Thursday

Mailbox:

Thanks to the experts who filled me in on Emilie DeRaven and the alleged Marilyn Monroe stag tape. The MM answer has been consolidated from several responses.

re: Emilie: A pic from this set first appeared in FHM a few years back and then in a Girls of FHM special. Subsequently other shots from the shoot (like the one from yesterday's Fun House) have turned up.

re: Marilyn: A film in the 1950s called The Apple Knockers and the Coke was purported to feature Marilyn Monroe, but is now recognized to star Playboy model (08/54 POM) Arline Hunter"  (Source:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_sex_tape.)   The movie short can be found, among other places, on the DVD called "The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield," which is widely available for less than 15 bucks. 

 

Some more great film clips:

Three clips from Basic Instinct 2. In the first clip, Morrissey peeks in on an orgy and watches Sharon Stone get it on. In the second, they have sex, spiced by asphyxiation. In the third, they get violent and nasty in the hot tub. There will be many more clips from this film when the DVD streets on July 11th.

Breaking the Waves can never be accused of mediocrity. Everything about it is either exceedingly good or pathetically bad. (Movie House Review). The best thing about it was a very brilliant and very naked performance by Emily Watson, who was nominated for both an Oscar and a BAFTA. She lost both, although I would have voted for her. Brenda Blethyn (Secrets & Lies) won the BAFTA and Frances McDormand (Fargo) won the Oscar. I wondered if she would become one of the great actresses, but I was off-target. Although she's gone on to a quietly competent career in general, Watson has never again given a performance of comparable depth. This zipped .avi shows her full-frontal nudity.

Lea Thompson and Tom Cruise in All the Right Moves.  (Movie House Review). The early 80s were the Golden Age of coming-of-age movies. Cruise, Cusack, and Broderick established their careers by excelling in that genre in that time. Cruise had four such films in 1983 alone! All the Right Moves, Risky Business, Losin' It and The Outsiders. 1983 was his year. In 1982 he had been an unknown. Lea Thompson didn't become a superstar, but she won our hearts and showed off a magnificent body in this zipped .avi

Evil Breed: the Legend of Samhain includes about an hour of boring set-up followed by some crazy nudity and gore. This is one where you have to read the review, because the movie has a fascinating back-story. (Movie House Review) This zipped .avi shows porn star Jenna Jameson being torn apart by a homicidal monster. Important note: the British and American DVDs include only the tame R-Rated version, which the director hates. The unrated version, with the uncut scenes and deleted scenes, is only available in Canada! (Link here)

 

Day of Wrath (2005)

Very minor spoilers:

Day of Wrath is very much targeted at those who enjoyed The Name of the Rose. Like its more famous predecessor, Day of Wrath is a story about a rational man trying to solve some murders in an unenlightened pre-modern world controlled by religious superstition, and filled with corruption within the ranks of both church and state officials. Like The Name of the Rose, Day of Wrath also deals with a legendary missing historical artifact. This time it is not "Aristotle's Comedics," but a mysterious list of noble Spanish families. A 16th century sheriff investigates the lineage of the great Spanish families and finds that there are two versions of history. Some of the official books of genealogy include family names which are not in other versions. The sheriff then comes into possession of a mysterious list which includes the same exact families which comprise the difference between the two versions of history. What does all that have to do with his murder case? Well, the mysterious list is also a perfect match for the roster of murder victims.

Most movies with complex historical backdrops are more interesting if you know the background in advance, so I usually summarize the pertinent historical context in my comments, but I am not going to do that in this case because anything I tell you would be at least a partial spoiler. The story works best if you don't know very much about the details of the Spanish Inquisition and the historical circumstances which caused the Inquisition to be created in the first place. Furthermore, the film eventually gives you all the details which I might describe here, but presents them in a sequence designed to allow you to maximize your enjoyment of the mystery.

The sheriff is played by Christopher Lambert, who has not had such a meaty role in about two decades. If you are familiar with his work, I don't have to tell you that Lambert has a very limited number of facial expressions, that his voice is not sonorous, or that he delivers most of his lines in an uninflected monotone with some kind of indefinable accent. Moreover, he is nearly 50 years old, and that's not a great age to be engaging in rollicking swordsmanship and strenuous horseback riding - including some fights between men on horseback. In spite of all those things, he handles the role with satisfactory professionalism. He doesn't have the swaggering macho charisma of Sean Connery or the creative and sophisticated line readings of Kenneth Branagh, and his age prevents him from being Doug Fairbanks in the action scenes, but Lambert realized that this was a good project for him, and he gave his all to this movie. Nobody can accuse him of phoning it in. He has the right "period look," and I believe he gives about as good a performance as he is capable of giving, and he seems to have done almost all of his own stunts. Lambert does look somewhat clumsy in the physical scenes from time to time, but the sheriff is supposed to be a heavy drinker, so his lack of grace fits right into the character.

You won't find that this film has the sophistication of The Name of the Rose, which was directed by the highly accomplished Jean-Jacques Annaud from an exceedingly complex novel by the brilliant Umberto Eco. In comparison to that minor masterpiece, Day of Wrath has some clumsy continuity problems, does not delve into the historical nuances, does not give off much of the feel of Spanish culture, and seems to reveal some of its secrets too early, but it's still well worth a watch, because it has some real positives:

  • It has several interesting characters, including a fascinating Hungarian mercenary.
  • It has some impressive-looking Gothic locations, and I especially liked the look and feel of the interiors. The libraries, churches, and houses were obviously created from period paintings. (The entire film, including the studio shots, was filmed in Budapest, and it was made with a substantial budget, reportedly $12 million.)
  • There is some nice nudity.
  • Above all, the mystery is both interesting and educational.

I can't believe I'm writing this about a Lambert movie, but this is one of the best non-theatrical movies I have seen recently.

 

Blanca Marsillach   (I'm pretty sure that the butt shot is a body double.)

 

Hajnalka Pandi (maybe)

 

 

Other Crap:

 
This week in Unnecessary Censorship

A handy checklist of links to (fully dressed) pics of hot female celebs

Superman and Spider-Man, as imagined by some people who are very Italian and very mad.

WORDCOUNT / - the 86,800 most common words in English

  • Although I was not suprised to see that "the," "of," and "and" finished 1-2-3, I did not expect "Brangelina" to finish fourth.

Jeopardy nerd Ken Jennings now has a blog.

"Blige, Brown, West, Foxx lead BET winners"

Headline of the day goes to USA Today: "Hasselhoff sings and acts, and has been known to cry"

Hey Colbert - threat alert! "A freedom-loving grizzly bear named Boo smashed a heavy steel door and barreled through two electric fences to escape a second time from a BC resort."

"IN BID FOR AMNESTY, DeLAY BECOMES IRAQI INSURGENT ... Former Texas Lawmaker Changes Name to Hassan El-Medfaai"

Colbert wrestles with Hardball host Chris Matthews - literally!

Colbert Report: "Cold, Dead Fingers: They're trying to take away our guns!"

Colbert Report: Conservative Rock Songs

Colbert Report: Flagburning Amendment... One Vote Shy "Is there no one who loves our flag enough to burn one just to remind us how horrible it is?"

Colbert Report: Movies Destroying America: Summer Edition 2006

"Daily Show: Headlines - A Times to Kill. Some critics claim that when the government's in trouble they get all Nine-Eleventy up in this bitch."

Daily Show: "Ed Helms investigates the double entendre behind the Pink Taco restaurant in Arizona."

The Daily Show looks at the Freedom vs Security issue

Jon Stewart interviews the venerable newshound Helen Thomas

Weekly World News: "BUSH TO STAR ON FOX'S 24?
Rove Fears Role May Confuse Constituents"

"Kate Beckinsale Gives Her Husband a Head ... " (Or not.)

It seems Harper's Bazaar feels that Britney Spears naked and pregnant is a worthwhile cover subject.

A classic from The Onion: Gay-Pride Parade Sets Mainstream Acceptance Of Gays Back 50 Years

Separated at birth: Britney Spears and Ursula the Octopus: Britney Spears of the sea

Some clips from Overdrive

  • "Two wealthy sisters (the Duff sisters), both heiresses to their family's cosmetics fortune, are given a wake-up call when a scandal and ensuing investigation strip them of their wealth."

The trailer for The Backwoods

  • "Virginie Ledoyen and Paddy Considine play a young married couple at the end of the 1970s, who come to visit a friend (Oldman) who now lives in the Basque region because he has married a woman from there (Aitana Sanchez-Gijon). Their tranquil summer turns to horror when they discover a girl with horribly mutilated hands in the forest. They try to help her by taking her away from the home in which she is locked, but the local villagers, who have to protect the girl, start a pursuit in the forest they know much better than the visitors."

"Watch Kevin Costner and Ashton Kutcher in the trailer for 'The Guardian.'"

    Costner and Kutcher together? Let me guess what it's about: a father and son with thick Hungarian-Jewish accents (Costner and Kutcher) are emotionally devastated when they find that they are both in love with the same woman, and she's dying of cancer. They weep like babies throughout the film, and speak philosophically of the nature of life.

  • Or maybe they're laconic and stoical heroes in the Coast Guard, each essentially playing himself.
  • Could go either way.

"U.S. THREATENS TO LAUNCH ANN COULTER TOWARDS NORTH KOREA" ... Rabid Pundit Could Destroy Entire Korean Peninsula, U.N. Warns

Next Generation - THE TEN GREATEST YEARS IN GAMING

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take up a case involving one of the thornier questions in patent law: What makes an invention 'obvious'--and therefore unworthy of a patent?"

  • This is one of the thorniest elements of intellectual property law, especially as it relates to the internet. People are alwasy claiming that they own the patent on something like the pop-up window, the .jpg, content delivered in a separate frame, and other such universal elements of web construction.
  • According to the linked article, somebody claims he owns the patent on the gas pedal!

Now - play K-Fed on line - you're a bouncer and must keep K-Fed from your club. (wait about a minute for it to load)

Straight Dope Staff Report: How much money do panhandlers make?

The Rocket tosses six good innings, but the Astros fail to score him any runs.

Thanks for the mammaries: "The average size of the American breast has grown from 34B to 36C, according to manufacturers."

Could Mario Lopez defeat A.C. Slater

South Park episode: Scott Tenorman Must Die

Mellow 20th century classic: Duke Ellington & His Orchestra play Satin Doll

  • This is your only chance to hear this song outside of an elevator

Hey, kids ... Let's color Billy Ray Cyrus

25 craziest widely-reported deaths in the last 100 years

Michael Jackson to reignite his career in Europe

  • He figured if they buy into Hasselhoff, anything is possible. He has been seen looking around Ireland, possibly scouting home sites.

High-tech efforts aim to track wooden cow thieves

  • In Texas, our attitude depends entirely on disambiguation. If by wooden cow thieves, you mean, like bad actors stealing real cows, then we hang 'em.
  • If you mean wooden robots stealing real cows, we burn' em - and then we hang the evil scientists controlling them.
  • On the other hand, if you mean thieves who steal wooden cows, we honor them with statues and memorials. Austin even has the Tomb of the Unknown Wooden Cow Thief.

 

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

 

Barbed Wire Dolls (1975)

Barbed Wire Dolls, originally Frauengefängnis (Women's prison), is a Jess Franco WIP film. For once, the English title is cooler than the original one. It is basically about women in prison being tortured and sexually abused by sadistic male guards, the governor of the island, an evil bisexual warden (Monika Swinn), as well as a supposed doctor who killed the real doctor for a chance at the great job.

A plot of sorts does eventually emerge, but is not allowed to interfere with the nudity and general nastiness. Maria (Lina Romay) is in prison for killing her father, played by Jess Franco. However, it seems the warden was having an affair with Franco, and thought this the perfect opportunity to end it, so when Romay knocked him unconscious over a silly little rape attempt, the warden actually finished the job, then arranged for Romay to come to her prison so she could kill her as well. Franco made liberal use of the ol' "Vaseline on the lens" trick during the attempted rape flashback.

However, lets go back to the beginning. As the film opens, redhead Beni Cardosa is chained naked in a small cell, where she is kept just out of reach of a bowl of pasta, and beaten each time she tries to reach it. There is also a wire frame bed and springs in the room which will see plenty of use later. She is eventually broken, and placed into her cell with another crazy woman (Peggy Markoff) who constantly exposes her genitals, masturbates with cigarettes, and is fixated on Christopher Columbus. Also in the cell is the relatively normal Matine Stedil. Once Lina Romay undergoes her requisite torture, which includes electric shock on the bed springs, she becomes the fourth cellmate.

From here, things become pretty routine for the genre, except that there is no shower scene. Various officials force our four cellmates to have sex, they escape, etc...

As this is a European WIP, the ending is not a happy one.

The WIP film is one of my favorite genres of B-movie schlock, but this one is sub-standard. The cinematography has focus problems, especially in the small cell. The plot manages the unlikely combination of minimal and far-fetched. And no shower scene!!! Even with extra points for cigarette masturbation and for emptying a piss pot out the cell window on a guard, this is still only a D+.

On the positive side, the DVD transfer is nothing short of superb.

IMDb readers say 5.2.

Monika Swinn shows breasts through a negligee, and a hint of bush through the open front.
Peggy Markoff shows bush and more than one gynocam shot.
Beni Cardosa shows breasts, buns, and a hint of bush.
Lina Romay shows everything.
Martine Stedil shows everything.
An unknown guard with an automatic rifle is topless, for no apparent reason, just before she is easily attacked and killed by a prisoner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kinda hidden away on the same disc as My Brother's Wife and Indecent Desires is a mess of extras. A whole mess of 'em. Of particular interest are a couple of nudie short films starring Darlene Bennett. The first of these is called Music to Strip By and it sparkles. Not only does Darlene Bennett get topless and dance around a lot, but so does the absolute doll, Gigi Darlene. The film itself is in horrible shape but you just have to admire the boys and girls down at Something Weird Video for finding a copy and for letting all of us see it.

In addition to the two Darlenes, a third gal is in this short...a woman who in the context of the film is a professional clothing removal engineer. And she looks it. From all I have seen and read, the mid-60's were not good times for looking at live nude girls...the women were more than sorta tough-looking. This gal would have been no winner had she been the only woman on the planet, but in a film featuring the two spectacular Darlenes she looks like a dog's breakfast. But she does have the sense to go nameless, which must make her one of the first uncredited strippers in the history of cinema. Ah well, as Margaret Thatcher used to day, if you can't be gorgeous you can at least be historically important.

The first clip is Darlene Bennett and the uncredited stripper. The film quality blows chunks but Darlene has the kind of face and form that would have made her a B-movie goddess had she waited 20 years to be born. The second clip starts as Darlene Bennett's routine ends. She passes the tassles to Gigi Darlene (you will notice that even though Darlene is no Amazon she towers over Gigi. That blonde lass must have been tiny). Anyway, Gigi strips while Darlene watches and the two get back together, along with the hapless and nameless stripper.

Darlene Bennett
Gigi Darlene
Both Darlenes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Another horror movie: "Seed of Chucky."

 

Stephanie Chambers is a topless "Damsel in Distress." She is knifed  in the shower, ala "Psycho".

Then we have the "Queen of Cleavage," Jennifer Tilly. She winds up as a "Babe in Bondage" after being implanted with the "Seed."

 

 

A paparazzo caught Natasha Hamilton (of the Atomic Kittens) topless.
Another paparazzo caught Mischa Barton in a skimpy bikini
 

 


Pat's comments in yellow...


Rush Limbaugh was detained for more than three hours Monday at Palm Beach, Florida, International Airport because he had a bottle of Viagra without a prescription.  He was finally released without being charged, but the sheriff plans to refer it to state authorities, who say it could be a second-degree misdemeanor.  Limbaugh's attorney said he has a prescription for the Viagra, which is for his personal use, but the doctor didn't put his name on the label for the sake of privacy.

*  They confiscated his Viagra and let him go. That's two reasons why he won't have to do hard time. 


As part of a public toilet cleanup campaign, Singapore wants to improve their toilet cleaners' "low morale and low skills."  To turn them into proud professionals, they are importing Japanese experts in toilet technology to teach a three-day course. Graduates will earn the title of "restroom specialist."

*  It's hard earning a degree in bathroom studies.  You have to do a lot of
reading.  Mostly magazines.

*  If I wanted to go to school just so I could end up cleaning toilets, I'd
get a liberal arts degree.



Many Catholics questioned how divorcee Nicole Kidman was able to marry Keith Urban in a Catholic Church.  The BBC reports that Kidman was advised by church officials that she didn't need an annulment because her first marriage was in the Church of Scientology.  Since the Vatican doesn't
recognize that as a religion, in their eyes, her 10-year marriage to Tom
Cruise was a sham.


*  Proof that the Catholic Church is definitely right about at least one
thing.
 

 
Moose, the Jack Russell terrier who played Eddie on "Frasier," has died at 16-1/2, or 115 in dog years.  Like many stars, he had a shady past: his trainer Mathilde Halberg was called as a last resort after he kept running away and chewing up things, and he was sent to the pound's death row for killing a neighbor's cat. . 

*  Pretty much the same backstory as Alec Baldwin.