Wednesday

Tuna
"Anatomie de L'enfer"

Anatomie de L'enfer (2004) is the newest Catherine Breillat (Romance, Fat Girl) film, which is translated Anatomy of Hell. As the film opens, Amira Casar is the only woman in a gay club. She goes into the restroom, and slits her wrist with a razor blade. A man walks in, asks her why she did it, and se answers, "Because I am a woman." He takes her to a druggist, who bandages the cut, then she gives him a blow job, after which she hires him to come "watch her where she is unwatchable."

Ok, the wrist cutting was very realistic, and it did make my cringe. The dialogue to this point was that special kind of obtuse only found in French art films. Not only that, but a very involved dolly shot caught my attention, detracting from the film. I was gearing myself up to hate it before it really got started. Then I thought, the wrist cutting scene did evoke a response in me, and was thus clearly effective. I will keep an open mind here. Maybe this will go somewhere after all.

Complete Spoilers Ahead

The first night he shows up, she strips lounges having obtuse conversation with him, when he isn't out getting a drink. It ends with him painting lipstick around her privates and on her lips, then having sex with her. He must not have been able to maintain an erection, because he becomes upset, and she comforts him. The highlight of night two is his insertion of a hoe handle into her pussie, which he leaves there and falls asleep in a chair. Night three is where I stopped keeping an open mind. She removes a drenched Tampax, dips it several times in a glass of water, and then the two drink it. On night four, they have rather brutal sex, and he leaves.

Afterwards, he is complaining about her to a gay friend, but admits that they had shared "total intimacy." He goes back to find her, and she is gone. Then, either he throws her off of a cliff into the sea, or he fantasizes about doing so.

End Spoilers

The ridiculous dialogue did reveal the theme of the film, which is something like, "All men really hate women, mostly because they have periods, and secretly want to kill them."

IMDb readers have this at 4.7 of 10. Ebert gave a rare one star, and was clearly about as impressed with this film as I was. Casar was completely naked for most of the film, and it good light. There were genital close-ups, but as they were a double, I didn't bother with them, Porn star Rocco Siffredi, as the man, show Mr. Happy at full alert more than once. If this is the result of a real director making a porn film, it is not nearly as good an idea as I previously thought. I can't imagine how anyone would like this film. The photography and lighting were good to excellent, and the leads maintained the tone throughout, which indicates technical competence, hence the proper score is D-.

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  • Amira Casar (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44)

  • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    Again today I did not watch a naughty movie filled with naked chicks. I just have no interest in naked women since I watched that Sponge Bob video.

    I hope there is an antidote to Sponge Bob.

     

    Alexander (2004):

    What else is there to say about this film? It may be destined to be the biggest money loser in history.  It's the Heaven's Gate of our time. I still haven't seen it. I just can't bear to watch the screener DVD. I can't even bear the sadness I feel for the people deluded enough to MAKE a screener DVD "for awards consideration." Which awards? Razzies?  I'll watch the sumbitch when the real DVD comes out. Maybe there will be more Rosario Dawson nude footage.

    Whatever else one may say about the flick, we can all agree that Rosario looks terrific!

    • Rosario Dawson (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

     

    Other Crap:

     

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

    Click here to submit a URL for 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.

    ICMS

    Words, pictures, and vids from ICMS

    Scoop's note: like a ninny, I deleted the ICMS commentary for today, and didn't notice until the 11th hour, so these are actually my notes, not his.

     

    "Don't Look Now" (1973)

    1. This is the first movie about which I can remember discussion of the leads actually doin' the nasty on camera. In this case, there wasn't all that much controversy, since the particular nasty being done on camera was cunnlingus, which is pretty darned hard to fake. I mean, there's the lips, and there's the other lips, what could be fake about it?

    2. Although I'm impressed with the cinematography, I hate this freakin' movie. Two words: evil dwarf! Tuna sorta liked it, so we split. Tuna also weighed in on his detailed observations regarding exactly which nasties were bein' done, and he makes a case to add fuckin' to the suckin'.

    2. Julie Christie might have become one of the greatest screen stars of all time, an icon on a par with Liz Taylor, Bogart, Gable and Marilyn. She had talent. She had incredible looks. In fact, she completely looked the part of a glamorous movie star, but at heart she was a hippie.  She didn't care about the money, or the fame, or the prestige, or the glamour. He family was both rich and smart. Her dad managed a plantation in India or something exotic like that, and her brother was a an intellectual, a Cambridge professor.

    To make a long story short, she got bored with it all and pretty much just walked away from stardom after Heaven Can Wait.  Even before then she turned down more good roles than she accepted. She refused the leads in "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (1969), "Anne of a Thousand Days" (1969), and "Nicholas and Alexandra" (1971) - all of which earned Oscar nods for the actresses who took her leavings.

    In the two decades from 1976 to 1995, she had only 15 total credits at IMDB, many of them insignificant. I don't remember the details of what she was doing, but she was into the gentle side of left wing politics (save the whales, no nukes, that kind of stuff).

    I'm happy to see her taking major roles again. She came back as Gertrude in Branagh's Hamlet, and recently had major roles in Troy and Finding Neverland. At 63 years old, I guess she's sort of a GILF.

     

    "Catch 22" (1994)

    I disliked this movie when it came out, but really liked it when I watched the DVD a couple of years back. The book was a major cult item on college campuses back then, and the same people who worshipped the book also worshipped movies like Easy Rider and M*A*S*H - anarchic and self-consciously sincere movies that seemed to have been made by guys wearing sandals and smoking dope. Which, in fact, they were.

    People hoped that Catch-22 would be that kind of movie, but it was more of a big slick Hollywood movie that looked like it was made by guys wearing ties and wing-tip shoes. Which, in fact, it was.

    I bought into that whole line of thinking in 1970 but today, liberated from the pre-requirement for a politically correct approach, I think Catch-22 is a pretty decent movie - a nearly successful attempt to film an impossible book - an impenetrably labyrinthine work which derived much of its impact and much of its considerable humor from stylistic devices which did not easily convert to cinema.

    Here are my detailed thoughts, and Tuna's as well

    I remember that ICMS mentioned in his letter that Paula Prentiss must have been one of the first Hollywood actresses to do frontal nudity in a mainstream project. Yeah, I guess that's pretty much true, and I do remember that Playboy made a pretty big deal out of it back in the day. I always liked Paula. She was kooky and effervescent, kind of like the Mountain Dew of her time. She was a goofy comedienne with a naturally funny way to deliver lines in her odd voice, and she was also sexy as all get-out, giving her a rare combination of talents.

    When they talk about the funniest sitcoms of all time, the TV pundits often forget one of the very best: He and She, which starred Paula and her husband (Richard Benjamin) as the straight men for those two complete crazies, Kenneth Mars and Jack Cassidy. If they ever issue that show on DVD, I'll be the first in line.

    Paula was not a talent on the Julie Christie level and was never destined to be the brightest star in the firmament, but much like Julie, Paula she got tired of her career, and retired several times, finally packing it all in for good in 1983.

     

    Rosario Dawson Frontal nudity!
    LC scores big with this collage featuring some of the best 'caps I've seen so far of her toplessness and frontalness in scenes from "Alexander"!

    Jr's Polls
    Here are the results and comments for last week's poll...

    Best Nude Debut, the 80's


    This week's topic, Best Nude Debut, the 90's! Cast your vote for the actress who made the best nude debut in a film between 1990-1999.

    Now before everyone sends me email about Jennifer Connelly, let me clarify the requirements. The actress had to be nekkid, and in her film debut.

    For this round, I've eliminated almost all padding. Of the nominees on this list, only 3 had done anything on film prior to the movie debuts you are voting for, the rest were 100% film virgins.

    The 3 with padding are Jolie and Theron (who had small, uncredited parts in one movie each) and Elle Macpherson (who had done a bit part as "model" in a Woody Allen movie).

    Almost all of these ladies are very big stars now, so I humbly ask voters to try to focus on the nudity rather than their current fame.

    Email Scoopy Jr. with your nominees, comments or suggestions.

    Spaz
    'Caps and comments by Spaz:

    "Bordello of Blood" (1996)
    Another look at the Funhouse favorite with a couple more IDs.


    "Get Carter" (2000)
    Remake and Sly Stallone vehicle. The only sex scene was a group sex scene in a low quality computer video. Crystal Lowe is the one with the long brown hair and Lauren lee Smith is the redhead. No nudity.

    • video: Crystal Lowe and Lauren Lee Smith.


    Cold Squad: season four
    The tail end of the season.


    Relic Hunter: Smoking Gun


    Mutant X: Far from Above


    11th Hour: episode Kettle Black
    Last week's episode.


    First Wave: episode Asylum


    Cleaning up my hard drive...

    Dann
    'Caps and comments by Dann:

    "Anatomy of Hell"
    French director Catherine Breillat, who brought us the very good if controversial and unpleasant films Romance and Fat Girl, has done it again with this 2004 drama. Once again, a social statement is accompanied by explicit graphic sex and some jarring images.

    This film is about woman's sexual powers over men, and man's fear of them. After he interrupts her rather feeble attempt at suicide, a woman pays a gay man to watch her most intimate activities for four days. Initially, he is truly disgusted by what he must watch, but eventually a relationship develops.

    This is a very "talky" film, loaded with nudity and sex, which explores some very intangible subjects. The movie is at times almost surreal, and the woman's motivations are not really obvious.

    Some will get this film. Others won't. Not particularly uplifting, but interesting and different nevertheless.

    DeadLamb
    A few HDTV 'caps featuring some of last week's Prime Time Skin highlights.

    From the January 17th episode of the NBC series "Las Vegas". The sexy gimic for the week was to change waitress uniforms from boring old cleavage to bodypaint tuxedos.


    Next up from the new FOX series "Point Pleasant" aka the 'darker, supernatural, Amity Island version of The O.C.". I caught this episode last week and was not impressed at all. Typical FOX fodder with plenty of eye candy, but no brain activity.

    However, since nobody watches this kind of stuff for the plot lines, I guess they get points for showing almost every female cast member in a bikini in just one episode.

    • Aubrey Dollar (1, 2)
    • Cameron Richardson (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
    • Elisabeth Harnois (1, 2, 3)
    • Dina Meyer (1, 2)

    Variety
    Amber Heard
    (1, 2, 3)

    A very cool find by an imager named Duncan. Here is the cute blonde actress topless in a scene from "Friday Night Lights" (2004). This scene is apparently NOT on the recently released DVD. These images are actually from an advanced copy that Duncan came across about 3 months ago.

    Mia Kirshner
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22)

    Señor Skin 'caps of the Canadian beauty topless in several scenes (including lots o' lesbian lovin') from the made for Showtime series "The L Word".

    Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com
    Pat's comments in yellow...

    SHERIDAN WAS TO DROP TOWEL FOR MADDEN
    I Need A Towel - ABC revealed that their controversial "Monday Night Football" promo starring Nicolette Sheridan of "Desperate Housewives" and NFL star Terrell Owens could have been worse. They originally thought it would be funny if Sheridan dropped her towel for rotund sportscaster John Madden.

  • Then they decided no housewife could be THAT desperate.
  • It could've been MUCH worse: they originally wanted John Madden to drop his towel.


    RAZZIE AWARD NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED
    Sifting The Cinema - Oscar nominations are announced today, which means Razzie Award nominations for the Worst Movies came out Monday. The field leader with seven was "Catwoman," described as "the cinematic equivalent of a clump in the cat litter box." Second was "Alexander" with six, followed by "Superbabies: Baby Geniuses 2," "White Chicks," and "Surviving Christmas." And President Bush got a Worst Actor nod for the raw archive footage of him looking like a fool in "Fahrenheit 9/11."

  • That shouldn't count! He wasn't acting!
  • If Bush wins Worst Actor, he will have upset Ben Affleck twice in one year.
  • Here is the full list of Razzie nominations


    TRUMP WEDDING NEWS: DRUNKEN BILLY JOEL, ODDS ON DIVORCE
    That's Why Billy Is A Drunk - Donald Trump's lavish wedding reception wasn't open to the public, but the New York Post reports that it included a tipsy Billy Joel continually losing his place while trying to read the lyrics to a special song he'd written called "That's Why The Donald Is A Trump."

  • Now, I bet you're GLAD you weren't invited.
  • Well, you get the entertainment you pay for...
  • He finally gave up and just sang "That's Why The Lady Is A Tramp" to Melania.
  • He insisted on either doing a song or driving the bridal limo, so they had no choice.

    You Bet Your Wife - The off-shore gaming website BetWWTS.com is already laying odds on Trump's new marriage to Melania Knauss. It's 4-to-1 that they'll split up before the end of the year, and 1-to-6 that they'll stay married.

  • Donald would take a piece of that, but he's already got $100 million riding on Melania staying.
  • This marriage is already doomed: Melania decided not to take his last name.
  • It's also even money that whatever's on his head will wake up from hibernation and attack him.