Tuesday

Tuna
"Baadasssss!"

Baadasssss! (2004) is a mockmentary by Mario van Peebles about the making by is father Melvin of Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song. It was not a great film, but was the first strong black film, and a very early indie. Mario plays the part of his father, much as Melvin played the staring role in Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song. He based the film on a book written by his father, and on his own personal memories. Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song had been a major success, partly because black audiences were looking for a film that portrayed real black people, and partly because of a lot of support from the Black Panthers.

The story is a great yarn, and is well told. Peebles senior had finished Watermelon Man and was offered a three picture contract with a studio. He had arrived in Hollywood, but was expected to make more stereotypical black comedies. He had a different idea, and proceeded to do it outside the studio system. He decided early to use a 50% minority crew, and so had no union support, so he went to the porn industry to find qualified crew. In a full length commentary with van Peebles Jr. and Sr, senior frequently comments on how accurate the story was that was told. Mario created some composite characters based on several real life people, but essentiall told an accurate story of the making and marketing of the film.

Karimah Westbrook, and several other actresses show everything/ IMDb readers say 7.3 of 10. Baadasssss!, like Sweetback's Baadassss Song was made in a little over two weeks on a very low budget. Even with the small budget of $1M, the film looks great, and held my interest start to finish. This is a very strong C+. Obviously, some people weren't as taken with it as I was, but it is one of the better films I have seen this year.

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  • Karimah Westbrook (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)
  • Unknown (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)

  • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)
    Siesta (1987):

    (Complete Spoilers)

    I suppose the full Spanish name of this film should be Siesta de Suciedad.

    Dirt nap.

    Cuz' that's what it is about.

    You see, it is yet another of those re-tellings of Ambrose Bierce's "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge". This is a famous story about a Southern civilian who was hanged by the Union Army during the Civil War. The noose snaps, he falls into the creek, escapes .... to make a short story even shorter, it turns out that none of that happened. The entire story of his escape is simply the thoughts that go through a man's mind as he is about to die. The story ends with his neck snapping -  he is still in the noose.

    Since it is recognized as one of the great stories in the history of American literature, I suppose that just about everyone in the United States had to read this story in high school, along with The Outcasts of Poker Flat, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Monkey's Paw, To Build a Fire, and two or three of Poe's most famous stories. Even if you have read nothing else in your life, you have probably read most or all of these classics, through the educational force-feeding process.

    Here is the complete story if you are one of the eleven people in the world who has never read it.

    When it was written, the surprise ending probably packed a pretty good punch. Even when I was a kid, I was impressed by Rod Serling's version on The Twilight Zone, which aired just before I had to read the story for a sophomore English class, so I wasn't expecting the ending, and it really worked for me. (Note that this was not a Twilight Zone original, but an award winning French short film which had been adapted by the Twilight Zone people, adding Serling's customary solemn pontifications at the start and finish.)

    That was nearly a half a century ago, however, and the ol' "dying man's last thoughts" gimmick has been worked and reworked so many times that it is now almost as hackneyed as "I woke up, and it was all a dream." I guess the best version of it in recent years was Adrian Lyne's "Jacob's Ladder", which succeeded because of Lyne's masterful control of the film's atmosphere, and because of the meticulous attention paid to nuances and details. It is one of the few "surprise ending" films that you can watch and re-watch, just to see all the clues planted into the story. When you watch it a second time, you will be kicking yourself for not realizing that you had never seen his post-Vietnam life as that era really was, but rather as someone in the late 60s would have envisioned the upcoming years.

    Oh, well. I'm straying too far from the topic, which is Siesta, yet another version of Owl Creek Bridge.

    Ellen Barkin wakes up on a runway in Spain, covered with blood. She is wearing only a red dress, with no underwear. Her memory of the previous days is unclear. She is haunted by the nagging feeling that she has been involved in a murder.

    As it turns out, she was right. Unfortunately for her, the murder was her own.

    That's the short version.

    The longer version of the story is that she is some kind of female Evil Knievel, and is planning a stunt so daring that she may not survive. It seems to involve a free-fall into a volcano, so I can certainly understand her trepidation. Since the stunt may take her life, she decides to settle some accounts before she attempts it. She visits an ex-boyfriend in Spain to make peace with the love of her life. He's sorta happy to see her, but his new wife is decidedly not.

    In the process of Barkin's adventures in Spain, many confusing and arty things happen. Poseurs pose. Eurotrashers act trashy. Spain's only taxi driver is always everywhere when a ride is needed. He doesn't even need a road. Everyone acts far too mysterious, and all characters possess far too many eccentricities. Everyone skulks around, shifts his eyes beadily, and obfuscates. The film makes Mulholland Drive seem as simple and straightforward as The Sound of Music.

    All the confusion is, of course, theoretically resolved when we find out that Barkin is already dead, and we have been watching the jumbled thoughts of her final moments - a hodge-podge of memories, fears, fantasies, and free associations.

    Bah, humbug!

    Some trivia:

    Siesta had a good cast.

    • The film co-stars Gabriel Byrne, who romanced Barkin on and off screen, and later married her. (The film was made in 1987. They married in 1988, divorced in 1993.)

    • It also features Jodie Foster. Jodie was a child and adolescent star from 1976 to 1984 (ages 14 to 22), and then became a major adult star in the period from 1988 to 1994 (ages 26 to 32). Siesta was made in the lull between her two periods of success, when her career was truly in the doldrums, and she was looking for an adult identity.

    • The rest of the cast is filled out by some of the top B-list actors: Isabelle Rossellini, Martin Sheen, Julian Sands and Grace Jones.

    It did not have an especially good director.

    The director, Mary Lambert, had achieved a modicum of success directing music videos before attempting to make the move into feature films. Lambert's video for Madonna's Material Girl was voted among the top twenty when Slant Magazine chose the Top Hundred Videos of All-Time in 2003. Lambert's feature film career has been notably less successful. Here's how it looks, ranked from best to worst:

    1. (5.69) - Pet Sematary (1989)
    2. (4.91) - Grand Isle (1991)
    3. (4.90) - Siesta (1987)
    4. (4.04) - In Crowd, The (2000)
    5. (3.64) - Pet Sematary II (1992)

    It appears that Ms. Lambert would make an excellent subject for Dr Peter's disciples when they make their next study of the Peter Principle. It appears that Music Videos represented her highest level of competence, and that her skill at making them got her promoted to theatrical films, which represent her personal level of incompetence.

    If Ellen Barkin had never removed her dress, this movie would be unbearable. But the fact of the matter is that Barkin did remove that dress. She got naked several times, exposing every nook and cranny of her tremendously well-toned body, including a scene where she sunbathes on her back in bright sunlight. Therefore, I am suggesting that this film is not without great entertainment value, since Barkin is one of the sexiest and most athletic women in screen history. So watch it for that alone. Just make sure you have your remote handy, so you can fast-forward through the crevices between Barkin's nude scenes, and thus avoid any contact with the poor man's David Lynch movie which resides in those crevices.

    The film clips below were provided by one of our all-time great contributors from the early days, ICMS, aka The Flemish Flash.

    • Ellen Barkin. Only one capture, but it's a good one. I ordered a copy of this Region 2 DVD from Amazon France, and should have some extensive still captures in the next week or two.
    • Ellen Barkin clips (zipped .avi versions, about 5 meg each) (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
    • Ellen Barkin clips (zipped .wmv versions, about 2.5 meg each) (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

     

    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:

    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 Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
    • If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

    Shiloh

    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.

     

    Nevada

    Nevada is an offbeat film with a cast consisting almost entirely of women. The two pictured here are Kathy Najimy and Dee Wallace Stone, who were 40 and 48 respectively, when they filmed this scene. Unfortunately, Amy Brenneman declined to join them in the buff.

     

    The comeback kid

    Back in the late 90s I used to joke about dividing Carre Otis's career into pre-Snickers and post-Snickers. The model who wanted to be an actress (and failed miserably) ballooned up to Anna Nicole Smith territory there for a while, but she, like Anna, eventually slimmed back down, Carre looked as exquisitely beautiful as ever in this 2001 film, Under Heavy Fire, except maybe for some track marks and tattoos, the lingering residue her life's two long relationships, one with The Mickster and the other with Happy Juice.

     

     

    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.

    Brainscan
    'Caps and comments by Brainscan:

    My own treatment of the well-capped Auto Focus (2002). Movie was okay, I guess, but it gave me a great idea: let the dust settle and do a biopic of Bob Guccione. He's lead a much more interesting life than Bob Crane, with the kind of rise and fall story that made Aristophanes famous. And just think of the number of nekkid babes you would have to cast to do justice to the story's essential truth. In fact, I'll let you keep the writing credits, just let me be the casting director.

    Anyway, here's the exposure as done by all but one of the credited gals...I'm saving the last for another day.

    About the collage labeled Kelly K.C. Quan: IMDb identifies her as the blindfolded gal. Well, there are two women blindfolded, one of them much larger than the other. Don't have a clue which is Kelly.

    Crimson Ghost
    NOTE: We currently have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Instead of viewing them online, save the zip files to your hard drive in the directory of your choice, un-zip and play from there.


    Today from the Ghost...part 2 of his tribute to Skinemax babe Regina Russell, featuring scenes from "Sex Files: Creating the Perfect Man (2000).

    • Regina Russell zipped .wmvs. She is fully nude in all of these but pretty much only shows breasts. However, #5 does offer some pube views. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

    Spaz
    'Caps and comments by Spaz:

    Jeremiah: season one DVD set
    Made for Showtime sci-fi series starring Sideshow Luke Perry as a survivor named Jeremiah in a post-apocalyptic world. Twenty episodes from season one are available on a six-DVD set with a bonus DVD featuring some Stargate episodes. Note syndicated episodes shown on regular cable networks such as Spaced in Canada has the nude scenes removed.

    The main starlets:


    The nekkid guest starlets:


    The sexy guest starlets:


    Stargate SG-1: Children of the Gods (1997) (DVD)
    This is from the bonus DVD that came with the Jeremiah set. This pilot features full frontal nudity by one of the stars but the rest of series only maybe had one other nude scene

    Variety
    Jamie Lee Curtis
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

    Jamie Lee at age 26 in scenes from "Love Letters" (1984). There is a little rear nudity in #5, but of course she's also showing off her amazing toplessness.

    Sonia Braga Drgaonscan 'caps of the often nude Brazilian actress topless in scenes from the 1975 TV series "Gabriela".

    Kelly Monaco
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

    Señor Skin 'caps of the gorgeous former Heffer showing off her all natural big'uns in scenes from "Late Last Night" (1999).

    Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com
    Pat's comments in yellow...

    NEW MISS AMERICA CROWNED
    Healthy Enough To Survive Anorexia - Saturday, Miss Alabama Deidre Downs, an aspiring medical student, was crowned Miss America on a vow to work to regain public respect for the pageant. She pledged to help bring Miss America "back into the realm of popular culture" as a major event, and end criticism that it's outdated and irrelevant to modern women. She began by defending the new scanty Speedo swimsuits, such as the string bikini she wore, saying they demonstrate a healthy lifestyle at a time when obesity has become an epidemic.

  • Any woman who really reflected America would be more familiar with string cheese than with string bikinis.
  • To demonstrate their physical fitness, next year, they have put on string bikinis and do jumping jacks.
  • Plus she's a medical student, and that's a suit you'd see at Club Med.


    MACAULAY CULKIN ARRESTED
    Stoned Alone - Friday in Oklahoma, Macaulay Culkin joined the celebrity mugshot club when he was arrested for possession of marijuana and Xanax without a prescription during a traffic stop. He paid $4,000 bail and was out quickly. In his mugshot, he appeared bleary-eyed and unshaven, but had the same smirking little smile famous from "Home Alone" posters.

  • It's all those anti-depressants.
  • It'll take him another 30 years to look like Nick Nolte.
  • His next "Home Alone" sequel will be called "Home Detention."
  • He's not afraid of being locked up with a bunch of twisted guys who like to touch young men...He used to hang out with Michael Jackson.


    BRITNEY MARRIES, TUSSLES WITH CHUCKY
    He's Such A Catch, She Couldn't Wait! - Britney Spears fooled paparazzi by secretly marrying her backup dancer Kevin Federline Saturday night at a home in Studio City, California. Even her mom and sister were stunned that what they thought was an engagement party turned out to be a wedding. She'd already sent invitations to a wedding next month, which will now be a post-wedding party. This was Britney's second surprise wedding this year.

  • But probably not her last...There are still three months left.
  • The big question now is, "Will they still be married by the time that party rolls around in October?"
  • The marriage got off to a bad start when Kevin impregnated three bridesmaids in the receiving line.

    "Why Does That Doll Hate Me?!" - The New York Post reports that Britney Spears is feuding with Chucky, the homicidal horror movie doll. She was reportedly upset that Rogue Pictures wanted to use "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time" in an "inappropriate" manner in "Seed of Chucky." It was to play while Chucky had sex with a Britney doll to produce a satanic heir. Britney's people sent a cease-and-desist letter. The song was removed, and the movie is being marketed as "the movie Britney doesn't want you to see."

  • That sounds better than "the movie all the movie critics don't want you to see."
  • Who would be the satanic offspring of Britney Spears and Chucky? Avril Levigne?
  • "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time" is supposed to be a tender, sentimental love song!


    DVD SPILLS SECRETS OF "STAR WARS"
    "MC Squared E Equals!" - "Star Wars" fanatics, some already lined up in costumes at video stores, are awaiting tonight's midnight release of the DVD box set of the original trilogy. It includes a documentary with a lot of previously unknown trivia, including: Yoda was based on Albert Einstein...Chewbacca was a cross between George Lucas' dog and the "2001" apes...Luke Skywalker was originally intended to be a midget, and Han Solo was to be a green monster with gills.

  • And thanks to the miracle of CGI effects, they now ARE!
  • And the cantina was based on the bar that Lucas was spending way too much time in when he came up with those ideas.
  • Jar Jar Binks was a cross between a guppy, an offensive racial stereotype and Jon Lovitz's "Annoying Man" character.
  • The boxed set is entitled: "Star Wars: The Good Ones."