Monday

Contact junior by writing junior@scoopy.com. Contact Scoopy by writing unclescoopy@msn.com. Contact Tuna by writing tuna@scoopy.com Send submissions to scoopy@scoopy.net

To see and use all the Funhouse features, you need Netscape 6.+ or MSIE 5.+.

• Netscape 6.2.2 is available free for download or on CD.
• MSIE 6.0 is available free.

Resident Evil (2002) was covered by Scoopy a few days ago, and you can read his views from the link below. How often to you visit a video arcade and watch someone play the same game for 104 minutes? Sounds stupid to me as well, but it has a real advantage over watching this film. You can watch the video game it is based on for free. A lot of money went into the special effects and CGI, but, with frequent use of close-up and frenetic action, it still had the look of a first person POV game display. As Scoopy mentioned, most of the main characters didn't even know who they were, we see early on that nothing we learn from the film is necessarily true, and there is a sameness to all of the action. The dialogue would be within the ability of an English as a second language preschooler, and the only message, if there is one, is that corporations are bad. I already got that message from the 10 o'clock news.

So what does that leave us with? Milla Jovovich. She shows breasts from the side in an early scene, then, near the end of the film, there is a much talked about scene where we get an extended look between her legs. I went through the scene, frame by frame, and have included several images of what I saw. Trouble is, I am not sure what I saw. It is clearly the right area for vulva, possibly pubic hair, and possibly a hint of labia, but I saw no anatomical detail in any scene, Barbie has more definition than I saw here. It is my suspicion that they did minor digital blurring, possibly to prevent an NC-17. Scoopy liked this one rather more than I did. As it was clearly not required of the script to make sense, they had room for infinite creativity, but managed none. To me, it is a slickly made piece of junk. It made me yearn for something much more exciting, like watching my hard drive defrag. C-

Celebrity Sleuth, number 20, continued

Sleuth comments on his new numbering system that it is related to the scanning system, which requires each issue to have a distinct number. In other words, the computer code didn't differentiate between Vol. 13, No. 5 and Vol. 15, No. 5, which was a hassle for record-keeping in certain ways which are essential to publishers.

Here's a brief follow-up on yesterday's stuff

• Neriah Davis - I missed this labia shot the first time through
• Masuimi Max - I mentioned that she sets her crotch on fire in her act. Here are some pics.
• Dede Lind - nice frontal from the 55 year old former Playmate, or Recreational Companion, as we like to call them.

New Best Friend (2002)

This movie - well, it isn't worth wasting any more words on, except three: Dominique Swain topless.

• Swain (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Mia Kirshner (non nude)
• Anonymous

Other crap

• White House security guards threaten to arrest process servers in Cheney lawsuit. Actually, I have a question on this matter. Can you sue a dead guy? Is Dick Cheney really still alive? When was the last time anyone saw him? That was three questions.
• John McCain to host SNL. Yup, that's one funny motherfucker. The late Dick Cheney is next.
• Humorist Dave Barry weighs in on Wall Street's troubles
• Celebs without their make-up
• Bill Clinton comes out of hibernation to kick butt on Harvey Pitt - (Pitt is the ultimate "wolf guarding the henhouse").
• Hotmail deletes "sent" mail more than 30 days old. Users say they were not adequately warned. Trouble brews. (Actually, to be fair, Hotmail did send out their new policies. I read them while I was on vacation in June. Subscribers simply didn't read them. I read of their plans, and all the problems were avoided simply by placing the messages in a custom folder instead of leaving them in the "sent" folder)
• Handy chart of Bush's approval ratings.
• Based on my web excursions today, I have now seen two irrefutable proofs of the President's lack of intelligence. (1) protestor's sign says Bush is "to dumb" to be prez. (2) one liberal wag says that Bush called somebody a killer instead of an alleged killer because "alleged has three syllables", too many for Bush.

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 I inexplicably determined there might be something of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

"Lucia y el Sexo" (Sex and Lucia)

The latest film from Julio Medem, the director of such weird and wonderful stuff like The Red Squirrel and The Lovers of the Arctic Circle, is a tale of sex, love, honesty and much more. Lucia (Paz Vega) a Madrid waitress seeks solace in a remote sun kissed Mediterranean island when she believes her writer boyfriend, Lorenzo (Tristam Ulloa), is dead. While on the island she reminisces about her intense and passionate relationship with Lorenzo and contemplates the future. The island was a favourite hideaway of Lorenzo's and the story revolves around events, actual and fictional, that took place there. As suggested by the title most of the events and the female protagonists are connected by sex and it's consequences. In addition to his relationship with Lucia, Lorenzo had a single liaison in the sea with Elena (Najwa Nimri) that, unknown to him, resulted in the birth of daughter, Luna. Belen (Elena Anaya) is Luna's babysitter and she seduces Lorenzo who is unaware of her connection to Elena and his daughter. In another twist, Lucia rents a room from Elena when she returns to the island, again blissfully unaware of her encounter with Lorenzo. The story is very complex and at times unintelligible but the common themes of sex, passion and desire are all pervading.

With sex as the main theme, a multitude of sex scenes, some explicit and frequently involving male and female full frontal nudity it is easy to dismiss this as soft-porn along the lines of Romance X, Intimacy and Baise-Moi. It would be very wrong to do so. Medem uses sex to tell the story rather than making it the story. The scenes are filmed with regard to the emotions and consequences involved. Of particular poignancy is the scene in which Belen masturbates by watching and re-enacting porn scenes performed by her mother. It is as if the director included an example of real porn in the movie to show how much it differs from the film.

You will either fall in love with this it or loathe it as another example of pretentious European art house crap. I'm no great fan of art house films but loved this. At times the story is too convoluted to be comprehensible without a spider diagram, but the intense, erotically charged story, beautiful photography and soundtrack more than compensate. This film is sheer panacea for lovers of beautiful unadorned actresses. The film has so much nudity I lost count! It's proof that a film containing frequent sex and nudity doesn't have to degenerate into a skin flick.

Paz Vega is nude in several sex scenes that are variously frivolous, sensual, passionate and explicit. She shows full frontal nudity at frequent intervals including an extended scene on the beach, in the shower, around the house and during a mischievous and erotic striptease for Lorenzo. It's impossible not to fall in love with this girl who will usurp Penelope Cruz if she ever makes it to Hollywood. Elena Anaya shows full frontal nudity several times including the masturbation scene, in the shower and bath, and in a sex scene. Najwa Nimri is briefly topless fondling her breasts and may have a nude sex scene in the sea (not certain of the id).

The official site www.sexandlucia.com contains some great clips including a dvd-quality clip of the striptease.

• Paz Vega (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

"The Believer"

Danny Balint is a New York neo-nazi with a deep hatred of Jews and takes pride in stalking the streets with his gang of stupid skinheads and desecrating synagogues. Danny Balint is a Jew who studies the torah and displays a keen interest in the writing and teaching of his religion. The film, based on the true story of New York KKK member Daniel Burros, by writer/director Henry Bean captures the physical violence against Jews and the inner violence resulting from this seemingly impossible contradiction.

When he's not engaging in mindless violence on the streets and desecrating synagogues Danny explores the intellectual neo-nazi movement, led by Curtis Zampf (Billy Zane) and Lina Moebius (Theresa Russell). He finds the movement to be ineffectual, afraid of engaging in anti-Semitism and intellectually his inferior. Only Carla (Summer Phoenix), Lina's attractive and intelligent daughter, maintains her interest. Carla's blasé attitude to the hatred around her is the perfect foil for the rage boiling up inside Danny.

As the film moves on Danny finds himself in an unsuccessful battle to conquer the Jewishness swelling up inside him. The moment when his Jewishness overtakes his hatred of it is superbly captured in a scene involving the torah that he rescued from the desecrated synagogue and lovingly restored. The scene is investigated in detail in the featurette on the DVD. The origin of Danny's anger against the Jews is represented in flashbacks. He was a precocious yeshiva student who questioned the orthodox teaching but was swatted down by the Rabbi. His intolerance resulted from the intolerance of the Jewish religion to tolerate any challenges to the existing teachings. His present hatred of the Jews is for their willingness to be seen as victims rather than fighting back. This is graphically demonstrated as Danny is supplanted into the recollections of a holocaust survivor first as a Nazi solider and then as the Jewish man. This is one of the most powerful sequences in the film capturing as it did the contradiction that exists inside Danny.

This film is a rarity. It tackles provocative and incendiary material, addresses sensitive political and moral issues while steadfastly refraining from making any political or moral pronouncements. The viewer is never required to pass judgement on Danny merely invited to witness the exploration of his psyche. The film didn't get a proper theatrical release in the US and is unlikely to do so. I didn't find the material disturbing but the Danny's character was frightening. It is refreshing to think of racists as pea-brained skinheads like the members of Danny's gang. Danny on the other hand had considered, rational (to him if not most people) reasons for his hatred of Jews and was capable of articulating it in a concise persuasive manner.

The acting by Ryan Gosling is outstanding and he is well supported by Summer Phoenix. The film won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance and Bean, Gosling and Phoenix all picked up Independent Spirit Awards.

Nudity:
Summer Phoenix is topless having sex with Billy Zane and shows her left breast.

• Summer Phoenix (1, 2, 3, 4)

Some very early exposure by Sharon Kelly (later 1980s hardcore porn star Colleen Brennan) in her first two x-rated soft-porn movies.

In "Teenage Bride" (1970) there is no teenage bride and nobody gets married, just alot of sex with Sharon and company.

In "The Dirty Mind of Young Sally" (1970) Sharon plays a disc jockey on a mobile pirate radio station whose outrageous antics includes having screaming live sex on the air (Howard Stern must have learned some pointers from this movie).

FYI Sharon Kelly is a large-busted flaming-redhead with a matching red muff and creamy white alabaster skin with hundreds of freckles.

Both videos are distributed by Something Weird Video and can be ordered from www.moviesunlimited.com (sorry, Amazon does not carry these titles).

Nudity report: unsimulated sex with visibly excited male co-stars, extreme gyno-cam closeups of her red muff.

• Sharon Kelly in "Teenage Bride" (1, 2, 3)

• Sharon Kelly in "The Dirty Mind of Young Sally" (1, 2, 3)

Today we continue our look at "Forbidden" with Renee Rea and Tracy Ryan.

First up it's Renee doing a little topless sunbathing. She is joined by Tracy who is also topless.

• Renee Rea (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Renee Rea and Tracy Ryan

Then we move on to Tracy topless and showing that she has no pubes as she does her husband's best friend.

• Tracy Ryan (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

Chasey Lain and Jill Kelly
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Milla Jovovich
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Rosario Dawson
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Rifka Lodeizen

Dieuwertje Blok

Femke was project 1 for this reason...she's one hell of a great looking woman and all measurements are perfect. Hopefully we'll see more of her in the near future.

Quality of the dvd however sucked bigtime.