Bite Me! (2004) - Big Bugs with Bad Attitudes is the latest EI Independent Cinema release on their Shock-O-Rama label. I have talked much more about their Seduction Cinema soft-core offerings, but they release an interesting mixture of B movie low budget in-house horror, and classics that they acquire rights to. This time, Brett Piper wrote, directed and edited. IMDb suggests that this is horror, but anyone expecting a straight up horror film or a soft core will be disappointed. What it is, is a brilliant horror comedy. The by-line hints at its appeal -- everyone in the film has an attitude.

The plot line is rather simple. Two stoners are delivering stolen pot grown as part of a government experiment to a remote strip club, GoGoSaurus, built under a 40 foot high dinosaur. Mutant spiders escape, and cause them to crash. The dope is delivered anyway, and the spiders are now loose in the strip club. The film stars Misty Mundae, who is the only one to show any bush, but we also have breasts and buns from Julian Wells, who will take over the club if the current owner can't meet his mortgage, Caitlan Ross, a barely conscious chain smoker and the least energetic stripper ever to fall asleep on a pole, and Erika Smith as a near-sighted stripper.

I really don't want to give away anything, but this is the sort of humor that had me in hysterics. Smith will not wear her glasses on stage, not because of vanity, but because she gets too nervous if she can see the crowd. Unfortunately, she is nearly blind without them, and falls right off the stage into a customer's arms. When another man picks a fight with him, he tosses her to the floor with a thud. The female bartender ends up kicking the crap out of both men and a few others.

It is sitting at 3.1 at IMDb, and I can't imagine why. All of the reviews linked give it near perfect marks. This is, by far, the most entertaining release I have seen from EI Independent Cinema, and hopefully there will be more comedies to come. Good writing, reasonable acting, a little nudity, corny spiders, a little stop motion animation and decent photography add up to a really fun film. Even people who hate horror will find themselves laughing at this one. B-.

Stone Cold Dead (1979):

Never seen this mofo, but I happened to notice that Mr Skin had some Linnea Quigley caps from this film, and since Linnea is the one queen to rule all the scream queens ...

• Linnea Quigley (1, 2)

Friday Night Lights (2004):

Back in the early 1980's, when I was working in the corporate marketing department for 7-Eleven, we had our annual "bragging rights" meeting in Dallas in early 1982, and the guys from West Texas took as their theme "It's hard to be humble." Midland and Odessa were two of the most profitable metropolitan areas on a per store basis in 1981, so the local marketing guys from that area droned on and on about their successful local initiatives.

To those of us in the audience, it seemed that a great comeuppance was in order, because their marketing programs were among the weakest in the United States, and their local personnel were barely above the level of Cro-Magnon Man. The geniuses who explained the secrets of their success made presentations which made them sound like the drop-outs from a remedial reading class.

Their reversal was swift, and ripped their legs out from under them with such force that even those of us who most wished to see them falter had to feel some compassion for them. Between 1982 and 1984, the oil industry in West Texas lost one third of its jobs, and the economy of the region was destroyed. In 1984, only two years after the glory of "hard to be humble", Midland and Odessa dropped to the very lowest two spots on the profitability rankings of all of the metropolitan areas in which Southland operated! No exaggeration. They fell to last and second-last in the whole USA! Now THAT's comeuppance. From the very best in the USA (or close to it) to the very worst in just two years.

It got much easier for them to be humble.

When economic devastation hit the Permian Basin area in the mid-80s, the towns turned for a morale boost to that greatest of all Texas narcotics, high school football. People in small-town Texas always obsess about high school football, as I learned in 1991 and 1992 when I observed first hand the state championships for my company's two "home towns" at the time, Killeen and Temple. Although the football obsession disease is pandemic in Texas, no towns obsess over it more than Odessa and Midland, where Permian and Lee High Schools are always powerful contenders for State Championships. Those teams were important to those towns in the boom times, so you can imagine how the football mania got inflated in the depression of the mid- and late 80s. In that era the towns had absolutely nothing else to offer their residents in terms of hope and pride. The people there felt like losers, and prep football offered a way for the downtrodden local losers to win vicariously.

This film is the story of one of those teams, Odessa Permian, in one of those years, 1988.

Y'know, this is a very good sports movie, but I have to say it pissed me off. Why? Because it pretends to be true, and isn't. I got especially irritated when the author of the book came on in the DVD special features and said, "you couldn't make up these kinds of details. Nobody has that good an imagination, or at least I don't." Well, I'll tell you what, cowboy, maybe you are shootin' straight, because people say your book told the whole truth, but the problem is that those comments on the DVD make it seem like you were discussing the movie, not the book. Whatever imagination you lacked, ol' son, the screenwriter had enough for both of you. The movie just made up stuff as it went along.

Let's start with the big deal of the day. Odessa Permian did not even go to the state championship that year. They did lose to the powerful Dallas team pictured in the movie, but it was in the semi-finals, not in the State Championship, and not in Houston in the climate-controlled Astrodome, but in Dallas in an outdoor stadium in a rain storm. The Dallas team went on to win the finals 31-14.

Second, Odessa did not lose their last game 34-28 as pictured in the film. Subtract 20 from both sides and you'll just about have it. They lost 14-9. I suppose 14-9 games aren't very cinematic, are they? They don't provide much opportunity for dramatic scoring opportunities and long roads back. Permian did have a chance to win the game on the final play, as shown in the film, but it was not a run stopped at the one inch line. The ending of the real game was much less dramatic than the movie in one sense because it was simply an incomplete pass, but the real life situation was actually more dramatic than the film in another regard - that pass was to win the ball game, not to tie. (I wonder why the scriptwriter didn't make the score 34-29 instead of 34-28.)

Third, in a sense, the Odessa boys really were the State Champions that year! Say what? How can that be? It's because life is often far more complicated than the movies. Far more. Especially in big-time Texas high school football. You see, the Dallas team was crooked, and got caught for various recruiting violations, so they had to forfeit their 31-14 victory over Converse Judson in the championship game. The official score of the State Championship was retroactively changed to 1-0, and Converse Judson was declared the official but tainted State Champion. But wait! The Dallas team was only forced to forfeit the finals, not any of the earlier rounds - so Odessa Permian was ousted by an illegal team! To make a fair comparison, the tainted state champion Converse Judson team had lost to the illegal Dallas team by 17 in the finals, but Odessa Permian had only lost to the same guys by 5 in the semis. I think you could reasonably argue that Odessa Permian WAS the legitimate Texas State Champ that year. Oh, well. Whatever. They proved they really were the champs in the following year when they won the undisputed championship.

Fourth, a lot of the details along the way were completely misleading. If you watched the film, you think they won big in their first game, then got killed in game two after having lost their big star, Boobie Miles. Wrong. They did win the first game 49-0, but Boobie was not in that game. He actually injured himself in a pre-season scrimmage! Permian did lose the second game, but it was not the 49-7 slaughter pictured in the film. They dropped a squeaker, 13-12. After that second game, perhaps you think they just barely survived the next six with grit and guile, absent their star, right? Wrong. They won those six games 35-14, 35-7, 42-0, 49-0, 48-2, and 56-14. Then you think they lost the storied rivalry game with Midland Lee by getting their asses kicked, right? Wrong. They dropped another squeaker 22-21.

Fifth, the season pictured was Gaines's third with the team (not second), and his salary was 48k (not 60k). Why change these details?

I'm not sure how I feel about all this lyin'. I guess I don't mind when a story is a pack of lies, and I don't mind when a story is true, but I do dislike a pack of lies masquerading as truth. Criminy! If you are going to make up all the details, just change the names while you're at it, and make the whole damned thing fictional, rather than making it a nearly-fictional story with real names.

On the other hand, I ask you, does that really matter? I mean really?

First of all, the film drew me in and held me there throughout with great pacing and characterization.

Furthermore, the film reaches down into the universal truth even if it fudges the details.

• The poor coach is threatened with firing everywhere he goes. Even the Wal-Mart and fast food clerks tell him they really hope that he wins the state championship, in the same conspiratorial, subtly threatening tone that the Godfather uses when he tells you that he can do a favor for you, but someday he'll ask you a favor. In both cases, "you damn well better do it, or else ... " is implicit.

• Businesses close and the towns are deserted when the games are going.

• The players have to decide the true meaning of being winners and being teammates, and they do it in a realistic and inspiring way.

So, in the last analysis, since I found the story engrossing and moving and generally true to the reality of Texas high school football, I reckon I'll forgive the lyin', and call it an excellent fictional story based closely upon reality.

• Amber Heard. (1, 2) No nudity is visible in real time, but the pause button saves the day. Blockbuster only has the widescreen version of this movie. As we saw in some caps the other day, there is more exposed in the full screen version.

Other Crap:

• The Encyclopedia of Fake Bands.
• The official 'Star Wars' website has released the opening crawl already for Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith
• Going against the grain in courting the young cocktail crowd, beermaker Anheuser-Busch Cos. is launching a new 'brew' to go head-to-head with classic mixed drinks - traditional suds spiked with caffeine, fruit flavoring, herbal guarana and ginseng."
• The Daily Show asks "How would our already-stretched forces handle an invasion of Iran?"
• First look at a trailer for Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo
• Irish genealogists say: President Bush is a direct descendent of Norman nobleman Richard 'Strongbow,' who led the invasion of Ireland in the 12th century. Apparently his family is genetically predisposed to invade countries starting with "Ir"
• How can you not love a headline that reads: "Eva Longoria's kinky sex games"
• I love technology. Two teachers were caught having sex in a college gym by pupils who filmed the romp on camera phones.
• Terrell Owens' doctor said Tuesday he will not give the All-Pro receiver clearance to play in the Super Bowl. (Owens may still play)
• For people with too much time on yourt hands - pi10k - Converting the first 10,000 digits of pi into a musical sequence
• The Kent family farm, Superman's home in rural Kansas, will be filmed in Breeza, Australia, wherever the hell that is. "Pre-production sources believe that in the semi-sequel to the first two Superman films, the classic hero returns to Earth after having been missing for six long years and what he finds astounds him. The world he knew has changed for the worse. In his absence the forces of evil have regrouped like never before."
• Has Homer Simpson been to Czechoslovakia?
• Man-made island photographed from space. This would make a hell of a Rorschach Test.
• Proof that scientist have WAY too much free time: the effects of drug consumption on a spider's web-spinning ability.
• How to turn office supplies into deadly weapons.
• $1 million treasure hunt hidden in the pages of a fairy tale. So you think it's a candy-ass way to sell books? I remind you that Shakespeare himself would never have sold a single copy of Coriolanus without the free bumper stickers: "Let thy geese honk if thou doth love iambic pentameter", and Will's own favorite, "Playwrights do it with a bigger quill".
• Looking for a Super Bowl snack? How about Janet Jackson Breast Cupcakes?
• retroCRUSH: THE ULTIMATE CALVIN and HOBBES SNOWMAN TRIBUTE.
• Another review for Alone In The Dark. I can see why they didn't want critics to see this in advance! I still want to know how a movie like this gets theatrical distribution.
  • "Movies this unthinkably bad, so purely inept on every level—writing, directing, acting, technically—arrive on a rarer basis than viewers might believe."
  • "If so-bad-it's-funny is your cup of tea, then the countless inadequacies of "Alone in the Dark" may well become the subject of college drinking games across the globe. This is jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring, "I-can't-believe-someone-made-this-crap" badness we're dealing with. Guffawing laughter is the only possible response to be met with the end credits. "
  • "If Ed Wood, that notorious filmmaker of "Plan Nine From Outer Space" and "Glen or Glenda," is Uwe Boll's primary inspiration, then he is succeeding in spades with his career trajectory."
• 50 Cent's rap translated into "white"
• Dueling Banjos 2005
• High-school romances untangled. This is the actual map of the high school love connections we mentioned yesterday.
• This week's films, continued. I mentioned yesterday that nobody had reviewed this film, which will inexplicably appear in 2100 theaters Friday, so here is FilmJerk's Review of Alone in the Dark.
  • "An unpleasant, ugly, and hilariously amateurish production, “Dark” proves further that this guy doesn’t belong behind a camera. Or even in the same room as one for that matter."
  • "Tara Reid (playing, get this, a museum curator)"
  • Rating: F
• Five clips from The Wedding Date, a romantic comedy with Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney.  

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.

Words, pictures, and vids from ICMS

"Wings of the Dove" (1997)

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.

"Head in the Clouds"
Spanning the 1920's and 1930's, and set in Paris, England, and Spain, this 2004 drama/romance is both interesting from a historical perspective, and a very cool romance.

Gilda, a rich and carefree young woman with no sexual inhibitions becomes briefly involved with Guy, an Irish collage student. Years later, they reunite in Paris, where Gilda is sharing her apartment with Mia, who is a refugee from Spain. Guy is now a schoolteacher. The three live together and Guy and Mia both share a deep love for Gilda.

As the world is drawn closer to war, Guy and Mia leave for Spain, to fight fascism, he as a soldier, and she as a nurse, while Gilda pursues a successful career as a photographer. As Hitler invades Paris, the lives of all three are changed forever.

An excellent film, with great acting, and a very sad ending. Excellent.

• Charlize Theron

Cynthia Ettinger

Eliza Pryor Nagel
(1, 2)

Cynthia Ettinger
and Carla Gallo
(1, 2, 3)

Saemi Nakamura
(1, 2, 3)

OSCAR NOMINATIONS AND SNUBS
Moore Won For "Worst Move" - Oscar nominations came out Tuesday, and "The Aviator" leads with 11. As usual, the omissions made as much news as the honorees. Paul Giamatti of "Sideways," who's up for every other award, was passed over for Best Actor. Mel Gibson's mega-hit, "The Passion of the Christ," which he declined to buy ads for because it would be tasteless, got just three nods, for makeup, score and cinematography. And Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," which he took out of the documentary category in hopes of winning "Best Picture," was passed over completely.