Sunday

Tuna
"Barbarella"

Barbarella (1968) has an amazing amount of nudity and sex for a PG film. It may be Jane Fonda's best exposure. For those who have never seen it, it is based on a comic book space fantasy where Barbarella (Fonda) is sent by the President of Earth to a distant planet to find a defector named Duran Duran who designed a weapon, and keep him from ending what has been total peace. During the opening credits, Fonda does a strip while weightless. It is tough to cap, as most of the frames have text all over them.

Fonda crashes into the planet, and runs into some really nasty kids, and then a man who rescues her. She ends up having sex and getting her spacecraft repaired. Unfortunately, the stabilizers are not working properly, and she bores into the ground, where she encounters and angel, and others who have been exiled for being too good. The leader of these people agrees to fix her spacecraft, and the angel, after sex with her restores his will to fly, takes her to the evil city, where she does battle with the Black Queen, and Duran Duran himself.

Fonda shows breasts and buns during the opening credits, and has various see through scenes through the rest of the film. IMDb readers have this at $5.6 of 10. It was a French production and directed by Roger Vadim. As is often the case for this type of film, the best review available is from BadMovies.org. The thing is pretty silly, and I wish someone other than Fonda would have starred, but the art direction was very nice, and some scenes are creative. I think they had about 45 minutes worth of good ideas, and padded to fill the running time. This is a C. If comic book inspired campy films are your thing, this is one of the classics.

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  • Jane Fonda (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)

    "The Day of the Locust"

    The Day of the Locust (1975) -- I assume that you all read Scoopy's excellent review last night. Unlike him, I had not read the novel this was based on, and was, in fact, expecting a "nature run amuck" horror film. I immediately liked the look of the film, and enjoyed the opening music, Jeepers Creepers. It set up as a period Hollywood romance, and I was pretty happy, then one odd scene and odd character after another showed up, often for no apparent reason. As Scoop predicted, "I have to confess, however, that I never really would have understood the point of the movie, except that I already knew it from the narrative sections of West's novel." I didn't see the point, although the surreal ending did hint at it.

    Based on some rather flimsy evidence, I suspected that there was a comparison in the film between tinsel town and Hitler's Germany. The newsreel announcer at the end of the film seemed very Hitler-like to me, the obnoxious child actor called Homer Simpson a Nazi Spy twice, and one of the characters said that you have to be Jewish to make it in Hollywood. Scoopy was able to provide some evidence from a Nathanael West scholar to support my theory.

    "Of immediate concern, West feared such perniciousness could be harnessed by a charismatic popular leader—of which the depression produced many—a "Dr. Know-All Pierce-All" who would consummate the success of American fascism, beginning in the Golden State. In 1939, with Europe and Asia descending into world war, it represented a bold, if not outlandish, political and cultural caveat."

    Anyone interested can read the full article here. There were some good performances, some well developed characters, great cinematography, and good attention to period detail, but, in the end, it went on way too long, many scenes seemed to come out of nowhere, and the message in the book was lost along the way. It is like the writers went to great effort to accurately include the whats from the book, but didn't really adapt the whys. I found it a very long watch. If there was ever a film that cried out for a decent commentary, this would be the one. Unfortunately, the DVD is featureless, and the transfer is a little grainy, which is a shame given the camera work. Comments at IMDb are evenly split between "greatest film ever made" and "boring, steaming pile of fresh dung." The average of that is obviously a C.

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  • Karen Black (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

    • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    Breezy (1973)

    Clint Eastwood has now directed two dozen feature films over a period of nearly 35 years. There's nothing really bad on the list, and there are some mighty good films in the top three spots. The variety of his projects is surprising. I guess most of us think of him as a squinty-eyed, hoarse-voiced tough guy, but there are romances and light comedies on the list with the crime stories and Westerns.

    1. (8.19) - Mystic River (2003)
    2. (8.10) - Unforgiven (1992)
    3. (7.59) - Outlaw Josey Wales, The (1976)
    4. (7.39) - High Plains Drifter (1973)
    5. (7.17) - Bird (1988)
    6. (7.00) - Perfect World, A (1993)
    7. (6.99) - Play Misty for Me (1971)
    8. (6.90) - Pale Rider (1985)
    9. (6.80) - Bridges of Madison County, The (1995)
    10. (6.60) - White Hunter Black Heart (1990)
    11. (6.50) - Space Cowboys (2000)
    12. (6.40) - Absolute Power (1997)
    13. (6.40) - Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (1997)
    14. (6.30) - Blood Work (2002)
    15. (6.30) - True Crime (1999)
    16. (6.21) - Heartbreak Ridge (1986)
    17. (6.21) - Sudden Impact (1983)
    18. (6.12) - Eiger Sanction, The (1975)
    19. (6.05) - Honkytonk Man (1982)
    20. (6.04) - Breezy (1973)
    21. (6.02) - Gauntlet, The (1977)
    22. (5.84) - Bronco Billy (1980)
    23. (5.52) - Firefox (1982)
    24. (5.23) - Rookie, The (1990)

    I don't really enjoy Breezy, a light romantic drama, not quite a "romantic comedy", the way Tuna does. I liked Bill Holden as the world-weary cynic, and Kay Lenz as the naive yet incisive Breezy, but I find the development of the film to be very, very slow going, and there's really no emotional punch until the last ten minutes. The ending is pretty darned good in a "kinda like an offbeat soap opera" way. The emotions seemed genuine, even if they were provoked by a fatal accident, which seemed like an artificial and much too obvious plot device.

    On the other hand, I do agree with Tuna's points. I didn't find the film false. When I was an up-and-rising corporate executive, in an era close to the one pictured here, maybe a bit later, I fell for a barefoot 19 year old on the beaches of Florida. The events and feelings pictured in this film were a very reasonable reflection of the way it was - the way our relationship was perceived by our friends, the way each of us was changed by the relationship, and the highs and lows we experienced in the course of our time together. We did not have a lifetime together, but we had some good time, and it lasted longer than either of us could have imagined.

    To be fair, Breezy got it close - at least as close as a movie ever gets to reality.

     

     

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    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.

    French Fliques et Chiques

     

    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:

    The writers of Charlie's Angels used to sit 'round in a room and come up with scenes in which the girls would giggle, bounce and flaunt. Then they'd write a story around those vital elements.

    Same difference with Takin' It All Off (1987), a sequel to the immortal classic, Takin' It Off. Girls strip, girls shower, girls strip some more, another girl takes a shower, each girls strip in sequence, then one girl strips in five consecutive scenes, followed by a shower, and a gang strip. Okay, now for the story.

    Not much to it really. A school for strippers decides to pay its bills by having the girls strip. Ye gads, what an idea! And those airlines that are having trouble? Maybe they can make some money by flying airplanes. Head instructor is played by Becky Mullen. She carries the early heavy lifting by getting naked in the topless and full-frontal senses of the word.

    An ingenue enters, played by Jean Poremba, who would shortly become Candi Evans and fuck like a bunny on camera. Beautiful lass.

    Jean's character is nervous about stripping so Becky calls Kitten Natividad to get the name of the hypnotist who cured her (Kitten) of her (Kitten's) own inhibitions. The quack programs Jean to strip whenever and wherever she (Jean) hears a particular song (the lyrics to which are "takin it off... takin it all off" repeated over and over again. Sorta like disco). Jean and Kitten get separately naked a lot in the middle 2/3rds of the movie.

    Big show involving Jean and Becky and Kitten and three other named strippers (one of whom is B-movie veteran, Gail Harris), one uncredited stripper and a bunch of audience members ends the movie. Along the way the movie's director provides psuedo-comic relief as Jean's hillbilly dad, obsessed as he is with Kitten's breasts. Gets a good close-up in one scene, as if you'd have to get any closer than the distance between Pluto and the sun in order to see them things.

    None of the plot is the least bit consequential, which is just okay by me. For you see, in this 90 minute movie, a good 37 minutes are spent with a nekkid babe on screen. Often more than one babe at a time. And another 30 minutes are taken up with getting the gals nekkid. A very productive use of time.

    Takin It All Off has not been released on DVD, which is something of a crime. What it means to you and me is: a) the twenty-one collages took me an age to compose; b) there are another fifty collages worth of material I would have done if the quality had been topnotch DVD stuff. Maybe some day.

    D'oh! I almost forgot....

    Two of the house strippers are played by Diane Pedersen and Laurie Gilbert. This was Diane's only movie, whereas Laurie had previoulsy posed for Penthouse and had appeared in a movie we in the U.S. are never going to see because it starred Traci Lords in her early career. Real early.

    Oz
    'Caps and comments by Oz:

    "The Professionals"
    The Professionals is one of the better westerns I've seen. Made in the 60s there are not a lot of naked ladies but Marie Gomez is seen topless from the side. Claudia Cardinale shows some magnificent cleavage and maybe some minor pokies in the second collage.

    • Marie Gomez (1, 2)
    • Claudia Cardinale (1, 2, 3)


    "Porn 'n Chicken"
    Porn 'n Chicken had a lot of potential as the movie is about a group of college students making a porn movie to help pay their way. Unfortunately, there is very little nudity. We see a bare bum shown by Angela Goethals, although it is probably a body double. They even pixelated an unidentified girl who flashes her boobs. Jenna Jameson and her silicon jugs make a cameo to explain a bit about the porn industry.


    "Multiplicity"
    If you like Michael Keaton you'll like Multiplicity, as there are three of him in this movie. Some faint see-through nipple exposure by Andie MacDowell, and Dawn Maxey and Kari Coleman are a couple of lovely ladies making out with the Michael Keatons.


    "Separate Ways"
    Plenty of naked ladies in Separate Ways and there is probably an unrestricted version of this movie with even more nudity. We manage to see action provided by Brandy Ledford, Erica Gudis, Rebekah Carlton, Michelle Jones and Jenny Strovas.


    "Equinox"
    Not having a lot of money, I've always thought that the Bloomberg pay TV channel is extremely dull. However, if it looked like what is portrayed in Equinox it would almost be compulsory viewing. The quality is not the best as we're looking at a TV screen. The clearest nudity comes from Rebecca Sabot. Lori Singer and Lara Flynn Boyle add a touch of class.

    Dann
    'Caps and comments by Dann:

    "Eurotrip"
    This 2004 "road trip" comedy is funny, which is helpful. It's also loaded with beautiful women (many nude), profanity, crude humor, great scenery, and some decent music. That is even more helpful.

    The plot is nothing special. When our just-graduated-from-high-school hero also becomes our just-dumped-by-his-girlfriend hero, he is consoled by his Internet pen-pal, a German translator, who he thinks is a guy. Then our not-as-bright-as-he-could-be hero realizes his friend is actually a beautiful young woman, and he and three friends set out for Europe to try to find happiness.

    Yeah, it's dumb and predictable, but it's also a lot of fun, and damned funny. My guess is anyone who likes looking at celebrity collages will also like this movie.....a lot. Be sure to get the unrated version.

    DeadLamb
    Jessica Simpson

    Fergie
    (1, 2)

    		'Caps from FOX's Summer Music Mania. Simpson shows off her usual cleavage, while Fergie from the Black Eyed Peas plays with her boobs, and does her usual rump shaking.

    Vanessa Marcil
    (1, 2)

    		Looking gorgeous in a bikini in scenes from an episode of the NBC series "Las Vegas".

    Nicole Scherzinger

    Tisha Campbell

    		Scenes frrom the Damon Wayons TV series "My Wife and Kids". Scherzinger looks great in a bikini, and Campbell shows a little cleavage.