Atanarjuat (2001), AKA Atanarjuat The Fast Runner, is an Inuit production telling the myth of Atanarjuat, a story which includes adultery, evil spirits, murder, jealousy, and caries the important message for that culture that the family unit has to get along and live for the good of the group to survive in the tundra. As the Inuit had no written language, the story was handed down in oral tradition. When they decided to make the film, that had several elders recount their version of the myth, then wrote the story based on all the versions.

Like many indigenous people, the Inuit are largely unemployed, and have a suicide rate ten times the rate in the general population. Most of them have not learned their cultural heritage, and have lost the sense of community. This production crew is solving several problems at once. They brought in experienced film makers to train an Inuit crew, cast nothing but Inuit people, and shot the entire film in Inuit land. They carefully researched the tools, clothes, canoes and dwellings of the ancient Inuit people, taught the skills to the props and set folks, and all costumes, props and locations were created using traditional methods and materials. They made a real point to be as accurate as possible, as they were preserving Inuit cultural heritage for their own people, and educating the world.

As an example, igloos in "southern Inuit movies" not made by Inuit, are lit by a huge torch or fire in the middle of the Styrofoam igloo. Here, they used the traditional seal oil lighting, which is carefully tended small flame, in real ice igloos. In other words, everything about the production is as authentic as possible. Cast and crew lived on the tundra in harsh conditions during shooting, in traditional dwellings -- igloos in winter, and hide tents in summer.

Spoilers

The myth, briefly, starts with an evil shaman arriving amid the clan, killing the good ruler, and leaving a creep in his place. The father of Atanarjuat and his older brother, The Strong One, is a good man, but beset by bad luck and scorn from the leader. His two sons, however, are the hope of the clan. Atanarjuat and Atuat are in love, but Atuat has been promised to the evil son of the evil leader, Oki. Atanarjuat and his brother are better hunters than Oki, and much better liked, so Oki and his two friends have a vendetta against them. Oki's sister, Puja, decides to marry Atanarjuat, both because she is in lust with him, and because she hopes it will break up the romance between Atuat and Atanarjuat. That doesn't work, and Oki finally challenges Atanarjuat to a fight, the winner getting Atuat.

Atanarjuat wins, and Oki swears to kill him. Early one morning, Puja screws Atanarjuat's brother, starting world war three. Atanarjuat is furious at his brother, the brother's wife is furious at her, and Puja runs home to daddy, claiming that her husband tried to kill her for no reason. Oki and his friends ambush the two brothers while they are asleep, and kill the older brother. Atanarjuat escapes naked on foot, outrunning them. He recovers, and, with the help of the dead former clan head's spirit, restores order to the clan.

End Spoilers

Puja, played by Lucy Tulugarjuk, shows breasts during the adultery scene, and again near the end of the film. There is very brief breast exposure from Atuat (Sylvia Ivalu), but nothing clear enough to cap. IMDB readers have this at 7.5 of 10. It won all the Genies in the world, and several other international awards. This is an Ebert four star film, and critical consensus is 92%, with 93% from the top critics. I approve of everything this native Inuit production company is trying to accomplish, and wish native American groups would follow their example and preserve their own cultures. I found it fascinating. The scenery is breathtaking, provided you like white. The DVD is only available from Canada, and is a two disk special edition, with tons of special shorts on every aspect of the production. There are several sub-title tracks, some of which give background between the actual dialogue. The closest thing I can compare it to is Quest for Fire, but, unlike quest for fire, it is 100% culturally accurate. I have to award this a B-. I think most people will be fascinated by this glimpse of a forgotten culture, and the legend itself is certainly spicy enough to keep your interest.

OTHER CRAP:

• At last, the news we've been waiting for - cheating makes your marriage stronger. If I were you, I wouldn't meet your secretary at the local motel just yet. This Jungian level of insight comes from the scholarly psychologists at Weekly World News.
• Check out this ludicrous example of haute couture
• Retro computer ads featuring William Shatner and the Commodore Vic 20
• The following are new material from The Smoking Gun, in their own words. "Perhaps it was the 100-day itch that doomed the Hollywood union of Nicolas Cage and Lisa Marie Presley. And, to think, we hadn't even gotten around to buying their wedding present": http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/cagediv1.html
• "Judging by his leafy backstage rider, Paul McCartney should probably tour with a horticulture roadie. The 60-year-old former Beatle remains a flower child": http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/mccartney1.html
• "Now that "Stone Cold" Steve Austin has copped to assaulting his wife during a recent domestic dispute, the professional wrestler's mug shot goes on our Wall of Shame": http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/stonecoldplea1.html

Updates:

• Charlie's French cinema nudity site is updated. It includes the first of his caps from the French nudity classic la Belle Noiseuse - a film which is pretty much just Emmanuelle Beart standing around naked for about four hours. I think the point is that it is possible to make any subject boring, even beautiful naked women.
• new Encyclopedia volumes for Amy Madigan, Heike Makatsch, Valeria Marini, Laure Marsac, Cristina Marsillach, Laia Marull, Robin Mattson, Yuliya Mayarchuk, Alex Meneses, Marion Michael, Nell McAndrew, Gail McKenna, Linsey Dawn McKenzie
• updated volumes for Madonna, Julianne Moore, Demi Moore, Mathilda May, Kelly McGillis

Shameless Propaganda, part 5:

Pat Reeder is a guy whose name is not familiar to you, but who touches your life almost every day. He's the guy who writes the jokes that your DJ tells every morning during your drive to work.  He's also the guy who writes those Comedy Wire things that you see on the bottom of this page from time to time. If you wonder why your DJ and the Fun House tell the same jokes, Pat's the reason. At the moment, Pat has a new book out called "Nine Hallmarks of Highly Incompetent Losers."  It's a "reverse self-help" book that helps the reader attain success by avoiding nine stupid mistakes made by failures and idiots.  He illustrates his points with over 200 hilarious-but-true stories from his syndicated radio service, "The Comedy Wire."

If you like weird news and dumb criminal stories, or if you've ever been forced to suffer through a boring business/self-help book like "Who Moved My Cheese?", you'll love "Nine Hallmarks of Highly Incompetent Losers."  It earned four stars from Wireless Flash News, and will be in bookstores nationwide next spring, but you can get the jump on the rest of America and get it now through Pat's website.  Cheaper than Amazon and every copy is personally autographed! 

Click here (http://www.comedy-wire.com/bookorderpage.html) for a book excerpt, Real Audio updates on "Losers In The News," samples of the Comedy Wire and more. 

FREEBIE ALERT!  Be the first Funhouse denizen to order a copy via credit card and win a free year's subscription to the Fun House. That's a whole year of access, completely free. If you pay $39.95 per month, that's worth more than $450! Plus the damned book costs less than thirteen bucks to begin with, including an autograph! Just mention on the order form that you saw it in Uncle Scoopy's Funhouse. (If you're not a member now, and are reading this on the free version, you'll have to prove that you're 18, or the second guy will get the prize.) This Sunday, Pat will let me know who got in first, and we'll announce the winners in next Monday or Tuesday's edition, depending on how long it takes to verify that the winner is old enough.

Sample from Chapter Five:  Work While Drunk, High or Otherwise Indulging Your Addictions

...Not only is alcohol a drug, but alcoholism is the most common (and as our society has determined, the funniest) of all major substance
addictions.  To prove this, try sitting through a double bill of "Arthur" and "Scarface," and see which one has more laughs, if you don't count Al Pacino's Cuban accent.  

From Falstaff to W.C. Fields to Dean Martin to Homer Simpson, pathetic drunks have always been one of our greatest sources of amusement.  But why content ourselves with Hollywood boozehounds when we are surrounded by the real thing, all making desperate but futile attempts to blend in and function normally while utterly plastered?...

*  At a bar in El Paso, Texas, a drunk became belligerent and was ordered to leave.  As he was being escorted out, he pulled a gun.  But since he wasn't thinking too clearly, he pulled it out using his prosthetic arm - and his arm fell off.  He was charged with assault and aggravated assault, but, of course, not armed assault....

*   A man in Sibiu, Romania, was celebrating the birth of his first child when he accepted a party bet from friends.  The bet was apparently intended to prove that a drunken man will put his penis into anything, for it somehow required him to insert his manhood into a metal wheel bearing.  It got stuck, so he reached for yet another tool and tried to cut off the wheel bearing with an electric circular saw.  The saw slipped and sliced his penis off.  After a five-hour reattachment operation, surgeons said he would be back to normal in a few months.  Or as close to normal as a man who has drunken sex with a wheel bearing can be said to be...
 

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

• The yellow asterisks indicate that I wrote the review, and am deluded into thinking it includes humor.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Heffermania...day 3

• May 1979 Hefmate Michelle Drake in DVD caps from "Hollywood Knights" (1980). Michelle plays a cheerleader who forgets to wear shorts to a pep rally. So you get a high leg kick (collage 1), two cycles of jumping up and coming down (collages 2-4) and a turning-around double-B routine (collage 5). (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• December 1990 Hefmate and former Miss World Canada, Morgan Fox in DVD caps from "Flesh Gordon and the Cosmic Cheerleaders". Terrific movie. Subtle plot. Excellent pacing. Sorta like a combination of "The Sting" and "All's Quiet on the Western Front". NOT! This is one penis joke after another and you have to take those things seriously. But Morgan shows the goodies, many times in a see-thru get-up (collage 1) and then a couple of times when she or someone else peels away the top (2-7). (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

• Feb 1990 Hefmate, the one, the only Pamela Anderson in "Barb Wire". DVD caps. So sure you saw a bunch of Pam caps from this movie just a couple of days ago, but I saved the best of them for today. The last three or four are worth anyone's time. Hooters only. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

• April 1978 Hefmate Pamela Jean Bryant in her first and last movies. First are topless caps in "Don't Answer the Phone" (1979). Notice how she keeps her right arm demurely by her side while she is being strangled. These are VHS caps; there is a DVD of this movie but the violence and nudity were chopped. (1, 2)

• And then there is Pamela Jean's last and triple-B performance in "Trapped". (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

• November 1988 Hefmate Pia Reyes in VHS caps from "Auntie Lee's Meat Pies" (1991).

• November 1988 Hefmate Pia Reyes in "Forbidden Zone: Alien Abduction" (1994).

• November 1988 Hefmate Pia Reyes "Nighttime Lover" (1995).

• Sept 1978 Hefmate, Rosanne Katon, topless in VHS caps from Lunch Wagon (1981).

• July 1983 Hefmate Ruth Guerri in "Stingray". In these VHS caps she is nekkid but manages, just barely, to keep the goodies covered. An inch one way or another and we would have had paydirt. But noooooo. Ruth was a real cutie, too.

• Jan 1981 Hefmate... and the queen of Hefmate nudity... Shannon Tweed. And get this, I found a movie of hers that has not been capped. At least it's not in her volume of the Encyclopedia, and since everything but movies of her wedding night are in that volume, I gotta figure I'm the first to do this'n. The movie is "Last Hour" (1990), made while Shannon was still pretty much in her prime. They are topless VHS caps of her sport-humpin (collages 1-3) and topless and bum caps of her in the shower (collage 4). (1, 2, 3, 4)

As promised here's the rest of the caps from that sexy movie "The Hot Spot". First up it's Jennifer Connelly looking cute, then into a bikini and finally showing us her fabulous boobs. Jennifer is joined by Debra Cole in one montage.Then we move on to the ultra sexy Virginia Madsen who gives us some exposure of her great boobs. Fun Movie with a great jazz score.

• Jennifer Connelly (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
• Virginia Madsen (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

"Cheerleader Camp" (1987) is a slasher horror this time involving cheerleaders.

• Betsy Russell: bare back, pokies in skimpy cheerleader outfit.
• Vickie Benson: topless showing her pom-poms.
• Teri Weigel: hefmag babe topless (now does hardcore porn).
• Rebecca Ferratti: another hefmag babe, pokies only.
• Krista Pflanzer: penthouse mag babe topless.

Fleshtone (1994) is an erotic thriller. These caps are from the unrated version.

• Debi Giezing: nude in phone-sex fantasy.
• Daniella: showing all three B's gettin' it on with some hot lesbo lovin' with Debi. These two are obviously porn stars acting under pseudonyms.
• Melanie Walker: nude photographs, then topless in bed. (1, 2)
• Lise Cutter: almost all three B's in a very hot above-the-sheets love scene. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

FLORIDA INVENTED THANKSGIVING

Let's Eat Crab Legs Instead Of Turkey - University of Florida history professor Michael Gannon says that Thanksgiving wasn't invented by Pilgrims in Massachusetts in 1621. 800 Spanish settlers in St. Augustine, Florida, held a Mass of Thanksgiving on Sept. 8, 1565, and invited the Seloy Indians to join them. Spanish explorers had held similar masses in Florida dating back to 1513. But Gannon said that England beat Spain for control of North America, so they got to write the history books.