Thursday

Tuna
"The Faculty"

The Faculty (1998) is a decent alien invasion horror flick with a cast that included Piper Lorie, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen and Summer Phoenix, and a bunch of talented newcomers. The invasion takes place in an Ohio High School (actually filmed in Texas). The aliens enter the bodies of the faculty members, who can then infect others. Six kids band together to stop them. The aliens are highly subject to dehydration, and one of the six kids makes his own dope which is essentially a diuretic, so they have the weapon needed.

Laura Harris is nude near the end of the film, but shows only breasts and buns in poor light. The vast majority of the film takes place at the High School. IMDb readers have this in the watchable range at 6.1, and it earned an impressive $75.1M against a budget of only $15M. Berardinelli hated it at 1 1/2 stars, but I can't work up that much emotion over it. I don't expect much from the genre, and this was a reasonable genre effort, so C.

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  • Laura Harris (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

    "The Butterfly Effect"

    The Butterfly Effect (2004) is called a Drama/SciFi/Thriller at IMDb, but Berardinelli argues convincingly that it more properly belongs in the fantasy category. Evan (Aston Kutcher) suffers from blackouts as a boy, and his mother fears that he is going insane as his father did. Later in life, he starts remembering the blackout periods in dreams, after reading a journal he had kept. He then discovers that he can time travel and alter the past.

    The story centers around him and three others, Amy Smart, her brother William Lee Scott, and Elden Hensen. Smart and Scott have a pedophile father. In the original life, the father makes home porno films of them. That, and another incident leave them all rather dysfunctional. Evan sets about fixing everything, but no matter what he tries to change, something unpredictable happens, and things are just as screwed up, but in a different way.

    This is supposedly based on chaos theory, which holds that a butterfly beating its wings can cause a hurricane half way around the world. We have breast exposure from two women, Jacqueline Stewart and Amy Esterle. Ebert found it interesting, but a little long and awarded 2 1/2 stars, while Berardinelli was enthusiastic at 3 stars. It earned $57.7M against a modest $13M budget. It was filmed mostly in Vancouver, BC. The DVD contains both the theatrical version, and a longer directors cut, which, in this case, is really the film the directors wanted to release, but were overruled by the distribution company. The DVD includes a commentary, deleted scenes, and more. I found act one slow going, but thought the film really picked up steam once the time travel started. This is a C+ or better. This is not really my sort of film, and I found it watchable.

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  • Amy Esterle (1, 2, 3, 4)
  • Jacqueline Stewart (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

    • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    OTHER CRAP:

    Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones 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.

    Shiloh

    Words from Scoop.

    .avi's from Shiloh.

    .wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

    NOTE: because of a unique combination of circumstances with the Windows media player and some substantial bandwidth theft, we will have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Left click on the files as you normally would to view a picture. When you get a choice, click on "save", and put it on your hard drive in the directory of your choice. UnZIP and play from there.

    I know this is not especially convenient, but it allows the film clips to continue. I can protect .zip files from hot-linking in the same way I can protect still images. For some reason, if I protect .avis and .wmvs from hot-linking, they will not play in the Windows media player, and I can't get a satisfactory work-around. Perhaps I will find a better solution, but for now this new policy allows you to continue getting the movie clips you want to see, which is much preferable to my abandoning the clips altogether.

     

    Her one time

    • C'mon, tell me there could be someone out there who did NOT have a crush on Glynnis O'Connor? Here she is in a sweet (but forgotten) little coming of age flick, California Dreamin'. (.avi - zip) (.wmv - zip)

    • Clip two from California Dreamin'. (.avi - zip) (.wmv - zip)

    Bonus

    (Not from Shiloh )

    • Here are two small excerpts from the "Cameron Diaz pre-fame video" that is circulating on the net.  (1, 2).  I'd say it is absolutely, really Cameron.

     

     

    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.

    Scandals and such...
    Here's a quick breakdown of some of the latest sex and/or nudity scandals.

    As reported in Other Crap yesterday...

    • Scenes from the S&M themed video Cameron Diaz made before she became a star! The quality is terrible, but it's definitely her, and she's definitely topless and in leather. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

    • As promised, and whether we wanted to see it or not, Macy Gray performed nekkid on stage in London during a charity concert.


    An older sex scandal, but still a good one.

    • Former "Baywatch" babe Gena Lee Nolin baring all and gettin' it on in a "stolen home video".

    Brainscan
    Comments by Brainscan:

    Scoops,

    Just in case you haven't seen this yet....I never watch Entertainment Tonight, but I might have to start if'n they are going to show this kind of stuff. Damn, that Jessica is extraordinary, even by Hollywood standards.

    Crimson Ghost
    NOTE: We currently have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Instead of viewing them online, save the zip files to your hard drive in the directory of your choice, un-zip and play from there.


    The Ghost recently went on vacation and we wish him the best!

    But before he left, he sent in about a gazillion .wmvs and vidcaps of some of his favorite Skinemax babes for all of us to enjoy.

    Today in part 1 of many, we have Lisa Boyle in scenes from "Midnight Tease". Topless in almost all of the image links, plus thong views in #1 and #2 and pubes in links 8 and 19.

    As for the vids...
    vid #1...undies only
    vids 2-6...toplessness and pseudo-sex.
    vid #7...All 3 B's in a shower scene.

    Dann
    'Caps and comments by Dann:

    "The Belly of an Architect"
    Slow-paced character studies tend to bore me, but that doesn't make this 1987 drama/love story a bad movie, just not the kind I really get in to.

    An American architect goes to Italy to supervise an exhibition of the French architect Boullée, who is famous for building oval structures in Italy. The American, quite stuck on his own limited success, brings his wife and a superior attitude as he attempts to show the Italians how it should be done.

    Among the people he must deal with is an Italian architect who resents his attitude, but likes his American wife. As things progress, badly for the American, he becomes convinced that the stomach ailment he is fighting is brought on by being poisoned by the local guy and/or the wife.

    While things do tend to drag, the acting is excellent, and Brian Dennehy does a better-than-I-expected job as the over-stuffed and suffering architect, with a nice twisty ending to wake you up.

    Scorpion's Skinemax
    Allyson Chaynes
    (1, 2, 3)

    Sunny Lee
    (1, 2)

    		Both blondes show robo-hooters and some brief pube views in pseudo-sex scenes from the made for cable series "Hotel Erotica", episode, "Falling in Lust Again".

    Gabriella Hall
    (1, 2)

    Jennifer Burton
    (1, 2)

    		Again, two out of the 3 B's. This time in scenes from "Beverly Hills Bordello", episode "Inspiration".

    Variety
    Elisha Cuthbert Fantastic cleavage in scenes 'capped from an advance copy of "The Girl Next Door"! The rest of us will be able to get it on DVD August 24th.

    Catherine Bell The beautiful "JAG" star showing off some lovely cleavage.

    Jessica Collins A collage by ZonononZor featuring the "Tru Calling" co-star looking wonderfully topless in scenes from the new made for Showtime drama, "The Ranch".

    Courteney Cox D'OH! part 2. My apologies to the Courteney fans for messing up this link yesterday. Once again...here is a great collage by Hugo of brief and rarely seen toplessness in a pre-"Friends" movie. Scenes from 1991's "Blue Desert".

    Michelle Ruben
    (1, 2)

    		If you're like me, then you recognize her as a member of the Swedish Suntanning Team from "Boat Trip". However if you prefer to watch movies and shows that don't stink, then here she is playing a topless dancer in scenes from an episode of the HBO series "Six Feet Under". 'Caps by SiM.

    Molly Parker Señor Skin 'caps from the excellent made-for-cable western "Deadwood". Technically this is a see-thru nipple sighting, but it could easily pass as 'toplessness'.