Bruiser (2000) is a George Romero film funded by French Canal + and made in Ontario on a very small budget. It is meant as a commentary on the dehumanizing effects of industry on the common man. Henry Creedlow (Jason Flemyng) has a real bad day. He lives in an unfinished house, and his breakfast is disrupted by an obnoxious poodle, and a wife who won't get up. She clearly has little or no use for him. His best friend and financial planner picks him up on the way to the train station, and shows him his portfolio, which is not doing as well as he expected. His boss at Bruiser Magazine, Milo (Peter Stormare), makes an ass out of him at a morning meeting. He is turned down for a Gold Card because he is undercapitalized.

Then, at a BBQ at Milo's mansion, Milo's estranged wife makes a mask of his face, and tells him to decorate it. He then observes his wife giving Milo a hand job out in the open. She dumps him at home and leaves. In the morning, he discovers that the cleaning woman has been stealing from them, and hits her. She is dead on the floor, and he finds that his face is a blank mask he can't remove. For the rest of the film, he gets even with those who ruined his life, and the mask slowly turns back into him.

All in all, not a terrible concept. Unfortunately, I was not entirely impressed with the execution. As Henry would be doing really awful things to those who had wronged him, it was necessary to make everyone else in the film obviously evil so we would have empathy with him. The net result is a film full of people you hate, and one with a featureless plastic face.

Nina Garbiras as Henry's wife shows breasts and buns. Kiran Friesan, as Lady Godiva at a party, shows breasts. Marie V. Cruz, as the next Bruiser cover girl, shows breasts and buns. IMDb readers have this at 4.9 of 10. It had a limited theatrical release in France, Canada and Japan, but went straight to vid in the US. The DVD includes a commentary with George Romero and producer Ben Barenholtz. Flemyng was clearly hampered by the mask and Stormare was way over the top. All in all, I never wartmed up to this film, but it is probably of some interest to fans of Romero's work. C-.

Hi, y'all. I'm taking a mini-vacation. I'll still be digging up some other crap every day, and will chip in with some movies as well, but not with my usual volume of verbiage and such!

Updates:

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated

Closer (2004):

I still haven't watched this all the way through, and my best guess is that I never will. I have seen 20 minutes of footage which have convinced me not to see the rest.

• Portman (Zipped .wmv film clip. Good quality.)

• Portman (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) (collages - also excellent quality. All of these images were made from a long and outstanding film clip encoded by an imager named EVE.)

Silver Dollar Sam looks at Tilt (2005, ESPN):

This review was written by our resident guru on Poker, Vegas, and Ring-a-ding, the redoubtable Silver Dollar Sam of NothingWild.com

Those of us who were suckered into viewing the pilot for Tilt, just experienced the bad beat of the year.

This dismal flop, dealt by ESPN, could only be worse if it had more than three cards.  I’m quite sure I won’t call their flop bet to see the turn or the river. 

Set in the city of Las Vegas, the Tilt story is driven by three avengers, one tall, one black, one blonde.  (Haven’t we seen this combination before?)  They are all carrying a grudge, and are out to set up and to take “The Matador”, Carlos Mortensen, a champion player and a card cheater.  As an undetected cheater, he is in cahoots with the security chief of the hotel and the local constabulary.  Let’s see.  A card player famous and undetected as a cheater, support from security, and help from law enforcement.  Now that’s really likely! 

But wait a minute.  Carlos “El Matador” Mortensen is a real person, an excellent card player, a tournament champion, and one of the big money winners of 2004.  And he’s also a nice guy.  Has he lent his name to this nefarious fictional character and to this ill begotten television series?  Say it isn’t so. 

Anyway, the bad flop trio is out to reap revenge on The Matador.  We don’t know much about the vengeful threesome and we’re never made to care much about them either.  There is an opening scene where the three go to great lengths to establish the illusion they are adversaries of one another.  Violent adversaries.  They do this at a casino poker table, but we’re not sure what good this does them because they are unlikely to repeat the appearance and continue the ruse any time soon. 

Later, the trio goes out of town to Laughlin to play poker where they won’t be seen together.  We are left to wonder why.  Better they should establish themselves as local individuals to continue their charade.  In leaving town for Laughlin, we Las Vegas viewers notice they’re headed in the wrong direction.  They’d better have a picnic basket and a huge canteen, because they’ll have to travel the long way over a stretch of desert to get there.  But, again, we don’t really care.  We don’t even like them.  May an unclean coyote sit on their lunch. 

The plot thickens.  A Matador victim’s brother is also after the nefarious Matador.  The brother is a sheriff from somewhere.  Security is scolded for letting a sheriff play at the poker table.  Say, what? 

Meanwhile, The Matador, played ever so underwhelmingly by Michael Madsen, is busy crushing fingers and doing other such things that tournament champions typically do in their spare time.  These plot development scenes are heaped upon us with such galloping frequency, we almost lose interest altogether. 

The Matador, with his bad English, tacky clothes, slovenly ways, criminal attitude and bad acting, has written a poker book.  Aw, c’mon.  We know most of the text for poker books is ghost written, but there should be some remnant of credibility.  Sure, The Matador wrote a book.  And George Bush published a dictionary. 

The Tilt script reads and sounds like a bad 1940s punk movie.  There is a double entendre here and another there for the teen gigglers and there are potty jokes for the eleven year olds.  But the script’s singular triumph is in managing to be generally insulting to people’s intelligence of all ages. 

About the director . . .  . Was there one?  I can’t honestly answer that question. 

One sure thing, though.  The poker hands are well represented by a complete lack of imagination.  The opening hand shows of a set of deuces betting into a possible straight.  The straight won.  The second poker scene shows of a set of sixes betting into a possible straight.  And, guess what, the straight won again.  These are professional players?  Those are professional writers? 

Poker table dialogue like, “I think you’re bluffing.  I’m going all-in,” makes us wonder.  If the sucker thought The Matador was bluffing with his represented straight, why didn’t the sucker just call with his three deuces? 

We do see the blonde win an impressive hand.  In a flashback, as a twelve year old, she wins with a six-to-the-ten over a five-to-the-nine.  She wins more than seven thousand dollars without blinking and then says to the bad man, in Tatum O’Neil fashion, “You owe me seven thousand dollars.”  That’s kind of impressive for a twelve year old. 

The script prattle explains the odds at craps, blackjack, and roulette.  That badly dialogued information is obviously aimed at viewers who don’t understand basic gaming.  But it’s the same audience the writers run poker hands by so quickly that it demands our rapt attention just to decipher the numbers and the action.  Who is the target audience, anyway? 

A flowery shirted hustler explains to an accomplice how he is to play the same money at the table.  The signals for revealing hole cards by moving the chips are explained.  The accomplice repeats that he is to stay out of the flowery shirt’s way except to build pots for him.  This playing the same money in collusion is done pretty well but, again, over the heads of the people who needed explanation of odds in Las Vegas. 

Anyone who watched this overly hyped poker mania exploitation pile of muck was badly cold decked by the producers.  But the quality of television poker should change because such flops as this, without any rescue on the turn or river, will drown anyone’s bankroll. 

In the figurative tournament of poker television, Reality Poker, Celebrity Poker, now joined by the fatuous Tilt, are located at the weak opening tables.  One of these days, television will make the first table move toward higher stakes.  You can bet on it.  As Doyle Brunson likes to say, “You can fleece a sheep many times, but you can only skin him once.” 

We just got skinned. 

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MOVIE REVIEWS:

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Today from the Ghost...a couple of vids (zipped .wmvs) from the 1980 Richard Gere movie, "American Gigolo".

• Lauren Hutton, topless in bed with Gere. (1, 2)

• Michele Drake, the former Heffer (May '79) doing a little topless sunbathing. I believe the non-speaking girl in this scene is Linda Horn. (1, 2)

Lara Flynn Boyle

Traci Lind

Mia Kirshner

Sung Hi Lee

Cheyenne Silver

In this batch of 'caps, all 3 ladies are topless. Marquis also shows a little bit more.

Here's the breakdown:
Marquis link #5 kinda frontal nudity (odd angle, but we do see a bit of pubes)
Marquis links 6 and 7 feature some lesbo lovin'
Marquis link #8, very nice rear nudity.
Marquis links 9, 14 and 15 show brief pube views.

CLINT EASTWOOD TO MICHAEL MOORE: "I'LL KILL YOU"
Go Ahead, Make My Day - At the National Board of Review awards in New York, Clint Eastwood said from the stage, "Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common - we both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression." But then he squinted and rasped, "But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you." The crowd, including Moore, roared with laughter. Clint added, "I mean it." Moore's rep said he took the comments "in the lighthearted spirit in which they were given."