Tuesday

Third party videos:

A Change of Seasons is a bittersweet romantic comedy that basically takes place in a single room with a micro-sized cast, like a stage play. I hated it from beginning to end, but Tuna is a big Shirley Maclaine fan, and thought she brought it up to the "watchable" category.  Movie House Review.

 

There are two more videos to be found in Catch o' the Day, accompanying the appropriate captures.

 

OTHER CRAP:

Salma Hayek Undresses on Ugly Betty ... video and vidcaps of the single greatest 17 seconds in the history of network television.

 

"Climate chaos? Don't believe it"

  • I don't know whether the article is solid, but it brought back some vaguely-related memories. I worked for a large public company in the 1980s as the strategic planning guy. In order to effect a leveraged buy-out, certain financial forecasts had to be made. The calculations "needed" by senior management required an average increase in same-store sales of six percent per year after adjusting for inflation. In the previous thirteen years (the only years for which we had a dependable database), the same-store sales growth had never been below 3% or above 4%. It was the most predictable thing in the world of business. If you simply predicted 3.5% every year, you could not be off by more than a half of a percent. If the company expected the best marketing initiatives in its history, better than all the great things it had done in the past, I could have bought in to 4% per year for a couple of years, but I would have been extremely skeptical even of that modest number. To assume it would rise to 6% was completely ridiculous under any circumstances. But it was necessary, so it was used. My department (which was normally in charge of sales forecasts) refused to produce the paper, so the financial guys did it, just plugging in the numbers necessary to produce the desired results.
  • Needless to say, the result of the attempted LBO was Chapter 11, when the company could not produce the cash flow necessary to meet the terms of the buy-out. I would literally have bet my life and my life savings on that. The six percent sales increase was approximately as likely as a meteor destroying your house. Although it was one of America's landmark institutions, the company ended up in the hands of the Japanese.
  • Imagine my reaction when I read this sentence in the linked story: "The UN's predictions are founded on an excessive rate of increase in airborne carbon dioxide. The true rate has been 0.38 per cent year-on-year since records began in 1958. The models assume 1 per cent per annum, more than two and a half times too high." Apparently it is not only plutocrats, but also scientists who plug in whatever numbers they need to make the model work.

 

Thanks to a poorly written law, every single driver in New York is legally drunk!

  • "Lawmakers this year approved a bill that sets the standard for driving while intoxicated at 0.18 grams of alcohol in a person's blood. A person's body might produce that much alcohol naturally, said Ed Fiandach, a DWI lawyer in Rochester."

 

Which is the real logo? Can you identify logos you see every day? It's not easy when imposters are side-by-side

 

"One of the two surviving film clips of Woody Guthrie performing"

 

Neighboroo - very interesting use of Google Maps to show various demographic patterns in the USA

 

VOTE PARTY-LINE REPUBLICAN: Or Hysterical Liberal Feminist Nancy Pelosi Will CASTRATE America! (WHITEHOUSE.ORG)

 

NYPD: Adrienne Shelley Was Murdered! ( ... and an arrest has been made)

 

Borat: Stereophonic musical listenings that have been origin in moving film.

 



 

 

"In one of the most stunning November surprises in recent memory, the Republican Party today declared its unequivocal support for a constitutional amendment legalizing same-sex massage."

 

Headline of the day: "Giant penis-shaped flower stinks out gardens"

 

It's never too early to start thinking about Christmas: eBay: The Bathroom man - Hand Sculpted to look like you

 

Oh-oh, bad news for elderly businessmen. Dick Cheney to Spend Election Day Hunting.

  • You'll be glad to know that I passed on my invitation to join Darth Cheney, so Other Crap may still be here Wednesday. Unless he uses those long-distance Sith powers on me.

 

Update from the Truth or Dare World Cup, currently being held Truth or Consequences, New Mexico: Party game answer leads to murder rap

 

"police in Tehran are hunting a fake sorcerer who convinced the man he was invisible and so could rob banks safely."

  • I'll bet that guy has every back issue of Uncle Scrooge comics.

 

A news flash from our correspondent on the Island of Dr. Moreau: "UK scientists have applied for permission to create embryos by fusing human DNA with cow eggs."

 

A conceptual design for a silent passenger plane.

 

"Saddam Hussein to Take Advantage of Netflix 30 Day Free Trial"

 

Kirstie Alley appears in a bikini on Oprah. (She still has some big thighs on 'er.)

 

GOP, TO MOTIVATE THE BASE, CAMPAIGNS WITH BORAT

  • "As RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman put it, 'who better than Borat to appeal to all of the red-meat issues that rile up our base: hatred of Jews, hatred of gays, hatred of women, and hatred of the Enlightenment. And the fact that he’s been married to his half-sister is bound to solidify our hold in the South.'"

 

The 2006 Jones Soda Holiday Pack and Dessert Pack! Including Antacid and Pea flavored sodas!

 

In China, the world's highest-altitude train bridges a land of superlatives

 

Clairvoyant led Americans to Saddam, says Uri Geller

 

TIME's Best Inventions of 2006

 

Democrats Lead Republicans in House Vote by Seven Points ... Narrowed lead still appears large enough to give Democrats majority control of House

 

Borat visits Hannity and Colmes

 

Kerry Sets Timetable for Withdrawal from Joke ... Could Be Out of Botched Witticism by Early '08

 

Gallup Poll: Close Senate Races in Missouri, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Virginia

  • "The final USA Today/Gallup pre-election polls for the U.S. Senate in six highly competitive races find the Democratic candidates in New Jersey and Montana holding significant leads, but the races are too close to call in Missouri, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia."

 

From the "any given Sunday" department: Go figure. The Bears lose to the lowly Dolphins.

  • And the Colts beat New England in Foxboro, which kinda places them back in the catbird's seat. Whatever the hell that is.

Not that it really matters, but here's what OED says about the "catbird's seat"
 

The catbird seat: a superior or advantageous position. U.S. slang.
 

1942 J. Thurber in 55 Short Stories from New Yorker (1949) 61 "‘Sitting in the catbird seat’ meant sitting pretty, like a batter with three balls and no strikes on him."
 

1958 Wodehouse Cocktail Time xiii. 114 "I get you. If we swing it, we'll be sitting pretty. In the catbird seat."

Helen Mirren voted world's sexiest old coot

 

 

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

 

 

 
 

Sinful (2006)

Sinful (2006) is a direct-to-vid effort from Shock-O-Rama, featuring Misty Mundae and Erika Smith. The title was supposed to be Mine, but the producer wanted something he thought would have a chance at selling. He also required that one of the major characters be changed from a dwarf to a normal person.

COMPLETE SPOILER

What follows is a complete spoiler. Misty has a bad marriage to a drunk, a dead end job, and can't have what she want most in the whole world, a baby to own. Mind that it is not some maternal instinct. She just wants something that is completely hers. Next door is pregnant Erika Smith who has everything Misty doesn't, including a loving husband that she has a great sex life with. Misty gets more and more obsessive, and finally hacks the baby out of Erika's womb.

END SPOILER

Erika Smith and Misty Mundae both do full frontal, but there isn't that much nudity in this film. It is supposed to be a drama or thriller or something, but it just plain doesn't work. It is more like a disjointed collection of irritating scenes with little or no point. If you did not read the above paragraph because you plan on seeing this film, save it anyway. I didn't figure the plot out by myself, but had to rely on reviews and special features to find out what this mess was supposed to be about.

I am something of a Misty fan, but she was not effective in this role, and she is beginning to lose her little girl looks as the baby fat becomes less cute. Perhaps she will manage to develop as an actress, since he is reputed to have a great work ethic.

This is an E. I simply can't recommend it to anyone.

IMDb readers say 2.3 based on the secret sauce, but there are supposedly 9 people who gave it a 10. Further, there are 10 positive reviews linked at IMDb. I can't blame filmmakers for trying to promote their work, and I suspect there is a good deal of that going on here. The four user comments are decidedly less than positive.

 

 

Erika Smith

 

 

Misty Mundae

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

Today the Time Machine is off to 1989 for a "Babe in Bondage" day.

We have caps of Josie Bissett as the "Damsel in Distress" in "Hitcher in the Dark".

 

And movie clips of Josie's nudity.  (Two .wmvs zipped together.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes and collages

Marine Jahan in Streets of Fire

 

I made this collage purposely to write about a) Marine Jahan; and b) Streets of Fire.

Regarding Ms. Jahan, note her muscular dancer's body. She was Jennifer Beals' body double in the dance scenes of "Flashdance."

Regarding "Streets of Fire," this is a wonderful, stylized, unique film: a modern age parable about good and evil. It was originally billed in the theaters as a "rock & roll fable" and that is what it is...; this is a Walter Hill film so expect the violence, in this case more like the smell of an oil painting than the smell of blood.

In this particular scene, Ms. Jahan is fast pole dancing at a club named "Torchie's" while the band "The Blasters" sings/plays "One Bad Stud." (And the band really is "The Blasters" compared to other films which use actors to play the band.)

For me, the best scene is near the end of the film where the "hero" & "villain" have a duel with sledgehammers as their weapons: if that doesn't get your testosterone going I don't know what will...

 

 

Amina Annabi in Sheltering Sky
 

If these buoyant breasts were manufactured by a doctor, I want to shake the hand of the surgeon who modified them. He is an artist. She looks great. No evident scar tissue, excellent work

 

 

 

 

 

 

Joanna Cameron in B.S., I Love You. (1971) Hey, it's The Mighty Isis nekkid! Be sure to check out this zipped .wmv of some seriously groovy dancing combined with some seriously psychedelic camera work.  Could you ever guess that this was a hippie-era film? I have to review this one some day.

As for Joanna, she hasn't been seen on screen in a quarter of a century. The IMDb says she's "currently working in hotel marketing in Hawaii"

The director was Steven Stern, who made three of the very worst films of that era: this one (4.1), Harrad Summer (4.3), and I Wonder Who's Killing Her Now (3.5). He featured a repertory cast that often showcased Joanna Barnes and Bill Dana. Dana ("my name Jose Jimenez") is not in this one, but is in the other two. Anyway, Stern got good enough that he's still directing now, or was until recently, although he's nearly 70. He's been wise enough to stick mainly to TV directing, at which he seems to be quite good, having directed many big-name shows like Quincy and Hawaii Five-O.

Joy Bryant in Get Rich or Die Tryin'. We also have a zipped .avi film clip for this one.

Susie Porter in The Caterpillar Wish

Victoria Thaine in The Caterpillar Wish

Lili Taylor in Factotum.

Marisa Tomei in Factotum.

Corinne Bohrer in Kisses in the Dark.  Except for her great nude scene in Dead Solid Perfect, this is her only screen nudity.

 

 

 

 
Pat Reeder's Comedy Wire.  Pat's comments in yellow...

At the Dubai Airport, security officers noticed that a member of a family boarding a plane for Turkey was on a list of terrorist suspects.  An officer approached the family and said they wanted to take Suhail Saleh.  Thinking they were kidding, his father said, "Take him if you want."  Suhail is two years old.  The officers checked the list, and it contained the boy's passport number and date of birth, so the warrant was for him, all right.

*  Well, his mom always says he's a holy terror. 
 

 



The original Borat is upset and wants some credit or money from the hit "Borat" movie.  Mustachioed Turkish "jurnalist" Mahir Cagri's website, www.IKissYou.org, made a splash in 1999 with its fractured English ("I like sex!...I like to take foto-camera - amimals, towns, nice nude models and peoples") and pictures of him with foreign friends, sunbathing in a red Speedo, and playing ping-pong.  Cagri told Wired News that comic Sacha Baron Cohen "is stealing my character and giving bad message to USA people."  He asked, "If possible, you can help me too for stop this or find good lawyer?"


*  I assumed the caricature of an incompetent, oversexed, mustachioed
journalist was based on Geraldo.

LINK!  Mirror of Cagri's site:  http://www.istanbul.tc/mahir/mahir/

 



On this day in 1965, the Pillsbury Doughboy made his commercial debut.  A 1997 survey by "Blender" magazine found that 75 percent of Americans think he's a virgin and will always remain one.

*  Imagine, 35 years old, and he's still poppin' fresh!

*  All that yeast, and he's never risen.