"La Llorona "

La Llorona (The Wailer) (2006) is a horror film based on the Mexican legend of the crying woman, who supposedly killed her two children so her man would be closer to her. When he reacted badly, she killed herself, and haunts whatever needs haunting to this day. In this case, six college friends on vacation in Mexico find all the local hotels full, and rent a cabin, which, of course, belonged to La Llorona. The first guy to have sex dies first, or course. In a refreshing twist, the Mexican characters speak mostly Spanish, while the college kids speak English. The DVD also has a Spanish language version. This seems to be aimed at least partially at a Hispanic audience.

Brenda Lynn Mejia as one of the three girls shows her breasts when she looses at strip poker. Nicole Danielle removes her top, but has body paint over her nipples. Vanessa Rice stays dressed.

IMDb barely lists this one. The gore effects are top notch. The acting in the first act was good. Unfortunately, the female cast members do not shriek intelligibly, making it hard to hear them in the second and third acts. There is a nifty surprise ending, and, of course, room for a sequel. I would have preferred more nudity and more character development, but it would have required a longer running time to accomplish. All in all, it is a workman like slasher, C-.

Brenda Lynn Mejia Nicole Danielle

Pickup on 101 (aka Where the Eagle Flies) is the epitome of a 70's made for TV movie. The whole story is episodic, with exactly six 13-minute vignettes that would have left plenty of time for Alka-Seltzer commercials. The screenwriter and director spent their lives in television, the lead actors (Martin Sheen and Jack Alberston had already and would again for three more decades find themselves on the small screen. And the lead actress had just come off a stint as resident babe in the last year of Mission Impossible, where she had been hired to sexy-up the proceedings. That actress would be Lesley Ann Warren. Ah, Lesley Ann. Such a babe. Those eyes and those boobs...both as big as all outdoors. I loved the way the gal looked when she was young, even though IMHO she could not act a lick. Not an opinion shared by many, apparently, because even though she is pushing 60 she continues to work in Hollywood.

Anyway, back to the main point. Pickup is a made-for-TV from start to finish...except for one thing. For the first and only time Lesley Ann showed off them nighty fine hooties. The scene is a 3-second, after-shower extravaganza and were this Kari Wuhrer or Kate Winslet no one would bother it because there are so many other, better scenes in which to see them nekkid. But it is Lesley Ann. One time only.

Pickup is a road movie, with Martin and Jack and Lesley Ann making up an unlikely trio headed in the same direction. They get together, they drift apart, they get back together in a most unlikely way and then with about ten minutes to go, Jack's character kicks the cosmic bucket. I wished I had a half-hour earlier. This is a cookie-cutter hippy-dippy road film that is so very serious about its subject, whatever that happens to be at the moment. And I despaired as I watched it come to a close that I'd seen all it had to offer around minute 10, when Lesley gave us the one and only peak at a couple of natural wonders. But then with Jack dead, the remaining two characters decide to cremate him, collect his ashes in a coffee can and spread them to the wind. And that was when I started to laugh. And laugh and laugh...just as I had when I first saw The Big Lebowski. God Bless The Dude and Walter and Donny...they saved this movie for me. Those who have reviewed it favorably on IMDb and those have scored it a 5.5 must have remembered it too for nothing other than that or large stocks of illicit drugs can explain their positive feelings for it.

To document this histroical event of Lesley Ann exposure I put together 4 collages; a fifth shows her a tad later, wrapped in a towel. She came ever so close to giving us a view of her furry bits. It was not to be, however. Much like the rest of her career, she would stay covered...sadly so. To think what might have been.

Lesley Ann Warren

From the NY Post, Page Six:

NATALIE IN BUFF
NATALIE Portman will do "the full Monty" and appear totally naked in her new film, "Goya's Ghosts," a biopic on Spanish painter Francisco Goya. Portman will play the artist's muse, who is accused of atheism and then stripped in a torture scene. Portman, 24, was shot naked in "Closer," but begged director Mike Nichols to edit it, and ended up dancing in a thong. Portman denied at the time that she was doffing her duds to shed her childlike Princess Amidala persona from "Star Wars." "I don't do it in order to prove something," she said. "I just go on with my life and do what feels right."

FRESHMEN MUST BE WARNED ABOUT EVERYTHING
It's Too Late, Anyway - The Boston Globe reports that the latest crop of college freshmen have been so coddled by their parents, and their lives have been so structured and sheltered, they have no street smarts at all. Orientation officials say they have to warn freshmen not to drink until they get sick, not to get addicted to poker, not to post compromising photos of themselves on the Internet, not to hang out on train tracks, and every other danger they can possibly think of. A Boston University dean said they thought kids would know not to try to walk across the ice on the St. Charles River, but no. He said officials say to themselves, "Wow," what will these kids have to be warned about next?

* Well, are they aware that beer bottles aren't edible?
* He now warns them against everything except not to have sex with the dean.
* They're actually having to baby-proof the dorm rooms.
* They can't drink themselves sick, gamble insanely, get naked in public and do dangerously stupid things? What else is college FOR?!

EINSTEIN'S CHICK TROUBLE
He's No Einstein - Monday, Hebrew University released letters written by Albert Einstein to his wife Elsa, which his daughter wanted kept secret until 20 years after her death. Experts say they dispel the notion that the great genius was cold to his family, because they seem very friendly. Einstein tells his wife all about his 10 or so girlfriends and even complains to her about how some of those "dames" are "out of control," chasing him as he travels Europe and showering him with too much unwanted affection.

* They'd heard he had a gigantic organ, but they didn't realize it was his brain.
* Some chicks are really turned on by bed hair.
* He told his wife about that?! Are they SURE he was a genius?
* Imagine how smart Einstein would've been if his wife hadn't been constantly cracking a rolling pin over his head.

"STREISAND" FILM FOR SALE: "I'M THE GREATEST PORN STAR"
Wow, That's A New Kind Of Nosejob! - Someone on eBay is offering an 8mm, 1960s-vintage alleged sex movie of Barbra Streisand and an unknown man. The seller describes it as silent and sepia tone, but very clear and sharp. Even though copies already circulate on the Internet, the seller has set the minimum opening bid for the film at $250,000. But in an interview years ago in Playboy, Streisand denied it was her, saying you can tell because the naked woman in the sex movie has stubby fingers, which she does not.

* That's right: Barbra has three-inch acrylic nails, and the woman in the movie does not.
* Also, the naked woman's breasts are bigger than her nose.
* Also, Barbra thinks love is soft as an easy chair, and this chick obviously thinks it's hard as a steel rod.
* If it really is Barbra Streisand naked, I'll pay him $250,000 to burn it.