Broadcast Bombshells (1995) is one of those Canadian Private Screenings productions meant for late night cable with virtually no plot and lots of breasts, simulated sex, and, in this case, a little bush. The story centers around a small TV studio, WSEX, that seem to have two programs, nightly news, and an annual telethon. Everyone there wants to step on top of everyone else and improve their position. Nearly all the station's revenue comes from a schlock self help guru and his "three little words." Debbie Rochon is an assistant producer, Amy Lynn Baxter is the weather girl and wannabe reporter, and Elizabeth Heyman is secretary to the owner. The big story is a mad bomber, who attacks abandoned targets with soap bombs. So, the tension, if there is any, is twofold. Who is the mad bomber, and what are the three little words?

Rochon is the most often naked, with two sex scenes and two undressing scenes, including full frontal in good light. She also models an S&M outfit. Baxter is almost as naked, with an undressing scene and two sex scenes. She shows some bush along with the T&A. Heyman shows breasts in a sex scene with the sports announcer, then again dressing. Three aerobics women, Stacey-Marie Norton, Julie Smith and Carolyn Renee Smith, show various body parts, mostly in extreme close-up, changing for the telethon. IMDB readers have this at 3.1 of 10, which is the right neighborhood. The nudity is well lit, and there are nearly non-stop robo-hooters, which, I suppose, earns a C-.

The Rainbow (1989)

20 years after making Women in Love, director Ken Russell finally got around to making a film of the rest of the story of the two sisters, as told in the final third of another D.H. Lawrence work, The Rainbow.

It is very difficult to bring D.H. Lawrence to the screen. Lawrence wasn't really a novelist, but a social philosopher who wrote stories as a context for his ideas. His great skill did not lie in plot or characterization, but in the shock value of his free thinking about sex and many other matters, including the roles of class and gender in society.

The problem is this - you can always transfer plot and characterization from generation to generation, but how to you transfer shock? The gender and class ideas that seemed revolutionary in the 1920s are things that we simply take for granted today, and the sexual freedom that he espoused has already been achieved in modern free societies. So what can you do to get 1990's audiences to feel what Lawrence wanted his readers to feel? You have to dig pretty deep into the shock tactics to get that effect. Director Russell did a masterful job with another Lawrence work, Women in Love. The naked wrestling match between Oliver Reed and Alan Bates is still shocking today, and captures Lawrence's outrageousness beautifully. Imagine Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt greasing up and goin' at it for five minutes in a naked wrestling match, wieners and all on camera. See what I mean? Pretty effective modernization of the impact of D.H. Lawrence's work.

Unfortunately, Russell was out of flamboyant tricks for The Rainbow. He has some beautiful girl/girl scenes and some passionate sex, but that's nothing we haven't seen a zillion times before, so this version of The Rainbow simply won't slap you in the face the same way that the novel did in WW1 days. Nonetheless, Russell did a workmanlike job, and the women got naked together and separately.

I wonder if anyone has ever criticized Russell for being too conservative. Jeez, I'm a pioneer.

I wrote a gazillion words on this subject here. I didn't really talk about the movie, but about D.H Lawrence's life. (He was a coal miner's son, an outcast, a frail momma's boy who liked to play with the girls. In a tough colliery town, well, that wasn't conducive to a happy life). To me the most interesting thing about Lawrence is that his crappy soft-core porno book caused people to read his serious philosophical books. Four years before his death, nobody had really read Women in Love, The Rainbow, or Sons and Lovers. Lawrence was almost completely obscure, and fighting poverty. What changed that around? Shortly before his death, he finished the Chatterley works. This caused a major commotion in literary and legal circles, and got people looking at Lawrence's earlier works! Now, the three others I mentioned are considered to be among the best 100 books of the 20th century, yet Lawrence and those three books would almost surely be forgotten today if not for Lady Chatterley's Lover.

• Sammi Davis Thumbnails
• Sammi Davis (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
• Amanda Donohoe thumbnails
• Amanda Donohoe (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

OTHER CRAP:

• Plush Animals Gone Wild

• Exhausted superstar Barry Bonds hospitalized

• Every episode of Seinfeld, every script, all kinds of info. Awesome Seinfeld resource. You'll need broadband. Episodes are about 21 minutes long, maybe 35 meg or so in size, asf format.

• Action Star Charles Bronson Dies at 81

• All Pro Steelers Linebacker Joey Porter Shot. Porter has never been as effective against the shotgun offense.

• Movie Criticism for the Retarded - the 10 coolest things about The Big Lebowski

• Is your boss an idiot?

• a gazillion pictures of Nikki Nova

• Top 100 Songs of the past 25 years: 1977 - 2003

• Alicia Rickter - Playmate from October 1995 - Free Nude Gallery Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!

• The Detroit Tigers have decided not to offer a minor league contract to Phil Mickelson. Being turned down by the Tigers is pretty much the end of the line, isn't it? Their top base stealer can't move without a walker, and before every game they choose a fan as their left fielder from the "lucky program" drawing.

• MLB's Sean Casey saves day for driver. Sometimes life is like the movies. Casey pulled a woman from a flipped car, gave her something to drink, let her use his cell phone, and drove off without even giving her his full name. He did not tell anyone else, and nobody found out until the woman figured out who he was and wrote a "thank you" note to the Cincinnati Reds! A tip o' the official Funhouse hat to Sean Casey. (Of course that might be more impressive if we didn't wear propeller beanies, but the thought is still there.)

• Top Freddy Krueger Toys & Merchandise!

• "John Leslie is set to make his TV comeback in the hit show Celebrity Wife Swap. Leslie and blonde girlfriend Abi Titmuss are to swap partners for a week in the Channel 4 show, according to the Sunday Mirror." Is this for real, or an elaborate put-on? Celebrity Wife Swap? I want to see Demi and Ashton switch with Nancy and Ron Reagan. No, wait, check that. Demi is too old for Ron.

• Timeless Movie Characters: The Ass-to-Ass guy

• The best dramatic actor at the Venice Film Festival? Bill Murray. No kidding.

• The view from the top of Mt Everest. If you had a sled full of toys, you'd feel just like the Grinch.

• The full extent of Laurence Olivier's hatred for Marilyn Monroe is revealed in a new biography of one of Britain's most renowned film-makers.

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

Celebrity Sleuth checks in:

Dear Scoop:

Just a note to let you know Sleuth is still alive and kicking.

Sorry to have been such a poor correspondent of late, but we were away ... even got to visit Loch Ness (a beautiful spot, though no sign of  "Nessie" the monster).

Anyway, I'm back and sleuthing...caught up with the Fun Houses I missed, and have only two things to add:

o  Karen Lamm, topless in Trackdown on 8/18, was a former model who married Robert Lamm, lead singer of Chicago.  Perhaps he wrote "If You Leave Me Now..." about her, because she did. BTW, those Trackdown topless shots of her are frequently passed off as being Cheryl Ladd.

o  Barra Grant, tortured topless (is there any other way?) in Daughters of Satan in today's FH (8/31) is not actually the daughter of Satan, but rather of Bess Myerson (the indicted tho' acquited former Miss America who grew up, with her sister Helen, next door to my mother in the Bronx). They actually saw each other at a Walton High School reunion at the height of Bessie's legal troubles, but Myerson seemed unconcerned and happy.

That's all...you've COVERED (or un-) everything else. I especially appreciated the "Other Crap" archives, as I'd missed quite a bit while I was aware.

Finally, I saw the "Double Secret Probation" DVD of Animal House last night...and was reminded of the first time I saw it (on opening night in 1979). My wife and I took my AUNT to the premiere, because her best friend from NYC was Lucille Riegert, mother of Peter (who, my aunt informed us, "is dating someone named Bettie Midler at the moment"}. Auntie wanted to see Lucille's son in his "big movie chance"...and wound up a bit shocked I think :-). We allowed her to drive herself home while Mrs. Sleuth and I stayed in the theater to watch it again. True story...

Actually, it still holds up...the "Road Trip" scene (beginning with "she was making me a pot" before the kiln explosion and culminating with "would you mind if we danced wif yo dates?" may be the funniest 10 consecutive minutes in film history).

And it left me with one thought: if there is a Hall of Fame for "Where Are They Now?" flashers in the pan, then surely its Holy Trinity is:  Lisa Baur, Debra Blee and Diane Franklin !!!! 

Hope all is going well...

Best,
Sleuth

Scoop's note: Diane Franklin was one hot tootsie back in the 80s, with and without her clothes. Then she disappeared. According to IMDB, Franklin re-appeared in 1999-2000 in two tiny TV parts after a ten year absence from Showbiz. Does anyone know why she left the business?

1. "Family Law" (1999) playing "TV Announcer" in episode: "Media Relations" (episode # 1.12) 10 January 2000
2. "Providence" (1999) in episode: "Blind Faith" (episode # 1.8) 26 February 1999

Mailbox:

Scoop:

I think that is Leelee Sobieski in all of the scenes in L'Idole. I took one of your captures from Uprising and superimposed it on Charlie's caps of the hairbrushing scene from L'Idole. The results do not prove that it is Leelee, but they lead me to believe it is and there is nothing to lead me to doubt it. To me, the one scene looks like the shadow of the other.

C.P.

PIRATE COUNTDOWN:

Link goes to (where else) TalkLikeAPirate.com - now with new English-to-Pirate instant translator

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 Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

"The Masque of the Red Death"
There might be nipple exposed by Jane Asher in The Masque of the Red Death but it is very brief.

• Jane Asher (1, 2)

"Save Me"
Breast exposure by Rona Hartner, and Karol Rocher is down to her underwear.

• Rona Hartner
• Karol Rocher

"Bachelor of Hearts"
Bachelor of Hearts is a 1958 British movie so the exposure is flesh coloured bathing suits by some unknowns.

• Unknowns (1, 2)

"House"
Mary Stavin shows pokies.

• Mary Stavin

"Exile"
A very brief nipple exposure by Beth Champion in Exile.

• Beth Champion

"Nowhere to Hide"
Side breast view of Amy Madigan in Nowhere to Hide.

• Amy Madigan

"Girls Can't Swim"
Plenty of nudity in the French film Girls Can't Swim aka Les Filles ne Savent Pas Nager. Isild Le Besco is topless and there's bush by Karen Alyx and Yelda Reynaud.

• Isild Le Besco (1, 2, 3)
• Karen Alyx (1, 2, 3)
• Yelda Reynaud

"Manifesto"
Lots of exposure by Tanja Boskovic and Camilla Soeberg in Manifesto.

• Tanja Boskovic (1, 2, 3)
• Camilla Soeberg (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

"Everybody Loves Sunshine"
Rachel Shelley's nipple manages to sneek out in Everybody Loves Sunshine.

• Rachel Shelley

"Missing Pieces"
Missing Pieces is supposed to be a British comedy. There is no exposure by Stacey Ann Logan, Alisa McCullough and Lauren Hutton, just cleavage and the like.

• Stacey Ann Logan
• Alisa McCullough (1, 2)
• Lauren Hutton

"Diapason"
The briefest of nipple exposure, which seems to be a common thread today, by some actress who wasn't identified in the credits.

• Unknown (1, 2)

"Lola"
Joanna Going is topless in Lola and it's a case of almost with Sabrina Grdevich

• Joanna Going (1, 2, 3,
• Sabrina Grdevich (1, 2)

"Survivors Exposed"
This 2001 sex spoof of the Survivor TV show has plenty of boobs, occasional bush, lame dumb comedy, and no real plot. Starring Julie K. Smith, Shauna O'Brien, Aimee Sweet, Alexus Winston, and Tess Broussard.

Set on Butta Cheeka island, it follows more or less the format of the TV show, and it's almost as bad (the TV show is probably the worst thing in broadcasting history, but at least the movie has nudity).

If they'd just hire real photographers instead of two horny guys from the mail room, we'd probably get shots that were properly lit and in focus. As it is, the quality is pure crap.

• The Girls of "Survivors Exposed". Fair Warning, this original collage is huge...about 725k! Here is a smaller preview version,,,about 325k.

What price to celebs pay for making bad movies? For Mariah Carey the answer is no dates.

Rod Stewart said his girlfriend Penny Lancaster had a perfect body for modelling and he would "never tire of looking at her". Here she is on the catwalk modelling at a lingerie fashion show.