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Correction:
D'oh!
Yesterday's collage labeled "Maria Bello" in The Sisters
actually seems to be Elizabeth Banks. I didn't catch it when I
looked at the pictures. In fact, I never questioned the ID
for
a second, because it really does look like Maria on her back in
that bed, but reliable sources say that it is Banks.
Other Crap:
Which Simpsons character
is like your school?
- Notre Dame = Mr
Burns
- Arkansas =
Groundskeeper Willie
- Tennessee =
Sideshow Bob
- Boise State =
Inanimate Carbon Rod
Interesting idea: "the
Nike + iPod Sport Kit"
A new baseball strategy
from a fan.
- The fan's strategy
is actually illegal because of rule 3.05a.
If you do not bat around in the first, then
the guy listed as your starter must actually
face one batter to completion.
- But one could
easily make a legal version of the strategy.
Announce a middle reliever as the starting
pitcher in every road game. If the 9th spot
in the line-up makes it to bat in the top of
the first, pinch hit for him and start the
real starter in the bottom of the first. If
not, let the middle reliever face the other
team's lead-off guy, then pull him and bring
in the real starter. That is completely
legal.
- Baseball is a very
tradition-bound game and many strategies are
avoided simply because they are not
traditional. The entire concept of a
starting pitcher could probably be
redefined. A team could legally use all of
its pitchers every day, with each guy facing
an average of three batters. If one guy is
tired or doesn't have his stuff, the manager
can skip him or pull him after a few
pitches. Would that work? I don't know, but
I know it's legal, so somebody with nothing
to lose (like the Royals) should try that
and some other "outside the box" thinking.
If Bill Veeck could come back to life and
own the Royals today, his mind would be
spinning with crazy ideas - offbeat
strategies, promotions, fan involvement ...
Today's baseball really needs that kind of
mind.
'Idol' runner-up McPhee
inks record deal
April Scott will replace
Jessica Simpson in Dukes of Hazzard 2
- It sounds pretty
good. "The Sheriff finally tosses the Dukes
in the slammer, where they are repeatedly
sodomized by large, disease-ridden men.
Hilarity ensues."
Jessica Alba Kicks Ass -
Now in Video
- Lots of material
related to the MTV movie awards. Some good
laughs in there!
D-backs pitcher admitted
illicit juicing,
and seem to have ratted out plenty of others.
Acer releases a notebook
computer with a 20 inch screen
Google Talk is up and
ready for testing.
This looks pretty cool, but I haven't tried it
out yet.
'Omen' Opens to Tuesday
Record. Total ticket sales dollars end in 666!
- "Twentieth Century
Fox's marketing ploy to release The Omen on
Tuesday - the superstitiously-significant
'6-6-06' date - paid off. The horror
picture, a remake of the 1976 thriller about
a child who's the Antichrist, raked in
$12,633,666 at 2,660 theaters. The Omen
edged out Meet the Fockers to claim the
highest Tuesday gross ever"
Step down, Aretha.
Soul has a new queen.
Paris Hilton's video for
"Stars Are Blind"
- What a voice! It's
the second coming of Minnie Riperton!
More of Heather
McCartney's so-called "porn pics."
- Unless there are
some other pictures which are much more
explicit, I have to think that The Sun and I
have quite different definitions of "porn."
A couple of them have "censored" blocks
which imply naughtier action, but the
placement of those blocks almost seems like
they were done by Jimmy Kimmel's writers.
Movie trivia. If
you're a regular reader, you know the top star
as ranked by the average quality of his
movies. (John Cazale, by a wide margin!)
Here's another bit of trivia to astound at
happy hour. Who is the
top box office star by
the average gross of his/her movies.
- You can get this if
you think about it, but you have to think
outside the box. It's not Tom Hanks or even
Daniel "Harry Potter" Radcliffe. Think about
someone who has ONLY been in
mega-blockbusters. The average gross of his
films is over $300 million.
Movie trivia:
Who is Asia's top box
office draw?
Letterman's
"Top Ten Signs It May Be
The Apocalypse"
Lewis Black: Black on
Broadway - in its entirety
The Albino Code Movie
A clip from Nacho Libre!
An Alaskan Volcano
Erupts, is first spied from space.
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Movie Reviews:
Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format.
Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.
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À nos amours (1983)
This French drama introduced Sandrine Bonnaire to the world of film. As the
film opens, she is a pubescent girl attending summer camp with a boyfriend
whose sexual overtures she is resisting. She does have sex with someone
else one night, and discovers that sex is the only thing in her life that has
ever made her happy. She loses the boyfriend, but that presents no problem
since, as cute as she is, she has no difficulty finding other people to have
sex with.
Her home life is another story altogether. Her father is a furrier, and the
only family member she likes. Her mother is a shrew, and her older brother is
dominating. When daddy gets sick of the zoo at home and leaves, she is abused
by both mother and brother.
According to Bonnaire in an included interview, the film is about how she
is looking for a man with the qualities of her father. I would have called it
a discussion as to why life is shit. Whether in film dialogue or over wine and
cigarettes, exhausting this topic seems to be one of the most popular French
pastimes. The basic presumption that life is shit is never questioned, perhaps
because it is simply self-evident when discussing life in France. Or perhaps
not. We outsiders are not privileged to know for sure.
The film has met with some acclaim. Bonnaire won a Cesar for "most
promising actress," and the film won the "best film" Cesar as well. IMDb
readers score it a very solid 7.5. One of the comments at IMDb points out that
if you understand the French mindset, you will enjoy the film, but if you
don't, it will be a tough watch. Put me in the group of people who don't
understand the French mindset.
This is a C, a solid favorite with genre fans.
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Brainscan's comments for the day actually represent some e-mail dialogue between
us as well as his reflections on the material he presented. You can certainly
feel free to add to the discussion if you care to.
Brainscan: The last of the clips and caps
from Electric Blue: Sex Model File #2. The babes o' the day are Debbie Jay,
Emma Nixon, Kathryn Shannon (who is billed as Cathy Shannon) and Minnie Champ.
These gals were active earlier in the history of British nekkidness than the two
previously offered; and Electric Blue was caught up in being artsy-fartsy, so
there's a lot of smoke and diffusion and camera movement, which all boils down
to fewer images worth playing with. Kathryn, Emma and Minnie were very active
at one time. Minnie would go on to be a Penthouse Pet and would do the usual 6
months of porn work that seems to be required of all such women. Not too
surprising, then, that her little segment of this disk includes a stint with our
friend, the gynocam. And that, gentlemen, is all I know about any of 'em.
On an unrelated note, you and I have talked about the charge one gets in finding
a scene previously hidden
of a gal known to one and all. One of the reasons I still look at old
videotapes is the hope that somehow
an A-list babe did a couple of 5-minute scenes starkers, well-lighted and
crystal clear. The equivalent would be finding Killing Me Softly after it had
been sitting there unknown to anyone but lil Miss Heather and Obi Wan. But, I
ask myself, who would it be in the best of all possible worlds? So, Scoop, if
you had the choice of an A-list beauty in a previously undiscovered Killing Me
Softly kind of role, who would you choose? Just curious.
Scoop: I suppose Annette Funicello would be #1. It
seems to me that Annette Funicello in a forgotten Radley Metzger film would be
the Holy Grail of celebrity nudity, certainly #1 among baby boomers. My own #2
choice is more personal than universal: Ingrid Bergman. #3 was never an A-lister,
per se, but I think most guys my age would love to see such a film starring
Diana Rigg. The old dreams die hard.
Other A-listers:
-
Raquel Welch, of course
-
Ann-Margret, of course
-
Liz Taylor (pre-Snickers, circa A Place in the Sun)
-
Rita Hayworth
-
Jackie Bisset
-
Winona Ryder
-
Sandra Bullock (A totally uncut xxx-rated version of A Fire on the Amazon?
That's hot!)
-
Farrah Fawcett
-
Michelle Pfeiffer
Lesser stars:
-
Kathryn Harrold
-
Kelly LeBrock
-
Heather Thomas
-
Rene Russo (maybe)
I suppose I am forgetting several.
Your choices?
Brainscan: Michelle Pfeiffer is near the top
of the list. A camera that followed her around in that Jeff Goldblum movie and
caught every square inch of the gal. Nirvana. But I like your call with
Diana Rigg. I have seen The Avengers and can appreciate why guys born in the
50's absolutely love her. The top? Well, I am thinking TV or movies of the 60's
and early 70's when women did not get nekkid all that often. Victoria
Principal in someting other than Naked Ape, for example. Jill St. John would be
nice. Linda Evans in moving pictures to complement what the Bunnymag gave us.
Racquel is a no-brainer ... but try this one on for size ... Barbara Eden. Ah,
Jeanie ... what a terrific body. How I wish there was a Dark Brothers feature
with her in it, laying about forgotten on some video store shelf. And Dawn
Wells.
Again, unrelated in the extreme, having to do with capping: 1) you did a
kick-ass job of comparing Jim Wynorski and Fred Olin Ray a week or so ago. You
know Wynorski pisses me off because he gets worse, not better, with time. Of
the more than 100 movies those two have made, more than half can be found in the
Funhouse archives. The amount of attention paid to their combined work by you
and Tuna and some of us lesser lights far outstrips the effort spent in all of
academia on Hitchcock or Eisenstein; 2) Jennifer Rubin
is the kiss of death when it comes to movie quality but there is something about
her and the DP's of her films because that gal's roles have been capped almost
100 times. The movies may stink and they may be seen by only 15 people, but all
of them will cap her nude scenes. Which brings me to The Gimp's latest news ...
23,000 performances in the database. Times capped per performance averages
(median) 3, for a total ouput of something close to 70,000 separate capping
events. Imagine the time and loving effort that has gone into it all.
Scoop: Barbara Eden is a good call.
The fact that Wynorski has gotten worse
doesn't surprise me. You have pointed out before that Jesus Franco also seemed
to get worse and worse. I don't think this phenomenon is restricted to bad
directors. Great filmmaking is something generally done by fairly young men for
young audiences. Most great directors make their signature films while in their
30s, and it is rare for a director to bloom in his 50s.
-
Ingmar Bergman's top eight films were all made before he was 55, and he hasn't
added one to the top group in the past 34 years. His signature film, the Seventh
Seal, was made when he was in his 30s.
-
Tarkovsky was dead before he reached 55, but his last two films were his worst.
His masterpiece, Andrei Rublev, was made when he was in his 30s.
-
Kurosawa's first masterwork, Roshomon, was made when he was in his 30s. His
other most memorable film, The Seven Samurai, was made when the master was about
43.
-
Kubrick made his top five films while aged 29-52. His masterwork, Dr
Strangelove, was made when he was in his 30s.
-
Coppola directed the two Godfather films and Apocalypse Now when he was in his
30s.
-
Peter Jackson started the Lord of the Rings movies when he was in his 30s, but
the project went on so long that the last one was released when Jackson was 42.
-
George Lucas did Star Wars when he was in his 30s.
-
Orson Welles did Citizen Kane when he was 26. We tend to think that he made
Touch of Evil late in his life, but this is not so. It only seems to be true
because Welles started so young and had already been around so long. Touch of
Evil was made when Welles was only 42 or 43!
I can name only one filmmaker who suddenly blossomed into a full-fledged
certified genius when he was in his fifties, and that would be Sergio Leone, who
directed Once Upon a Time in America after a decade of total indolence. But the
judgment of history does not agree with me on this point. IMDb rates his two
great Spaghetti Westerns higher - and those were made ... sho' nuff ... when he
was in his thirties.
You mentioned Hitchcock earlier. He was the exception. He was the one guy who
just seemed to get better and better as he aged. He made Psycho when he was 61
and The Birds when he was 64, and he actually made his very best movies (North
by Northwest, Vertigo, Rear Window, and others) when he was in his fifties. But
he was certainly no late bloomer. He made great movies throughout his life.
Brainscan: You know, I think it is getting close to
seven years since I sent in my first offering ... at least I think it was the fall
of '99. And if I recall all this correctly, Tuna, Oz and I all came on board
within a few months of one another. Tempus fucking fugit!
Back to Brainscan's contributions:
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Pat's comments in yellow...
According to a new book called "The Human Voice," women's voices are getting
deeper. A study of women in Australia found that between 1945 and 1993, the
average pitch of their voices dropped 23 hertz. Some studies claim it's
possible to make all sorts of conclusions about people based on their voices.
Since high-pitched voices are considered socially-inferior in the West, women
may be purposely or subconsciously lowering their voices to be taken more
seriously.
* During the 1970s, the average male voice pitch went up
63 hertz, but that
was mostly due to the Bee Gees.
A woman was arrested in Oklahoma City after police spotted her two children left
alone in a club's parking lot. They told the cops their parents were inside the
bar. Police say they found the kids' mom dancing naked on a table. They
arrested her and released the kids to the custody of their father on the scene.
* Their father must be really responsible, if he was
right there on the
scene.
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