Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1993) is an attempt to bring a book I personally love to the screen. While they sort of had the main characters right, and the photography was very nice. they did a miserable job of conveying the substance of the book. The book is all about attitude, and the plot is just a loose framework to hang it on. In workmanlike adaptation fashion, they streamlined the plot, made it a linear narrative, changed it to essentially a love story, and then did a rather straightforward presentation of the plot.

The story concerns Sissy Hankshaw, who was born with grossly oversized thumbs, and so naturally grew up to be the worlds greatest hitchhiker. When she wasn't thumbing, she worked as a model for the countess, a gay feminine hygiene product Tzar. He also owned the Rubber Rose Ranch, a fat farm named after his popular douche bag. The ranch also sported a few cattle, wrangled by a bunch of cowgirls, led by Bonanza Jellybean. Other key players are the Chink (a Japanese American hermit played by Pat Morrita) and Delores Del Ruby, a former circus performer, whose peyote Goddess visions point out the future for the cowgirls.

When the countess sends Sissy to the ranch for a photo shoot, Sissy falls for Jellybean, the cowgirls revolt against the fat farm ladies and the countess, and we meet the whooping cranes who figure prominently in the last act. Rain Phoenix as Bonanza Jellybean shows most of a breast, and shows her bush. Lorraine Bracco as Delores del Ruby shows her bush.

IMDb readers have this at 4.0 of 10, and it picked up two Razzie nominations. There is no nice way to put it. Many times, I feel the movie made from a book or stage play I love is a lesser work, but this time, they completely failed to adapt the book to the screen. There is some question as to whether or not that is even possible with a Tom Robbins book, but they certainly didn't manage it here. D.

updates:

• There are about 300 new pics in volumes C, D, and E. Updated volumes are highlighted in yellow.

"Wetherby" (1985)

Wetherby is the name of a nondescript and middle class English town which provides the backdrop for a mysterious whydunit. (It's a suicide, so we already know whodunit.)

Vanessa Redgrave plays an unfulfilled middle aged schoolmarm who hosts a small dinner party one evening. As the guests arrive, a stranger appears at the door, says he is John Morgan, and walks in to the dinner. Nobody really knows whether someone else extended a kind invitation to this lost soul, but it turns out that he has simply invited himself.

John Morgan returns to the teacher's house the next morning, makes a little small talk, pulls a gun from his pocket, sticks it in his mouth, and calmly shoots himself.

And there is our whydunit premise. Why was John Morgan at that party? Why did he commit suicide? Why did he choose the teacher's home to make his farewell statement? The last question is especially intriguing to the police, because a suicide among strangers is totally uncharacteristic. Suicides happen alone, or as a dramatic statement made in front someone for a purpose, but not among random people. The police inspector tries to assemble the pieces of the puzzle, with only limited success, but we in the audience get a significant amount of additional insight when we see incidents from John Morgan's past, from the teacher's past, and from additional moments during the evening of the dinner party.

The solution to the puzzle is never really explicit, but it script maintains an appropriate feeling of ubiquitous portent throughout the story by the unspoken parts of the secret. The story thus stands apart from the type of mystery which functions logically and deductively. It is inductive, and oblique. It offers not solutions, but hints, suggestions, or working hypotheses. This technique is quite an intelligent way to present the unraveling, as if Harold Pinter had decided to take his elegant dialogue and sense of foreboding away from psychological dramas about the rich and write instead a mystery story about the educated middle class. The story did in fact have its origin on the London stage, albeit not in a play written by Pinter but one from David Hare, who adapted his own play into this screenplay and also directed the film.

Yes, very intelligent.

Intelligence, however, does not always make for a good film.

My take on it is this. If you want to see a true mystery story, you will really not care for this much at all. You will probably sit quietly during the closing credits and think, "am I supposed to understand the whydunits? I'm not sure that I do, even after all that." On the other hand, if you enjoy the plays of Harold Pinter, the films of Nick Roeg, or other works which rely on the careful maintenance of tone to evoke a calculated emotional response from the audience, you'll find this to be a good example of the type. The cast is first-rate, headed by Ian Holm, Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, and Vanessa Redgrave. Vanessa's look-alike daughter Joely shares her mother's part in the flashback scenes.

I don't especially enjoy watching Pinter's plays, and I could use most of Roeg's films as a cure for insomnia, so I found Wetherby tedious, talky, very tough going, and devoid of true warmth. I can admire the quality of the dialogue and the acting; I can see how it has been carefully constructed to maintain a certain tone; and I can see why Roger Ebert felt it was worth four stars. Some of you will undoubtedly join Ebert in liking and admiring it. Having given a nod in that direction, let me hasten to add that I can only be placed in the "admiring" column, not the "liking". I just didn't feel that watching this film was time well spent, and frankly the vast majority of you will top off a viewing by questioning how anyone else could possibly like this.

• Joely Richardson

• Suzanna Hamilton (1, 2, 3)

Other Crap:

• From the Bad Taste department. It's November 22nd, the anniversary of the Kennedy shooting - so a British company is releasing a JFK assassination simulation game.: A spokesman for Massachusetts Senator Edward Kennedy is calling the new video game "despicable." If he hates that, wait until he sees their new action-packed driving game, "Chappaquiddick". It's great fun for the whole family! Well, maybe not the daughters.
• FilmJerk's indispensable Early Report for November 21
• Christmas gift idea for your girlfriend: A Pink Hello Kitty Laptop. Provided, of course, that your girlfriend is Reese Witherspoon and she's still in Legally Blonde.
• The trailer for Coach Carter, with Samuel L. "Inspired by a true-life story, "Coach Carter" is an inspirational account of a controversial high school basketball coach, who received both high praise and staunch criticism when he made national news in 1999 for benching his entire undefeated basketball team for poor academic performance."
• The greatest film critic of them all, The Filth-man, or El Filthedor for you Spanish speakers, falls asleep during Kinsey.
• LINCOLN BEDROOM FOUND IN CLINTON LIBRARY. Historic Room Moved Piece by Piece to Arkansas.
  • While admission to the Clinton library is seven dollars, tourists will be allowed to spend a night in the newly reconstituted Lincoln Bedroom for an additional ten thousand dollars, Mr. Clinton said.
• "Jamie kneels between the thighs of Charlotte, performing oral sex. Charlotte sits astride Jamie, riding him." "Such scenes are routine in drama but the difference here is that these people are real. A suggestively bucking sheet caused fuss on last year's Big Brother: now, a few months later, viewers are watching film of a real couple shagging."
• Wal-Mart's private database is more than twice the size of the entire internet.
• This year's edition of The Worst Jobs in Science. The worst: a three-way tie among tampon squeezer, webmaster, and anal-wart researcher.
• Weekend Box Office November 12-14, 2004. National Treasure 35, Sponge Bob 33, Incredibles 27. The Incredibles had the 13th best 3rd weekend of all time, keeping it on track for $300 million status. Sponge Bob had the third-best opening weekend in history for a film not in the #1 spot.
• 2,495 Saturday Night Live Transcripts
• Channel 4- Britain's Real Monarch. An historian has uncovered what appears to be strong proof that the 15th-century English monarch Edward IV was, in fact, illegitimate, thus invalidating the royal claim of all the kings and queens who followed. As it turns out, Hugh Grant should be king. Par- TAY.
• John McFerrin's Rock and Prog Reviews. Overviews of the complete careers - album by album - of many major bands. You'll get the idea if you click on someone who has done a gazillion albums. Try Bob Dylan, e.g.
• Pacers' Artest suspended without pay for the rest of season
• The man to beat for Best Actor this year? Jamie Foxx. One thing new to me: his real name is Eric Bishop.
• Obese men are more likely to encounter additional sexual problems. Like finding their dicks, for example.
• The team from Amelie, star Audrey Tautou and director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, in a new flick.
• Britney Spears says she wants out of the spotlight. Bloggers speculate that her acne may be the reason.
• Four free short videos from Playboy's Cheerleaders & College Girls!
• Playmate Gallery - Gillian Bonner - April 1996 - Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• The extended trailer from next summer's 200 million dollar blockbuster, Dubya the Movie. (Somebody put a LOT of work into this.)
• President Bush stepped into the middle of a confrontation and pulled his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean security officials.
• Going to elementary school with Lee Harvey Oswald.
• Will the courts rule that dodgeball is too dangerous for children? It can be tough. Especially the training with the wrenches.
• Keeping library books too long could soon land some readers in jail. Wasn't this concept already covered in an early episode of Seinfeld, the one with Philip Baker Hall as the tough library cop?
• World Mysteries
• Astronomy Pic of the Day - Spiral Galaxies in Collision
• Trivia for Closer, the film where Portman plays a stripper. (2004) "At the beginning of filming, Natalie Portman gave Julia Roberts a necklace that said 'cunt' in honor of their characters' foul mouths. At the end of filming, Julia Roberts gave Natalie Portman a necklace that said 'lil' cunt'."

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links above, since it's sorta in real time.

Click here to submit a URL for Other Crap

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

.wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

NOTE: because of a unique combination of circumstances with the Windows media player and some substantial bandwidth theft, we will have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Left click on the files as you normally would to view a picture. When you get a choice, click on "save", and put it on your hard drive in the directory of your choice. UnZIP and play from there.

I know this is not especially convenient, but it allows the film clips to continue. I can protect .zip files from hot-linking in the same way I can protect still images. For some reason, if I protect .avis and .wmvs from hot-linking, they will not play in the Windows media player, and I can't get a satisfactory work-around. Perhaps I will find a better solution, but for now this new policy allows you to continue getting the movie clips you want to see, which is much preferable to my abandoning the clips altogether.

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.

 

When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger, and slightly lower quality.

Words, pictures, and vids from ICMS
 

Widows - 1998

• Ornella Muti (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
• Katja Flint (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
• Gruschenka Stevens (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)

Scoop's note: Off the top of my head, I can't recall Ornella doing any nudity after 1998, so this may have been her swan song. She did this film in the period since I started this site. She did her first film nudity in 1970, when I was still in college. After those 28 years, her body is still worth looking at.

Words, and pictures, from Clifton Santiago
 

L.A.X.

I swear that last week, in the opening minutes of L.A.X., when Heather Locklear was leaving the house of her lover and turned back to speak to him, intercut in the scene was two quick shots of 1.) a breast with an erect nipple, and a microsecond later, 2.) a man's mouth sucking on said breast.

The scene is a flashback by Locklear's character to intimate moments with her boyfriend the night before. It consists of four short cut shots of a couple kissing and embracing. After watching them frame-by-frame, this is what I determined:

The first part  is a close-up of a couple kissing with a strong backlight and soft-focus making it look more provocative when watching it in real-time.

The second partdoes show a nipple, but I believe it is a male nipple because it seems to be attached to a pec rather than a breast. In the first and third part Locklear is on the left and her boyfriend is on the right, but in the second his nipple is on the left, making one think that it is Locklear's nipple.

The third part is fairly clear, showing part of Locklear's face turning from side to front.

The fourth part, where it appears someone is sucking on a nipple, is actually an even closer view of the couple's face and lips. In the first frame  it does indeed look like lips on nipple, but by the third or fourth frame you realize that it is lips moving from chin to mouth, with the illusion created by backlight and focus.

Sorry to spoil anyone's allusions, but it appears to be something they put in to titillate viewers without actually violating FCC regulations. Too bad.

Over here in London, we frequently get nudity on network television after about 9 or 10 pm.

Cheers,

Clifton Santiago

What do you need to know about Mob Boss (1990)? It stars Eddie Deezen. If you know who he is and you are told that he has more screen time that everyone else combined in this movie, you know what to do. Run. Save yourself. Women and children first.

Mob Boss is a comedy. Or that is where the guys down at your local video store shelve it when it gets rented every other year. It's as funny as any other Stuart Whitman-starring knock-off of The Godfather. A veritable laugh riot. Not. Stupid sight gags, horrible one-liners, embarassed actors (Whitman and Morgan Fairchild) who know they should be doing better work but this was all their agents could find. God help them.

And Eddie Deezen. You would recognize him as a bit player in some okay movies, the voice of Snap or Crackle or Pop in the cereal commercials, a 120-lb nerd to end all nerds. He plays the lead in this movie. Nuff said.

Three gals get topless at some point or another. Dori Courtney is paid to educate Eddie's character in the ways of amour. Pleasant enough looking gal, not a bad actress at all. Long scene with some terrific framing by the DP (Dori's face and her superstructure but nothing else in the frame)

Sherri Graham plays a topless stripper, Jasae a topless waitress. Jasae you get a good look at. Sherri is in the deep background.

That's it. Nothing offensive enough to inspire all means and manners of invective, nothing anywhere approaching good enough to inspire kind words. Mob Boss is blah, just plain blah.

By the way, these 'caps and clips are are from videotape, so the quality is not 'xactly el primo.

• Dori Courtney
• Dori Courtney zipped divx .avis (1, 2)

• Jasae
• Jasae, zipped divx .avi

• Sherri Graham
• Sherri Graham zipped divx .avi

"Getting Married at Buffalo Jump" (1990) (TV)
The recent CBC DVD release unlike the previous PG-rated video release has Wendy Crewson's classic skinnidipping scene intact.

• Wendy Crewson: check out those nibs. (1, 2, 3)

"Winter Lily" (1998)
Canadian horror that deals with necrophilia.

• Kimberly Laferriere: one timer topless as corpse having sex.

"Echo of Murder" (2000) (TV) aka "Who Killed Atlanta's Children?"
Gregory Hines/Jim Belushi crime mystery based on real life events.

• Elena Joukova-Douglas: topless as obligatory stripper.
• Tatiana Medvedeva: ditto.
• Sarah Lafleur: nice miniskirt.

Paradise Falls season II, week 10
Danielle Hampton and Michelle Latimer have threesome with a brother-sister combo and later have a catfight.

• Danielle Hampton: more fully clothed lesbian sex with Michelle Latimer.

The Hunger: The River of Nights Dreaming aka Murder Brides
The only reason to see this episode is to see rare nudity by Paradise Fall's Marni Thompson who only showed her butt in the entire series. Her character was killed off recently so this is the only time she showed her a-cups.

• Marni Thompson: boobs and butt having lesbian-bondage sex. (1, 2, 3)

"Money Train"
It occured to me recently that my collection needed some Jennifer Lopez. Up 'till now, the only thing I've capped of hers is Maid in Manhatten, which didn't have nudity or much of a story, either. While she did more nudity in U Turn, she also looked real hot and kicked some ass in 1995's Money Train.

Foster brothers, one black, are New York transit detectives who are always having problems with the transit boss. When Charlie (Woody Harrelson) finally goes too far, he's fired, despite the best efforts of John (Wesley Snipes). John has been bailing out Charlie for years, but this time he can't pull it off. Things are more complicated because both men are attracted to another transit cop, played by Jennifer Lopez.

Seeking revenge, Charlie decides to rob the train that transfers the revenue from each day's transit receipts, called the Money Train. Again, John tries to bail Charlie out of a bad situation, but this time, he gets sucked into the plot.

The story is nothing special, but there is a ton of action, and the actors make this movie a great deal of fun, and well worth watching. Jennifer's nudity is very brief, but still interesting. A cool, ass-kicking movie.

• Jennifer Lopez

"Off-Key"
The nudity in Off-Key (aka Desafinado) comes from Ariadna Gil when she wanders around naked. A very sexy Claudia Gerini is a high-class escort and she is down to her thong underwear.

• Ariadna Gil (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Claudia Gerini (1, 2, 3)

"The Hitcher 2 : I've Been Waiting"
No nudity in The Hitcher 2 just some nice cleavage from Kari Wuhrer.

• Kari Wuhrer

"Johnny Handsome"
Plenty of topless ladies in Johnny Handsome. These include Elizabeth McGovern and two strippers, Tulia Cove and Connie Lemoine. Ellen Barkin Shows a bit of cleavage.

• Elizabeth McGovern
• Tulia Cove and Connie Lemoine (1, 2)
• Ellen Barkin (1, 2)

"Vital Signs"
Diane Lane is topless in Vital Signs but, for Jane Adams, there's nothing visible.

• Diane Lane (1, 2, 3)
• Jane Adams

"V Graham Norton"
Graham Norton is (was?) a tonight show host in Britain. His guests were the hosts of a personal make-over show Trinny Woodall and Susannah Constantine. Trinny's philosophy is, if you haven't got big boobs, show your nipples, so she does. For big-boobed Susannah, the philosophy is show some cleavage. Susannah also shows why you have to be careful walking down stairs in a split dress.

• Trinny Woodall
• Susannah Constantine

"Solomon and Sheba"
No nudity in Solomon and Sheba but Gina Lollobrigida shows a lot of sex appeal.

• Gina Lollobrigida (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

I predict that 2005 will be "The Summer of Alba". She has 3 movies scheduled for release next summer including: Robert Rodriguez's "Sin City", the big screen adaptation of "Fantastic Four" as well as "Into the Blue".