Delta Delta Die! (2003) day two. Tonight, veritable plethora of images of Julie Strain, some from the film, much more from two lengthy bonus features. The first has her taking a bath, and includes a little masturbation, then cuts to her in the shower, shampooing and pressing her most interesting body parts against the clear glass door. The second feature was shot as a montage of her grinding the "meat,: making sausage, etc. After they shot this lengthy footage, they realized that there was nothing in the script requiring, so saved it for the DVD, although they did put a very short version of it in a dream sequence.

The feature length commentary team includes Julie, who was absolutely charming, as she has been every time I have heard her out of character. She joked about her implants, admitted that she normally does not work real hard at her acting, figuring that that is not what people expect from her in a film, but that she worked harder on this one as the rest of the cast was so good. Her effort shows, as this was possibly her best performance.

The plot pits her and the rest of the sorority against a sharp male student who figures out what is going on at Delta Delta Pie, and against her former best friend and co-founder of the sorority chapter, Brinke Stevens. Brinke keeps her clothes on, but it is the first time, I believe, that these B move superstars have appeared together.

IMDB readers have this at 5.2 of 10, but with very few votes. Most of the comments characterize it as an enjoyable cheese fest with plenty of nudity. This is an offbeat offering, but, with all the special features, is a good entertainment value, if this is the sort of thing you find entertaining. C.

Something's Gotta Give (2003)

Unlike all the over-touted serious films of the past month or so, this is the type of film that Hollywood knows how to make. The studios should leave the suicide and dead children movies to the indies and Europeans, and deliver the escapist material that made Hollywood the dream factory in the first place.

It is a romantic comedy, not entirely generated by probable circumstances, but pulled off with charm and panache.

Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton play two accomplished professionals, a record producer and a playwright respectively, who meet when Nicholson shows up at Keaton's house in the Hamptons, as the escort of Keaton's daughter (Amanda Peet). Nicholson has a minor heart attack and won't stay in the hospital, so is not allowed to move from Keaton's home for several days. Peet heads back to her life, and Keaton is stuck playing nursemaid to The Joker. Keaton is an uptight woman who wears turtlenecks in summer. Nicholson is a relaxed, jolly soul. Keanu Reeves is on hand as Nicholson's doctor, who happens to be Keaton's biggest fan, and falls in love with her.

The table is set.

Nicholson's record producer is a lot like some of the Nicholson characters of old, yet the subtle differences make it a beautiful piece of characterization. He's not smarmy, or snide, or even full of mischief. He's not even that feisty. He's just a fun loving guy, with a big genuine laugh, and a real love of life. Unlike Nicholson's usual roles, he's not self-amused, but simply amused. Although he is pictured as a womanizer, and he makes some comments that the older women find offensive, he's not at all a shameless roué. He's not even any good at sex, and he hasn't managed to get Peet in the sack yet. Younger women just like hanging around him because he's genuine, and he's always fun. Nicholson is perfect in this role, perhaps because he is playing himself, or perhaps because he is a genius in front of a lens.

There are some great laughs.

At one point Nicholson has a heart attack when he tried to have sex with Peet:

Doctor: Are you taking Viagra?

(Women appear in the hallway. Nicholson sees them, knows they can hear the conversation.)

Nicholson: No of course not. I don't need Viagra.

Doctor: Good. I just needed to know if you had taken Viagra today, because the IV I just gave you, when mixed with Viagra, is potentially fatal.

(Nicholson rips IV from his arm.)

Good to see Diane Keaton back on top. I met her once, at a book fair in Dallas in the mid 80s. She was amazingly humble and gracious considering that (1) I was just some schmuck attending a book fair and she was Annie Hall (2) I was a complete asshole and insulted her book. Well, not really, but kinda. She was there to hawk her book "Reservations", which consisted of her own photographs of hotel lobbies, and amazingly, I was the only one at her booth. I told her that I loved her book and that she was an incredibly talented photographer, which was true, but I added gratuitously that it was overpriced and wouldn't sell many copies because not many people are really that excited about hotel lobbies, no matter who the photographer might be. I was right, of course, but I should learn when to shut the hell up. She was taken aback when I asked her to lend me twenty bucks so I had enough to buy the book, but she recovered when she caught on that I was kidding, and accepted my criticism of the price graciously, even signing a bunch of stuff for my wife.

Is she a great actress? I don't know. I've always found her mannerisms very repetitious, and that kind of unharnessed duplication can be irritating, but she certainly does the things necessary for a role, and that's what the great ones do. There is a scene where Nicholson accidentally sees her naked while he's convalescing in her house. In that hands of a less courageous actress, this would have been a bullshit head-and-shoulders shot of Keaton from Nicholson's POV, and a very minimal laugh because it has been done a zillion times before. Keaton, however, did the full frontal nudity necessary to make it one of the most memorable comic moments in screen history, as well as to create a real buzz about the film, of the kind that the marketing department loves - all while keeping a PG-13 rating. Ladies and gents, that is how to keep the money department and the creative department on the same page, but more important, that is how great performers approach a role, doing whatever they need to do to get it right. So hats off to Miss Keaton for baring it all at age 57 - and for looking just fine while doing so. Annie Hall, I still love ya, and I'd even buy your book now if it were still in print.

• Diane Keaton (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Amanda Peet (no nudity)

Mailbox:

Scoop:

Any chance of an MPEG from ANGELS IN AMERICA for us Mary Louise Parker  fans....? For xmas?

Scoop's reply:

Sure enough. These are not my clips, so you'll have to figure out how to use them. They are all .avi's and are all in DivX encoding, and all played for me, so if you have the latest DivX codec (www.divx.com), you should be sitting pretty. If worse comes to worst, download the latest DivX player and the codec, and that should do it. The best way to save these things is usually to right-click, then save them to your own hard disk, which allows you to see if they're coming in properly, allows you to place them in a specific directory of your choice, and allows you to re-play them as often as you like without delay. The two TV clips aren't great quality, but they are good enough. The Ricci clip is spectacularly good.

• Mary Louise Parker frontal nudity in Angels in America - w/sound.
• Emma Thompson doing some wild overacting in Angels in America  - nude  (from the side). w/sound
• Christina Ricci in  Prozac Nation - w/sound, DVD quality - 20 meg

Speaking of Ricci:

Here's the tiny oval-faced vixen in a black dress with plenty of see-through action. Taken at the premiere of Monster. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

OTHER CRAP:

• The incredible hardship of a Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader
• The Village Voice awards for the craziest behavior of the year.
• Check out the trailer for Monster.
• Winona snubbed by her own defense attorney. Geragos is trying to distance himself from Winona, even as he defends Jacko. Weird.
• Saddam's daughter doubts he can get a fair trial in Iraq. Gee, do you think it's because they've been measuring his neck size so carefully?
• Martha Stewart is behind by nearly $40,000 in monthly maintenance charges on her swanky Manhattan condominium. The Smoking Gun has the goods, as usual.
• A wacky Abel Ferrara comedy?: "'Marking a radical departure from his customary dark dramas, Abel Ferrara ('Bad Lieutenant') will shoot 'Go Go Tales,' a screwball comedy about a Manhattan lap dance club starring Harvey Keitel and Asia Argento."
• Coming Soon opens a stills gallery for Cold Mountain
• Computerman. Starring Jack Black. Some odd stuff.
• Happy Woman Magazine. (It's a goof)
• False Advertising - A Gallery of Advertising Parody
• On days after the airing of a 'Queer Eye' episode, men were five times more likely than women to go shopping. You want to hear something weirder than that? 19% of the people interviewed could name all five stars of Queer Eye.
• The world of stockings- Vintage Stockings Page
• How to sell newspapers in Baghdad? Plenty of pics of Saddam in the Slammer. Or maybe it was the Page Three girls.
• HoTlooK - for those of you who love butts in thongs.
• Vanessa Ribeiro gallery. Lotsa prime flesh.
• Saddam - this is your life!
• Entertaining Interview with Tiffany Shepis, up-and-coming actress in Grade B films.
• Red Sox Declare A-Rod Talks 'Dead'
• NASA Releases Dazzling Images from New Spitzer Space Telescope. A must-see.
• Gaffes: Fellowship of the Nitpickers. Peter Jackson discusses errors in the Rings trilogy.
• The Smoking Gun: charges against Jacko.
• Scientists find an example of artwork created by Neanderthals. Surprisingly, it isn't a painting of Joan Collins. It looks like one of those "I see the stoning of St Stephen in the clouds" moments to me. My dogs have chewed their bones into shapes that look more like faces.
• Paris Hilton's reality show drew more viewers than the interview with the President.
• Check out the trailer for The Mask 2. This looks like it has the potential to suck big-time. We're talkin' Yoko levels of suckitude here.
• Detainees being held by the US military at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba should have access to lawyers and the US court system, a federal appeals court has ruled. The decision was made by the notorious 9th Court of Appeals. This is today's second major blow to the administration. The earlier decision, on detaining US citizens as military enemies, was made by the 2nd Court of Appeals.
• Review: 'Mona Lisa Smile' nominated as best picture of 1953. As of this writing, it is unclear whether the nomination for biggest, roundest head from this picture will go to Julia Stiles or Kirsten Dunst. Pundits feel that if they are both nominated, they will split the vote and lose to Christina Ricci.
• The Last Action Hero Declares Fiscal Crisis: something about tax cuts and lamentations of women.
• Dodgers baseball prospect found guilty in sex case involving girls under 14. I sure got a wake-up call by reading this article about seventh grade girls who regularly and routinely perform oral sex on high school athletes - and this is not in the Bronx, but in a sleepy Canadian hamlet. I guess I'm sort of sheltered, eh?
• Toronto Critics Name 'Lost in Translation' Best of 2003
• Kidnappers free Miss Universe finalist after getting her autograph She had done some nude photos for her calendar. They had copies from her car. She signed them. They let her go.
• Great picture of Charlize in Monster. She was nominated for a Golden Globe, and is considered the favorite for the Oscar.
• Kidman tells Diane Sawyer to 'Shove Off'. I've never been a great Kidman fan, but I'm coming around to her way of thinking.
• Losing Democrats Turn On Dean. Lieberman said that if Dean were president Saddam would still be in power. Once again, John Kerry had the best comment: "that little cocksucker can fuckin' blow me".
• Would Ansel Adams Have Gone Digital?
• Final Lord of the Rings film sets records at box office. It did the all-time best Wednesday, and the all-time best single day in December.
• The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Assholes. They missed an important one. Always address your written comments to "people", as in, "Now listen, people, it doesn't take a lot of ...."
• Hard-core pornography will take to the airwaves in Germany by the end of the year.
• Saddam Hussein claims his government never surrendered - and that he would win by a landslide in new elections. President Bush responded - "well, so did Al Gore, and look what good it did him, tough guy. Besides, I don't think you could beat me in a landslide. I could win a lotta states. Oh, you mean Iraqi elections? Never mind."
• President overruled on US terror law: In a 2-1 decision, the appeals court ruled that the US President does not have the power to detain an American citizen seized on US soil as an 'enemy combatant" without authorization from Congress. President Bush immediately ordered the detention of the two judges who voted against him, and expects to get a unanimous 1-0 decision in his favor upon appeal.
• Tortilla Flat, Arizona is for sale. If you have $5.5 million on hand, you got youself a town, pardner.
• A celebrity photographer, the former Mrs. Rodman, directs Carmella DeCesare in a video.
• Here is the newest trailer for PETER PAN. I looked at "Trailer 2 - Large", and it was quite impressive in quality.
• The trailer is now out for Garfield the Movie. Yeah, I know, but it was better than I expected.
• Police in Japan say a man's dead body was ignored by crowds on a busy street corner for two months.
• Harry Potter Three will come out in IMAX format.
• The teaser website for I Robot is now on line.
• Jim Carrey is going to be the Six Million Dollar Man in the movie version.
• CBS News Poll: Dean Pulls Away In Dem Race. Kerry's response: "That little bitch?"
• Spaniards strip down for Flamenco nudist cruise
• The complete list of Golden Globe nominations. The best comedy of the year, A Mighty Wind, also happened to be the best musical - and was not nominated for best musical or comedy. {cough} blowjob {cough}
• Matt Drudge vs Bill O'Reilly. This is like a wrestling match between two bad guys.
• Silliest stories of 2003
• Quimby 2000. Diamond Joe Quimby is running for President.
• Ben Stiller needed a rabies shot after being bitten by a ferret on the set of Along Came Polly. Richard Gere carries his own loaded syringe for that very reason.
• Britney Spears's sister gets her own comedy show.
• Tom Arnold developing two new bad comedies. No news on The Stupids 2.
• IDENTIFY THESE CLASSIC ARCADE GAMES, win a mega-joystick

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

Click here to submit a URL for inclusion in Other Crap

MOVIE REVIEWS:

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 Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

• Christina Ricci, gets nekkid in DVD 'caps from "Prozac Nation". Thanks to Dead Red.

It's Angelina Jolie day!

• First up, a then 21 year old Jolie showing off her ample busom in a shower scene from the offbeat movie "Mojave Moon". (1, 2, 3)

• Next...the new Angelina Jolie Comic, featuring nudity from "Mojave Moon", "Gia" and "Original Sin". (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Jennifer Aniston
(1, 2, 3, 4)