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Updates:
Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site has been updated.
Slither (2006)
Slither is a horror comedy and it's one of those films where
there is a great gap between the conservative, mainstream print
reviewers and the genre aficionados. Ebert and Berardinelli
weighed in at two stars and two and a half. The critics in the
UK had about the same take on it, rating it just less than two
and a half stars on the average. Yahoo voters rate it C+, a low
score within Yahoo's softball system. The box office was tepid.
It had a weak opening - eighth place overall, third-best
among new releases. Then it had a weaker follow-up - it dropped
nearly 60% in its second week. It finished off with no staying
power. The first two weeks were just about all she wrote. The
multiplier (total gross divided by opening weekend gross) was
only 2.0, which is about as low as a film can go without being
named Gigli. Obviously it wasn't a film with wide appeal.
But lots of younger, hipper, more genre-oriented critics
really took a liking to it. According to Rotten Tomatoes, it
finished with 83% positive reviews, despite the negatives from
the big guns, and the comment section at IMDb is filled with
praises from genre lovers. People are not comparing it to
Shaun of the Dead or American Werewolf, but most genre fans feel
that it belongs in the second tier of horror comedies with such
films as The Re-Animator and Cemetery Man.
Slither is basically the ol' "spores
from outer space enter human bodies" movie, kind of a comedy
version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, via Night of the
Creeps. It's fundamentally a higher-budget version of a Troma
movie and the director, in fact, is a graduate of the Troma
School of Advanced Film Studies, having apprenticed with Lloyd
Kaufman for some years. I didn't much care for the film, but its
appeal resides in comically exaggerated gore and lowbrow
redneck-bashing humor, neither of which really pushes my hot
buttons. The fact that it isn't my kind of movie doesn't mean
you should blow it off. As a general rule, the younger you are
the more likely you are to like it.
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IMDb score |
Aged under 18 |
7.2 |
Aged 18-29 |
6.7 |
Aged 30-44 |
6.5 |
Aged 45 or more |
6.3 |
Tania Saulnier provided the limited nudity. (Zipped .wmv)
Third party videos:
- Penelope Cruz in The Girl of
Your Dreams. (Zipped
.avis) This is a marvelous movie. The Spanish Casablanca. It incorporates all the
best elements of Spanish filmmaking - colorful visuals,
beautiful design, passion,
heart, laughter, and even some serious ideas. Not to mention
Penelope Cruz nekkid. (Movie
House review.) It won the Best Picture Goya. If you speak
Spanish, it is a must-see. Even if you don't, it's a must- see if
you love films. Here is what I
wrote:
"A highly developed aesthetic sensibility
without descending either into maudlin sentimentality or
pretentious, arty bullshit. The Girl of your Dreams is one
of the most consciously stylized films I've ever seen,
practically a 1930's stylistic wet dream, yet it uses the
art only to support the characters, and never allows the
aesthetics to overpower the humanity of the story. American
filmmakers seem to have to choose between humanity and art,
and their films seem to have one or the other, never both.
The most artistic films of America seem to renounce life,
not celebrate it. They could learn a lot from this film, and
from director Fernando Trueba."
- Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke. (Zipped
.avis) This was just before she realized that she had to do
something about her weight. She was obese (nearly 200 pounds),
but she was a very sexy fat woman, if that's really your bag,
baby. Terrible movie. (Movie
House review.) As the Austin Chronicle wrote: "It
seems disingenuous of me to tear into a filmmaker as obviously
talented as she (Jane Campion), but my goodness, what an awful, muddled load
of codswallop Holy Smoke! has turned out to be."
I'm really not sure about the Chronicle's nod to Jane Campion's
talent. She has made three full-length films since
The Piano (1993), and their IMDb scores look like something out of Fred Olen
Ray's filmography:
- (5.72) -
The
Portrait of a Lady (1996)
- (5.61) -
Holy Smoke
(1999)
- (5.21) -
In the Cut
(2003)
Her entire output in 13 years: three bad movies. If she ever had the right to be called a great filmmaker, she
seems to have lost it.
- The late Katrin Cartlidge in
Three Steps to Heaven. (Zipped
.avis). I haven't seen this film, but Tuna blasted it:
"Katrin Cartlidge is a middle-aged Londoner having an
affair with a young man, who turns up dead in the river. She
decides to revenge his death, and starts investigating his
last night starting with a nightclub. She determines the
identity of the last three people to see him alive, and
surmises that they killed him. Her three targets include a
wealthy drug addict who's into the mob for a lot of money,
an aging TV actress, and a bisexual MP in big trouble over a
sex scandal. As a killer, Cartlidge is totally inept. That
turns out to be a good thing, because she's equally inept as
a detective.
3 Steps to Heaven (1995 UK TV movie) was either intended
as a dark comedy, or a thriller. Whether it was intended as
a comedy or not, the laughs seemed unintentional, and I
found myself laughing at the filmmakers, rather than at the
material. It also was not especially thrilling. Cartlidge
shows full frontal and rear nudity, which I applaud, but,
there was nothing else of interest here, and overall, it
seemed amateurish. D+ "
OTHER CRAP:
How a player scored 830 in one game of scrabble,
including 365 with one play and 239 with
another.
Comedienne Sarah Silverman sings the porn song
13 REAL Haunted Places That Will Make You Cry
for Your Mommy (Assuming of course, that you
are both superstitious and a girly man.)
A trailer for Ah-nuld's new film, Total Retard
Barbra Streisand raps (a dance track made
from her "shut the fuck up" stage-rage)
School boots 3 girls for dressing as Captain
Underpants
Principal suspended for giving a kid a wedgie
The trailer and a clip from a new thriller
called Turistas, about tourists stranded in a
remote part of Brazil
- I don't know much about the movie, but
there's a link to the film's official page as
well.
- It is rated R for "strong graphic violence
and disturbing content, sexuality, nudity,
drug use and language," which covers just
about every possible reason for an R-rating
or, for that matter, to go on living.
Borat deported from 1200 theaters
Watch Ashley Judd in the exclusive trailer for
'Come Early Morning.'" It was directed by
Joey Lauren Adams
Test your knowledge of pop culture
LIMBAUGH CALLS CHRISTOPHER REEVE FAKER
Spoiled Milk Sparks School Evacuation
- A plastic milk bottle with foul-smelling
contents prompted an evacuation and a visit by
the bomb squad. "Lab results show that the
bottle contained spoiled milk."
The people who have nothing better to do than
study Google Maps have come up with an amazing
find
- This is located in desolate Southwest
Canada, about halfway between Calgary and
Regina
The trailer for Notes on a Scandal,
Oscar-bait with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett
The trailer for Smokin' Aces
- An incendiary array of stars--including
Ben Affleck, Andy Garcia, Ray Liotta, Jeremy
Piven, Ryan Reynolds, Peter Berg, Martin
Henderson, Taraji Henson and, in their
motion--picture debuts, Alicia Keys and
Common--star in "Smokin' Aces," the new dark
action comedy from Joe Carnahan, the acclaimed
director of "Narc."
In these interlocking tales of high stakes
and low lifes, Mob boss Primo Sparazza has
taken out a hefty contract on Buddy "Aces"
Israel (Piven)--a sleazy magician who has
agreed to turn state's evidence against the
Vegas mob. The FBI, sensing a chance to use
this small-time con to bring down big-target
Sparazza, places Aces into protective
custody-under the supervision of two agents
(Reynolds and Liotta) dispatched to Aces' Lake
Tahoe hideout.
When word of the price on Aces' head
spreads into the community of ex-cons and
cons-to-be, it entices bounty hunters,
thugs-for-hire, smokin' hot vixens and
double-crossing mobsters to join in the hunt.
With all eyes on Tahoe, this rogues' gallery
collides in a comic race to hit the jackpot
and rub out Aces.
A new meaning to "tickle me" ...
A Colorado drug operation hid large quantities
of methamphetamine inside Elmo dolls
If you need a really good Christmas present
for a really big film buff, I have your item.
Feel free to give this to me, for example.
It's the ultimate Criterion Collection! Fifty of
the greatest art films of all time accompanied
by a hardcover book (which includes an article
by Martin Scorsese). The only disappointment is
that the disks include only the movies, with no
special features of any kind.
The list includes:
- ALEXANDER NEVSKY (1938), Sergei Eisenstein
- BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (1946), Jean Cocteau
- BLACK ORPHEUS (1959), Marcel Camus
- THE 400 (1959), François Truffaut
- GRAND ILLUSION (1937), Jean Renoir
- HÄXAN (1922), Benjamin Christensen
- IKIRU (1952), Akira Kurosawa
- JULES AND JIM (1962), François Truffaut
- KIND HEARTS AND CORONETS (1949), Robert
Hamer
- KNIFE IN THE WATER (1962), Roman Polanski
- THE LADY VANISHES (1938), Alfred Hitch
- THE LIFE AND DEATH OF COLONEL BLIMP
(1943), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
- LOVES OF A BLONDE (1965), Milos Forman
- M (1931), Fritz Lang
- M. HULOT'S HOLIDAY (1953), Jacques Tati
- MISS JULIE (1951), Alf Sjöberg
- PANDORA'S BOX (1929), G.W. Pabst
- PÉPÉ LE MOKO (1937), Jean Duvivier
- RASHOMON (1950), Akira Kurosawa
- RICHARD III (1955), Laurence Olivier
- SEVEN SAMURAI (1954), Akira Kurosawa
- THE SEVENTH SEAL (1957), Ingmar Bergman
- LA STRADA (1954), Federico Fellini
- THE THIRD MAN (1949), Carol Reed
- THE 39 STEPS (1935), Alfred Hitch
- THE VIRGIN SPRING (1960), Ingmar Bergman
Bush Proposes Making Illegal Immigrants 'Guest
Voters' ... Would Be One-Day Citizens on
November 7
- In particular, critics have complained
that in an early prototype of the booth, the
translation of the phrase "I want to be a U.S.
citizen" appeared as "Vote for all Republican
candidates with this lever."
- Unfazed by the critics, Mr. Bush said he
would move forward with this and other
immigration proposals, including building a
700-foot fence around Sen. Hillary Clinton
(D-New York).
Letterman's
"Top Ten Surprises In Oprah's Interview With
Madonna"
MYTH vs. REALITY: Dispelling the Shameless
Pre-Election Lies of the Defamatory Liberal Spin
Machine (WHITEHOUSE.ORG)
GOP PULLS OFFENSIVE ‘FORD AD’: CLAIMS IT WAS
REALLY INTENDED FOR OBAMA
An image of sports perfection:
Tiger's Swing In Slow Motion |
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Movie Reviews:
Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format.
Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.
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Spy Games (1999)
Spy Games is an espionage comedy set in Finland. It is an
English/Finnish/American/French/German co-production, which may explain
why they cast Irene Jacob in the female lead role as a Russian Spy.
International co-production deals frequently have casting
restrictions as part of the deal.
Jacob works for the SVR (former KGB), and her assignment is to
keep an eye on CIA agent Bill Pullman, which is not difficult since
they are constant bed partners. They are both ambitious but feel
somewhat obsolete with the end of the cold war. Then, someone
encodes satellite access codes into a porn tape, and tries to
smuggle it into Finland to pass on to the SVR. CIA agent Glenn
Plummer is sent into the field to recover the codes, and doesn't get
along well with field operative Pullman. Getting his hands on the
tape was easy, but finding out what the contents are is much more
challenging. The real challenge, however, is to make another porno
(with disinformation) to substitute for the real one.
This begins to set up the most hilarious moment in this film. As
Plummer was constantly replaying the porno to try and decode it, a
maid and a porter had their ears glued to the door. When the
decision was made to shoot another porno, they were drafted as the
performers. Shooting is done, the couple is relaxing on the bed, and
something irritates Plummer, so he shouts "fuck."
The couple immediately does.
The IMDb rating of 4.3 is a little harsh. It could be
a reaction to the fact that this could have been much better than it
was. Think I Spy, but with Sex. It was moderately funny in places,
Jacob and Pullman had chemistry, and there were clever aspects to
the plot, but it just didn't work the way it could have. I suspect
the problem lies with the fact that it takes native fluency of a
language to create a successful comedy in that language. There is
nothing at all wrong with the plot outline, but much of the dialogue
could have been improved on, and the timing was mostly off.
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Today we look at "Bad Girls," a movie with a western theme.
First up is Drew Barrymore who displays a little boobage.
Then Madeleine Stowe is our "Babe in Bondage" for the day, no nudity as the friendly townsfolk attempt to hang her.
Today's movie clip is Carmen Electra playing a blind woman in "Scary Movie 4" as she takes a crap in a not so private place.
(Zipped .wmv) (No nudity, just funny.
Make sure you have the sound turned up.)
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Notes and collages
Elisabeth Shue in Cousin Bette |
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I suppose that one could see a lot of butts on a beach dressed
in dental floss these days.....
This is hers in "Cousin Bette."
...sweet... |
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Herr Haut looked at Halloween Night - unrated edition.
Jan Anderson |
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Halloween Night - unrated edition. Alicia Klein |
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Halloween Night - unrated edition. Stephanie
Medina |
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Halloween Night - unrated edition. Amanda Ward |
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Halloween Night - unrated edition. Erica Roby. |
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Speaking of Erica Roby, here she is in one more
obscure horror film: Hillside Cannibals. |
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Nancy Kwan in Walking the Edge.
I didn't know that Kwan had aver done any screen nudity, even anything this
insignificant. |
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Dominique Swain "out" on the town |
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Pat's comments in yellow...
University of Illinois researcher Sheldon Jacobson says that higher gasoline
costs are partly the fault of consuming too much. Not gas: food. He calculates
that Americans are using 1 billion more gallons of gas per year than in 1960,
just because they're so much fatter and the cars have to carry more weight. If
a typical driver who drives 12,000 miles a year lost 100 pounds, he would
increase his mileage enough to save 18 gallons of gas per year.
* But it won't happen because the typical
American driver drives 12,000 miles a year to Dunkin Donuts and back.
* Fat people use more gas, but they also
generate more gas...If we could build cars that run on methane, this problem
would solve itself.
A 47-year-old security guard named Nai from Quanzhou, China, walked 27
steps and covered about a yard while wearing cast iron shoes that weighed 572
pounds. The Southeast Morning Post reported that it took four young men to lift
one of the shoes. Nai said he now hopes to be allowed to perform kung fu while
wearing the shoes at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
* Or maybe kickboxing.
The British department store chain Tesco agreed to remove a pole-dancing kit
from the toys and games section of its website after children's advocacy groups
complained. The ad copy read, "Unleash the sex kitten inside ... simply extend
the Peekaboo pole inside the tube, slip on the sexy tunes and away you go! Soon
you'll be flaunting it to the world and earning a fortune in Peekaboo Dance
Dollars." One critic called it "extremely dangerous," saying it could destroy
children's innocence. But a Tesco spokesman denied that it was sexually
oriented, saying it was clearly marked for "adult use," and "pole dancing is an
increasing exercise craze. This item is for people who want to improve their
fitness and have fun at the same time."
* Sweaty, naked fun...
* But if they stop selling the toy pole-dancing kit, what will Charlie Sheen
give his girlfriends for Christmas?
The Liberty Mutual Research Institute for Safety surveyed US teenagers to see
what most distracts them while they are driving. 19 percent said friends in the
car were most distracting, 20 percent said their emotional state distracts them
most, and the #1 distraction: 37 percent said they are most
distracted by sending and receiving text messages while driving.
* It's so hard, they almost drop their burritos and
Cokes.
BIRTHDAYS - Sharing a birthday: Matt Drudge (39) and Sen. Hillary Clinton (59).
* Two people who both owe their careers to Bill Clinton.
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