Gang Related (1997) is a bad cop movie staring James Belushi and Tupac Shakur as narc partners who have figured out a clever way to earn a little extra cash. The set up drug deals using dope from the evidence lockup, kill the buyer is what is made to look like a drive by, pocket the money, and return the evidence to lock up. The scheme is working great until a buyer ends up being DEA. They elect to frame someone for the murder, and, of course, pick the wrong person to frame.

They used a stripper, Lela Rochon, in their scheme, and also as a witness in their frame job. While she never shows breasts, she gives lovely views of her buns dancing on stage in but floss things, and shows cleavage and poke throughs elsewhere. AN unknown stripper shows her breasts. IMDB readers say 6.5/10. Maltin gives it 2 stars, or watchable for genre fans, Berardinelli likes it at 3 stars, mentioning that it is known as Shakur's last film, and praising the first 90% of the film, and I am closer to Maltin on this one. The first half of the film held my interest as the noose begin to tighten around Belushi and Shakur, but there were just too many plot twists, and I eventually got tired of trying to keep up. I give it a C. The film had a blockbuster opening on 1,260 screens, earning $3.286m the first weekend. Word got out quickly, and total gross was $5.717m.

Today's theme, "the extended version". There is a special unrated version of Gia available only on VHS. I compared that to the DVD/broadcast version. And of course, today is the day when the special Apocalypse Now Redux hits the stands, with nearly an hour of additional footage from the 1979 cut, and many of the old scenes enhanced by refinements in photographic technique. WOW! Oh, yeah, it also has a lot of nudity not in the 1979 cut. 

Gia As promised, here is a quick overview of what has been excised from the unrated version of Gia to produce the DVD version, and rough VHS captures to illustrate). The unrated version is available on videotape.

• the famous fence scene - there are a few extra seconds of Jolie kissing Mitchell's nipples through the fence (see #1 below)

• the lesbian love scene immediately after the fence scene - contains about an extra minute of footage, including Jolie's pubic area (#2 below), and breast-rubbing (#3 below)

• the disco scene - a couple additional scenes of lesbian kissing (no nudity)

• the shower scene -a few extra frames of breast rubbing, and some fairly good Mitchell nudity (#4 below)

• the "I could be a housewife" scene - about 5 seconds of additional footage in which Jolie lifts up her blouse, sticks her breast in Mitchell's mouth, and says "dinner is served". Very cute and sexy, and well performed, but Jolie's back is to the camera.

Here are the pictures  (1, 2, 3, 4)

Apocalypse Now (1979, 2001) is, of course, a masterpiece. I have my quibbles with it, but I also think it is one awesome piece of filmmaking, even a suitable candidate for the honor of being the best ever. If you say it is your favorite film, I won't be surprised, although I will know that you haven't seen "Shakes the Clown". See my detailed comments if you want to know all about the new version, released today with about 50 minutes of additional footage, and my assorted whining. I think my article is longer than the movie. And that ain't easy, because the movie is longer than the actual Vietnam War. Lots of new nudity.

This is not just a re-cut, but also a new restoration of the negatives from entirely new processes that were not available in 1979. It looks specfuckingtacular. This is a must-own for your collection, even though without special features.

• Colleen Camp (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Cynthia Wood (1, 2, 3)
• Aurore Clement (1, 2, 3, 4)

Water Damage (1999) is a grade-b mystery/thriller with three strong drawbacks (1) a trite plot involving memory loss (2) a Baldwin (3) most important, a lack of tension in the execution. The director has five credits in the IMDb, and the best one is rated 4.8. Three of them aren't rated at all because they lack five people who have heard of them..

America is such a rich country. We sometimes forget that other countries are too poor to have even one Baldwin. But we are a generous people and willing to share our good fortune, so feel free to inquire with their agents. If you have an extremely poor country with limited food for your people, you might want to pass on Daniel.

There's the comment page, but the pictures from Deathstalker (1984) are in the page two days ago. (Barbie Benton!!)

Circus of Horrors is the 1960 version of an exploitation film with crossover appeal, one that hoped to play in legitimate theaters. In other words, no nudity. Bikinis and color were a major deal in 1960 grade-b movies.

Elisabeth Lanz

Additional comments by The Night:
About today's images....I have been tweaking with the color settings to get rid of the dark/blue layer and make her goodies visible. I must say that she has the nicest, but also weirdest looking breasts, kind of pyramid shaped, oh well she looks mighty fine so who cares.

Thanks, B.