Magnum Force (1973) -- Sometimes what I do is a pure joy. This is one of those times. We have a pretty damn good Dirty Harry Calahan yarn, an unknown actress who shows breasts, buns, and some bush in good light, and Suzanne Somers (yes, Three's Company's Crissy) topless closeup in great light. She walks along a pool in a bikini, jumps in the water, takes off her top, bounces up and down a few times, then slowly turns from profile to facing the camera. We also get a good look as she is shot, and then a distant shot of her floating on her back dead. This was the second of the Dirty Harry films, and I liked it as much as the first.

Harry is a Detective in San Francisco, and somebody starts blowing away the bad guys. We see early on that it is someone in a cop uniform with a police motorcycle. Harry's boss tells him it is a war among organized crime members, but Harry figures it out quickly. The film is full of chases through San Francisco, fights, and shooting. This film is somewhat interesting in that Harry is one of the least violent and most moral characters in the story.

IMDB readers have it at a very respectable 6.6 of 10, and the Rotten Tomatoes score is 60% positive, but with none of the top critics weighing in. This is a solid C, and thank God for the 70s, when any non-Disney film needed some nudity.

Going Greek (2001)

I don't have much more to say about the movie. Tuna nailed it. The difference between this and a good campus comedy is that the latter uses gross-outs as a source of humor. This film uses them as a substitute for humor.

I want to talk about two other subjects:

1. The IMDB comments.

There are 11 comments at IMDB, all quite positive. Some of them were outlandishly positive. "The heir to Animal House", "Blows Old School out of the water", "Witty teen genre movie, on par with American Pie and Van Wilder". Yes, opinions are subjective, but it isn't likely that so many people would feel so strongly positive about such an uninspired, derivative movie, or that they would express their thoughts in such a universally marketing-oriented fashion. I got suspicious.

My suspicions were confirmed. There are eleven comments about this movie. Eight of them were made by virgin accounts, people who had never commented on any other movie. Obviously, the accounts were created specifically for the purpose of adding positive comments to the page for this particular film, probably by a single person or close-knit group. The other three people? None of them are frequent IMDb contributors. They wrote comments on a total of 2, 3, and 5 movies respectively, with all of those totals including this movie.

The arithmetic score distribution looks suspicious as well. There were no 3s, 4s, or 5s awarded to this film at all - just low scores and high ones. IMDB's score filter did a good enough job at figuring out the ballot-stuffing. Although the raw score results in a mean of 7.5, the adjusted score is 4.6, right about where it should be.

2. Claire Forlani

Sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of two similar women - Claire Forlani and Kate Beckinsale. Two English actresses who can and often do play Americans without any difficulty. Two soft-spoken, willowy actresses of ethereal beauty. Two women who play younger than their physical age. Forlani is 31, and was 29 when she played a college girl in this film. Beckinsale is 30, was 29 when she played a grad student in Laurel Canyon. Beckinsale is now one of the hottest properties in Hollywood. And Forlani?

Well ...

Here's the full story on Forlani's role in Going Greek:

1. The film was made for a total budget of $198,000, including salaries and everything else.

2. Forlani's tiny role merited 20th billing. Obviously, she must have worked for scale.

3. Worst of all, her lines can be found only in the deleted scenes. She may appear somewhere on camera in the final cut of the film, but I didn't notice her at all until I watched the deleted footage.

There's her career. She gets a very minor role in a very minor film, and her very few lines get cut. I guess I'm not the most perceptive guy in the world, and I have nothing against Beckinsale, but I have no idea why Forlani's career is lagging so far behind that of her very comparable countrywoman.

• Lauren Petty
• Rainbeau Mars
• unknowns (1, 2)
• Susan Ward (cleavage only)

A Man Apart (2003)

This film was excoriated by the critics. 9% positive reviews, with an average of one star in the UK. Those scores are misleading. It is not an altogether bad movie. It is simply not a good one. Ebert and Berardinelli both pegged it fairly, awarding two and two and a half stars respectively. It's kind of a waste of 36 million dollars, but you can watch it without much flinching.

Vin Diesel plays a former street tough who has become a DEA agent. In the opening action, he finally corners the kingpin he's been chasing for seven years. The champagne hasn't even gone flat from the victory celebration when the drug rackets are taken over by a new kingpin, the mysterious, unseen El Diablo. El is not a nice man, and he sends his cruelest hit men to shoot up Vin's house, killing the Vin-man's wife in the process. As you might imagine, Vin is really not pleased with this at all, and he manages to screw up a major bust by losing his temper and beating a dealer to death. Vin is supposed to be undercover at the time, but the dealer brags about how they killed a cop's wife and Vin loses it. The bust is blown, three cops are killed, and the Big DEA Kahuna takes away Vin's badge.

As usual in these films, Vin then decides to take justice into his own hands, and it comes down to one man against all of Latin America. So it goes. The Spanish speakers never had a chance.

The film actually looks quite good. It had a distinct atmosphere, as it should for 30+ million dollars. The action sequences, however, have some real problems.

1. In the bust that Vin screws up, and then later in the final confrontation, it is not possible for the audience to follow the action. There are people everywhere firing at other people or covering other people, and it is not possible to determine which of the people are with Vin and which are against him. When they reported that three cops died in that shoot-out, I was surprised, because I thought only baddies had fallen. Obviously, there were other cops on the scene, but I didn't know who they were or even whether they were there.
2. In the opening scene, the DEA guys are complaining about having to go into a situation unarmed, but every single one of them seemed to have a firearm. I didn't get it at all.

• Karin Stephens
• Diana Espen (aka April Flowers)
• unknown (I think this must be Paula Harrison, based upon the credits, but I'm not sure.) (1, 2)

OTHER CRAP:

• Victoria Fuller - Playmate from Jan 1996 - Free Nude Gallery Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!

• NFL Cheerleader Fired for Winning Modeling Contest

• Mystique Magazine featuring Danielle Gamba, the NFL cheerleader mentioned in the story above

• You probably know that Leo DiCaprio has been cast by Marty Scorcese to play Howard Hughes in an upcoming pic. Maybe you didn't know the the young Hughes looked EXACTLY like George Clooney. Talked like him and acted a lot like him as well.

• Christopher Nolan (Memento) is also working on a Howard Hughes Biopic - this one starring (gasp) Jim Carrey. Jim Carrey? All righty, then. Next to Carrey's pic, check out the pic of Hughes, which could well be a pic of Clooney. To recap - two biopics - no casting of Hughes's clone, George Clooney. Actual casting: one wimpy, wispy blond guy, and one zany comic.

• Brooke Burns shows off the sensational curves that had movie hero Bruce Willis dashing to be on holiday with her.

• Kiefer Sutherland walks around a bar with Mr Peepee dangling

• The Smoking Gun digs up the dirt on the latest Survivor cast before the show even airs

• Colorado State Judicial Branch - all documents for People vs Kobe Bryant

• A radio station is celebrating National Penis Day in New Zealand by asking people to get their clothes off for a naked art picture shoot in Cathedral Square, Christchurch.

• The advice given by IRS workers is only slightly better than the result you would get by flipping a coin!

• Some newspapers pull `Doonesbury' installment that mentions masturbation

• Pop Queen Britney Spears, pictured here on a recent cover of W magazine looking as thin and vapid as ever, reportedly keeps her girlish figure with the help of popular diet drug Zantrex-3

• The worst group efforts of all time.

• Schwarzenegger Egged as He Opts for Speech Instead of Debate

• A gum-smacking Britney Spears told CNN Wednesday that she has never before kissed a woman and never would again -- unless the woman is Madonna.

• A Quarter of Britons believe Diana was murdered.

• Weekly World News - terrorists recruiting zombie army

• Operation Infinite Purity - Winning the War on Masturbation

• Women Probably Don't Have Souls

• A Right to be Homo: One Step Closer to Armageddon!

• Hollywood couple Uma Thurman and Ethan Hawke have split after five years of marriage and two children. Gee, I guess Uma will never be able to get anybody that good again.

• Is it James Bond out for a joy ride on the Thames? Amphibious car drives over water

• Cameron Diaz breaks nose surfing: Diaz said she broke her nose Saturday - her 31st birthday - during a surfing mishap off Waikiki Beach.

• Eric Gagne saves his 55th game in a row

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 inclusion in Other Crap

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.

• Lysette Anthony, the UK actress topless and gettin' it on with Harry Hamlin in scenes from "Save Me" (1993). These 'caps are from a DVD version not available in the US!

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

Here are a few extra collages we missed from Brainscans's brief history of Heffer/Pet Screen Nudity....

• Katie Lohmann baring breasts and bush in scenes from "Sex Court".

• Linn Thomas in "Temptation". Breasts, bum and lesbo lovin'. (1, 2, 3)

"Going Greek"
There was no new ground broken in this 2001 Animal House rip-off, but it has some very funny bits. A freshman is forced to pledge the wildest fraternity on campus in order for his cousin to also get in. Eventually, he begins to like it.

Worth watching for some very funny gags, and some nice nudity.

• Assorted topless babes

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• Bethany Chessern Micki Duran, and Elizabeth Berkley (1, 2)

• Dante McCarthy and Bobbie Phillips

• Dante McCarthy

• Elizabeth Berkley and Gina Gershon (1, 2)

• Elizabeth Berkley and Rena Riffel (1, 2, 3)

• Elizabeth Berkley (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28)

• Gina Gershon (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

• Lin Tucci

• Rena Riffel (1, 2, 3, 4)

BIKERS NOT KEEN ON ELTON JOHN
More Doobie! - Over the weekend, thousands of bikers gathered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, for Harley-Davidson's 100th birthday celebration. It included a concert with Tim McGraw, Kid Rock, the Doobie Brothers and a surprise headliner: Elton John. Elton got a mixed reaction. One woman who left after his first song said she didn't think he was the best choice for a biker event.