My Condition...

It was the extreme shortness of breath that got my attention. I was admitted to the hospital in atrial fibrillation with a heart rate of 180. They rather quickly drained 1.4 liters of bloody fluid from my right lung. They have subjected me to dozens of tests, and ruled out many possible causes of this, but they still don't know what went wrong. I am still in atrial fibrillation, but with a heart rate under control using 3 drugs. I am home waiting for some of my medication to reach the proper level in my system, then I may have another hospital stay to try and convert my heart to normal rhythm.

I am able to spend some time at the computer, and am again reading my Email.

Tuna

9 Songs (2004)

I have talked about this before. It has been called "the most sexually explicit film in the history of British cinema" and "a stultifying, self-conscious, and flesh-creepingly repulsive lot of codswallop."

I suppose both are right.

Except for a framing device which allows the director to tell the story in flashback, the film is nothing two people enjoying sex, drugs, and rock and roll. I suppose I would have thought it was kinda cool in 1968, so if you've never seen a naked woman doing sexual things, you might enjoy it, secure in the knowledge that when you do get laid, the woman will have to be more attractive than this chick. Come to think of it, she would fit right in in 1968. She's pretty much just as ugly as that girl in I Am Curious (Yellow).

And her acting ... well, let's just say that if a great cataclysm destroyed every actress in the world except Margo Stilley and Pam Anderson, Pammy would be our Lady Macbeth.

• Thumbnails (1, 2)
• Margo Stilley (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)

7 Seconds (2005)

I guess I should know the answer to this question but is Wesley Snipes the only guy who freely moves back and forth between theatrical releases and straight-to-video projects? Normally one is relegated either to the Steven Seagal job or the Keanu Reeves job, but Snipes seems to be both the black Keanu and the black Seagal, which is pretty amazing if you think about it.

This is yet another of those made-in-Eastern-Europe second tier action movies which seems vaguely reminiscent of every other action film you've ever seen, but is still competent enough and interesting enough to hold your attention. Snipes plays a master thief. Well, as usual there is more to it. A hero/thief can never just be a thief, can he? He's always forced to be a thief because of something noble he did in the past that was misinterpreted by others, or some similar crapola rationalization. In this case, our crooked hero was a special forces guy who fell on his sword to protect a comrade as a matter of honor. As a result of his selfless action, he did time in Leavenworth, and when he got out, he found that thievin' was about the only lucrative profession open to him. He has arranged a sweet armored car heist in Romania. It's a little confusing at first, but quite clever. We see his failed robbery of three armored trucks doing casino pick-ups in Bucharest, Romania. It turns out that the failed robberies were just a decoy to get all of the trucks into a red alert situation which would allow Snipes to get all the money from every casino. In the process of pulling off the heist, Snipes also picks up a suitcase which has been guarded by two armed men who are handcuffed to the case. Snipes doesn't know what's in it, but he knows it must be worth stealing. After his gang manages to pull off the entire deal without a hitch, and it driving safely home, they are beset by another larger gang of brigands who kill almost all of Snipes's men and get all the money. Somehow, however, Snipes manages to run off with the suitcase.

The rest of the film involves the usual game of cat-and-mouse. Snipes knows that a member of his own gang has betrayed him, so he starts to track down the ones still alive. He also needs to figure out what is so special about the contents of that suitcase. The second gang, meanwhile, doesn't even care about the twenty million dollars in casino money. They just really want that suitcase! They are therefore combing Bucharest for Snipes. The police, on the other hand, aren't really aware of the second gang at all, and think ol' Wesley is responsible for killing his own men plus some Romanian cops. Snipes is thus trapped in a predicament where everyone, good and bad, wants to capture him, and he can't even trust any of his friends because he knows that one of them betrayed him.

The set-up phase of the film is actually better than the resolution. Everything ultimately leads to a predictable denouement after the usual urban chase scenes, explosions, gunfights, and car crashes. In fact, the predictability in the film's last act is the only thing really weak about this movie. The first half of 7 Seconds is reasonably interesting, if a bit confusing, when the crosses and double-crosses engage one's mind, but after the curtains have been drawn back and all the secrets revealed, the film goes on for another 30-40 anticlimactic minutes with nothing left in the tank except gunfights and explosions. Despite a weaker second half, it is still one of the better straight-to-video action films. What it lacks in originality, it makes up in competence. The acting is satisfactory, the character development is adequate for an action film, the banter is sometimes amusing, the production values are fine, the cinematography and editing are solid, and the DVD transfer looks rich and professional. Moreover, Snipes is just plain more likeable and entertaining and human than the other guys who make straight-to-vids. 7 Seconds is definitely a cut above the recent straight-to-video efforts of Seagal and Stallone, and I even made it all the way through without using the fast forward button (although I sort of regretted that because the last thirty minutes were completely formulaic).

• Georgina Rylance (1, 2, 3)

Other Crap:

• Pranking on a McDonald's Sign
• Spanish law to rule out sexism. Yup. Check this page in about a year, and I'll be reporting that sexism in Spain is a thing of the past.
• Jon Stewart explains the difference between the Billy Graham Crusade and the Gay Pride Parade.
• The trailer from the one sequel everyone has been anticipating. Is Kyser Sose back in The Usual Suspects Two? Nah, that's small potatoes. I'm talkin' Big Momma's House 2.
• Eleven clips from Fantastic Four
• The Blue Booklet (notorious guideline to prostitutes)
• R&B Crooner Luther Vandross Dies at 54
• Uncle Scoopy's Guest House presents Nicole Eggert in Secret Sins
• All About Torgo
• WTF?? Jack Nicklaus will be featured on a 5-pound note to be issued by the Royal Bank of Scotland.
  • He replaces the current face, that of Groundskeeper Willie.
  • No real, living person, other than a member of the British Royal Family, has ever appeared on a Scottish or English banknote.
  • I like Jack a lot, but this seems crazy, especially given that he has a sponsorship agreement with RBS. Let's see - he puts their name on his golf bag, and they put his name on their banknotes. Sounds fair. I think I need to cut a deal between Other Crap and the U.S. Mint. I think I'd look great as a replacement for Susan B. Anthony. Ah, the Uncle Scoopy Dollar. I'll bet people would pay as much as 60-70 cents for one of  those.
• Supreme Court Justice O'Connor Resigns. This could trigger quite a wild battle over the nomination of a replacement.
• Tony Blair may remove his testicles from blind trust and snub the U.S. on global warming. The other six members of the G-8 have agreed on a position, leaving only President Bush and Blair on the outside. Blair sincerely believes that global warming is mankind's' greatest threat and requires a concerted effort from the developed nations, while President Bush prefers to deal with the problem through faith-based cooling.
• Weekly World News: "HOW TO GET WOMEN TO PAY ON DATES!"
• "Build a better mousetrap ... " department. "the best FAKE DOG POOP ever!"
• New state laws in Michigan and Utah make everything illegal.
  • Well, now that I think about it, just about everything done in Detroit is illegal.
  • "These laws regulate much more than just adult entertainment content. They actually make it a crime for our newsletter to link to any site containing ads for alcohol, tobacco, credit-card and financial accounts, mortgages, car rentals, gambling, and the myriad other things that minors aren't supposed to have."
  • You know the saddest thing about these laws? I'll give you five-to-one odds that the people who are in charge of enforcing them think that the virus-laden mail they get from something.com actually comes from something.com!! They will tie up thousand of hours of law enforcement time only to find that the mail was sent from some island in the South Pacific and shunted through some anonymous remailer in Finland, and that something.com was just a dummy address plucked off by e-mail harvesting software.
• Today's front pages from around the world. This would be a very useful bookmark, but the site is so slow that by the time the flash loads they are yesterday's front pages.
• "fags can starve your hair of oxygen and make it dull, lifeless and brittle." Then how do you explain Hollywood hairdressers?
• The Axe-Woodsman Bacon-Grease Bear-Paw Cookbook
• How to cook a whale found dead.
• "Watch Deep Impact's Comet Collision Via Webcast"
• Letterman's Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear At A July Fourth Barbecue.
  • "Beef is great, but squirrel's so much cheaper"
  • "I'd like to tell you why scientology is so important to me"
• Free legal download of "ass to mouth" from Pizazz!
• AUSTRALIA: VICTIMS OF VICTORIA'S RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE LAW. It's another one of those laws that allows the government, rather than the individual, to determine the boundaries of public discourse. Incomprehensible to Americans, who take the treasured First Amendment for granted, is a Germany which considers it great progress that they went from forbidding anti-Nazi speech to forbidding pro-Nazi speech. Let's face it, either way one is allowed to say only what the government says is all right. That thinking always comes around to haunt you when it's time for the next group to take power, and that time will come.
• Managing your investments to provide a hedgehog against inflation just got harder, because hedgehogs do not like tidy gardens "Dinnsdale!"
• No! Say it ain't so, Joe! Schoolgirls forced to wear pants.
• THE ABORTION SONG HEARD MANY TIMES THIS WEEK ON THE HOWARD STERN RADIO SHOW
• The trailer from The Aristocrats
  • "Comedy veterans and co-creators Penn Jillette and Paul Provenza capitalize on their insider status and invite over 100 of their closest friends, (who happen to be some of the biggest names in entertainment, from George Carlin, Whoopi Goldberg, Drew Carey to Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Saget, Paul Reiser and Sarah Silverman, just to name a few) to reminisce, analyze, deconstruct and deliver their own versions of the world's dirtiest joke, an old burlesque routine, too extreme to be performed in public, called 'The Aristocrats'."
• Fish whopper: 646 pounds - a freshwater record (with extraordinary picture)
• Incredible video. 457 foot ferry crashes into a small marina In West Vancouver. Astoundingly, nobody was hurt.
• Batman and Obi-Wan couldn't save the day, but at last there is hope for the film industry. Barry Manilow is planning a movie version of his musical Copacabana.
• Brooke Shields and Tom Cruise continue the war of the words.
• Alleged Net pirates raided across the globe: "The government announced an 11-nation crackdown Thursday on Internet piracy organizations responsible for stealing copies of the latest Star Wars film and other movies, games and software programs worth at least $50 million."

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.

Today we feature "Babes in Bondage".

We took the old Time Machine all the way back to 1965 for a B & W grindhouse feature called "Tortured Females". Now don't get excited it's not at all explicit, remember it was 1965!

So what we have are Denise Dubois and a bevy of unknowns at the hands of a couple of weirdo's in an old shack in the woods. They are a little tied up and there is some whipping. Plus of course some boobs & butt along the way.

The last two caps are just Denise frolicking around in the great outdoors with some nice exposure.

• Denise Dubois (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

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

Kristin Novak

Charity Rahmer
and
Kristin Novak
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Pilar Lastra
(1, 2)

"Days of Our Lives" and "Cheerleader Massacre" co-star Charity Rahmer looks pretty good topless...Kristin Novak doesn't look too bad either.

"Forced Vengeance"
Stiff as a board and green as grass in his second film, Chuck Norris delivers just what you expect in 1982's Forced Vengeance. The story is predictable and formulaic, the action is fun to watch but hokey, and there's plenty of draggy spots in between. Still, that's exactly what Norris fans expect.

The plot involves a casino security guard who fights the mob in Hong Kong. When the casino owner, his dearest friend, is murdered, he sets out on a quest for....what else, vengeance. Then, they kill his girlfriend, and really piss him off. Basically, that's it.

For Chuck Norris/action fans, this will provide a pleasant no-brainer ninety minutes, and that's about all.

• Mary Louise Weller
• Susie Hall

PENIS CONTROL CENTER LOCATED
Microscopic, In Fact - New Scientist magazine reports that Christian Kell of Germany's University of Frankfurt has finally located the part of the male brain that controls the penis. Since the 1920s, scientists have argued about where the genitals fall on the "homonculus," the brain map of body parts. Kell located it by stroking parts of volunteer's bodies with a brush while monitoring their brains with an MRI scan. Kell said the only depressing thing is that the area is "very small."

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