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Bring out the Zamboni and drop the pucks, boys, because it's Canada day here
in the Scoopy portion of the Fun House. In honor of that, I'm going to sing Oh, Canada ....
"Oh, Canada
...dum ...dum ... de ... dum ... dum ... dum "
Oops. Most Americans know the tune to Oh, Canada, but we get lost on the
words after the first two. But I'm sure they mention Canada in there somewhere a
few more times, eh? And pelts. Plenty of pelts.
Of course, none of these films is as good as the Citizen Kane of Canada,
"Strange Brew", and there are no characters named "hosehead",
but all three of these Canadian films are pretty good in their own ways.
Unfortunately, all three are released in completely featureless 4:3 DVD's. In
two of them, the image quality is OK, but Rowing Through is a mess - a DVD
transfer no better than a second-generation video tape. And that's a shame
because Leslie Hope did a
frontal scene and even 45 year old Helen Shaver gave us a glimpse of the Delta
of Venus
Blackheart is a 1998 oddball straight-to-vid noir, kind of a grade-z version of "The Grifters".
Silly, but kinda fun. It combines realism with surrealism. That may just be
sloppy, I don't know, but I thought it was fascinating in a way.
-
Maria Conchita Alonso, still going strong, getting topless at age 41 (1, 2)
-
Fiona Leowi. Beautiful girl, but no significant nudity. (1,
2)
I thought that Frozen
in Fear, the film that combines Eric Roberts and Wagnerian opera, would be
the record holder for many years to come in the category of "Most
pretentious grade B film concept". It may still hold the top spot, but
1998's Faithless
(aka The Falling) is a challenger - a faux-Kurosawa film in concept
(Roshomon updated), with German Expressionist film techniques. How pretentious
is that shit? It is actually not a bad movie, but is a typical first movie after
film school, the kind of self-consciously arty film that makes the rounds at
film festivals, then dies of unexplained causes.
Oh, get this - every time they show a clock in the film, it is always 10:12.
After a lifetime of dealing with soulful and meaningful crap, (I even
majored in soulful, meaningful crap as an undergrad, although in those less honest days they
called it English Literature) I have come to the reluctant understanding that numbers written in the format XY:AB
may not be merely times of day, but also
verses of the bible, and that a constantly repeated time like that is probably
an oh-so-precious biblical reference. Sure enough, when I went to the book of
Mark, it said the following at 10:12 - "and if a woman shall put away her
husband and be with another, she committeth adultery" - which is the plot
of the movie, hence the title "Faithless".
Actually, I have been unfair. This film may have grade-b elements, and
pretentiousness up the patoot, and I didn't much enjoy it, but the director has
tremendous talent, absolutely tremendous, and could be a great one someday when
he has some more time between him and film school, and stops that poseur crap.
Atom Egoyan started out making films like this, and within 10 years was one of
the masters of the medium. It takes a while for a young filmmaker to realize
that he doesn't want to be Fritz Lang or Michael Mann or Kurosawa, but needs to
find his own voice
- Nicole Oliver
(1,
2,
3, 4,
5, 6,
7)
Rowing Through is a
1996 sports flick about a Harvard rower who trains for the 1980 Olympics. The
USA pulled out of those Olympics, but he couldn't give up his dream, and
struggled to make it in 1984. Joint Japanese-Canadian project. True story,
based on a book by David Halberstam.
I thought this was a pretty good movie, well photographed and scored.
Unfortunately, it is an abominable DVD. No features, 4:3 pan 'n scan, poor
quality transfer. What a shame.
-
Leslie Hope
( 1,
2,
3)
-
Helen Shaver. Topping Alonso by a few years, she got naked at 45 here. She's still
beautiful.
( 1,
2,
3)
Honte's site is updated
with edition 89.
And our familiar, annual "least favorite Halloween candy list",
updated for this year, but still including some of the immortal classics
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Uncle
Scoopy's Least Favorite Halloween Candies
2001
Version
10.
Ichi Rolls
9.
Baghdad Baked Beans
8.
Cal Ripken Junior Mints
7.
Mad Cow Milk Duds
6.
Condoleeza's Pieces
5.
Allman Joy
4.
Tali bon-bons
3.
Hershey Highway
2.
Turkish Prison Taffy
and
the new least favorite ...
1.
Bit o' Sama |
WORDS
scoopy's words in white, others
yellow
New one for words: asterisk. People always pronounce it astrix or
aster-ix. Last one is close but still not right. I must say that I
have never pronounced it right myself but I am aware of the mispronunciation.
I have also never heard one single solitary soul in my life pronounce it
correctly. More of a regional one is Calgary. Everyone in Canada,
including Calgarians, pronounces it Calgry.
I never saw it written out before, and I love the word
"Calgarians". It sounds like some nomads in a Conan story. My favorite
such word is "Glaswegian" for "residents of Glasgow"
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Star Slammer (1984), which is called Prison Ship at IMDB, is an Action/Comedy/SciFi by Fred Olen Ray. It marks the third terrible film in a row I have endured. Taura (Sandy Brooke) is a space miner who is hassled by corrupt government representatives, framed for a murder or two, and sentenced to a space ship prison. For there, it is Women in Prison meets Star Wars, but with special effects at about kindergarten crayon level, terrible acting, none of the worthwhile WIP cliches, a trite derivative story line, and a sound track comprised entirely of inappropriate classical tunes, such as Bolero and Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies. Sandy shows her buns in butt-floss shorts on the mining planet, then shows her breasts twice changing.
IMDB readers say 4.8/10. It is interesting that not a single woman has voted. I award an F. This film is not of the so bad it's good variety, it is simply abysmal. Here is a great site devoted to WIP films, which agrees with me on this one. I shudder to think what fragrance of Yak excrement is in store for tomorrow.
Thumbnails #1 Sandy Brooke
(1,
2,
3,
4,
5,
6,
7,
8,
9,
10,
11)
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Hello dear uncle !
It's been a while since I've submitted material to
the Fun House but here I am finally. I still don't feel much like vidcapping,
so I decided to throw in a few scans to keep you abreast of what's going on in
Flanders in the field of celeb nudity. And our celebs -or rather would-be
celebs and bimbo's strapped for cash - are losing their clothes at an
incredible rate and Big Brother is turning into Big Brothel. But I wasn't sure
if people in the rest of the world were ready for a sudden attack by the
Flemish Bimbo Corps, so I've waited until a real Flemish celebrity decided to
pose nude.
She isn't new to this pages, there are already vidcaps of her in
the Fun House, but here is Ann Ceurvels (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
in a pictorial from the monthly men's
magazine Menzo. Ann is an excellent actress who really becomes the part she
plays, so much so that you totally forget about previous and very different
roles she played in other films and TV-series. She never had problems with
nudity on screen but this is the first time she posed nude for a magazine. She
also likes to read lots of books and states that everything begins and ends
with Shakespeare. She prefers to read books in the language they were written
in ; she says about that :"Take for instance those South American novels,
you lose quite a bit of the atmosphere if you read those through the bars of
the Dutch language." Ain't that nice or what?
Finally I've read with much interest all the
"Words" discussions. I never bothered to write in about that but
today I simply have to comment on Saturday's Engrish. I don't see what's wrong
with "batard" except that the Japanese forgot the "circonflexe"
accent on the first a (bâtard). We are dealing here with French bread and bâtard
(bastard) is the name of a sort of French bread. Those familiar with
denominations of French bread will know that a bâtard is half the length of a
"pain restaurant" which is thicker than the traditional rather thin
"baguette" which makes an excellent weapon during demonstrations
provided it is at least 4 days old. For those interested, in French the ^
indicates that somewhere in time an s in a word was lost, e.g. hôtel
(hostel), île (isle). Fortunately the s hasn't disappeared systematically or
we would now be reading Uncle ^Coopy'^ Fun Hoûe. That'^ it for now from ICM^.
The would-be'^ and bimbo'^ are for a future contribution ;-) Yours faithfully (your^ faîfully ?),
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