Naked in New York (1993) takes place mostly in Boston, and has very little nakedness. So much for truth in advertising. Mary-Louise Parker and Erik Stolz are sweethearts living together. She is a WASP, he is a neurotic Jew and wannabe playwright. She lands a job in a photography gallery with James Bond for a boss, while he is having some trouble growing up. His best friend, a closet gay played by Ralph Machio, gets him an appointment with an off-Broadway producer, He finally has his break, but must go to New York. The entire time, he is jealous that his girl is having an affair with her boss. It was never quite clear to me if she was or not. Stolz character is narrating the story in flashback.

Parker briefly shows breasts in a sex scene, and is naked in a rowboat in a long shot during a dream sequence. This is not a bad film as romantic comedies go, but is not in any way remarkable. I could have done entirely without the Machio character. On the other hand, it had a terrific cast, including Tony Curtis, Jill Clayburgh, Timothy Dalton, Kathleen Turner, Calista Flockhart and Whoopie Goldburg, as well as a host of genuine New York celebrities. With a lesser cast, it would have fallen below the enjoyment level, but the supporting characters were likable enough that I didn't mind spending the time with them. This is a C.

I guess you can best describe director Rene Cardona Jr as the Mexican Roger Corman. Like Corman, he'd wait for a hot topic or genre, then rush out a bunch of quickie grade-B flicks filled with some action and lots of sex, hoping to get his share of whatever people were then interested in. In fact Cardona out-Cormaned Corman in quickie directing jobs, 94 films to 54, although Corman's reputation is based less on his direction than on the 346 films that he produced.

Right after Jaws, sharks were the hot topic, so Cardona came up with Tintorera, which is basically a very soft softcore porn film, probably intended for the drive-in market, with some pretty good underwater scenes of two guys hunting sharks. The shark hunters are supposed to be the two stars of the film, but the scenes appear to be your basic stock footage from shark week on the Discovery Channel.

Essentially, this film is a celebration of 1970s hedonism. Two Mexican playboys decide to team up to pick up chicks. They start out as rivals, but they realize they can do a lot better by co-operating and matching up their strengths. One has the looks and charm while the other has the money and a fancy boat, so together they represent the perfect magnet to seduce the English-speaking tourists. That doesn't prove especially difficult, since the women have basically gone on vacation to get laid anyway, so they are easy pickin's for a studly guy and a rich guy.

Some of the people who commented at IMDb said that this film is incomprehensible. I can see why they wrote that because there are two versions, a 134 minute version shown in Mexico, and an 89 minute one shown in the States. I guess the people who complained saw the short version, since it seems likely that anyone watching 89 minutes of a 134 minute movie would find it incomprehensible.

I found the narrative on the DVD version to be straightforward and easy to follow.

Not that interesting, but easy enough to follow.

Unfortunately, the new "25th anniversary DVD" is NOT the entire film. It is 125 minutes long. The version I watched does preserve the narrative and continuity (such as it is), but does not show all the nudity.

{cough} blowjob {cough}

Just to illustrate my point, there is a capture below done by a fellow nicknamed Umpire. Of the six frames he presents here, not one is on the 25th Anniversary DVD, although there is some additional (brief) nudity in the frames immediately before and after this sequence, and those frames are on the DVD.

So it goes.

This is, of course, not a good movie, as I suppose you can imagine, but it is watchable, despite the characters switching constantly and rapidly from English to Spanish. (It's all good. The Spanish dialogue is dubbed in English. The English dialogue is dubbed in Spanish.) The shark-hunting footage is actually pretty interesting. Even in this somewhat censored version, there is frequent (albeit inexplicit) nudity from at least six women, as well as from the two male leads. The two men also managed to create fairly interesting characters, although they were not especially proficient actors. In other words, it's a fairly good drive-in picture, comparable to some of Corman's average efforts. I suppose that the low 3.8 score at IMDb includes lots of votes from people who saw the incomprehensible 89 minute version. The longer version could be in the 4s or possibly even in the 5s. It's a fairly enjoyable junk film.

• Fiona Lewis. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) I have spent the last ten years looking at pictures of beautiful women. Despite all that competition, Fiona is one of the ten  most beautiful women I have ever seen. She looks like Jacqueline Bisset - except better!!! She never showed her body in close-up, but from what could be seen of her walking nude on the beach, her body appears to be as beautiful as her face. You will find picturews of her in the Encyclopedia from several films, and her breasts are enormous and natural. There are no other pictures of her butt, which looks just as good as her breasts.
• Susan George. (1, 2, 3, 4) OK, she's not so beautiful, but is well known from a famous movie (Straw Dogs). Minimal nudity.
• Umpire's capture of Susan George (some additional frames not on the DVD)
• Priscilla Barnes (1, 2, 3) - her first-ever screen nudity
• Jennifer Ashley (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) - she also did some nudity in The Pom-Pom Girls
• Laura Lyons (1, 2, 3)
• Extras

Other Crap:

• Lots of cool videos, many of them naughty.
• New book pays tribute to Otis, the lovable town drunk on Andy Griffith.
• Animal lovers bare all in calendar
• Organizers Fear Terrorist Attacks On Upcoming Al-Qaeda Convention
• The Shawshank Redemption, a "feel good" movie about a convicted murderer, prison brutality and the enduring power of friendship, has been voted the best movie never to have won a major Oscar.
  Of course, they didn't get the right films on the list. I like Shawshank, but I'm not sure it belongs on the top of the REAL list. I'm not sure what they consider a major Oscar, but

   

  • The Seven Samurai didn't even win best foreign film. It was nominated for some minor set design crap, and lost.
    
    
     
  • Citizen Kane won only for best original screenplay. Don't know if that is considered major. I would consider it major, they might not.
    
     
  • Dr Strangelove was nominated for four Oscars, won none.
    
     
  • Star Wars won six Oscars, but they were all for bullshit like sound editing.
    
     
  • Crouching Tiger won best foreign language film and best cinematography. (I would consider cinematography major, but it is debatable, I suppose)
    
     
  • Rear Window was nominated for four, won none.
    
     
  • Paths of Glory wasn't even nominated for any Oscars.
    
     
  • The Bicycle Thief was nominated for one, and lost.
    
     
  • Raiders of the Lost Ark won only four bullshit awards.
     

  
  My own opinion, excluding the two debatable ones, would order them like this:
   

  1. Dr Strangelove
      
  2. Raiders
      
  3. Rear Window
      
  4. Wizard of Oz
      
  5. Shawshank
      
  6. Samurai
      
  7. Some Like it Hot
      
  8. Star Wars
      
  9. Paths of Glory
      
  10. The Bicycle Thief
       
  11. Psycho
       
  12. The Great Escape
       
  13. ET: The Extra-Terrestrial
       
  14. 2001: A Space Odyssey
       
  15. It's a Wonderful Life
       

  
  
  The order is arbitrary, of course, but I feel pretty confident that those other four belong above Shawshank, and perhaps some of the others do as well. Once again, I love Shawshank, but it is quite reasonable to argue that Shawshank didn't deserve any Oscars. It came out the same year as Forrest Gump and Pulp Fiction, and was absolutely no factor in the pre-Oscar buzz. Everyone in Hollywood split into the Gump camp or the Tarantino camp.

   

• Current Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 - recent state polls place Kerry back on top in this see-saw battle.
  • Here has what has happened in recent state polls:(1) New Mexico from barely Bush to strong Kerry (???!!!) (2) Wisconsin from weak Bush to barely Kerry (3) Arkansas from barely Bush to undecided (4) Pennsylvania, Florida, and New Jersey from barely Bush to barely Kerry (5) and, on the other side of the ledger, Maryland from weak Kerry to undecided.
• Contrary to its former policy, the National Hurricane Center has now decided to call all hurricanes "Ivan", because hurricanes are communist-inspired, comrade!
• A trailer and five clips from Zelary.
  • "It is the 1940s and the Czech lands have been occupied by the Nazis. Eliska is a young woman who was unable to complete medical school because the Germans closed the universities and now works as a nurse in a city hospital. She is also involved in the resistance movement along with her lover, the surgeon Richard, and their friend Dr. Chldek. One night, a man from a rural mountain area is brought to the hospital with serious injuries and desperately needs a transfusion. Eliska is the only one with the same blood type. Her blood saves his life and a connection is formed between the two that in the course of the story becomes an extraordinarily strong relationship between the modern, cosmopolitan, and educated Eliska and the barbaric, salt of the earth man with the soul of a child, Joza. The resistance group that the doctors are involved in is discovered and hunted by the Gestapo and suddenly their lives are threatened. While Eliska's lover, Richard, flees the country overnight, the group quickly has to find a different safe haven for her. They ask Joza, the patient whose life she saved with her blood, to hide her in his remote mountain cabin. Eliska is forced to leave her urban life and all at once become a new woman: Hana, the wife of a mountain man. Her new home is the wild mountain village where time stopped one hundred and fifty years ago called Zelary."
• The Daily Show reports on Dan Rather's mea culpa.
• The rumor is that Cammy is no longer "in sync" with Timberwolf.
• How to tell if your wife has a secret life as a porn star.
• When did Cybill Shepherd turn into Phyllis Diller? In this article, Cybill attributes her look to jet lag. I assume that means she was lagging behind her jet when it took off.
• Urban Legend: Three hurricanes that hit Florida in the summer of 2004 touched only counties that voted for George Bush in the 2000 presidential election. Status: Bullshit.
• US to deport Cat Stevens. I'm going to sleep peacefully tonight, with Tommy Chong behind bars, and a plane or peace train whisking Cat Stevens away.
• Is there a "squiggle code" to identify chocolates?
• Olsen Twins Target "Anorexia" T-Shirt - L.A. designers warned to stop selling 'Save Mary-Kate' line
• Janet Jackson Breast Flash Prompts Heavy Station Fines: "'The U.S. Constitution is generous in its protection of free expression, but it is not a license to thrill,' said FCC Chairman Grand Moff Michael Powell. 'The context of the halftime show leads us to conclude that the breast-baring finale was intended.' "
• GALLUP: Gallup Poll Daily Briefing - how do Americans view Congress?
• ZENTAI WOMAN. Offbeat conceptual photography featuring the female shape.
• EatPES - HOME OF THE TWISTED FILMS OF PES
• Do you remember that picture which purported to show 1954's version of a 2004 home computer? I had previously thought it was really taken in 1954, or had been mocked up in 1954 by Popular Science or some magazine like that. This information implies that could not be the case. I guess it is not a real picture of how 1954 viewed the future, but a piece of high-concept humor lampooning the 1954 view of the future.
• I don't know if this will be the worst movie ever made, but this has to be the worst trailer ever, if that is a valid indicator!!! Looks like a scene from a B&W Corman monster movie from the 60s. The trailer from After the Apocalypse . 'After the Apocalypse' is a futuristic fable about five survivors trying to make sense of a New World after a devastating urban catastrophe challenges their basic human needs. Set in a bleak, post-urban landscape in the aftermath of the Third World War, the film presents a strangely limited environment where a single woman and four men are forced to communicate without words as a result of destructive gasses from the war. When their pasts are erased by the war, they are forced to recreate their lives both individually and collectively. The film opens with a man wearing a gas mask: Yasuaki emerges from a basement shelter where he has been in hiding. He staggers to a river to get a drink, where he falls asleep and slips into the water. Yasuaki is saved from drowning by another survivor, Zorikh, a tall man with an injured leg, who teaches him how to fish. As the two eat their catch, a third survivor appears, Moises, a former clown, who still entertains by juggling. Yasuaki finds a woman, Jacqueline, a painter, while walking along in the meadows. He follows her back to her shelter and observes that she lives with Zorikh, the man who had saved him. He witnesses the abusive and violent nature of their relationship. When Zorikh discovers Moises playing music with Jacqueline, he violently attacks the clown. Yasuaki meets a fifth survivor in a tunnel, Oscar, a friendly young man wearing goggles. They team up to abduct Jacqueline in order to save her from her possessive lover. When they learn Jacqueline is pregnant, they must decide between their own selfish desires and the survival of the human race."
• A new clip from Taxi, the alleged "action comedy" with Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon.
• Four new clips from I Heart Huckabees
• Carlos Delgado for President?
• The Big Assawoman Surf Shop
• The Daily Show - This Week in God
• This week's movies: The Last Shot - 33% positive reviews. (Not statistically meaningful - only three reviews) "instead of a sharp satiric edge, there is the dull thud of overripe tomatoes hitting the pavement"
  • The theater counts for this week's new movies: The Forgotten 2800, First Daughter 2100, Shaun of the Dead 600, The Last Shot 35, Infernal Affairs 5.
• This week's movies: First Daughter - 0% positive reviews (Not statistically meaningful - only one review. But that was a disaster: "Charmless and confoundingly amateurish, a trifle of bankrupt non-ideas that will be forgotten long before the November election even gets here."
• This week's moviesThe Forgotten - 38% positive reviews. (Not meaningful - only eight reviews)
• This week's movies: Shaun of the Dead - 87% positive reviews
• This week's movies: Infernal Affairs - 93% positive reviews
• RIP - Skeeter Davis, country and rockabilly legend.
• Spacey attacks rude theatregoers. I agree with the Space-man. Ringing phones in a live theatrical performance should be punishable by death, or at least a very severe talking-to. Compromise - call it loss of one limb.
• The wacky antics of Dirty Sanchez. For some reason, people at a University in Edinburgh were surprised that a band named Dirty Sanchez was obscene. As Steven Wright has pointed out about Lou Gehrig getting Lou Gehrig's disease, they "should have seen it coming"
• To hell with major league baseball cards. Here's the Bush league cards.
• Good and bad news about hurricanes. Bad: destruction and death. Good: psychedelic mushrooms, dude!
• Wonder Bread and Twinkies may be headed to the nostalgia bin. Interstate Bakeries, makers of all of the Hostess, Dolly Madison, and Drake's snack lines, is America's largest wholesale baker and distributor of fresh baked bread and sweet goods.
  • And Wonder Bread helps build strong bodies eight twelve ways. There's some nostalgia for you. Can anybody else remember the day on Howdy Doody when Buffalo Bob first said "twelve ways", even though "eight" had been pounded into our heads? Was I the only one bewildered by this? Man, I'm still not over it.
• Pravda manages to replace its amateurish command of English with some amateurish photo manipulation!!! For once, they hired an author who can actually write in English. Unfortunately, they did not hire an editor with a command of Photoshop! Check out the brilliant morph of President Bush into Hitler.(The article is just the usual nutter stuff: Bush = Hitler = Pontius Pilate)
• BUSH SEEKS ANSWERS ON IRAQ FROM JEOPARDY CHAMPION. Game Show Set Recreated in White House Basement.
  • Instead of the usual potpourri of “Jeopardy!” questions, however, the special White House edition had only categories that pertained to the crisis in Iraq, such as “ANGRY SHIITES,” “RUPTURED OIL PIPELINES,” and “MASSIVE POWER OUTAGES.” According to those who saw Mr. Jennings play the special Iraqi version, the champ breezed through most of the questions but was stumped when he got to “EXIT STRATEGIES” for $100.
• Chinese starlet Zhang Ziyi booed by "2046" fans. Of course, in China, a boo means "we love you!". Seriously, I didn't know that "boo" was a universal sound with a universal meaning. I always thought it was an American thing. Maybe the headline writer meant to write "jeered" rather than "booed".
• Jimmy Swaggert to kill gays for looking at him "like that". This is bad in theory, but I don't think there is any realistic chance of it happening.

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.

Today from the Ghost...'caps and vids of Jenn Rivell topless in scenes from the lo-budget indie flick "Haggard: The Movie" (2003). Written/directed by and starring Rivell's hubby, Bam Margera (skateboarder from "Jackass" and his own MTV show "Viva la Bam").

• Jenn Rivell (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Jennifer Rivell zipped .wmvs (1, 2)

MARTHA STEWART GOING TO PRISON
She Gets Her Choice?! - A judge granted Martha Stewart's request to start serving her prison term immediately to get it over with and ordered her to surrender on October 8. Contrary to earlier reports, there is no current moratorium on new inmates at the minimum security women's prison in Danbury, Connecticut, which was Stewart's top choice of prisons, so that's likely where she'll go.