The Pornographer (1999) is a freshman effort from writer director Doug Atchison, staring Michael DeGood, who had done a couple of things on TV, and Katherine Cain in her first feature film. Don't let the title and the fact that Rena Riffel and Monique Parent show breasts and buns in the film lead you to believe that this is a low budget soft core about the porn industry. What it is is a well made story of one man's decent into pornography, and the consequences.

DeGood plays a young paralegal who was raised in an anti sex and anti female family who has zero experience in relating to the opposite sex, and has turned to porn and hookers for sexual outlet, but has become increasingly lonesome. When he complains to a video store clerk about the quality of some films he is returning, the clerk tells him to make his own if he doesn't like what is there. After some disastrous attempts with real women, he decides that making his own films, and doing them right, is an idea with merit. Things go well, until he connects with a major porn producer/distributor (Craig Wasson) who wants him to find and recruit new blood. He manages to start a relationship with a chance acquaintance (Caine), and decides she is the one to recruit.

Atchison made a lot of great decisions in making this film with nearly no budget. First, he got some known talent, and picked his newcomers well. Second, he listened to his cast and crew, and changed the script when they had better ideas. Third, he found an impressive number of great locations that he was allowed to use free of charge. And, probably most important, he didn't go for a look and feel he couldn't afford to shoot well. Rather, he went for a straightforward photographic approach, and no tricky, distracting lighting. The films won first place at the Arizona International Film Festival, and IMDB readers have it at 6.8/10, with a staggering 8.1/10 among males aged 41+. As it presents a rather negative view of the porn industry, that could explain the higher rating among older people with enough perspective to see the relevance of the film. It would be a good character driven drama no matter what the budget, but it is exceptional work for a zero budget indie. Strong C+.

The Last Temptation of Christ was Martin Scorsese's period-authentic adaptation of the famous Kazantsakis novel

• Barbara Hershey (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

• others (1, 2, 3)

Drowning on Dry Land was 90 minutes of nothing followed by three minutes of Barbara Hershey naked (she was 49 years old at the time, but still beautiful)

• Barbara Hershey (1, 2)

There is also a new thumbnailed Encyclopedia volume for Barbara Hershey, which includes the pics above.

Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated

WHAT WAS THE FIRST MOVIE NUDE SCENE?

WHEN WAS IT FILMED?

It was a Pittsburgh prostitute, and it was filmed more than ten years before films were invented.

Say what?

I've been meaning to write this up for some time, because it is a chapter in history that everyone gets wrong. And I mean everyone. Even the film "historians".

When was the first movie nude scene filmed? This will blow your mind. The official sources usually say that Edison did his first public exhibition in April, 1896, and the Lumieres did theirs in December, 1895. But a crazy Englishman named Eadwaerd Muybridge successfully demonstrated movie projection in 1880, well known and reported at the time. Muybridge created many nude movies in the period from 1884-1886, under academic conditions, and with a massive university grant to do so. He exhibited an entire hall full of his films at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, about three years before films were "invented"!!! Some years later, in a bit of revisionism worthy of Stalin himself, the corporate viziers of Edison decided to re-write history without Mr Muybridge. Various French and Americans, busy promoting their own subjective versions of history, were only too happy to go along.

Muybridge proved to be too politically incorrect for everyone. He was an eccentric guy who took more than 100,000 nude photos of Pittsburgh prostitutes, and got away with killing his wife's lover at point blank range, in an admittedly premeditated crime, with dozens of witnesses.

But he's the man who invented the movies, and he beat everyone else by 15 years or more.

 Here is his story, and some of the nude scenes he filmed 10 years before films were "invented"

Cristina Airoldi

Patrizia Adiutori

Various

Actually, even without the nudity, of which there is plenty, this would be a good slasher movie. It's well done, and twisty. The true murderer is not easily guessed before the ending, and there's plenty of action along the way.

-The Hankster

Cynthia Wood
(1, 2, 3)

In yesterday's Funhouse, one of the members requested information on Penny Johnson (formerly, Beverly, Larry's beautiful African-American assistant on The Larry Sanders Show). He said she once worked for GLOW as the wrestler, Liberty. Well, I must admit that is news to me, but what I do know is that she did a topless scene in the movie, The Hills Have Eyes 2 early in her career. The scene is short, but nice and easy to see. Has anyone ever capped it?

Also, does anyone have caps of Jane Kaczmarek's topless scene in the movie, Wildly Available from 1996?

Simply animal

A SEX scene between Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton in their new movie has been shortened because it's too raunchy. "Monster's Ball" director Marc Foster had to cut a full minute from their on-screen romp to satisfy censors. Berry's character hasn't had sex for 11 years because her husband's on death row. Thornton plays a prison guard with a penchant for hookers. "He has been having these 15-minute episodes with a prostitute, so his love life is nothing special," Berry tells Entertainment Weekly. "So when they come together, it's just animal."

-Pat Reeder
The Comedy Wire