Gorky Park (1983) is a very classy whodunit staring John Hurt as a Moscow based state detective who is brought in to investigate a bizarre triple murder. Three bodies are found in Gorky Park, and all of them have had their faces and fingertips removed. Hurt smells KGB from the beginning, and tries to get off the case, but is persuaded by the head of the department to stay with it. His best lead is a young woman (Joanna Pacula in one of her first roles) whose skates were found on the feet of one of the victims. Hurt's prime suspect becomes an influential American sable importer, Lee Marvin, and he forms an uneasy alliance with a New York PD detective played by Brian Dennehy. Dennehy's son was one of the three murdered, and he is in Russia for revenge.

The film is beautifully filmed, and the performances are top notch. The part of Moscow is played by Helsinki. Pacula showed breasts and buns in a lengthy sex scene with Hurt. Two things bothered me. The first was accepting Hurt as a loyal Russion police detective. An accent would probably have helped, but they elected not to do accents, with the exception of Pacula, who garnered a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Denehy was especially believable as a bear of a detective.

IMDB readers have it at 6.6/10. The film has a running time of over 2 hours, but it kept my interest throughout. I am still a little fuzzy as to what part the KGB was playing in the whole thing, but that didn't detract from my enjoyment. The film grossed $15.9m in the US alone. This is a high C+. If you like murder mysteries, this one will hold your interest.

Updates:

Updated volumes: Victoria Abril, Pam Anderson, Lisa Boyle, Jackie Bisset, Phoebe Cates, Rae Dawn Chong, Courteney Cox, Cameron Diaz, Caroline Dhavernas, Sammi Davis, Shannon Elizabeth, Claire Keim, Nastassja Kinski, Nicole Kidman, Jennifer Jason Leigh,  Mia Kirshner, Rachel Miner, Helen Mirren, Miranda Otto, Bijou Phillips, Helen Shaver, Ione Skye, Shannon Whirry, Mary Woronow, Kari Wuhrer. (302 additions)

OTHER CRAP:

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.

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MOVIE REVIEWS:

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.

Body of Evidence (1993)

Could it have been only a decade ago when Madonna could open a movie and Julianne Moore would have a tiny role? Shit do happen.

• Julianne Moore on the receiving end of a thorough rogering in Body of Evidence. ( .avi- zip) (.wmv - zip)

BONUS (not from Shiloh)

• Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke make nice-nice in Taking Lives (comes to DVD on August 17th in a "director's cut")  (.wmv - zip)

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.

In the days when Golan and Globus ran Cannon Pictures you knew pretty damn well what you were getting when you walked into the theater. Action. Lots of action. Tough guys, tough gals, bad guys, victims, villains, heroes... those were the staples, the raison d'etre for the film you were watching and for the studio that turned it out.

And Charles Bronson. You got Charles Bronson, a lot of Charles Bronson, kickin' ass and takin' names, or maybe not takin' any names but still kickin a lot of ass. Usually played a cop who had stepped outside the law, most often falsely accused, sometimes with all good intentions. Common man against The Man, that's what Charles Bronson was... a Dirty Harry for all seasons.

Charles Bronson played Murphy in Murphy's Law (1986). It could have been another 10 to Midnight, and that would have been sad because it had been done and wasn't so very good the first time, either. But Murphy is much better.

A good part of the reason for the quality of Murphy is the screenplay. Oh, there is some silliness and a couple of scenes where things happen only because if they didn't the plot would have gone in another, less dramatic direction. But by and large, the story is more than sorta okay and the dialogue is really quite respectable in moving the story along and in filling in the characters' lives so that, wholey moses, you actually care what happens to them, the big lugs.

But what really elevates Murphy's Law above the average Golan and Globus production is the cast. A young Kathleen Wilhoite, at the beginning of her career, adds a youthful bounce to things as she plays off Bronson's world-weariness. And Carrie Snodgrass, in the middle of her own career, brings gravitas to the role of a professional killer who likes her work a bit too much. They are both terrific in this movie. The very last scene where Carrie's character goes from plaintive to desperate to vindictive in the span of 60 seconds is worth the price of admission on its own.

IMDb says 5 out of 10. I put it a full point higher.

Seeing as how this a G-and-G production you can expect some T, a little A...but no, no, no B. Only question is, who supplies the T & A.

Answer is: Angel Thompkins. I could write volumes about Angel, how she was in Playboy several times in the 70's, how she played the vilest role in the history of cinema... that of a 20-something teacher who seduces her own high-school student played by Dennis the Menace (the horror, the horror)...how she did a shit-load of guest shots on TV shows and, finally, how her career just petered out as the youthful glow left her face. Twas an above-average career, to be sure, but not the one I suppose she imagined when she moved to Hollywood.

Anyway, Angel plays a stripper. You get to see her boobs and bum when she strips the first time, her boobs covered with little shiny pasties the second time. Bronson's character has history with Angel's. So he hangs out at the strip club. But he doesn't enjoy himself one little bit. Disgusted and bored is he. Bottom line here: it's okay to go to titty bars as long as you don't like it when you're there.

• Angel Thompkins (1, 2)

Kathy Wilhoite gets real close to giving up an unintentional hootie. She's in a tiny, loose-fitting bra and almost lets a nip out on a couple of occasions as she pretends to seduce a security guard.

• Kathy Wilhoite

Carrie Snodgrass is in a bra as she drowns a guy. Grabs him by the thighs and dunks him under the water til he drowns. Both of Carrie's arms, together, are thinner than one of this guy's thighs but still she pulls this off without fuss or muss. I'd have loved to have taught a course on Physics and Physiology in Hollywood, but those days are gone.

• Carrie Snodgrass

Last up in the exposure dept is a gal who gets all friendly with a bad guy before Charles and Kathy interrupt them. Pretty gal. She shows us her bum in a thong and a good part of one breast but avoids giving up the major goodies. First collage shows a sequence of bum and almost-hooter shots, whereas the second is a montage pieced together from four frames showing off her bum again.

Now, I would stop there but while I was piecing together the collage I recognized the woman. She goes by Lisa Vice in the credits and IMDb says it's her only role. Well, maybe as Lisa Vice, but as Lisa Lorient she played one of the main characters in Pretty Smart, also made in 1986. Here's an old collage of Ms. Lorient made in the days when: 1) I capped only videotapes; 2) didn't have a clue what I was doing. She and Lisa Vice are the same woman, right? Well, I think she is.

• Lisa Vice (1, 2)

So far as renting Murphy's Law is concerned it gets down to this: if you watch one movie a week and haven't seen the original Rear Window or Silence of the Lambs or Apocalypse Now, then pass on Murphy's Law until you've run out of A-list movies. When you get to the B list, however, put this one near the top.

"Playmakers"
ESPN cable series about a fictional pro football team. released on a 11-episode 3-DVD set. This is a definitive jock tv series and all the actresses are relegated to guest starring credits. Despite the adult nature of the series it shyed away from any real nudity although an actress' nipple did pop up at the very edge of a DVD frame. And if a garment is ever nominated for a supporting role then it should be awarded to Jennifer Baxter's hot pink t-shirt.

• Thea Andrews: partial breast exposure in love scene. Maybe be body double.
• Karen LeBlanc: low cut t-shirt cleavage, then in sexy teddy.
• Sarah Lafleur: cleavage, the breast sucking scene is that of a body double.
• Jennifer Baxter: very nice hot pink t-shirt.
• Angela Vint: nipple pop out in love scene.
• Dylan Bierk: cleavage having sex in bathroom stall.
• Laura Jordan: nice nipple pokies, partial breast exposure.
• Alexandria Coventry: cleavage, love scene.
• Katya Gardner: braless.
• Kristin Adams: zonked out in tight t-shirt.
• Clarissa Begin: see-through shirt.
• Jeanette Tyzer: flashing her boobs to player.
• Unknowns: various from pilot episode
• Stripper: fully clothed, then in sex fantasy.
• Strip joint: down to their g-strings and nipple pasties.
• Body double: used for reporter character.

Today from the Ghost...a look at the movie "Get Carter". No, not the Stallone stink-fest, the original 1971 Michale Caine version.

Here we have topless 'caps and clips of 60's and 70's favorite Britt Ekland...the model/actress/girlfriend.

• Britt Ekland (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
• Britt Ekland zipped .wmvs (1, 2)

DEMOCRATIC CONVENTION: IT'S ALL THE RAGE
With John Edwards As Justin Guarini - Variety noted that the major TV networks will air only one hour a night of presidential convention coverage, which is one-sixth the amount of time they devote to picking an "American Idol."