Thursday

The Great New Wonderful (2005)

You regular readers know that we have found the IMDb sub-ratings to be a marvelous tool to measure the estrogen content of movies. Their site provides not only a general rating for all voters, but also various breakdowns by age, sex, and place of origin. After having studied these ratings for many years, we've concluded that the estrogen level can be calculated quite precisely by subtracting the male rating from the female rating. The fundamental equations of film estrogen algebra are

ME=(FR-MR)

CF=ME>1

In other words, the movie estrogen level (ME) is the difference between the female rating and the male rating. If the ME is one or higher, meaning the female score is one full point or more higher than the male score, it's a chick-flick.

The female/male differential is the key to the equation, not the overall female rating, because a film rated high by women is not automatically a chick-flick. Let's take two major examples:

Example One: The Notebook is probably the most popular film in history with females under 18. That group rates it a remarkable 9.3, compared to 9.2 for Amelie and 8.9 for Gone with the Wind. Women in general rate The Notebook 8.7. That makes it a film which is extremely popular with girls and very popular with women, but we find this to be just short of chick-flick status, because men rate it 7.8, and 7.8 is high enough to get a film into the top 250 of all time! By the way, for reasons unclear to me, IMDb does not list this film in its top 250, even though it has a very high score based on a very large number of votes (more than 20,000). It should be somewhere in the 130s on the Top 250 list, as the following comparison demonstrates:

Film name Rank Overall Score Score with "Top 1000 voters" Number of votes
Amores Perros #137 8.0 6.7 23,064
The Notebook unrated 8.0 7.0 23,591

IMDb does not reveal the secret behind their calculations, but there seems to be no credible explanation for the disparity between these two films.

Example Two: Amelie may have the highest overall female rating of any film. Women rate it 8.9, compared to 8.7 for The Notebook, 8.6 for Gone with the Wind and 8.5 for The Godfather. We do not consider Amelie a chick-flick, however, because men rate it 8.6. That means it would be rated in the top 25 of all time even if women were not allowed to vote at all. It just happens to be a great film that women like slightly better than men.

Here are some examples of films that really are chick-flicks, with the female/male differential listed in parens:

  • Beaches (1.3)
  • Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants (1.2)
  • Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (1.1)
  • Steel Magnolias (1.1)
  • Fried Green Tomatoes (1.0)

If you are familiar with those movies, you will be surprised to know that none of them is even close to the all-time movie estrogen champion, which is Dirty Dancing at 2.0. The good news for guys is that watching the Swayze dancefest with a woman almost guarantees that you will get laid. The bad news is that watching it will lower your testosterone to such a minimal level that you'll want to cuddle and watch Oprah instead. Plus you won't want to kiss anyone after the film, because it makes you vomit a little in the back of your throat.

OK, I'm finally getting to the point of this whole digression. The Great New Wonderful has a movie estrogen level of 2.2. You're going to need some time to sink in. Like the size of the physical universe, it is a concept which cannot be imagined by even the most sophisticated human brain. That means it has twice as much estrogen as the Ya-Ya Sisterhood or the Steel Magnolias.

Fortunately for me, it is a film which consists of five separate stories, and the special features on the DVD allow one to watch the stories separately instead of watching the original version, which has all five intercut. Since there was nudity in only one of the stories, I watched only that one. It was a narrow escape for me, because many states allow convicted rapists to watch all five as a form of voluntary chemical castration, and watching even three is almost sure to turn one gay, especially if it includes the one with Olympia Dukakis. While watching one of them did not turn me gay, I did get a sudden craving to eat a banana, and instead of biting it off a bit at a time, I felt an urge to just slide the fruit far down my throat while pursing my lips over the center of it. After I finished that, I suddenly had an urge to go to Blockbuster and rent "Andy Dick in Concert." Fortunately, my daughter intercepted me, sensed the problem, and dropped me off at one of those drafthouse theaters, where I watched a Lee Marvin film festival and washed down a big-ass burger with several brewskis. I soon recovered.

Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. The film consists of five warm, human stories of New Yorkers trying to cope in the aftermath of 9/11. If you want to see it, it is still playing in three theaters now, even though it was also released on DVD for the fifth anniversary of 9/11. (It never made it to more than eight theaters in the first place.)

Judy Greer (zipped .wmv). Not a bad little scene, as Judy gets schtupped by her hubby.
 

 

 

 

Bottoms Up (2006):

Not much of a review necessary for this one. Imagine a film in which the male and female leads are Jason Mewes (Jay, of Jay and Silent Bob) and Paris Hilton.

I know what you're thinking. "Yet another remake of Macbeth?"

Yup. I especially love when Lady Macbeth says, "Come ON, you darned spot, get out. Stupid spot. Spots are NOT hot."

I kid. It's actually a romantic comedy about fame. Jay plays a guy from the Midwest who kind of accidentally ends up hanging with the heartthrob star of some big WB series. Paris plays the heartthrob's girlfriend, who ends up ditching the hunk because she falls in love with Jay.

Word.

The third lead is David Keith, who overplays a character named Gay Uncle Earl. Silent Bob also has a small role, as does Tim Thomerson. Paris, in a daring stretch of her acting capabilities, plays a spoiled and vacuous heiress who is generally pretty but always has a bored and vacant expression. Why is this such a challenge? I'll tell you. Because she plays a spoiled and vacuous brunette heiress. This required her to study the label on the hair dye for weeks.

I can say in defense of the film that it is not as bad as I expected it to be. On the other hand, it is not possible for any film to be that bad.

Lots of nudity, however. The are several topless chicks at a Hollywood pool party. Gina-Raye Carter is topless in a dark sex scene. Dita de Leon paints advertising on her bare breasts.

Dita de Leon (zipped .wmv)
 
Gina-Raye Carter (zipped .wmv)
 
Lindsay Gareth (zipped .wmv) No real nudity.
 
party girls (zipped .wmv)

 

 

 

 

Third party videos:

More Linda Fiorentino. This time she's in After Hours. (Two avis zipped together). Neither of us is very enthusiastic about this stylish, surrealistic, dark comedy from that zany comedy genius Martin Scorsese. We have some admiration for the film, but not much love. (Movie House Review)

 

 

 

 

OTHER CRAP:

"The number of visitors to Howard Stern's Web site has declined a staggering 71 percent since March 2005, and look-ups of Stern's name on search engines plummeted by 90 percent in that same period."

Remember how they booed The Fountain in Venice? Well, the Italians liked it better than the Canadians.

Watch the full pilot for Jericho online

The latest update on Lonelygirl15, as summarized at Wikipedia.
  • (She's a video blogger who turned out to be a fictional character, ala JT LeRoy, in case you've missed the whole shebang.)

The first eight minutes of Haven, the new Orlando Bloom thriller

Watch the pilot for Kidnapped before it airs

Letterman's Top Ten Signs Your Boss Is Spying On You

A woman who can crush beer cans with her breasts

Five Movie Trailer Voice Guys in one car

THE MOTHER OF ALL TRAILERS

Looking for a great present for less than four bucks? Consider the Manilow Magic Stick

Colombia gang wives call sex strike against crime

"In a very unusual occurrence, a 12-year-old girl of Tikapur Municipality-9 generates pieces of glass from her head.
  • The victim, Sarita Bista has been suffering from a mysterious symptom of generating pieces of glass from her head for the last eight months."

News paragraph of the day: "Andree Rene's weapon of choice was fondue fuel. Following an argument in April 2001, the woman set her boyfriend's penis on fire as he slept."

Texas headline of the day: "Falling and dead pigeons repulse Texarkana fairgoers"

Colbert defends "The Path to 9/11" on the principle that "if it could be Clinton's fault, it is"

The Daily Show demonstrates how Metaphorical Mapquest can get you from the Desert of Despotism to the Fertile Gardens of Liberty.

The Daily Show's Lewis Black whines about whatever insignificant crap he's whining about this week
  • I think he wants the kids to get off his lawn

Jon Stewart talks to President Bush, one to one, cowpoke to cowpoke

Humane Hunting - The Daily Show looks at a dart hunting league - and its opponents ... here's Part 2 of the story

FILM LOVERS ABANDON THEATERS FOR IPOD
  • "Attendance at movie theaters across America dropped a stunning 92% on Tuesday as cineastes embraced Apple's new offering to download feature films and watch them on the 2.5" screen of an iPod. 'I can finally watch Citizen Kane the way Orson Welles would have wanted,' said Roger Ebert."

A short (and lame) clip from Marie Antoinette, with Kirsten Dunst

Four clips from Confetti ... official blurb:
  • A sharp and affectionate comedy featuring an ensemble of UK comedic talents, "Confetti" follows three couples as they duke it out to win a bridal magazine contest for "Most Original Wedding of the Year." The talented cast -- which includes Martin Freeman ("The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy," "Love Actually," "The Office"), Jessica Stevenson ("Shaun of the Dead," "Spaced," "The Royle Family"), Stephen Mangan ("Green Wing"), Felicity Montagu ("I'm Alan Partridge"), award-winning comedian Jimmy Carr in his first screen performance and Alison Steadman ("Topsy-Turvy," "Life is Sweet") -- was afforded total creative freedom within the confines of a carefully crafted story frame. To prepare, the cast took part in weeks of intense workshops where they began the process of developing and inhabiting their unique roles.

Bin Laden Celebrates Whitney Houston's Divorce By Cancelling Jihad ... Vows to "Pick Up the Pieces" With Platinum-Selling Diva

Russia refuses to shoot Madonna into space
  • So they still are the Evil Empire
  • I'll be happy to launch her from my back yard. I'm not sure she'll make it all the way, though.

9/11 Apathy Strikes Terrorists

Is that Lohan beaver shot a phony?
  • The Sun's article claims that their photographer took the photo and she obviously wasn't wearing panties: "my snapper caught the serial flasher outside London’s Kabaret club in a skirt leaving nothing to the imagination"
  • It seems very unlikely that Lohan would wear the ridiculous cheap-looking panties shown in this link.
  • Those facts would lead one to believe that the one with the panties is the fake, but I don't know why anyone would take a nude and draw panties on it ... ??
  • To be continued, I guess ...

Have consumer electronics killed childhood?

"TiVo unveils its 1st high-definition DVR "

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

 

Hallow's End (2003)

This is a low-budget, straight-to-video release that spends 45 minutes trying to be a character study, then 45 minutes as grade Z horror. The "Service Fraternity" members gather with their girlfriends to put on their annual Halloween haunted house charity project in a warehouse formerly owned by a devil worshiper. The leader this year is an aggressive, obnoxious asshole (Matt Morris) who is dating Brandy Little. Brandy is the ex- of professional wimp Stephan Cloud, who is now dating overachiever Amy Morris. Meanwhile, Brandy Little prefers her sex with Amy Jo Hearron. Camille Chen rounds out the female cast.

The film switches from character study to horror when the eight main characters begin changing into the characters they portray in the haunted house -- vampires, zombies, etc. It is all the fault of a book donated by Satan for the charity show. (Oh, that Satan. People bad-mouth him, but he really has a heart!) The main plot hook is to see if the wimp will grow testicles in time to save himself or anyone else.

Unfortunately, the plot is a mess and takes way too long to get started, and many members of the cast have no acting ability at all.

IMDb has this at 3.0, which is very generous.

 D.

Camille Chen shows breasts and buns in an after-sex scene.
Brandy Little breasts in a little lesbian action with Amy Jo Hearron (see below for Amy).
Amy Jo Hearron
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back to Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade

Today: Nikki Nova, Angela Little, and Cheyenne Silver

... to be continued

 

 

 

 

Hugo, the Michelangelo of seamless collages, is back with some more masterpieces.  Anne Heche and Joan Chen in Wild Side

Diane Lane in The Big Town

Karen Allen in Until September

Lena Headey in Aberdeen

Malika Sherawat in Murder

Monet Mazur in Whirlygirl

 

Pat's comments in yellow...


Comic Sacha Baron Cohen, best known as Ali G, has a new movie coming out starring Borat, his idiotic Kazakh TV reporter character.  Borat brags that his sister is the #4 prostitute in Kazahkstan, has sex with his pet pig, and sings a C&W song called "Throw a Jew Down The Well."  Kazahkstan's government threatened a lawsuit, and Borat declared that he supports it and defended Kazahkstan as a place where "women can now travel on inside of bus, homosexuals no longer have to wear blue hats, and age of consent has been raised to eight years old."  The Kazahkstan officials are so upset about how he's harming their image in America, President Bush agreed to meet with them to discuss the Borat problem.

*  Bush tried to tell them it's just a silly, made-up fiction, but they eventually convinced him that there really is such a place as Kazahkstan.




Barbara Outland Baker, who dated Arnold Schwarzenegger for six years and says she "lived to inhale (his) essence," has written a memoir called "Arnold & Me: In The Shadow of the Austrian Oak."  It recounts his pot smoking, his steroid use, his anger at his bodybuilding films appearing in gay porn movies, the two of them watching "Deep Throat" together, the way he talked her into losing her virginity to him, and how he cheated on her.  While other politicians would be hurling denials and lawsuits, Arnold wrote the foreword.  The closest he comes to a denial is, "Sometimes, Barbara's recollection of events differs from my own."

*  For instance, he would NEVER get stoned while watching porn...He might miss the best parts, and that would be against his moral code.

*  This gives you an idea of how entertaining Bill Clinton's memoirs could've been if he were honest.





The Kenyan Standard reports that there was confusion and concern Tuesday when the world didn't end.  Some members of the House of Yahweh religious sect reportedly spent the day in concrete bunkers, thinking their leader, Eleazor Kamotho Mugwe, had said there would be a nuclear holocaust on September 12, 2006. The government feared they'd spark a panic.  But Mugwe said it was a misunderstanding: September 12 is just the beginning of a seven-year period of collapse and destruction, not the day of the end of the world.

*  Boy, am I relieved!