Sunday

Notes:

I'm back.

8MM 2 (2005):

Given that this film went straight-to-vid and contained none of the original cast, one might assume that 8 MM 2 would be a weak, low budget sequel to 8 MM, in the manner of Another 9 1/2 Weeks.

One would be wrong.

Given that fact, one might assume that the film is a very, very similar film to 8 MM, virtually a remake with a different cast, ala Wild Things 2, Single White Female 2.

Wrong again.

Well, if is is neither one of those things, then one must certainly assume that the two films share themes, or some important elements with 8 MM.

Nope. The two films have no common denominator, except in the same sense that Fantasia and Pulp Fiction may have some common denominators, given a sufficient willingness to exaggerate or to assign import to irrelevancies. (Let's see. They are both on film; they both include background music; and, of course, they both feature violent anal rape. )

If there had not been a previous film named 8MM, that would not be such a bad title for this one, but the film called 8MM 2 has absolutely nothing in common with the Nic Cage film named 8MM. 8 MM 2 is not about snuff films or anything similar. In fact, the film was to be titled The Velvet Side of Hell, but ended up being released to video under its current name, for no reason that I can see other than an attempt to cash in on the value of name recognition. A straight-to-vid called The Velvet Side of Hell would be completely anonymous on retail shelves, while one entitled 8 MM 2 might pick up some curiosity sales or rentals.

The story focuses on two Americans living in Budapest. She's the Ambassador's daughter, and comes from an "old money" family. He's the Ambassador's legal counsel, and grew up on food stamps. Despite the gap in their social status, they have become romantically entangled, and more than that - they plan to get married. The film's intrigue is driven by the fact that she has a wild set of sexual appetites, and manages to steer them into a threesome with another woman at a secluded inn in the Hungarian countryside. Unfortunately for them, it turns out that the innkeeper is running a blackmail scam, and makes video tapes to back up his demands.

In attempting to avoid paying the blackmail, the Americans decide to track down the woman from the threesome. It turns out that she works in the Budapest sex industry, so the Americans must get involved with various seedy underworld characters, and they eventually leave behind a trail of dead bodies. Since they are connected in various ways to many of the recently deceased, the police consider them murder suspects. Finally, the couple gets in far too deep and the blackmailers raise the stakes by kidnapping the man and demanding a ransom from the rich woman. If you're really good at these sorts of multiple twist movies, you've probably already determined that things may not really be what they appear.

Although 8 MM 2 has nothing to do with 8 MM, it is similar to two of the films I mentioned above. It is similar to Wild Things 2 in that it centers around a complicated scam, a menage a trois, and various hidden elements. It is similar to Another 9 1/2 Weeks in that it involves steamy eroticism between two Americans in exotic European locales. It is similar to both of those films in quality, which is to say that it is a respectable movie for a straight-to-vid, but not worthy of being named after its predecessor.

If you can ignore the deceptive title and are simply looking for an erotic thriller, you could do worse than this. The actors are better than the usual erotic thriller suspects. The plot isn't so bad -  I didn't really catch on to all of the the hidden elements, although perhaps I should have because it seemed fairly obvious when I thought it over. The ending is standard genre stuff, but is handled pretty well. The street scenes of Budapest at Christmastime are beautiful. Most important, there is plenty of sex and nudity. Lori Heuring finally ends the teasing stage of her career and strips down to show her chest and her bum in some sex scenes with Jonathan Schaech, with and without the Hungarian woman. Schaech himself bares his bum. The exotic Zita Görög plays the Hungarian woman in the threesome, and at one point she stands completely naked in good light, showing everything from the front and rear. She also shows everything again in the sex scene. Many, many stark naked women walk around in the Budapest sex clubs, strip joints, and porno film sets.

I suppose the most interesting thing about the film is Lori Heuring's breakthrough nudity, which include a couple of rear shots that flirt with gyno-/procto- cam territory. Since Heuring has never done any real nudity before, I also made a film clip of her one-on-one sex scene with Jonathan Schaech. (The threesome was too dark to make a decent clip, but the pics include a few caps from that scene.)

 

Zita Görög

Lori Heuring

Lori Heuring Video Clip

Unknown


Other Crap:

How many film references can you spot in this promotional video?

Cab Calloway sings "Reefer Man"

The Guardian talks about owning ideas

"At 6:29 p.m. on October 31, the Canadian province of Nova Scotia disappeared." (I'll bet you can guess which newspaper ran this story.)

Funny Commercials

You think Penelope Cruz lacked credibility as a doctor? Wait until you see her as a cowgirl.

  • Talk about an ornery rootin'-tootin' desperado! Look at the way she's holding the guns. She may be trying to shoot a bird out of a nearby tree - if the recoil doesn't break her arms.
  • I love that stylish three-sizes-too-small hat balanced precariously on the top of her head. I wonder how she keeps it on when she's a ridin' and a whuppin'. Maybe she uses a rubber band like those clowns with the tiny hats.

Woman calls 911 when onion rings arrive cold. (This is a real story.)

Christina Aguilera marrying this weekend, hoping to break the Cubs' curse.

  • Amazingly enough, she seems to be marrying Bratman. She will wear a Christian Lecroix dress, while he will be wearing his Cubs hat and some earphones.

Harry Potter casts a spell over the box office.

  • Potter's opening day was the highest grossing non-summer day in movie history!
  • It was the 9th highest day of any kind, and the other 8 were all in May and June
  • Here is the link for the "best days" chart.
  • Despite Potter's incredible numbers, Walk the Line did as well as expected, and then some. It obviously appeals to a completely different demographic.
  • On the other hand, Chicken Little and Zathura were swamped by the head-on competition for the kiddie market. Those two films each dropped about 70% from last Friday.

POP mum Britney Spears was reportedly ducking for cover after an alleged x-rated home video has surfaced.

  • Behavioral researchers are hailing the important find as the only known proof that Kevin Federline is capable of moving his ass.

This is funny. The German ad for the Pam Anderson sex tape - translated into English by Google.

"No ruling after 14-hour T.O. arbitration hearing"

Online daters are suing the top matchmaking web sites for fraud

"Resident Evil 4" is the video game of the year

MadTV- R.Kelly "The Greatest" Parody

Festivus - The Holiday For The Rest of Us - a Brief Excerpt from the Book by Allen Salkin

Some people who take Christmas decoration WAY too seriously.

The first teaser-trailer for Superman Returns

This is a real headline: "Radish recovering after murder attempt" (I didn't read the article, but it is undoubtedly one of the more interesting radish stories out there.)

Two more clips from Usher's In the Mix.

  • Can Usher bring to film that whole crazy Mobius Strip sense of looping infinity that he brought to his art? Only time will tell. For reference, read that landmark book "Gödel, Usher, Bach"

Paris Hilton Video Network to Launch Friday: "an eclectic mix of cultural analysis, philosophical and political debate and scientific discovery"

Round up the usual celebrity justice: Russell Crowe pleads guilty to assault, is fined a whopping $160, and told to be a good boy.

Civil Jury Says Blake Behind Wife's Murder

In Touch magazine has picked Denise Richards as the ultimate MILF

Stephen Colbert reports on the all-important selection of the Sexiest Man Alive

The Daily Show takes a look at the whirlwind romance of TomKat

The Daily Show: Former anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke discusses his fictional book about altered intelligence used to start a war.

Requiem for Usenet

  • "A number of Internet service providers have been quietly dropping Usenet as a quaint, little-used relic of a dimly remembered digital past."

FEC rules that bloggers are journalists, and are therefore exempt from campaign financing limitations. The essence of the ruling is that a lack of objectivity does not disqualify a media source as a journalistic entity. Hell, Dan Rather and Fox News could have told you that.

 

 


Movie Reviews:

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



 

"Mata Hari"

Mata Hari (1985), like Lady Chatterly's Lover, is a Golan Globus production staring Sylvia Kristel intended as a serious film with as much production value as they could deliver on a low budget. Golan and Globus have been quoted as saying that you have to be stupid to lose money on any English language film made on a low budget. Of course, they at one time owned a chain of theaters, ensuring a theatrical release. It is easy to imagine their thinking. Emmanuelle set records in Paris, London and New York, clearly making a naked Sylvia Kristel a profitable commodity. Mata Hari, the WW 1 supposed double agent, made a perfect role to get Kristel naked frequently, but have a liberal dose of redeeming social merit. The only problem in this recipe is Kristel's limited theatrical range.

The film is as muddled as was the life of the real Mata Hari, executed by the French as a traitor. It was, and is impossible to tell if she was pro Germany, pro France, or just liked spreading her legs for attractive and attentive men. Unfortunately, we never see what is between her legs, but do get frequent looks at her breasts and buns. Several unidentified women show everything at an orgy, including the ever popular "topless fencing duel."

It is rated 3.0 at IMDb, showing that it has no audience. It has too much story and too little pace for softcore fans, and lacks the acting ability for it to work as a costumer. However, it has far more production value than most soft core films. As a softcore, it is a C-. While it is a little lacking in sex and nudity, it has extraordinary production values for the genre. Take away the nudity, and it is not watchable.

Sylvia Kristel

Unknown



"Alvin Rides Again"

Alvin Rides Again (1974) after the huge box office from Alvin Purple, it was decided that a sequel was in order, to capitalize on the popularity. Star Graeme Blundell refused to do more of the same, however, and they invented a lame story to give him a chance to act, which was a huge mistake, as it pretty much killed the franchise, although it also made money.

Alvin leaves town to escape his woman problems, but they, of course, follow him. He ends up in a casino, where he looses all of his money, then is befriended by a mobster that looks just like him. When the mobster is accidently shot and killed, he is forced to impersonate the mobster. All the cleverness is gone from the dialogue, most of the intended humor comes from slapstick, and there is less nudity than the original, violating the first law of sequels:

Abigail - breasts
Briony Behets - breasts and buns
Candy Raymond - bush and buns (no face in frame, but probably not a double)
Chantal Controuri - Breasts
Joy Thompson - full frontal
Judy Stevenson - full frontal
Kris McQuade - full frontal

This is rated 4.8 at IMDb, and I would agree. They not only reduced the nudity for this sequel, but dumbed down the dialogue, and had Blundell in the gangster persona for over half of the film. The audience, of course, came looking for Alvin. This is a D+, and a good example of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Had they made a proper sequel, there might have been as many Alvin films as Carry On.

Abigail

Briony Behets

Candy Raymond

Chantal Controuri

Joy Thompson

Judy Stevenson

Kris McQuade

 



Today from the Ghost...here is Sunny Lane baring breasts and almost showing some pubes in a couple of pseudo-sex scenes from an episode of "Hollywood Sexcapades".


Sunny Lane



Today we have some caps from "American Beauty".

First up, the always beautiful Annette Bening shows off some nice legs while doing the housework in her slip.


Annette Bening

Then Thora Birch removes her bra in the window showing to show off some pretty impressive boobs.


Thora Birch

And finally, cheerleader Mena Suvari winds up topless.


Mena Suvari


Then we move over to TV Land for Jennifer O'Dell with very nice cleavage in "The Lost World". She also becomes a "Babe in Bondage" to some very unpleasant natives. Then be sure and check out caps 7 & 8 as she has a little nip slip in the jungle.


Jennifer O'Dell




A light update on this day of the Lord with some heavy stuff and cruel humor by nuns in 3 clips from 2002's The Magdalene Sisters. The identifiable women of the group are Nora-Jane Noone (Bernadette; with more hair down there than on her head as the nun says), Eileen Walsh (Crispina), Dorothy Duffy (the auburn/blond one) and Anne-Marie Duff .  

This movie about girls who "go astray" in Ireland in the 1960's who end up in a sort of reform school/prison run by nuns, is rated surprisingly high in the IMDb at 8.0/10 with women liking it even more than men. Personally I found the movie very slow paced, to focused on the abuses by the nuns with no interest in anything else. So I found myself reaching for the fast forward button more than once. Maybe if you only discover the excesses of (catholic) faith through this film you'll be amazed, but to be honest I didn't discover anything surprising or new here. 

I'm gonna keep it short. My dad watched this film as well and his comments were: "What the heck was the purpose of this movie? To show a bunch of women in the buff?". Well it's a bunch of Irish lasses and still not too long ago this scene would have been impossible with an all Irish cast. God really works in mysterious ways and sometimes for the better.  

Here are the vids....(1, 2, 3)



'Caps and comments by Dann:

"Ice Queen"
Ah, B-movie badness. This 2005 horror film got it right - it's pretty horrible.

An airplane is carrying a scientist who has as cargo a preserved female body that dates back to the Ice Age. Unfortunately, the plane crashes near a popular ski resort, triggering an avalanche.

Doctor and cargo survive, but the cargo, mysteriously returned to life, escapes. For her victims, she selects people conveniently trapped in the ski lodge when the avalanche covers it.

This low-budget nightmare actually has some pretty good special effects, which keeps the movie watchable at least, but the movie itself is only about as good as Jennifer Hill's implants.


Jennifer Hill



'Caps and comments by Spaz:

""The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" (1974)
Movie based on the novel by Mordecai Richler and starring an early Richard Dreyfuss whom cops a couple of feels from his female co-stars.

Micheline Lanctot:
boob falling out of nightgown
Susan Friedman:
pokies
Judith Gault:
cleavage and leg
Unknown:
boobs


"Pursued"
A 2004 action flick starring Christian Slater.

Estella Warren:
very tight top
Chelah Horsdal:
cleavage


"Childstar" (2004)
I caught this one being shown on the Sundance channel.

Kristin Adams:
arms over boobs


"The Man Who Lost Himself" (2005)
Recent television movie with Wendy Crewson in her MILF prime.

Wendy Crewson:
see-thru nightie, partial butt
Katie Boland:
cleavage


"The L Word"
Season 3 episode, "L'Chaim". Mia Kirshner finally provides us with the Booger "We got bush!" moment.

Mia Kirshner:
full frontal
Laurel Holloman:
nude and pregnant as a guppy
stripper:
topless shaking her booty


"Rescue Me"
Sseason 2 episode, "Happy". This episode has one of the best catfights ever shown in a cable series.

Andrea Roth:
clevage
Callie Thorne:
catfight with Brette Taylor, meeooww!
Diane Farr:
pokies
Jaime Morgan:
cleavage




The reason the big budget flick "Stealth" was an box office dud? Plot and/or effects are irrelevent in this case...I put the blame squarely on the marketing department. All they had to do to get every dude in America into the theater was to put Jessica Biel's bikini scene on the posters. Thnaks to C2K.



A couple more non-nudes from C2K....here is Bollywood actress Mallika Sherawat teasing us with a little cleavage, leg and partial breast views in scenes from the Jackie Chan movie "The Myth".



The Skin-man shoots and scores! Here are the first DVD 'caps we've seen from "Havoc"! Look for it on home video November 29th!


Anne Hathaway


Bijou Phillips