Sunday

Tuna
"Turkey Shoot"

Turkey Shoot (1981) is an Australian exploitation originally film released in the US in a heavily edited (12 minutes cut) R rated version called escape 2000. It is now available uncut for the first time here on DVD. At some time in the future, the government demands absolute loyalty and mindless obedience, and deviants are sent to retraining facilities. We travel with three of them, hooker Lynda Stoner, innocent Olivia Hussey, and free radio militant Steve Railsback, who are being sent to the toughest of these retraining camps.

The camp director has a unique way of keeping his population down. He organizes hunts for top officials, and our three are picked as victims. The film's claim to fame is extreme violence, but it does have one very nice nude group shower scene, where we see a bunch of hippies recruited for the scene showing full frontal. Both Hussey and Stoner had no nudity agreements, but were arm-twisted into some exposure. Hussey shows breasts, but her face in not in the shot. Stoner compromised, and did a nude shot from the back, showing buns. She claims to regret giving in, and both women wish they had not made this film. Stoner did hold the line when she was asked to clean fish in one scene. The staunch animal activist forced them to create fake fish.

The mutilation effects were rather strong, including one guard having both his hands chopped off with a machete, one of the prisoners shot time after time with a crossbow, at least two people burned alive, etc.Australian critics united in their condemnation of the film, and most of the cast and crew would rather forget it. IMDB readers have it at 4.0 of 10, but most of those are likely for the 80 minute R version. The transfer is a rather nice widescreen, some of the jungle footage is attractive, and there are several commentaries, shorts, etc, making it a rather nice DVD package. Unfortunately, the film is derivative, over the top, and, other than the extreme mutilation shots, nothing special. I didn't mind the time spent watching it, but then I am an exploitation fanatic. This is a low C-.

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  • Lynda Stoner (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
  • Olivia Hussey (1, 2)
  • Unknown (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)

    • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    Owning Mahowny (2003)

    Brian Molony is a real person. He was a rising star in the Canadian banking business in the early 1980s. At the age of only 24, the workaholic was a senior loan officer at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Straight laced and frugal, he never spent a dollar he didn't have to, wore modest suits, drove a modest car. The perfect employee. Except for one thing. He loved to gamble on sports and horses. He owed his bookie $10,000 and could not pay. The bookie was not unreasonable about a payment plan, but insisted on cutting off Molony's action unless he could pay cash.

    So Molony figured out a way to get $10,000 by defrauding his employer. He paid the bookie, placed a few more bets, lost, then needed to cover $30,000. More fraud. Then he stole a hundred grand and went to Atlantic City. The casino loved him and starting comping him with chartered jets, limos, expensive meals, hookers, and palatial suites. The casino started making it easier and easier for him to bet. He kept coming back with more stolen money. He became famous enough that other casinos started vying for his business. Molony accepted the percs without any pleasure, without even seeming to notice them. He even sent the complimentary hooker home. He was a gambleholic, just as he was a workaholic. Molony wouldn't have minded riding the public bus and staying at a Motel 6. He would scarcely have noticed the difference. He didn't really care about anything else except the games of chance and risk. Over the next year and a half, he ended up swindling his bank out of more than ten million dollars, and had nothing to show for it.

    In the movie version of Molony's life, his psychiatrist asked him, "On a scale of 1 to 100, how would you rank the thrill you get from high-risk gambling?" Molony responded with a perfect 100. The next question was, "How would you rank the biggest thrill in your life outside of gambling?" Molony estimated that the correct response was 20.

    Molony's story was told in a 1984 book called "Stung:The Incredible Obsession of Brian Molony" by Gary Stephen Ross, and is now re-told in a film named Owning Mahowny. The names have been changed for the movie version of the story (Brian Molony has been renamed Dan Mahowny, for example), but very little else has been altered for the film, which stars Philip Seymour Hoffman, who is moviedom's official go-to guy for losers on a descending spiral further into Loserville. Minnie Driver is on hand as the requisite sensible and long-suffering girlfriend, but the only other main character in the film is a sleazy, oily buttchasm of a casino manager (John Hurt), who seemed to take great pleasure in making a fortune from encouraging a man to destroy his own life. (In real life, the casino and the bank were in litigation over how much the casino knew, and how much they chose not to know. They settled.)

    It is an effective movie, but it's an unusual one in that it really doesn't make any real effort to develop any characters, not even the lead. It concentrates only on what happens to Mahowny from the time he steals his first ten grand to the time he is caught. His life before that is unimportant. His life after that is mentioned only in the obligatory pre-credit word slides. The cinematic allure of the movie is that it tries, with substantial success, to put the viewer into Mahowny's obsessive head, to see how he got hooked, and to experience the emotions involved in his self-entrapment.

    When I started to watch the film, I was bewildered by the director's choice to shoot it in a super-widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. After all, I was thinking, it's a story that takes place in small spaces and in a man's head. There aren't any fucking chariot races. Hell, there's basically no action at all. I'm not sure what the director's original plans were, but the widescreen cinematography produced a few surprisingly appropriate scenes. One that stands out in my mind is the first complimentary room that Mahowny and his naive buddy got from the casino. The establishment sent down a few members of the hotel crew to escort them, safari-style, from a basic Interstate Holiday Inn room to a room that would have floored The Sun King. The first ultra-widescreen glimpse of that room, seen through the POV of Mahowny's wide-eyed friend, justified the entire decision to use that particular aspect ratio.

    It's not a mass audience movie because it is totally lacking in joy, and surprisingly lacking in entertainment.

    Don't expect anything like Catch Me If You Can.

    It's more like Requiem for a {Gambling} Dream.

    The man was an addict, and the film details the destructive properties of his addiction. The Mahowny character did not enjoy what he was doing. He was simply addicted to the rush brought on by the risk. As one character said, "he only wants to win so has enough left to come back and lose some more."

     

     

    In the Cut (2003)

    I have spent WAY too much time on this project. I have now seen it at a theater, watched a bootleg, and read the book! My complete steaming pile of comments can be found here. (I would have liked the book a lot if I had not seen the movie first. Since the movie follows the book so closely until the final four words, I knew all the details. I just had to guess about whether it would have intrigued me if I hadn't already known all the surprises. It is a good book, however. It's not without flaws, but it's literate and has a powerful ending.)

    • Here are some new pics of Meg Ryan. (1, 2, 3, 4) These breast shots aren't such bad quality for bootlegs, but the brief crotch and butt shots were way too dark to see anything until the DVD appears.
    • The Meg Ryan volume of the Encyclopedia now also includes all the pictures we have from In the Cut

     

     

    Dogville (2003)

    Dogville is the new Lars van Trier film. I haven't seen it, and probably never will, because although Nicole Kidman gets raped constantly, there is no female nudity, and it's a three hour film shot with a hand-held camera, using pretend chalk-outline doors for the entire set, like Les Nessman's office on WKRP.

    If you're not familiar with Lars van Trier, he has a unique approach to filmmaking. Instead of learning the technical and artistic skills necessary to make movies well, he has decided instead to try to redefine what "good" is, ala George Orwell's newspeak, or perhaps like Captain Kirk reprogramming the Kobayashi Maru. For example, his concept of social satire is to retain all the patronizing negativism, without any of that pesky humor! He is much better as a salesman than as a filmmaker (although, to be honest, he couldn't be much worse), and has actually managed to convince many people that he knows what he's talking about.  This film is rated 8.2 at IMDb!

    One thing for sure. His motives must be pure. He sure ain't in it for the money, because there's no way people are gonna pay to see stuff like this.

    Just for fun, here is Rex Reed's scathing review of Dogville:

    "Finally there is the abominable Dogville, a mindless three-hour avant-garde experiment by Lars von Trier that schematically crosses Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Bertolt Brecht’s Mahagonny with all the disadvantages of the proscenium stage and none of the limitless possibilities of cinema. A gang of baffled, miscast thespians, including Nicole Kidman, Lauren Bacall, Ben Gazzarra, Harriet Andersson, Patricia Clarkson, James Caan, Stellan Skarsgård and the ubiquitous Chloë Sevigny, all work their asses off trying to inject some kind of remote coherence into a pretentious, paralyzing bore. Nine chapters and a prologue played out on a Monopoly board with chalk marks for doors give Mr. von Trier a chance to exercise a rampant misogyny and pound home some ridiculous ideas about an America he’s never seen. Dogville is a metaphor for American greed, avarice, suspicion and intolerance, and Ms. Kidman’s beautiful fugitive from gangsters symbolizes the way Americans insult, enslave and spit on whatever they don’t understand. Under the guise of kindness and offers of freedom, the town lets her stay but makes her work longer hours for less pay (like America’s immigration policy?) By Chapter 6, Dogville turns vicious and repays her unselfish goodness with rape, betrayal, extortion and an iron wheel chained to her neck, replacing trust with revenge because the town can’t live up to its false promises (America’s foreign policy in action?). Instead of intelligence and compassion, Dogville reacts to honesty and truth by eliminating all detractors before their accusations spread (the Bush administration’s reaction to the idealism of the liberal Democrats?). In the end, the criminals and capitalists win out over the oppressed masses, babies are massacred with machine guns, and shots of American poverty are intercut with air-brushed 8 by 10’s of Richard Nixon. If you make it through three hours of this naïve bilge without a barf bag, you deserve what you get. Dogville is like climbing the Matterhorn with a cement block tied to your back."

    Anyway, many thanks to TomKru for giving us our and possibly the internet's first look at Nicole Kidman in this movie. TomKru reports that Kidman looked and performed spectacularly.

     

     

     

    Loveblind (2000)

    This is a softcore which I have not seen. The captures were done by The Crimson Ghost.

    • Catalina Larranaga (1, 2, 3)
    • Kim Yates (1, 2, 3)
    • Catalina and Kim together (1, 2, 3, 4)
    • Nancy O'Brien (aka Brenda O'Neil, aka Nancy O'Neil) (1, 2, 3)

     

     

     

    OTHER CRAP:

    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 inclusion in Other Crap

     

     

     

    MOVIE REVIEWS:

    Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

    • The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
    • If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
    • A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
    • If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

    Oz
    'Caps and comments by Oz:

    "Foul Play"
    Foul Play is an enjoyable movie with Goldie Hawn and Chevy Chase. No nudity although it looks a bit see-through when Goldie becomes very wet. There's also an upskirt by Rachel Roberts.


    "Deeply"
    Another wet scene sees a bit of a nipple flash by Julia Brendler in Deeply.

    • Julia Brendler (1, 2, 3, 4)


    "Fletch"
    Another enjoyable Chevy Chase movie is Fletch and some sexy caps of Dana Wheeler-Nicholson.

    • Dana Wheeler-Nicholson (1, 2)


    "L A Story"
    The nudity in L A story is a topless Cheryl Baker and there's pokies (and maybe a bit more) by Sarah Jessica Parker.


    "Four Play"
    The briefest of nipple shown by Mariel Hemingway and Irene Jacob in Four Play, known as Londinium in the IMDB.

    • Mariel Hemingway (1, 2)
    • Irene Jacob (1, 2, 3)


    "Sade"
    Isild Le Bosco is not the most beautiful of actresses (she reminds me of a young Princess Anne!) but she has a lovely naked body in the French film Sade. Marianne Denicourt takes her top off.

    • Isild Le Bosco (1, 2, 3, 4)
    • Marianne Denicourt (1, 2)


    "Scream and Scream Again"
    Scream and Scream Again is one of those English horror films and unfortunately the naked ladies are not identified.

    • Unknowns (1, 2, 3, 4)


    "Dracula"
    Yet another Dracula movie, this time very sexy caps of Stefania Rocco, Muriel Baumeister and some unknowns.

    • Stefania Rocco (1, 2)
    • Muriel Baumeister (1, 2, 3)
    • Unknowns (1, 2)


    "How High"
    The topless nudity in How High comes from an unknown sleeper. Pokies by Lark Voorhies and Essence Atkins, cleavage by Amber Smith and sexy caps of some others.

    Variety
    Ann Sidney

    Michele Breton

    Anita Pallenberg
    (1, 2)


    		All 3 ladies bare breasts (and Sidney also bares bum) in scenes from the 1970 movie "Performance". Vidcaps by PAL.


    Lisa Eichhorn
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

    		Señor Skin 'caps of Eichhorn topless and baring her bum in scenes from the movie "Opposing Force" (1986). To our knowledge, this movie is not available anywhere on DVD.