The big release today, at least for me, is An Officer and a Gentleman. Zach Mayo (Richard Gere) goes to live with his father who is in the Navy in Subic bay when his mother commits suicide. He grows up living over a whorehouse, and learns to drink and chase whores from his father. After he graduates from college, he decides to join the Navy to "fly jets" and attends an officer candidate school in Puget sound Washington.

He becomes friends with a classmate, and the two meet two local "Puget Sound Debs," who are local girls who dream of marrying a Naval officer and escaping small town Washington. Zack is a cheap hustler, and tries his usual approach to both the training and his relationship with his "Deb," Debra Winger. His DI, Marine Gunnery Sergeant Foley sees through him, and proves equal to the challenge of causing him to become an officer and a gentleman.

This film has always worked for me on two levels. First, it is what military training is supposed to be, but so seldom is. The transformation of Zack from immature self-serving hustler to officer and gentleman is well written and well-acted. The love story is also very well done. Gere and Winger have definite chemistry together, and the scene that produced the exposure is very hot, and well lit.

Maltin found it trite, and awarded 2 1/2 stars. Apollo says 73, or nearly 3 stars, and IMDB readers have it at 6.8/10. The Academy thought better of it, awarding Oscars to Gosset for his performance as Sgt. Foley, and the song Up Where We Belong. It was nominated for 4 more. The DVD transfer is outstanding, but it is a little lacking in special features. I give the film 3 1/2 stars. My judgement could be clouded by the fact that I could relate to so much of the story. I was in Naval Air, spent some time in Subic Bay, and spent a lot of time in Puget Sound, where the arrival of our aircraft carrier meant full employment for the entire region and husbands for all the single daughters. This is definitely a date movie.

Episode 1, Siberia Federico. Tony's Russian girlfriend, Irina, was played by Federico in the first episode. In the remaining episodes, the role was assayed by Oksana Babiy

Episode 3, I think her name is Bernadette Penotti. She is the stripper who pretended to be a nurse to cheer up the dying Jackie.

Episode 5, only a brief flash from Lisa Arning, plating the wife of the guy in the witness protection plan. Soprano spotted the guy while he was on his college tour with his daughter. I'll bet you can guess what he did to him.

Episode 6, the Lorraine Bracco character was seen showering in a dream sequence. Almost certainly a body double , since there was an abrupt and clumsy cut from the body to the head. This was the episode for nudity, as it also featured lovely Oksana Babiy in an extended topless appearance with an impotent Tony.

Episode 9, a really cute stripper with a lot of screen time, specifically named Brandy in the script, but I couldn't find her in the cast.

Episode 11, various unknown hookers and strippers.

Mario Puzo has always been dumbfounded by the impact of his mob romance come true. When he wrote The Godfather, he admits that he did virtually no research on the organization of the crime families. He used some folklore, some rumor, and made the rest up himself. But life and art intersect in the 20th century, and it is not always possible to identify which created which. It doesn't matter if Puzo's original novel didn't reflect reality, because reality came to reflect Puzo's novel. So Puzo, in effect, created the mob structures as we know them today.

FBI wiretaps have indicated that today's wiseguys watch The Sopranos, so that show is more instant folklore in the making. The Sopranos have to be the most talked about family since Manson, and their show the most discussed since Seinfeld. Good for them. It's deserving. I don't know how real it is, but I know it's basically a soap opera, and the only thing a soap opera really needs is really interesting and well developed characters placed in sensational situations. This show has all of that in spades, plus it actually keeps surprising us by killing off some major characters.

Only one thing is missing for it to be a really good soap opera. So far, not one evil twin.

TomCat worked on a recent Italian film, "The Butcher", with Eurobabe Alba Parietti. (No review page)

Celebrity Sleuth reported that yesterday's Melanie Griffith cap was from 1988's "Stormy Monday".

You know that I enjoy following politics, but I haven't weighed in on the current constitutional crisis in the U.S. Well, frankly, I don't care enough about the outcome to study the issue, but I do have some thoughts on a topic I've always found interesting - our current lame duck President and his future. Why has he been so quiet on the entire election matter? Is it statesmanlike grace or self-interest? Read my theory on why President Clinton might actually prefer to be succeeded by President Bush. (And even if he doesn't actually prefer it, he sure ain't gonna piss Dubya off.)

Da friggin' smut:

Despite the robo-hooters in the first couple of scans, Linda is a-okay in my book, thanks to that killer arse of hers.

Harkening back to the olden days, the remainder of the scans show Linda in her twenties, I guess. Not quite so buff as she is now but the natural beauty is more evident, yes?

Movie subject of the day, dear friends, is the '77 classic Young Nurses starring (drum roll, please) Jean Manson. Miss Jean was a bunnymagmate in the 70's and a semi-popular singer in France (0r so I hear). Made a few movies, was nekkid in a couple of em (bit part as a hooker in "10 to Midnight"); shows the goodies big time in Young Nurses. So the movie is an RPOS (real piece of s***) that coulda, shoulda and woulda been made by Andy Sidaris if'n it had a lot of guns and bombs and knives and Hawaiians. Overwrought drama, bad acting, stupid dialog: the trifecta that spells fun for the whole family. But there are 4 babes in it that shed clothes and that makes it a classic in the history of cinema.

So Jean plays a nurse... a young nurse... who takes up with a patient. I think he's famous or rich or hung like a horse because he is certainly ugly and hairy and devoid of any trace of intellect or humor. I think the actor must be the director's son. Or maybe even the director himself, because no one would deliberately cast such a dweeb as the romantic lead, opposite a playmate for heaven's sake, unless he was playing this for the irony. And you can trust me on this one: not a solitary moment of irony in the whole 80 minutes.

First collage has Jean on a sailboat, sunning herself sans top... apparently for the first time because thems are some serious tan lines (I, myself, love tan lines). She is shocked, shocked mind you, to find a guy gawking at her and so she moves to cover up. Know what I noticed 'bout the caps? In them, Jean Manson looks very much like Melissa Joan Hart. An unscrupulous sort would have passed these off as paparazzi scans of Melissa in the buff, 'specially since I appear to be the only one who has ever watched this puppy (vid store owner said it had not been rented in 2 years. Yikes!).

The remaining caps are from a scene on the beach in which Jean and the hairy troll frolic. Her top is tied to a kite and flies away to general applause from the viewing public; then he strips off his trunks (I spared you the sight, Junior, because I like you) and (now get this) she proceeds to tie the kite string 'round his thingy. Oh, its implied and all, but there ain't no mistaking what's afoot. While they make like kissy-face, there is some pube action on her part caught in one of these collages. Could have been more because Jean gambols in the waves with a slobbering, hairy beast (not the romantic lead, but a Saint Bernard) whilst wearing nuttin'...but the damn director had her in California and the camera in Idaho. If I had capped it, you guys would not have liked it anyway.

That's it for the major source of nudity in the movie; tomorrow I will hit you with three more (well, two and a half, as you will see).

Kelly Brook

Loren

How to settle the 2000 Presidential Election:

Ok, Folks. I've given the people in Florida plenty of time to get this election finished. Now It is my turn:
#1: Al Gore becomes President of the United States (all 49 states).
#2: George W. Bush becomes the President of the Republic of Texas.

Gore shouldn't mind as he said we were the worst state in the union during the campaign.

So what does Texas have to survive as a Republic?