Along for the Ride. (2000), which IMDB calls Forever Lulu, stars Melanie Griffith, who does a great job with a strange character and a terrible plot. Melanie has spent the last 16 years in and out of mental hospitals. She escapes, and contacts former boyfriend Patrick Swayze, informing him that they have a 16 year old son. Griffith talks him into driving cross country to meet the boy. Swayze's wife, Penelope Ann Miller, a shrink, flies to Wisconsin to get even, or protect her marriage, it is not clear which.

Never could tell what the genre was. We see a body double full frontal from a distance, a stunt double in bra and panties, and cleavage from Griffith. IMDB readers give it a generous 5.8/10, mostly for Griffith's performance. D-.

I think our page on Eyes Wide Shut is now longer than War and Peace.

I don't know if the world needed any more images from this movie, but I wasn't happy with my old ones, and Kubrick films are a pleasure to work with, so here ya go. I think they came out good. Besides, I just had to hear that toe-tappin' "love theme from the spooky orgy" one more time. Man, I love that song. Who's got the words to that?

• Kidman (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
• Kidman composite - formed by combining three frames in an upward pan. This woman has some long legs.
• Julienne Davis (1, 2)
• Abigail Good (1, 2)
• Lisa Leone
• Leelee Sobieski (not naked)
• Orgy chicks. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
• Is this a boner? I'm not sure, but that sure looks like a geeky guy looking through a film camera reflected in the window

Speaking of Kidman, here she is looking very different ten years earlier. Dead Calm is Part 1 of the Billy Zane Sinking Ship Trilogy. Kind of a strange movie in that the first ten minutes are tedious set-up, and the last five minutes are implausible and anticlimactic, but the rest of the movie is a pretty damned tense little thriller.

• Nicole Kidman (1, 2, 3)

Along for the Ride is the first script sold by John Kaye since Where the Buffalo Roam. It is the first movie he has ever directed, although he has some thirty years in the industry. It was made for Starz. It's about as good as you would expect, given those facts. It was intended to be a mega-hankie weepathon. Melanie Griffith is fine in the lead but, as Dorothy Parker once said about Providence, there isn't any there there.

• Melanie Griffith body double. Melanie was seen in the pool immediately after this scene, and her suit was clearly visible, so ya gotta think this is someone else!

The following Encyclopedia Volumes are updated: Nicole Kidman, Tanya Roberts, Maria Conchita Alonso, Sylvia Kristel

The new Pirelli calendar is out. Apparently, no nudity at all!

I've noticed that there are already a lot of pictures of Sylvia Kristel in the Encyclopedia with 3 films for 1976 alone. Well, you can extend the excellent Kristel page with caps from a fourth 1976 film called "La Marge" and directed by Walerian Borowczyk. As usual with Borowczyk there isn't much of a story, but who cares when the film only lasts 85 minutes and Sylvia Kristel is stark naked during 20 minutes?

The film deals with the story of a man (Joe Dallesandro, whose butt is too frequently on display to my taste) who is married to a sensuous woman, (played by Mireille Audibert who is naked for another 5 to 10 minutes), who goes to Paris for business and pleasure and meets an expensive call-girl, obviously played by Sylvia Kristel. Who could resist La Kristel in her prime!? So he pays her to play with him and his eggs. You can even see her bite them ! Despite all the carnal pleasures, the film doesn't have a happy ending. Sniff...

There is some interesting trivia in the IMDb about this movie...Supposedly, Pam Anderson was originally cast in the lead role, but backed out after learning how gratuitous the nudity and sex was going to be. What? Pam saying no to gratuitous sex? and Kathy Ireland saying yes to the role even though she never does nudity ever? Kinda nutty if you ask me.

Melissa Brasselle

The goodies...

Having worked on the film to my recollection there was no party scene with Hudson deleted from the film. FYI her now famous sex scene was at one point much longer (more of the same really) but shortened in the released cut of the film.
-Scrodboy

>From IMDB News, but it has a whiff of the Brit tabloids about it. Don't know if there's a word of truth to it, but it's entertaining, and isn't that all we really demand from our news?

Pat Reeder
The Comedy Wire

Kate Winslet Pines For Leo

Kate Winslet is pining after Titanic co-star Leonardo DiCaprio - because she hates stripping off on screen with anyone else. The British actress peeled off in the 1998 James Cameron blockbuster while the American's character painted a portrait of her. Winslet's latest movie Iris also calls for Kate to bare all, with another actor whose face will not be shown on camera. But she couldn't find an extra on set hunky enough to make her want to disrobe. Someone was eventually chosen, but just as cameras were about to roll, the 26-year-old actress decided the chemistry wasn't right. Kate then took another look over the crew and grabbed a handsome stagehand with whom to share the scene. But he refused, claiming his wife would kill him if she found out. Finally, co-star Hugh Bonneville volunteered to stand in and Kate agreed to the strip.

>From the NY Post. Ah, the thitter! What would we do without it to uplift our culchah!

Pat Reeder
The Comedy Wire

DESIGNING 'WOMEN'
By CLAIRE SIEGEL

November 11, 2001 -- There are lots of great fashions in the current revival of Claire Boothe Luce's "The Women." But the show-stopping moment has nothing to do with clothing: A naked Jennifer Tilly steps up out of a bubble bath on stage at the American Airlines Theater and brings down the house.

"The show is called 'The Women,' and seeing a nude woman on stage is a beautiful thing," explains director Scott Elliott. Elliott and his three-man team - costume designer Isaac Mizrahi, set designer Derek McLane and lighting designer Brian MacDevitt - have managed a brand-new look for the 1936 show. But it took a lot of work, including 25 game actresses; a theater flooded with the scent of roses to go with a rose-covered curtain; a set that designer McLane calls as "deliciously feminine as possible"; lighting that gives each woman a warm, flattering glow ("I'm happy if people tell me the women look beautiful," MacDevitt says); sensational costumes; and a script that includes bits considered too risqué for Broadway when Luce wrote the play.

It also took some daring decisions. Like the curtain call. Elliott decided to dress his women in 1930s-style lingerie for their bows. "It's fun and it's sexy," he says. "The women in the cast - all shapes and sizes - are really sexy, and I thought with all the beautiful costumes we should show what's underneath. "So there they are - in bras, girdles and slips. Mary Louise Wilson wears a peignoir. The little girl - Hallie Kate Eisenberg - is in a training bra and petticoat. Some of the women were a little uptight about that because they are coming out as themselves and not as characters in the show, but it's funny. And we all need a laugh now." Costume designer Mizrahi explains: "The women didn't complain. But we approached the idea gingerly. It was, what can you bare?' " But Tilly's nude scene is the topper. "I cast Jennifer Tilly in the role of Crystal because she oozes sexuality," Elliott says. "But she was upset about the bubble situation. It's a clear bathtub and, from the balcony, you can see into it. "There were a couple of times when she was ready to kill the bubble maker. There either weren't enough bubbles, or there were so many that they started spilling over the sides of the tub. It took weeks to get the bubbles just right." As saucy as the scene sounds, it's meant to get a laugh. The character of Crystal is supposed to be a blonde. (Tilly, a natural brunette, wears a wig.) When she steps out of the tub, co-star Kristen Johnston takes a look at her, pauses and then sniffs: "I thought you didn't touch up your hair." "That stops the show every night," says Elliott with a big grin.