Wednesday

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Heat and Dust (1982) is an early effort from the director/producer team of Merchant and Ivory, and concentrates more on character and less on Historical detail than their later works. The film takes place in two time frames. A young and vibrant Greta Scacchi travels to colonial India to be with her husband who is a junior consul in government service, and becomes enthralled with India. Her least favorite thing? The stodgy English women who also live there. Her favorite thing? The local prince, and the excitement of the Indian court.

Meanwhile, cut to present day, and her grand niece, Julie Christie, comes to India based on her great aunts letters home, to trace her steps and understand her. In reality, she is trying to find herself after a disastrous relationship with a married man. The two women follow strikingly parallel paths, even to becoming pregnant. At the same time, the switching time frame contrasts colonial India with the present, and also shows the fascination of India in both eras. Even if the story doesn't grab you, there are two other good reasons to see this film. The cinematography is wonderful, and Greta Scacchi, in her first film role, shows buns and breasts. Although she is behind a mosquito net, the nudity is clear and well lit.

So, we have beautiful imagery, nudity, historical and cultural interest, love stories, and fine performances from both Scacchi and Julie Christie. Unfortunately, there is no region 1 DVD as yet. The transfer on the region 2 version is very good, and includes extra features about the Merchant Ivory team. IMDB readers voted it 6.2 of 10. The film won a BAFTA for best screenplay adaptation, and was nominated for 7 others. I think the film has more appeal for estrogen oriented viewers, but it held my interest, despite the fact that historical dramas are not generally my favorite. I will give this one a B-.

CELEB NUDITY INFO

According to The Bare Facts, Tuna's captures from Heat and Dust mean that we now have all of Greta Scacchi's nude scenes on file! Heat and Dust was her first nude scene, and maybe her first movie appearance of any kind. (She was in three 1982 movies. This is one of them, but and I'm not sure in which order they were released.)

IN THE NEWS

Celebrity ages

According to public sources, yesterday was officially Charo's 51st birthday. Man, she's kickin' Mimi Rogers all over the lot when it comes to creative celebrity birthday accounting. First of all, she used to be born on March 13. What the heck is the logic in changing it to January 15th? Most celebrities only lie about the YEAR in which they were born.

As for that year. Well, when I was young, Charo was more than 8 years older than I, yet I will turn 53 in a couple of weeks, making me now about two years older than she.

So it goes.

For you newer guys, the Mimi Rogers thing is a continuing saga dating back to our site's origin. My college roommate's sister  went to high school with Mimi, and we know when she graduated. About six years ago, I wrote that the only way Mimi could be the age she claims to be is if she graduated from high school at 13. You know how they changed her bio at IMDb? They kept the age the same, but they now claim she graduated from high school at 13!

Celebrity crime

It works a lot like Winona Ryder's shoplifting excuses. Tell us what you know, and we'll build a story around it. Winona is now on her fourth set of excuses, if you've been following that

1. Set One (from her lawyer, before knowing of the existence of security tapes, and the precise facts of the arrest) - Winona was just carrying items between departments.

2. Set Two:  Winona has receipts for everything. (Still probably issued before the police revealed the facts of the arrest, and the existence of the tapes, in which she is shown removing the security tags. It never did make sense. If she had the receipts on her, why not show them to the security guys. If they weren't on her, where were they?)

The next two excuses were devised after finding out about the evidence against her.

3. Set Three: Winona was just preparing for an upcoming role as a shoplifter. Still my favorite because I facetiously suggested this three days before they actually used it!

4. Set Four: Winona removed the security tags so she could go out for a smoke without tripping all the security alarms. (This now conforms to the facts, but is completely illogical. If she had told the people at Saks that she wanted to go out for a smoke, they would have held her stuff, lit her cigarette, and probably rubbed her aching feet as well. Remember this is Beverly Hills)

Good stuff.

Celebrity divorces

Pat Reeder made an interesting calculation in yesterday's Comedy Wire. Lisa Kerkorian is suing to get more child support from her billionaire octogenarian ex-husband, Kirk. She wants $320,000 per month, and has itemized her costs. The breakdown includes $2,500 per month for movies for their pre-schooler.

So Pat did the math. Suppose you slept only four hours per day, how many movies could you watch? Assuming 20 hours per day of movies, at an hour and a half per film, you could watch a little more than 13 movies per day. There are slightly more than 30 days in an average month, so you could possibly watch 400 movies per month. Movies cost $3.25 to rent, so you can watch movies non-stop for $1300 per month. And that's if you take no breaks to eat or bathe or go to the bathroom. So if you can watch movies non-stop for $1300 a month, why does she need $2500?

The itemized expenses also include $144,000 per month for travel. That's $1,728,000 per year.

The daughter in question is three years old.

I called up Cunard Lines and asked them how much it would cost for me and a three year old to take their 47 day world cruise, assuming that we take the most deluxe accommodations available, and they told me "about $100,000". That's about $700,000 per year. So, if Mrs Kerkorian gets the annual $1.7 million, she can pay me $700,000 per year, and I can live with her daughter full-time in the most expensive accommodations on one of the most elegant luxury liners in the world, and she will still have $1,000,000 left for pocket change.

MOVIES

Went throught four r-rated or unrated new releases, only one collage of an unknown:

Pavilion of Women (new to DVD) is one of those sweeping historical epics about multi-generational change in an exotic foreign dynastic family. Surprisingly, it does not star Richard Chamberlain. No nudity, despite an r-rating. It got the R because the patriarch of the family always asks for oral sex from his wives by saying "do it now", and we can figure out what "it" is. The actual sex scenes are implied, however. Nothing to see here lads, move along.

Killing Moon (new DVD is an amazingly bad movie about a jetliner carrying a virus. Basically the same plot as Airplane!, except without the humor.

Fatal Error (new release) is basically an episode of the X-Files, except they changed the name of the agents.

Gangster World (new DVD) is sort of a variation of Westworld. It's a gangster-themed amusement park, in which the process of creating audioanimatronics somehow creates one with an independent will.

• Nice nudity, but unknown. She looks a little like Rose McGowan. She is a great looking woman, but I couldn't identify her from the credits. If one of you can ID her, let me know (unclescoopy@msn.com)

The following 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 I inexplicably determined it might contain something of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Kelly Brook starts off the parade. Brit babe, you know...but then Arena is a pommy mag. The lowdown on the scans are as follows:

• as close to seeing Kelly's jumbo jacks as you're going to find here.
• B & W scans of Kelly in see-thru panties, revealing some of the lower frontal B.
• a triplet of scans that includes a decent view of the ol' lower backal B.
• A pair of scans with more cleavage than you are likely to see this side of the Grand Canyon.
• A single scan of Kelly hiding a small proportion of her ample bosom with her arms.

Okay, so just when you think it can't get better, Arena throws in a half-dozen scans of Kim Smith. Details are as follows:

• A pair of scans that reveal Kim's pair in a couple of revealing see-thru's.
• A second pair with partial revelations of Ms. Smith's hooters.
• One color, one B & W scan of the dreaded arms-over-the-goodies pose.

And Arena ain't done yet. Three other well-known babes show up revealed to one extent or another. They are:

• Aussie babe, Kimberly Joseph, topless but covered up.
• British actress, Keira Knightley in a dress cut down to her belly button.
• Eva Herzigova topless. This is, in fact, a teaser for next month's portfolio on Victoria's Secret models. I'll be checking the incoming mail every day.

Last up are three models of one sort or another. These include:

• Alex Leigh, wearing the kind of pasties only Trump could afford to buy.
• April Palasthy, who is described as a Snowflake girl.???? I assume Snowflakes in the U. K. are some sort of consumer product.

Gina Gershon

Rena Riffel and Elizabeth Berkley

Katie Holmes
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)

Winona's 'Shoplifting' Boosts Saks
Actress Winona Ryder's profile has suffered since her alleged shoplifting incident in Saks Fifth Avenue - but the posh store is benefiting financially. Ryder was arrested in December after she was caught with prescription drugs and $5,000 worth of tagless merchandise in the Beverly Hills store. In the past month, staff in the department store have noticed the amount of customers have increased with people questioning employees about Winona. While some sales assistants refuse to discuss the actress, many advisers find the incident funny and start telling their own theories.

Next, Halle Berry discovers a new martial art: "Hooter-fu"...

Halle Berry: Sex Appeal Is Power
Halle Berry is prepared for her new role as a Bond villain - because she's all for women using their sex appeal as a weapon. The stunning actress bared her breasts for cyberthriller Swordfish, and now she's crossed that hurdle Halle admits she has no problem with abusing her power over men. She says, "Not only do I think it's OK to do that, I think the smartest women know how to use sex appeal. They know how to use it and when to stop, how far to go. It's most empowering to a woman to know she's sexy and be able to use that to get what she wants. And to win - that's our secret weapon. When a character is sexy, smart, beautiful and also very strong, to me that's a very positive image of a woman."

Here's a story about "Mulholland Drive" star Laura Harring, who feels like a natural woman...

Mulholland Dr. Star: Lesbianism Just Like Real-life
Mulholland Dr. actress Laura Harring loved her lesbian scenes in the acclaimed David Lynch movie - because they're so natural. The beautiful star has created controversy with her character Rita's steamy girl-on-girl scenes with Betty Elms, played by Naomi Watts - but she claims the relationship reflects real-life. Laura, who was discovered by legendary director Lynch in low-budget TV soap Sunset Beach, says, "It was very spontaneous in the script. I feel so grateful to Betty for having helped me in a time of need, and I'm just saying goodnight to her very innocently...I kiss her and then bang! There's a spark, a chemistry. And then something happens in life - sometimes you don't need to meditate about something, you don't want to sleep with somebody but it just happens."

Finally, from Ananova, some guy helps charity by paying $47,500 for dinner with Charize Theron. He'd better hope that she's feeling charitable that night...

US bidder pays a fortune for dinner with Charlize Theron
An American man has paid nearly £30,000 to have dinner with South African actress Charlize Theron. The celebrity dinner was offered as part of an internet charity auction on eBay.com. Winning bidder Josh Judd is due to have dinner with Theron in Los Angeles tomorrow. The auction was to celebrate the 200th anniversary of whisky-making partnership the Chivas Brothers. Judd said: "I am delighted to have been able to participate in the Chivas 200 charity auction. "My winning bids on this and other items will benefit many worthy causes in South Africa." According to Dispatch Online, the auction raised the equivalent of just under £500,000 for international charities including Oxfam, the Red Cross Society and the National Geographic Society.