Friday the 13th Part 4 - the Final Chapter (1984) has Jason coming back to life in the morgue, killing a doctor and a nurse, then heading home to harvest some more horny teens. This time, they upped the breast count, added some character development, and included a few sub-plots. In other words, they made a little more effort, and it resulted in a pretty good sequel. The story centers around a group of teens living in a house in the woods, and the family who lives next to them (mother, daughter, son). The son, played by Cory Feldman, has a genius for make-up and masks. The daughter is a dedicated virgin. The teens next door are after sex and drugs and fun.

Camilla and Carey More, identical twins, show breasts and buns. Judie Aronson shows breasts and buns in two skinny dipping scenes, one in broad daylight. Robyn Woods, body double for Barbara Howard, shows buns pressed against a shower door. IMDb readers have this at 4.4 of 10. It grossed $44M in the theaters, and "The Final Chapter" proved that the franchise could still make money. They didn't leave much room for a sequel, however, as they showed Jason's face for the first time, and killed him off at the end. The whole point of this entire series is a huge body count as Jason hacks and slashes his way through good and bad alike. For some reason, they all seem to end at night, and in the rain. This is one of the better in the series. C.

Homegrown actually isn't that bad a flick. It is a modest little bit of intrigue about a trio of low-level pot harvesters who watch their boss get killed, then decide that they need to steal just enough of the pot to recoup the salaries they were owed.

As the film progresses, their modest ambitions grow until they find themselves trying to make millions of dollars, and get caught in a vice between the mafia, a powerful local pot-growers' cartel, corrupt local policemen, and the twin brother of their slain boss.

All in all, it isn't a bad watch, with a cast that includes all of the following:

• Billy Bob Thornton
• Hank Azaria
• Kelly Lynch
• Jon Bon Jovi
• Ryan Phillippe
• Judge Reinhold
• Ted Danson
• John Lithgow
• Jamie Lee Curtis
• Jake Gyllenhaal
• Maggie Gyllenhaal

If you are a movie buff or a fan of any of those people, you are now wondering, "how did I miss this film completely, given that it came out in 1998, and featured a lot of stars?"

I guess there are several components to that answer. For example, many of those people had miniscule roles. I don't even remember the Gyllenhaals. (They took tiny roles because they were not famous yet, and their father was the director.)  In addition, many of these people were far less popular then. The star, Billy Bob Thornton, now a skinny star, was then a chubby bit player. You could cite a few such reasons, but they would all miss the central point, unless you hit on the key fact that this film was mis-marketed as a comedy. Even now, the DVD box claims that the film is a comedy. There is almost nothing funny in this film, other than that the three main characters are bumbling buffoons. Apart from the obvious ineptitude of their ill-formed schemes, the film has about as many chuckles as Andrei Rublev. It's basically a buddy film, placed within the general setting of a crime thriller in which amateurs get in over their heads. It is performed by a competent cast, and most of the situations are fairly plausible.

But a comedy it ain't.

• Kelly Lynch (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Speaking of Sex (2001):

Director John McNaughton has usually been a good source of dependable entertainment. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer and Normal Life are considered offbeat treasures. Wild Things is one of the great sleazy movies. Mad Dog and Glory is a lot of fun. The latter two feature the great comic Bill Murray, so one would hold out hopes that a third collaboration between Murray and McNaughton would offer more laughs, more entertainment, and more sleaze.

One would be wrong.

Except for the sleaze. There is plenty of that. I suppose half of the movie involves verbal descriptions of sex and various discussions about the poor performance of Jay Mohr's penis and the magnificent performance of James Spader's penis.

The story:

A couple is having sexual problems. They get involved with two therapists. One of the therapists has elevator sex with the wife. The two therapists have a sexual history with each other, and some unsettled scores lead to a massive legal battle centering around the unethical relationship between the therapist and the wife, with the other therapist pulling the strings. High-powered lawyers get involved on both sides, and the lawyer become sexually involved with one another as well. Somehow, these people have to figure out how to settle the lawsuit and break off into three happy couples.

I'm not sure if the script was that bad to begin with, but the movie was completely screwed up by performers who just weren't any good in their parts. Melora Walters overplayed the wife with a cartoonish Betty Boop voice. Jay Mohr brought a complete lack of acting skills to the husband part. James Spader was an over-the-top nebbish, and was totally unbelievable as the male therapist.

Bill Murray and Catherine O'Hara did fairly well in small parts as the lawyers, but even Murray, although the best performer in the film, brought none of his usual comic inventiveness to this role. I guess even a comic genius needs some lines to work with.

This is just an unfunny comedy, with poor performances centered around generally uninvolving situations and characters.

• Melora Walters (1, 2)
• Lara Flynn Boyle

Other Crap:

• Sandra Bullock Awarded $7 Mln in Texas Home Dispute: "Actress Sandra Bullock's Texas dream house turned into a expensive nightmare but on Thursday a jury awarded her $7 million in a lawsuit against the builder. "
• In the Big House with Martha
• Grandiloquent Dictionary. This is the result of an ongoing project to collect and distribute the most obscure and rare words in the English language.
• Porn: Martha Stewart: Prison Living Promo. Hey, you knew it was ... um ... coming.
• Google Desktop Search
• Tres cool! NASA's World Wind System: "World Wind allows any user to zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth, leveraging high resolution LandSat imagery and SRTM elevation data to experience Earth in visually rich 3D, just as if they were really there."
• Two new clips from The Machinist. This is the thriller for which Christian Bale trimmed down to skeletal weight. He's barely recognizable.
• Two more clips from the Jude Law remake of Alfie
• A ne wTV spot, plus the trailers from Closer.: "This is an adaptation of Patrick Marber's acclaimed play and revolves around two couples. When the guy from the first couple links up with the girl from the other couple, the group dynamic turns ugly." Stars Jude Law, Julia Roberts, Natalie Portman, Clive Owen.
• Three new featurettes and three new clips from Team America: World Police. Unfortunately, these clips are on a very slow server, but it is well worthwhile to load the 14 second clip of Sean Penn.
• Irish screen star Colin Farrell is in line to play the part of Detective Sonny Crockett in the movie of the 1980s cop classic, Miami Vice.
• Actual, honest to god query letters I've received in Hollywood.
• Funnyman Chris Rock has been selected to host the next Oscars.
• (Letterman) Top Ten President Bush Explanations For The Bulge In His Jacket
• You have to love the people that retail string bikinis - Malibu Strings Bikinis
• The trailer for Oldboy: "A man is inexplicably kidnapped and imprisoned for 15 years and his wife is brutally murdered. On his release, he is given a wallet full of money and a mobile phone. A stranger calls and asks him to try and figure out why he was imprisoned. A girl appears and promises to help him solve the enigma and seek vengeance for his cruel fate. As the search progresses, the man finally comes face to face with his kidnapper, who proposes a game: if the man discovers the reason for his imprisonment, his kidnapper will kill himself. If not, then the girl will be killed - but he has only five days to unravel the mystery."
• Electoral Vote Predictor 2004 now has it at 284-228 in favor of Bush. The only change since yesterday(291-228): Iowa out of the Bush column and into "undecided".
• MovieJuice! reviews Shall We Dance?, or as they call it - Dead Astaire
• Genius Jules Verne foresaw the camera phone. "Literary scholars announced Monday that they have unearthed a 33-page handwritten manuscript of 'The Camera-Phone,' a short story believed to have been written in 1874 by French novelist Jules Verne"
• As if things didn't look bad enough for the BoSox, Curt Schilling might not be able to pitch Game 5 of the AL championship series Sunday because of his injured right ankle, which will require surgery after the playoffs.
• Kiki dating Rick Salomon, the guy in the Paris Hilton video. "Kirsten Dunst in a downward spiral. She's gone from a romance with heartthrob and all-around nice guy Jake Gyllenhaal to hanging out with Paris Hilton's sexcapades partner, Rick Salomon"
• The ten most distinctive voices in music. Did you know he calls himself "Axl Rose' because it's an anagram for oral sex?
• Playmate Gallery - Victoria Fuller, Miss January 1996 - Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• Four free short vids from Playboy's Beach Babes!
• First James Bond becomes a Yank, now Ace Ventura becomes an American Pet Detective.
• Massive spending irregularities found in the government agency in charge of airport security. I feel LOTS more secure now. Actually, I do feel a little more secure because somebody actually found all these problems.
• JoBlo's movie review of Team America: World Police.
• Pierce Brosnan on his Bond career: "'It's over, it's over, it's absolutely over,' ". He said he was willing, even eager, to do a fifth and final Bond, adding that producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson had originally asked him to return right before he started promoting Die Another Day, although no contracts were signed. But then they changed their minds
• NASA fakes moon landing! With photographic proof.
• Astronomy Picture of the Day - Glimpse of a Globular Star Cluster. An infrared image reveals a hidden star cluster - of some 300,000 suns.
• GALLUP: Kerry kicks ass in third debate.
• Weekly World News: "HARVARD PROF. CONFIRMS ALIEN ABDUCTIONS ARE REAL!"
• Phil Jackson paints Kobe Bryant as a pampered star who took liberties to an extreme degree, caused dissention in the dressing room and received more concessions than any other player he has ever coached.
• Walt Disney Co. has given maverick Hollywood movie moguls Harvey and Bob Weinstein notice that it intends to end their Oscar-winning partnership after 12 years.
• The teaser trailer for The Ring 2: "Naomi Watts, who starred in the smash hit horror thriller 'The Ring,' returns to star as investigative reporter Rachel Keller in the sequel, 'The Ring 2.'"

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links 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 the Ghost takes a look at the 1993 'erotic thriller' "Sins of Desire". Directed by Jim Wynorski.

• Delia Sheppard, the former Pet (April '88) going topless in a couple of sex scenes. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
• Delia Sheppard zipped .wmvs (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Gail Harris, the actress/producer/publisher and former Page 3 Girl also topless in a sex scene (actually I think it's some kind of sci-fi rape scene).
• Gail Harris zipped .wmv

• Monique Parent and Becky LeBeau. Both B-movie and Skinemax regulars bare all 3 B's while doing some 'exotic dacning' (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Monique Parent (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Monique Parent and Becky LeBeau zipped .wmvs (1, 2)

• Pamela Runo aka Pamela Pond bares breasts and bum in a bubble bath. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
• Pamela Runo zipped .wmvs (1, 2, 3)

• Tanya Roberts...In the 'caps, Sheena shows full side nudity while she rides a dude in a love scene. The vids show much more toplessness and rear nudity. Roberts really has an amazing body! She was about 38 when she made this movie, but her bod looks 15 years younger. (1, 2)
• Tanya Roberts zipped .wmvs (1, 2, 3)

Manuela Arcuri
(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)

MARTHA WRITING PRISON DIARY
The Bitch Get Richer - Publishing industry sources say Martha Stewart's lawyers are quietly pitching a "prison diary" project. It would cover Martha's prison experiences, but might reach back further. Insiders say she could write it in prison, deliver it when she gets out, have it in stores by summer, and be paid a $5 million advance.