Friday

Tuna
"How to Murder Your Wife"

How to Murder Your Wife (1965) is a very dated Jack Lemon comedy in both style and content. Jack plays a popular and wealthy cartoonist and confirmed bachelor. All that changes when he attends a bachelor party for a friend, and wakes up hung over and married to the girl that jumped out of the cake. To top it off, she is Italian, and doesn't speak a word of English. All of his friends wives consider it a victory for their gender, and he wants out -- at least mostly. We will get to the mostly part in a second.

His comic strip changes from the secret agent strip he had been doing to a husband and wife trials and tribulations of marriage thing, and then he has a brainstorm. He will kill his wife in the strip to vent his frustration at being married. She sees the strip and vanishes, and he is on trial for murder.

Now for the mostly part. The Italian wife is Virna Lisi. For those younger readers who are saying who, look at the images. I did this at reader request, He basically said she was really hot, a personal favorite, and there wasn't much on the net of her. I agree with the hot part completely. Here we have only leg and a little cleavage, but it is enough to raise my blood pressure.

IMDB readers have this at 6.4 of 10. Lemon won a BAFTA for best foreign actor. This early 60's version of the battle of the sexes plays now as quaint, but had henpecked husbands rolling in the aisles in 1965. IT is well made, and has a talented cast, so, as an early 60's romantic comedy, it is a C.

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  • Virna Lisi (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)

    "Sylvia"

    Sylvia (2003) is a biopic of Sylvia Plath. If that name means nothing to you, than you will more than likely not find anything of interest here. Sylvia became a feminist hero and major poet with the posthumous publication of her last book of poems. Her life was short, and depressing as hell. This film is long, and depressing as hell. It starts with her attending Cambridge on a Fullbright scholarship, where she met and wed poet Ted Hughes. During their trip to America, we learn that she has been depressed since the death of her father when she was ten, made a serious suicide attempt, and had electroshock and lots of therapy. Despite all that, she was clinically depressed and very jealous of her husband and any woman near him. She eventually drove him to another woman. She through him out, and started writing seriously and raising her two small children, but eventually the depression won and she committed suicide.

    The ending was telegraphed in the opening scene. The meeting and courtship at Cambridge was charmingly portrayed, and the dissolution of the marriage was also well recounted, but I am as much in the dark about what motivated her, what her dreams were, and what her body of work was like as I was before I watched it. Nor was their any insight as to why she would abandon her two children. Ebert likes this one, calling it a wonderful glimpse into the literary world. Not all critics were as positive.

    IMDB readers score this at 6.0 of 10. It was supposed to be the rebirth of lead Gwenyth Platrow's career as a serious actress. Although she did a fine job, as did costar Daniel Craig, the material just did not make for an engaging or enjoyable story. Paltrow is naked in two scenes. The first is so dark as to make any images nearly impossible. In the second, the lighting was a little better. This film was less fun than a root canal to sit through, and taught me nothing useful, therefor failing both my entertainment criteria. This is a low C_. Fans of Plath may learn something about her from this. It is one I won't rewatch, and will purge it from my memory by morning.

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  • Gwyneth Paltrow (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

    • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    La Ley de Herodes  (2000)

    I sure am getting a lesson on Mexican filmmaking in the past two years. I had no idea that there were so many good ones, with such a rich tapestry of talent woven into them. Y tu Mama Tambien is rated 7.8 at IMDb,  Amores Perros is rated 8.1 (#149 of all time), and this film schools them both, at rated 8.4!! La Ley de Herodes won the Best Picture award from the Mexican Academy in 2000 (Amores Perros won in 2001)

    This is one of the most enjoyable comedies I've seen. It mixes the laughter with serious political and sociological points, warmth, multi-dimensional characterization, brilliant concepts, sharp cinematography. Since my Spanish is mediocre, I can't remember any other time when I was laughing out loud at the dialogue in a Spanish language film, without reading the sub-titles.

    The ruling PRI party is looking for a man to head up the tiny but troublesome town of San Pedro de los Saguaros. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure there is no St Peter of the Cacti). They need a man who is ambitious, honest, loyal to the party, and  -  most important - not too bright, because this town really sucks, consisting of fewer than 100 people, about four of whom speak Spanish. Enter our hero, Juan Vargas, who has been supervising a local urban dump and jumps at the honor of being a mayor, and relishes the opportunity to bring modernity and social justice to his new subjects. He and his wife pack their best wardrobe into their Packard, and head off proudly to the new assignment, filled with dreams of glory and respect. They stop to ask for directions in the middle of nowhere, and are crestfallen to learn that the very same middle of nowhere happens to be their new town!

    As time goes on, all of Juan's foolish ideals fall by the wayside, and he learns to exploit the local populace like every mayor before him. In an interesting ending, Juan meets a dual fate - either he is beheaded by the local villagers and replaced by another Juan - a clone of the idealistic, eager fool Juan used to be - or he goes on to climb through the ranks and ends up President of Mexico. Because, after all, either THIS Juan rises to the top, or another one - they're all interchangeable in a corrupt system.

    The best feature of the film is the casting of Juan, who is so lovable and meek that we could never believe him capable of the horrible acts he eventually commits. He's so sweet and naive that we still sympathize with him no matter how bad his misdeeds. The real power of that casting is that the blame for corruption falls squarely where it belongs, not on evil men, but in a system which corrupts all men, even the sweetest, forcing them to become cruel or fail.

    Although Herod's Law is a comedy, and is really an entertainment film at heart, this movie was so influential in Mexico that many people said it contributed significantly to the electoral defeat of the PRI party in the 200 elections, after 70 consecutive years in power.

    • Leticia Huijara (1, 2)
    • Evangelina Sosa (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
    • Sosa and two other actresses (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

     

    Sylvia  (2003)

    Gwyneth Paltrow hoped that this film would put her back on the A-list after some slumming in junk films. She did fine, but the picture really sucks, so Gwyn will have to wait for that return to glory.

    It's a biopic of the poet Sylvia Plath, who was emotionally disturbed, and committed suicide while very young.

    There are two interesting things about Plath

    1. many consider her a major poet. Why?

    2. she committed suicide despite being young, healthy, brilliant, and beautiful. She was raised in a middle-class home and was never beaten, raped, or severely traumatized. So what led her to be such a wack-job?

    This film offers no insight into either question. They didn't get permission to use Plath's poetry, the script came up with no insight into her madness, and the director came up with no techniques to picture her mental state.

    Sylvia Plath without her madness and her poems is like Oklahoma without the songs. She's just another fucked-up woman talking about literature and death a lot, like a depressing member of your wife's book club. As I wrote in my long review, Plath's conversations were so morbid that she made Jim Morrison seem as life-affirming as Zorba the Greek.

     

     

    OTHER CRAP:

    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.

    Shiloh

    Words from Scoop.

    .avi's from Shiloh.

    .wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

     

    1. Eureka ain't much of a movie, but Theresa Russell is all kinds of naked in it. Geez, sometimes I miss the 80s.

    2. And one more look at the Teri Hatcher scene in Heaven's Prisoners. (.avi version, .wmv version)

     

     

    Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

    Shiloh says:

    FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.
     
    When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

    A reader says:

    You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

    Scoop says:

    I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger, and slightly lower quality.

    Brainscan
    Congrats to Brainscan for passing the 5000 images mark!

    'Caps and comments by Brainscan:

    Just as I was predicting the end of Western civilization, or at least the end of Hefmates as eye candy in Hollywood, along come Boat Trip and American Wedding. Both were high profile, one a notable success, the other a miserable failure.

    Boat Trip had one nekkid Hefmate, Jami Ferrell, in the movie itself. But Jami was joined by four other Heffers in the added features, specifically the How to Tan feature. Two of those others, Deanna Brooks and Natalia Sokolova gave up natural hooties and robo-hooties, respectively. Here are Jami, Deanna, Natalia and two others, Shauna Sand and Teri Harrison (both of whom kept their bikinis intact and in place) in the bonus area.


    Nikki Schieler-Ziering, Hefmate for Sept 1997, gave up serious robo-hooters in the unrated version of American Wedding (2003), with the extended bachelor party scene. Nikki plays the disciplinarian cop-stripper in a scene that couldn't be more low-brow or much funnier. The movie is made by Seann William Scott's performance as Stifler, who in this last part of the trilogy comes across as a live-action Eric Cartman. Bad guys and folk without shame or remorse for their evil deads make such interesting movie characters. That's Stifler.

    I capped the living beejeebers out of Nikki's long scene. Thirteen collages worth. This is what happens when a hobby turns into an obsession. Nikki hooties wherever you look (my favorite is #11) and Nikki bum in #'s 2 and 3.


    And an added bonus for today: the late, lamented Dorothy Stratten in her only on-screen exposure. The movie is Autumn Born (1979). You get to see a bit of Dorothy's upper bod and a lot of her wonderous posterior.

    Variety
    Sarah Thompson Looking fantastic wearing only a bra and panties (great thong views!) in scenes from an episode of the ABC series "Line of Fire". 'Caps by The Rock.

    Isabella Deiana
    (1, 2, 3)

    		All 3 B's (especially plenty of bush) in more Marvin 'caps from the Tinto Brass movie "Cosė fan tutte" aka "All Women Do It" (1992).

    Lisa Enos
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)

    		Señor Skin 'caps of the co-star, co-producer and co-writer of the screenplay baring all in scenes from "Ivansxtc" (2000).

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

    NIPPLEGATE: THE CONTINUING CRISIS
    Great Google-e-moogly! - Lycos.com announced that "Janet Jackson's breast" is now the most searched-for term in Internet history, breaking the record held by the September 11 attacks. In the 24 hours after the Super Bowl, "Janet Jackson's breast" was searched for 60 times more often than "Paris Hilton tape" and 80 times more than "Britney Spears."

  • Britney's kicking herself! All the times Justin Timberlake ripped off her bra, and NONE of them were in public!
  • Well, there's a lot more to see here than there was in the Paris Hilton tape.
  • What has happened to our culture?! We need to nip this! Nip it in the bud!


    PARIS HILTON GETS A GIG AND A GOAT
    Besides, He's Had Her - Donald Trump told US Weekly that he's considering hiring Paris Hilton to host the Miss USA Pageant. He said the sex tape doesn't bother him, that he's known her since she was little, and "she's a fine girl"...who "will give the pageant its highest TV ratings."

  • Particularly during a new segment he's creating called "Boink The Judges!"
  • And if she can't do it, Janet Jackson is available.
  • But she'll make all the contestants look fat!


    The Simpleton Life - The UK's Sun tabloid reports that Paris Hilton was thrown off a plane in Las Vegas when she tried to get on with a monkey, a ferret and a goat she'd bought as pets. She had to drive the beasts home to L.A. in a six-hour limo ride.

  • And after that trip, she had to buy the limo.
  • She bought them for their pelts.
  • Her new boyfriend wanted to videotape a five-way with animals.


    BRITNEY DENIES BUYING PORN
    She Already Knows How To Suck - Britney Spears' reps are threatening to sue the British tabloid News Of The World for claiming -- they say falsely -- that while in a London hotel, Britney paid for two X-rated movies, "Sex Truck" and "Double-D Housewives," which she and her girlfriends giggled through.

  • She was probably just watching porn as research for her future movie career.
  • The way Britney's career is going, she may soon BE a "Double-D Housewife."
  • Now that Britney knows what housewives' sex lives are like, she's sorry she got an annulment.
  • Britney would never pay for sex!...Well, except for the $500,000 she gave her husband to go away.


    FUN FACTS ABOUT CONTRACT KILLINGS
    Go With A Pro - The Australian Institute of Criminology studied 163 attempted and successful contract killings between 1989 and 2002. Among their findings: professional criminals are more likely to order a successful hit, but most "contracts" are taken out by angry spouses and jealous ex-lovers over the break-up of a relationship. The average price paid to a hit man was $12,700, but the prices ranged from $380 to $76,000.

  • Plus tax.
  • So the moral is: It pays to shop around.
  • You'd really have to love someone a lot to pay $76,000 to have them killed.