself had committed. Although the only physical evidence was a single fingerprint from similar crimes committed years earlier, prosecutors said that the crimes in the novel were extremely similar to real-life crimes, and included details of those crimes which could only have been known by the arsonist. A study of Orr's cases also showed that Orr once arrived at a fire before he could have known about it from the dispatcher. On the basis of this largely circumstantial case, Orr was convicted and sentenced to four consecutive life sentences, although he never admitted committing the crimes.

There have been various theories about why Orr committed the crimes, assuming that he did. The prevalent theory is that he was creating a scenario in which he would be a hero. In a smaller sense, he was committing arson in fairly complicated ways that puzzled other investigators, but which Orr seemed to solve effortlessly, thus establishing his unrivaled mastery of his profession. In a greater sense, he was creating a super villain nemesis for himself, thus turning himself into the super hero needed to defeat the fictional criminal genius. This was not only stoking his ego, but was fanning his creative flame for his novel as well.

I don't really like one gimmick the film used to present the events. We see John Orr working as a tireless investigator, and we see a red haired man actually committing the crimes. Of course, the purpose of this split personality device is to allow the events to unfold as a mystery in which the viewer originally has no idea that the arsonist and investigator are the same person. In that sense it serves an important purpose in the script. The problem with this gimmick is that it leads the audience to draw the wrong conclusions even after the real criminal is revealed. Because the redhead matches perfectly with two sketches made from eyewitness accounts, a viewer must conclude that either (1) Orr is really not the arsonist, after all; or (2) Orr committed the crimes in disguise.

In the last analysis, neither of those solutions was correct. At the conclusion of the film we are led to believe that Orr did commit the crimes, for the same reasons that the jury convicted him, and because the last thing we hear is a TV anchor's voice reporting that the number of arsons in the L.A. area dropped by some astronomical percentage after Orr was incarcerated, followed by Orr's own voice saying "it's about ego (echo) ego."

Then what the hell was the deal with that redhead?

He was there as the result of the film having adopted a very obscure literary device. When the film is over, we realize that half of what we just watched was a movie about the real-life investigation, and the other half was a film adaptation of Orr's actual novel, the scenes he was picturing in his mind as he typed up the book which would eventually get him convicted. (That book did eventually get published, by the way.) These scenes were similar, but not identical, to real life, and thus were able to be woven seamlessly into the actual events. The redhead was from the portion of the film which pictorialized the novel. He was a fictional villain created by Orr the author. Looking back on the film after having watched it, it is not always possible to conclude which events were created by Orr the arsonist and which were fictional embellishments created by Orr the novelist.

I found the fictional arsonist device quite confusing, but I will certainly have to give props to the writer and the director for a very creative interpretation of the project. Whether I like it or not, they put a lot of thought into presenting the facts in a way that would allow the case to be cinematically interesting, rather than just droning on like a docudrama. The director also brought all sorts of fancy cinematic tricks to the table, in an attempt to get deep inside Orr's head. In fact, the revelation of Orr's thought process is quite complex, because at first we think we are getting into the head of a truly gifted investigator, but gradually we see that we are getting into the head of a novelist who romanticizes his investigatory acumen, and who keeps moving the fantasy farther and farther from reality.

The director is Tom Sigel, whose directorial resumé is nothing special at all (this is his only solo non-documentary), but who is one of the most gifted and creative cinematographers of our time. Here is a partial list of films in which he has been cinematographer.

That list includes good films and bad, but the cinematography is outstanding in all of them. He is currently working on three more projects with high visibility: Logan's Run, Superman Returns,and The Brothers Grimm.

Obviously, Sigel felt that he had learned from some masters, especially Bryan Singer, and wanted a chance to direct on his own. HBO gave him that chance. If the result of his maiden solo effort was not an award winner, neither was it a failure, and it was consistently inventive. He also picked the right stars and got some fine work from his actors, including subtle and controlled performances from two actors who are normally used to flashier and more effusive roles, Ray Liotta and John Leguizamo.

Whither Sigel's directing career? As The Terminator would say, "He'll be back."

(Assuming he wants to be)

  • Oh, yeah, here's the Ileana pictures. (1, 2, 3)

 

 

 

 

Other Crap:

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.
Tuna
"Lost Lake"

Lost Lake (2005) is a direct to vid. It came about because husband and wife writing team Anthony and Christina Adams were at a Sierra Lake, and found a rock that someone had carved very serious and emotional poetry into. When they found that it was done 30 years to the day from the time they found it, the urge to come up with a script to explain it was born. Most of the film is a flashback.

The location is a remote ski lodge. Angel Boris has been having sex with someone, and an older guest is not happy with his weekend, then an earthquake triggers an avalanche. Cut to two weeks before. Angel Boris has a job reciting poetry and serving latte at a coffee house, and decides to move on. She takes a job as maid and girl Friday at the ski lodge. The lodge is run by old hippy Mark Collie, and young former Olympic skier Michael McLafferty. Guests include the rich older professor with his latest young grad student conquest, Daisy McCrackin, and McLafferty's estranged half brother, extreme ski border Frayne Rosanoff. We have some great extreme skiing, including some great stunt work of bad skiing from the professor's character, 15 second sex between the professor and McCrackin, and a budding relationship between Boris and McLafferty. McCrackin ends up with Rosanoff. The professor pays generously for his yearly visits -- enough to keep the old lodge solvent.

We slowly learn that there is some history between Collie and McLafferty's father and mother, and somehow Boris is tangled up in the mix. Yes, we eventually learn the supernatural reason for Boris's visions and uneasy feelings. We come full circle to the opening avalanche, and then the resolution phase.

The story is muddled, and this film can best be described as uneven, but there are many bright spots. We get long lingering looks at Angel Boris' breasts and buns, there are beautiful scenics, some great extreme skiing, a good fight or two, and my personal favorite scene, when McCracken gets her bare butt stuck to a brass plaque. Note that the two reviewers linked at IMDb used that scene as an example of how terrible the script was. I can only assume they are pun impaired. There are not enough votes for an IMDb score, and no comments as yet. The film is not perfect. The plot can be a little hard to follow, and it tries to encompass too many genres, but I watched it start to finish. As in many less than perfectly written films, it all comes down to whether or not you like the characters, and I did. C-.

 

  • Thumbnails (1, 2, 3)
  • Angel Boris ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20)

    • Hankster
    'Caps and comments by Hankster:

    A little variety for today.

    First up: a "Babe in Bondage" from a pretty creepy flick "The New York Ripper". It's a Lucio Fulci movie so you know it's going to
    be a gory mess. Here we have Daniela Doria ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) tied naked (except for panties) to a bed and being threatened and sliced with a razor blade. This one is not for the faint of heart.
     
    For the "Hankster Light" show, we feature two starlets from "My Boss's Daughter". First we have Tara Reid (1, 2) looking  sexy in bra & panties and then Carmen Electra (1, 2) in the water for some breasts seen thru her wet top.
    Dann
    'Caps and comments by Dann:

    GALAXY HUNTER

    If you wonder whether Shelley Michelle got the lead of this 2004 Sci-Fi B-movie based on acting ability or big boobs, the first few minutes should supply the answer.

    She plays an intergalatic agent sent to a planet to bust a drug ring trying to spread a new drug throughout the universe. She's also there to rescue an agent sent previously, who has dissappeared.

    There's plenty of action, and quite a bit of nudity, but the special effects are pretty lame, the script isn't great, nor is the acting. On top of that, they used a lot of oversaturated lighting to give it an other-wordly feel, so it was a bear to cap.

    Save this one for late at night, when you don't really care what you watch.

    Vejiita
    Anne Caillere

    Anne Cantineau
     

    From 1995's L' Âge des possibles, (I don't know the film. It is rated 6.9 at IMDb)

    "Ten young people ( boys and girls) at the age at which all is possible. They meet, they love, they choose. The film comes and goes between all those people, revealing their anguish, their dreams, depicting the portrait of a generation of the 90's which has both the fury and the fear of life."

    Kristin Scott-Thomas
    (1, 2)

    		Stark naked full frontal in broad daylight from 1994's Un été inoubliable. (I haven't seen it, but it is rated an impressive 7.5 at IMDb)

    "In 1925 Bulgaria, young Marie-Therese Von Debretsy refuses the flirtatious advances of her husband's commanding officer. As a result, the cosmopolitan family is reassigned to a brutally bleak and dangerous outpost on the Bulgarian/Romanian frontier where both their relationship and humanity are severely tested."
    Mia Sara
    (1, 2, 3, 4)

    		Topless caps from 1996's Undertow. (5.1 at IMDb, Co-written by Kathryn Bigelow, the director of Point Break and Strange Days. Bigelow is a good director, but her writing credits are straight-to-vid. Her best is Near Dark, which did get a brief theatrical release. You've probably come across it on cable. That's the gory vampire flick with Lance Hendrikson in which the vamps assault a redneck bar.)

    "After his car breaks down, Jack seeks shelter Lost from a thunderstorm in a remote shack in the woods. He finds himself held at gunpoint by a deranged mountain man who lives there with his young wife. As the storm rages on, tension mounts in the small cabin. Matters reach a climax when Jack falls for the beautiful woman and tries persuading her to escape with him. Soon, the situation escalates into deadly violence..."

     
    Sophie Aubry
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

    		Topless in the 1993 Olivier Assayas film, Une Nouvelle Vie. You can see brief flashes of her nether parts in collage #4. (The film is rated 5.9 at IMDb. Assayas is also the director of the laughably incoherent Demonlover.)

    "Tina is a young warehousewoman in a supermarket. She is in love with Fred but still lives at her mother's. When her mother dies, Tina tries to arrange a meeting with her father, whom she never knew. On the way to her father she first meets her half-sister, and her father's lawyer."

    Whoo-hoo!! This plot summary just makes you want to run out and find a copy, doesn't it?

    Variety
    Selma Blair
    (1, 2, 3, 4)

    		Selma tries on a pair of 75 FFFs to play a leading role in A Dirty Shame, a typically tawdry comedy (6.0 at IMDb) from the loony but lovable John Waters.

    "Lust is in the air on Harford Road and Sylvia Stickles, a grumpy, repressed middle-aged Baltimorean, doesn't like it. Though Sylvia's handsome husband Vaughn still has marital urges, his wife could not be less interested -- she has more important things to do. Not only does Sylvia run the family's Pinewood Park and Pay convenience store, she's also responsible for watching over her exhibitionist daughter Caprice. A go-go dancer known to her adoring fans as Ursula Udders, Caprice and her stupendously enlarged breasts are currently under house arrest after several nude and disorderly violations. But Sylvia's world is turned upside down one day after suffering a concussion in a freak traffic accident. Sexy tow-truck driver Ray-Ray Perkins rushes to her aid, and the stricken Sylvia realizes he is no ordinary service man; he's a sexual healer who brings Sylvia's hidden cauldron of lust to the boiling point."

    Paris Hilton From some French magazine. It seems to be a strip of candid shots from a cell phone cam or something. Not sure of the exact details.

     

    Mandy Moore
    (1, 2, 3)

    		The sweet/sexy actress and pop star captured sunning in a bikini.

    Asia Argento
    (1, 2, 3, 4)

    		Gone are the days when the Eurotrash queen would spend most of a movie naked, but she can still flash the flesh when necessary, as she demonstrates here in 2004's  The Heart Is Deceitful Above All Things, which one IMDb contributor described as a "Depraved, sick film in the realm of Pier Paolo Pasolini's Salo." In spite of that, it is rated 6.2 at IMDb. To get to the good stuff, go directly to image #3.

    It "is based on JT Leroy's critically acclaimed novel of the same name. The story is about Jeremiah, a child who is pulled from his foster home and thrown into a troubled life on the road with his teenage mother, Sarah. With Sarah, Jeremiah travels through the country roads of the U.S. and learns first hand about the troubles of the world. With an impressive cast including Oscar winner Peter Fonda (Easy Rider, Ulees Gold), Jeremy Renner (S.W.A.T), and Asia Argento (starred opposite Vin Diesel in XXX), The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things will be one of the most anticipated independent film projects of 2004."

     
    Asia Argento redux
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

    		Here she is, flashing her well-inked rump in Les Morsures de l'aube (Love Bites, 2001, rated 5.2 at IMDb)

    The Arrow described it as follows:

    "Antoine (Canet) is a party animal who lives out of a gym locker. One night, he uses the name of a wealthy club hopper named Jordan to get access to a shindig. Shit goes sour when the dude that threw the soiree forces Antoine to search for this enigmatic Jordan and his gal pal Violaine (Asia Argento). Antoine has to fight through the jungle that is the Parisian nightlife and seek out these two dark birds. Oh…I almost forgot…Jordan and Violaine might be vampires."

     
    Johanna Sällström
    (1, 2, 3, 4)

    		In her physical prime at 25, the pretty Swede shows off a beautiful shape in Magnetisörens femte vinter (The Fifth Winter of the Magnetist, 1999, 6.8 at IMDb)

    "A mysterious stranger, Meisner, arrives in a northern Swedish town in 1820, calling himself a magnetist - an amalgam of hypnotist and healer - and claiming he can cure diseases un-treatable by doctors. Ignoring the objections of his colleagues, Dr. Selander allows Meisner to cure his blind daughter, Maria, who not only regains her sight, but also falls in love with the charismatic magnetist. Dark secrets and repressed memories start to emerge, amidst the love between father and daughter, man and woman."

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

    IF YOUR MATE IS BETTER-LOOKING, SAY GOODBYE

    Roast Him! - In the new book "Why We Love," Rutgers anthropologist Dr. Helen Fisher says someone who has a vastly more attractive partner has a 50 percent chance of being dumped.  Fisher told the New York Post that "mate-poaching" is Darwinian: women think more attractive males are a good catch, but they'll spend all their time and energy trying to keep them and would be better off setting their sights lower.  Surveys show that over 50 percent of people admit to trying to poach someone else's mate, or allowing themselves to be poached.  The ultimate example: Jennifer Aniston is very cute, but Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are both gorgeous.

    • Of course, in a few years, he'll be "ruggedly handsome" and she'll be "over the hill," and he'll dump her.
    • It wasn't easy for Jen to find a man who's prettier than she is, but she managed it.
    • Of course, if you're an ugly old rich dude with a hot young wife, you won't be dumped.
    • So women have to kiss a lot of princes before they find their toad.
    • Hooray!  I've waited years for a self-help book that tells women to set their sights lower!
    • Women who think gorgeous men are a good catch SHOULD be dumped, because they're too dumb to be in the gene pool.
       

     

    PLAYBOY DOESN'T BAG 'EM ALL

    So Get A Blockbuster Card - Believe it or not, not every famous woman is posing naked.  Playboy picture editor Marilyn Grabowski says she made Halle Berry a very attractive offer 10 years ago, and Berry said, "When I've got the right film, I'll do it," but she hasn't called back.  Grabowski said she also approached Britney Spears, but Britney wanted a "ridiculous" amount of money: "It was too much, let's put it that way."

    • Really, isn't any amount of money too much?
    • And now, Britney herself is too much.
    • Give her another year and she'll do it for a Moon Pie and a Yoo-Hoo.
    • Halle should've posed for Playboy when she made "Monster's Ball;" she could've worn the same outfit.
       

     

    STALLONE PLANNING "RAMBO 4"

    Biggest Threat Facing America: White Supremacists! - After 17 years, Sylvester Stallone is preparing to make a new Rambo movie.  In this one, Rambo tries to settle down in the boondocks with his wife and family.  But local white supremacists don't like his Navaho ancestry and kidnap his daughter, so out comes the old machine gun.  Stallone says this movie will have fewer violent action scenes and be more character-driven.

    • The director is Woody Allen.
    • We'll get to learn about the painful, inner torment of the white supremacists, just before Rambo machine guns them down.
    • The action scenes can't last as long because the elderly Rambo will need to pee.
       

     

    LACK OF CRUISE CONTROL CRASHING TOM'S CAREER

    Suddenly Cruisin' - Hollywood is buzzing that Tom Cruise may be ruining his career with his odd behavior.  Studios are said to be hesitant to bankroll "Mission Impossible 3" with Tom leaping about, screaming his love for Katie Holmes, promoting Scientology and attacking psychology and medication for mental problems.  Many women told USA Today that he'd turned them off forever by scaring their idol, Oprah.  And his attack on Brooke Shields for using anti-depressants prompted her to tell People magazine, "Tom should stick to saving the world from aliens, and let women who are experiencing postpartum depression decide what treatment options are best for them."

    • If she weren't on medication, that quote would be, "WAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!"
    • That's absurd: Tom doesn't fight space aliens!...He worships them!
    • Ironically, Tom has become a walking advertisement for Lithium.
    • Don't worry about Oprah: she could kick his ass.
    • Know who seems really at peace these days?  Nicole Kidman.
       
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