Thursday

 

Tuna
"Slap Shot" (1977)

Slap Shot is the third film Paul Newman did with George Roy Hill (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Sting were the first two). Newman is a player-coach of the worst minor league hockey team in the league. He is simultaneously trying to get back with his estranged wife, seduce the wife of his best player, and find a way to make his team win. The pressure increases when the town mill closes, and it is announced that the team will be disbanded at the end of the season. He discovers that overly physical play not only pleases fans, but wins games. He also starts a rumor that the team will be sold to a group of investors hoping that it will come true.

This is not so much a film about hockey as it is about hockey players. It was written by Nancy Dowd (her first) and is based on conversations with her brother who was a professional hockey player. She traveled with his team, and he taped real locker room and bus conversations so she could make the film realistic. In fact, there was some criticism of the rough language in the film. Newman, who played amateur hockey, did nearly all of his own skating, only bringing in a double for some fancy stick work that was beyond his ability. Supporting actor Michael Ontkean actually played minor league hockey. The exposure is from Melinda Dillon, who plays the estranged wife of a hockey player who ends up in bed with Newman. If we ever have a poll for best performance by a nipple in a supporting role, she is a good candidate. On one level, this film is mostly fun and has some hilarious moments, but it also speaks to the controversy over whether or not violence has a place in hockey. Most people, including me, licked this film.

Thumbnails Melinda Dillon (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

"Reindeer Games"

Reindeer Games is everything Scoopy said it was and less. The plot twists came totally out of left field, it was impossible to tell if anyone actually liked anyone else in the story, Theron had three love interests, and no chemistry with any of them. The nearly constant gunfire did manage to keep me awake though. A little character development would have gone a long ways toward making this a decent film. I have the feeling that the "soliloquy at gunpoint" to explain the story at the end was there because the director was as tired of this one at that point as I was. Still, if you like action films, this might be an ok way to consume a bag of microwave

Thumbnails Charlize Theron (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Johnny Web
"Hollow Man"

Yeah, I'm sure you're expecting this to be a cinema classic, right? Hint: it was directed by Paul Verhoeven. Think "Showgirls". Actually, I went to see it with my kids, and we all kind of enjoyed it, although a bad sign is that they thought it was kind of dumb. This is a leading indicator of true dumbness because they're impressed with the sophistication of The Smurfs.

Contrary to your expectations generated by the title, this is not a biography of John Tesh, but rather yet another version of The Invisible Man. Possibly with a bit of autobiography of director Paul Verhoeven, since invisibility was his fondest wish after he read the reviews of Showgirls.

The plot is the usual mad scientist crap. The research is ready to test on humans, and the mad scientist decides to test it on himself. And he doesn't tell the congressional oversight committee that he is ready for that stage. Then he delivers such classic lines as "they say I'm mad, but I'll show them, I'll show them all. Mua-ha-ha-ha". Actually, this isn't from the movie but is an actual quote from Verhoeven's life, when he was discussing his decision to make a gazillion dollar movie starring Elizabeth Berkley. Anyway, then the scientist/girlfriend says "be afraid, be very afraid". Then they muse about what might have happened if he had used his genius for good instead of evil, and whether man is meant to challenge God. Well, maybe not that bad a rip-off, but you get the point. The usual horror cliches.

All the scientists, good or bad, drive very expensive automobiles and live in luxury, and are uniformly handsome and in great physical condition, despite spending 22 hours per day with their test tubes.

Kevin Bacon apparently has discovered the Fountain of Youth as well as the invisibility serum, because he looks about the same as he did in Animal House. The serum makes Bacon a for-real mad scientist, so he gains deranged murderous impulses to go with his previous God complex, and he's just a big Freudian mess to begin with. Then the invisibility thing gives him absolute power, and he gets even crazier, and starts raping and killing and pillaging small Eastern European villages, and refusing to share his plunder with his fellow invisible freebooters. But I'm sure you know that in the end the handsome good scientists triumph over the handsome evil scientist, and they escape the flaming underground bunker through an elevator shaft.

The runaway elevator stops three inches from their heads, the dead mad scientist is not really dead yet ... thereby adding the usual action cliches to the horror cliches. They did forget the thunderstorms and the ticking bomb that stops at 0:07, but I'm sure those will be in the sequel.

So what's good about it if it has all those corny cliches? I'll show you. I'll show you all, mua-ha-ha-ha. Well, it isn't really good at all, now that I think about it. I mean you won't confuse it with "Henry V". But it does have Rhona Mitra and Kim Dickens showing their breasts (Bacon slips off Dickens' blouse when she sleeps, and he peeks in on Mitra), and it has some absolutely great invisibility effects. The best effect, by far, is the bodies appearing and disappearing on the operating table as the visibility or invisibility potions take effect. Very cool stuff, although not really worth the number of times they repeat it. But it's must viewing if you have an anatomy final coming up.

The reviewer ratings:

Mitra (1, 2) Dickens

"Avanti" (1972), from Johnny Web and TomCat

This is one of those fluff comedies from Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, The Apartment, Irma la Douce) and his favorite star, Jack Lemmon. Most of these were made in the late 50's and early 60's, but Wilder and Lemmon still had some energy in the 1972 anti-establishment era, although by then this style really seemed quaint compared to Altman's M.A.S.H. and some of the other new filmmakers of the time. Even though it was old-fashioned even in its own time, and is therefore quite dated now, it is a sweeter comedy than Wilder's usual fare, and the characters are real and vulnerable enough to make the film still quite watchable.

Jack Lemmon plays a stiff American businessman who goes to Italy to claim his father's body. Seems that daddy died with his mistress, and Lemmon eventually ends up falling in love with the daughter of the mistress (Juliet Mills). The humor is mainly based on the endless red tape of the Italian bureaucracy, and Lemmon's typically mannered egocentricity.

The really good news: some very nice nudity from Juliet Mills.

Mills. (TomCat's TV captures, not from DVD, put pretty darned good!) (1, 2, 3, 4)

"Boccaccio '70" (1962), from Johnny Web and TomCat

There is really nothing much to see here, but this scene is dear to my heart, because it was the first time I ever saw a naked woman on a movie screen. My friend, The Wily Duck, and I snuck into the theater. My mom dropped us off at another theater (playing "Darby O'Gill", if memory serves) around the corner, and we went to see this film instead. In those days, there was no sophisticated system to keep 13 year olds out of the theaters. We just paid for our tickets and got in. I suppose the movie would be rated PG if re-released today, but we thought this was some seriously hot shit. It was a pretty decent film. There were several unrelated stories based on Boccaccio's tales. This segment was directed by Luchino Visconti, and was typically dreary, but two other segments directed by Fellini and DeSica were great fun, especially the Fellini segment in which a poster of a giant-breasted Anita Ekberg came to life.

Romy Schneider, who probably challenges Robert Goulet for the record of getting the most career mileage out of one successful role. In her case the empress, "Sissi", whom she portrayed in about eleven or twelve thousand movies. OK, maybe it was really only three films. To her credit, she never sang "If ever I would leave you" in any of them. (1, 2, 3, 4)

Graphic Response
  • Lauren Hutton, from "Lassiter"
  • Jane Seymour, also from "Lassiter". Excellent rare nudity.
  • Connie Stevens, topless from 1976's "Scorchy".
  • WhyScan's Page Three Report
    If Page Three is unfamiliar to you, this link describes the Page Three tradition.
    Today's Page 3 girl....Jakki, 22, from Staffordshire. (1, 2, 3, 4)

    Eva Herzigova up on the catwalk (1, 2, 3)

    Donbun
    Letrica Cruz From "Intimate Sessions" Episode "Elena".
    Andrea Rau Topless and full frontal views of the German actress from 1971's "Daughters of Darkness".
    Oz
    Dafna Rehter
    (1, 2, 3)

    Asi Levi

    I don't recall the last Israeli film in the Fun House, maybe Urban Feel is the first? Dafna is the wife in an unhappy marriage when an old lover turns up. Naturally they have a fling. The husband is using newspapers to find a partner, and Asi turns up. They have a fling. Overall, a so-so movie.
    Lisa Tower Lisa had a very small non-speaking part in an episode of The Hunger called The Sacred Fire.
    Daniela Olivieri
    (1, 2)

    Lisa Ann Hadley

    These two women starred in the episode of The Hunger called The Diarist. Lisa Ann was a witch and she fought with Daniela over a bloke. At the end of the show Lisa Ann lost the fight and, for some reason, the only way she can have her revenge is by killing herself. She does this by drowning herself. This is what is happening in Lisa's collage.
    King Lawler
    Miss Kitty, aka Kat
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
    Pretty hot stuff of rasslin' babe courtesy of "The King". His site has four massive galleries of Kat pictures, so feel free to pay him a visit at www.kinglawler.com.
    PicHound
    Stephanie MacMahon
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
    For the hard core Rasslin' fans....Pic hound has a little treat for you. Tons of cleavage from Stephanie MacMahon.

    For me, if I had to choose a) Watching Rasslin' b) watching paint dry or c) any speech by Al Gore...I would have to pick b) watching paint dry. Why? because at least there is a small chance for entertainment in the form of a paint fume induced high. Regardless...PicHound stays on top of the events in the ring and invites everyone to visit him at his website www.pichound.com.

    and ...
    Posh Spice A slightly different view of the in-concert nip slip we ran yesterday.
    Marilu Henner Old School naked 'caps by Helcrom of Marilu from 1983's "The Man Who Loved Women".
    The Funnies by Number 6
    Pokemon, Bob Marely style, mon. Sperm banks
    Porn...in Smell-O-Vision West Virginia sex shop
    Just plain odd Naughty 'puter humor.


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