Immortal Beloved (1994) is a costumed drama based on one of the great mysteries of Beethoven. He willed everything to his "Immortal Beloved," but never named her. I this story, his secretary, Schindler, tries to learn the identity of the mystery woman. The theory in the movie of her identity is as good a guess as any. They basically choose the music, and paced each scene to match the music. Many of the details of Beethoven's life were completely accurate.

Beethoven was accurately presented, not as a noble hero and genius, but as the hateful man many found him to be, with a genius for stealing simple melodies, and turning them into symphonies. The genius of this film was in basing it on the mystery of the Immortal Beloved, making it a far better story than Amadeus. However, much of this film is rather dark, whereas Amadeus has much more humor and lightness in the first act.

The film is beautifully shot, and the Prague settings are incredible. The acting was top notch, and a great deal of attention was paid to period detail in mores and costuming. We have breast exposure from Valeria Golino and Geno Lechner, and breasts and bush from Johanna ter Steege. Gary Oldman, who played Beethoven, was correctly finger the piano, although his playing was not on the soundtrack. The director's aim in making the film was to show a younger generation that people weren't stuffy then, and that the music is very personal and accessible.

IMDb readers have it at 7.0 of 10. While Amadeus is a much more entertaining film, and deserved all of the recognition it got, Immortal Beloved is easily the second best classical composer biopic ever filmed. Ebert awarded 3 1/2 stars, but Berardinelli would have preferred a straight biography, and only awarded 2 1/2 stars. Many Beethoven biographers argued that the film was bad history. I don't have a problem with the liberties taken in the script. It portrayed the spirit and personality of Beethoven, and managed to frame it in a pretty good whodunit. This is a B-.

SPOILERS:

Twisted may have been my biggest disappointment of 2004. It looked good on paper. Philip Kaufman, Samuel Jackson, $50 million dollar budget.

It was directed by Philip Kaufman, and I always find his films interesting. Look at the list of his previous five films:

• Quills (2000)
• Rising Sun (1993)
• Henry & June (1990)
• The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)
• The Right Stuff (1983)

There is a common thread there. None of the films is predictable. They are all intelligent films. They are all daring for studio films.

So how does Twisted fit in?

It doesn't. It is a mundane, typical Hollywood crime thriller.

OK, fair enough, but it stars Samuel L Jackson. That's cool, right? Tuna and I have always said that a poor movie with Samuel L is not entirely poor, because at least it is entertaining when they turn the camera on Samuel L.

So how does Twisted fit in?

It doesn't. Samuel L did OK, but they gave him the role of the wise old patriarch, a role requiring none of Samuel's energy and humor. In short, they cast him in a role designed for Morgan Freeman. In fact Freeman would have been perfect, given the eventual outcome of the plot, because nobody would ever expect Freeman to be a psychotic killer.

At any rate, the plot is a straightforward police procedural. Ashley Judd plays a newly-appointed homicide detective whose first case turns out to be a string of murders. When she finds the first victim, it shocks her to see that it's a guy she slept with. Ditto for the second victim. Another victim actually turns up in her bed! She is not only the detective, but the #1 suspect. To make matters worse for her,  Judd has a mysterious blackout on the night of each murder, and some serious anger issues. Given those circumstances, and the fact that her own father was a serial killer, Judd is afraid that she may really be the killer.

Of course, we know better, since that's not the way Hollywood films work, so solving the mystery is a matter of figuring out who framed her, and that can only be someone who knows enough about her life to connect her to a bunch of guys who were only one-night stands. Yawn. 

In other words, it's kind of a second-rate version of Clint Eastwood's Tightrope, but with a much less interesting outcome. Despite a talented cast and crew and a big budget, this film will disappoint even genre lovers. It's a Hollywood hack job.

And - although the entire movie centers around Ashley Judd's sex life, there is virtually no nudity.

• Ashley Judd

OTHER CRAP:

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

Click here to submit a URL for Other Crap

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.

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.

• Model turned actress Beverly Johnson baring her bum in scenes from "Ashanti" (1979). Rare stuff...not available on video in USA.

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

"Pain don't hurt"

That should be enough of a heads up as to what masterpiece of modern cinema the Ghost has for us today. Yup, it's one of our all time favorite so-bad-it's-good movies, "Road House" (1989). Be sure to read the Scoopy.com review.

• Cheryl Baker, showing a bunch of cleavage and getting seriously felt up.
• Cheryl Baker (zipped .wmv)

• Julie Michaels, the actress and stuntwoman doing some very nice topless dancing.
• Julie Michaels

• Kelly Lynch, baring breast and bum views as she climbs out of bed.
• Kelly Lynch (zipped .wmv)

• Laura Albert, another actress/stunt woman. Breast and thong views in this scene.
• Laura Albert (zipped .wmv)
• A bonus video clip of Laura Albert (zipped .wmv) playing the demanding role of "Blonde Stripper" in a scene from "The Jigsaw Murders" (1988).

• Unknown (zipped .wmv) (Either Julie Royer or Dawn Ciccone, the IMDb credits two names for the same role)...either way, we see breasts while she's having sex in the storage room.

"Edge of Madness"
It's the winter of 1851 in Manitoba's Red River Valley, and a woman arives at the fort frostbitten and near insanity in this excellent 2002 drama.

She says she's killed her husband, but as the local prefect investigages he finds many conflicting stories on why, and even IF, she killed her husband. Is he even dead? And by whose hand?

Lots of twists lead to an unexpected ending, in fact several surprises. A very worthwhile movie, with excellent performances, and beautiful scenery.

• Caroline Dhavernas

PORN IS GOOD
That's Their Imaginary Partner - After surveying 1,000 Internet porn users, Australian psychology Prof. Alan McKey declared that porn is good. With porn often blamed for sex addiction or destroying families, McKey was surprised that 90 percent of people who view porn every day said it produces a very positive effect. Respondents told him since they started looking at Internet porn, they'd become "more relaxed about questions of sex," and their family life improved because it made them think about their partner's pleasure and be less critical of their body shape.