Sea of Love (1989) would be a better than average cop serial killer film with a nice twist ending except for three things, Al Pacino is the starring role as the detective, John Goodman as the detective who teams with him, and a naked and horny Ellen Barkin playing suspect/love interest to Pacino. These three elements elevate it from pretty good to very good. Pacino has hit 20 years of the force, could retire at partial pay, and doesn't like the look ahead at his declining years. He is still not over his divorce, and drinks rather heavily.
When John Goodman shows up with a very similar murder to one Pacino is assigned to, they suspect a serial killer, and figure out that a personals ad is the common link in the victims. They hit upon the bright idea of taking out an add, meeting the women for a drink, and getting their prints. Along the way, Pacino meets Barkin, and starts thinking more with the little head than the big one. He is not sure she isn't his dream girl, but he is also not sure she isn't the murderer.
Barkin is nude, but in very bad light, and the DVD is a very poor transfer. I imagine the original film looked much better, as the trailer wasn't nearly as grainy. IMDB readers have this at 6.7 of 10. Pacino was nominated for a Golden Globe. Granted, I am predisposed to like any film with Samual Jackson, John Goodman, Goldie Hawn, Susan Sarandon or Sam Elliott, and this was no exception. All of the leads were spot on, the characters were interesting, and the plot itself was believable yet managed to surprise me. This is a very high C+.

Blowup (1966):

Zabriskie Point is a very strong candidate for Worst Picture of All-Time, despite a fairly strong IMDb rating. Blowup isn't anywhere near as bad, but it is every bit as illogical and pretentious.

I wrote about a zillion words on this topic here, including pictures.

• Gillian Hills (1, 2, 3) . You have undoubtedly seen her naked, and you probably don't know who she is. She has done exactly two important things in film. (1) Got naked with no dialogue - except screaming - in A Clockwork Orange (see encyclopedia) (2) Got naked in Blowup. Her very hairy crotch in this scene probably represented the first time many of my generation saw pubic hair on screen. Believe me, there wasn't much opportunity in 1966.
• Jane Birkin (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10). Unlike Hills, her partner in this scene, Birkin went on to a substantial cinema career in two different languages, and has three famous daughters as well (by three different men).
• Vanessa Redgrave (1, 2, 3, 4) . I think you all know who she is. Vanessa was an unknown in 1965, and became a monster star in 1966-67, with four famous films in a row. Blowup, Morgan, Camelot, and A Man for All Seasons. Her acting was actually pretty stiff, but she had a regal presence, and her politics were in tune with the times from 1966-71, so she was a counter-cultural favorite.
• Unknown (1, 2)

Money Train (1995):

The critics, Tuna, and I split on the merits of this action-oriented buddy pic which featured J-Lo before she was a megastar. Tuna thought the camaraderie between the characters was enough to make it a decent watch, and felt that it had some impressive action sequences. The critics thought it was a copycat film and a waste of a vast amount of money. I think Tuna was generally right about all of his points, but for me there were too many credibility problems, the action scenes were overlong and repetitious, and the life-threatening actions of the main characters made them just too damned evil for me to be rooting for.

I wrote quite a bit more here.

• J-Lo (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

.wmv film clips

• Kimberly Williams in Elephant Juice
• Diane Franklin in Second Time Lucky

OTHER CRAP:

• How bad are things for Howard Screamin' Dean? His campaign chairman is planning to support Kerry.
• Shaq comes off the bench to win all-star MVP. The game was decided at center. Shaq and Yao combined for 40 points, going 20 for 33, with 15 boards. The Eastern Conference starter, Ben Wallace, pumped in 4 points.
• Complete Transcript: Democratic Candidates debate in Wisconsin. I don't know, I thought Dean was shamefully grabbing for Wisconsin votes by proposing that Constitutional Amendment to require cheese with every meal.
• Mel Gibson was nearly suicidal. Sure, you can understand Mel getting severely depressed. He has a lot of hardship in his life, and so little to live for. I guess he saw the reviews for The Singing Detective. Well, anyway, Mel Gibson says he used his controversial new film The Passion of the Christ to "heal" his suicidal tendencies after a severe bout of depression.
• FilmJerk.com's Early Report for the week of February 15th.
• Dreamworks has now uploaded all the trailers for Shrek 2.
• Fashion hits and misses at the BAFTA awards. Scarlett Johansson looks great - very young Marilyn Monroe.
• What the hell happened to Farrah? She doesn't even look like the same woman. I always thought she had a beautiful nose before.
• As of 11:00 Eastern Time Sunday Night, this link to the Paris Hilton tape was still working.
• "John Kerry girl tells all"
• "I'm not quite dead yet". He didn't play very well, but folk hero Long John Daly eventually carved out an improbable underdog win in the Buick Open. I don't know about you guys, but I was rooting for him all the way. His world ranking was #299 last week, and he's probably living in a trailer. He can get a much nicer trailer now, because he won $864,000!
• The worst films and performances ever to win Oscars (MSN entertainment version).
• The Worst Oscar winners, and other academy injustices. (Movie House version)
• The DaVinci Code: Uncover The Code Contest, Part 2
• You know, for a guy who invented the internet, Vice President Al Gore sure had a sucky web page.
• Nude photographs by a veteran South Korean actress featuring sex slaves for Japanese troops during World War II has sparked anger from surviving victims and their supporters
• MovieJuice! reviews 50 First Dates, aka Sappy Gilmore He points out that this is the first screen pairing of Jocko the Walrus and Rob the Schneider. One is a highly trained physical comedian and the other was fetching coffee for the other cast members on Saturday Night Live.
• It's about time to think about virtual Baseball
• The Real Estate Commission & Trust for Uranus Management Registry. Once you own this packet you'll never stop talking about Uranus. Now when people say, "I own your ass", you can respond, "But I own Uranus." You can even have a ring around Uranus.
• Acting in our breast interests, JoBlo looks at recent cinema sexuality.
• Howard Dean tells 'Fox News Sunday' that his schedule is only booked through Wednesday. Presumably he will be back home to resume his weekly Parcheesi game at the Burlington Young Seniors group on Thursday. About five years from now, Dean will be sitting in a tavern somewhere, telling people he used to be a front-running candidate for President, and nobody will believe him.
• Return of the King takes five Bafta awards The British academy declared ROTK the best picture, and the epic also won the people's choice award, but the best director award went to Peter Weir for Master and Commander. Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson were the best leading actors. Bill Nighy and Renee Zellweger were the best supporting actors. Three of the four were nominated for Oscars as well, and Zellweger is considered the front runner. Zellweger also won a Golden Globe for her now-famous impersonation of Granny Clampett, but Bill Nighy's hilarious performance was ignored by Oscar and Golden Globe in the typical Hollywood anti-comedy prejudice.
• Here is an r-rated trailer for Sex is Comedy, a French dramedy with Anne Parillaud as a film director. It is now axiomatic that all European films are about filmmakers making films about filmmakers.
• American Nudist Greeting Cards
• Be my anti-valentine
• New Adam Sandler movie has second best February opening in history, with an extraordinary $41 million. It appears that there was no truth to the rumors that Sandler's contract with Satan had expired.
• Volunteers are needed to help toads get safely across busy roads in Berkshire. Call the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to volunteer for "toad patrols".
• Hubble sees the 'most distant object' ever discovered. It is so far away that we are seeing it as it was 13 billion years ago, when the universe was only 750 million years old, and Joan Collins was still in her teens.
• California voters say, "Hey, we got your fireworks ban right here. Ban this (grabs crotch)."

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.

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

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

Miscellaneous:

• Jolie and Banderas get in on in one of the more realistic sex scenes in the history of mainstream cinema in Original Sin. (.avi version, .wmv version)

• Daryl Hannah prancin' around buck nekkid in At Play in the Fields of the Lord.  (.avi version, .wmv version)

• Daryl Hannah again lookin' mighty good in Reckless.  (.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.

• Gwyneth Paltrow, topless in the Sylvia Plath bio pic, "Sylvia".

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

"Puppets Who Kill: Prostitutes for Jesus"
Last Friday's episode was saucy but no nudity. Buttons the teddy bear goes down on Kathryn Zenna while Emily Hampshire and Robin Brule play two prostitute nuns who service bedridden patients for a charity function. Kristin Booth played Zenna's lesbian lover but the kissing scene ends before they go down on eachother.

• Kathryn Zenna: cleavage.
• Kristin Booth: cleavage, kissy kissy.
• Emily Hampshire: cleavage, providing handjob.
• Robin Brule: cleavage.

"Blood & Donuts" (1995)
Vampire cult classic. Helene Clarkeson has a wild psychic sex scene.

• Helene Clarkeson: braless pokies.

"The Donor" (1997)
Movie about guy who have sex with mysterious woman in hotel room and wakes up with an organ removed.

• Michelle Johnson: dreaded fully clothed sex scene by the Blame It On Rio star.
• Christina Cox: full dorsal nudity.
• Bodydub: boobs and butt as pinchhitter for Christina Cox.
• Ellen Dubin: brassiere and panties, major cleavage.
• Emmanuelle Chriqui: braless pokies, another fully clothed sex scene.
• Karen Waddell: nude on bed.

"Seeds of Doubt" (1996)
Alberta Watson has a hot love scene with Joe Lando in the unrated video "Seeds of Doubt". This scene was cut from what aired on Canada's Showcase a couple of weeks ago. However she used a body double for the boob shots.

• Alberta Watson: nude love scene, partial breast.
• boddyub: upclose boob shots for Alberta Watson.
• Alex McLeish: red bra and panties. She is not the male soccer player of the same name (unless he got a sex change).
• Lisa Wegner: pokies tied up.

"White Lies" (1998/I) (TV)
Sarah Polley shows partial breast in love scene. This is gyno-cam for Sarah if you want to buy the DVD.

• Sarah Polley: partial boob.

"Happy Face Murders" (1999) (TV)
Murder mystery involving Emily Hampshire's character.

• Emily Hamsphire: wet tshirt, then black panties.
• Carole Mackereth: braless pokies.
• bodydub: full frontal for Hampshire's character in autopsy room.

"Def Con 4" (1985)
Low budget sci-fi that put Salter Street Films (Bowling for Columbine) on the cinematic map.

• Lenore Zann: cleavage, pokies.
• Kate Lynch: boob getting felt up.
• Unknowns: both topless.

Here are 'caps from of Lana (and others) in scenes from two of her movies.....

First up, scenes from the 1983 sword and sorcery classic "Deathstalker".

• Lana Clarkson, topless. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

• Barbi Benton, former Heffer and former girlfriend of Heff himself, also going topless. (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Unknowns baring breasts and bums. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Next up, 'caps from one of Lana's last movies, "Vice Girls" (2000).

• Lana, still lookin' good topless. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• Angela Taylor, the brunette shows off her robo-boobs. (1, 2)

• Heather Ward, yup, also topless

• Peggy Trentini, even more robo-hooters.

• A topless unknown

"Sylvia"
This 2003 movie tells the true story of American poet/novelist Sylvia Plath and her stormy romance and marriage to English poet Ted Hughes. An excellent performance by Gwyneth Paltrow doesn't stop it from being mostly boring and draggy, but lovers of deep and insightful character studies may like it nonetheless.

Plath struggled with suicidial urges throughout her life and finally succumbed to those urges using the unpoetic method of sticking her head in an unlit gas oven, triggered by the continuing unfaithfulness of her husband. The movie, mostly a downer, will best be viewed by fans of her work, poetry, or sad romances.

• Gwyneth Paltrow