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Domino (2005):
Keira Knightley is a hot ticket now. What can ya say?
Here is a zipped
.wmv of her topless scene in Domino which, unfortunately is filmed
and edited with a rock video aesthetic - swirling, herky-jerky,
hyperkinetic camera movement and rapid cutting. When combined with the
arty-farty lighting scheme, it takes most of the eroticism out of the
scene and makes it look like one of those offbeat commercials for
jeans, except that a nipple or two occasionally peeks into the frame.
Zombie Honeymoon (2004):
"The first truly romantic flesh-eating corpse movie"
John Landis (Director of Animal House
and American Werewolf in London)
This film asks
the question, "How far would you go for love?", and it does so within
a high-concept premise. Suppose, if you will, that we live in a
perfectly ordinary world that complies to all the known rules of human
existence except one: zombies are real. Now suppose that you are a
woman who has absolutely found Mr Right, no question about it. You're
both totally in love, and you're on your dream honeymoon at the shore
when he gets bitten my a zombie and starts turning into one himself.
What do you do? Do you call the police and then run off to hide in
Dick Cheney's undisclosed location, or do you stick by the true love
of your life through better or worse, till death do you part?
The wife here tries to stand by her man, but that gets
increasingly more difficult as his condition deteriorates. For
example, when their best friends come to visit, hubby has to promise
that eating their flesh is off limits. Eventually the wife realizes
that the craving for flesh is so strong that even she is not really
off limits. The IMDb classifies this as
horror-drama-comedy, but it isn't really funny. If you consider the
premise, you will conclude that it has great comic potential, but the
film isn't played out that way. There is some humor in the film, but
the husband's zombification is treated exactly the same as if he had
AIDS or some other terrifying, degenerative, potentially transmittable
disease, and the wife's reactions are fairly similar to what would
happen in a parallel real world case of that nature. As the New York
Times wrote, "This is, after all, a tragic love story at the core, one
that aims to portray how difficult it is to lose a loved one to
disease (substitute any affliction for zombieism)."
Some real reviewers took a look at it (it
screened at several festivals in 2005), and it scores a 63
overall at Metacritic, with no score below 50. I
am not so enthusiastic about it. The concept is intriguing, the script
isn't bad, and the lead actress (seen below) is actually quite good, but it is much
stronger as an idea than it is in execution. To me, it's one of those
films which might have been good with a little more work and a lot
more money. As it stands, the lighting is generally poor, the camera work generally
hand-held, some acting moments are uncomfortably poor, and it looks more like a home movie than a professional
film. On the other hand, the DVD is not a rip-off if you are curious about
the idea. The film does have some laughs, some tears, and a unique take on
the zombie genre; and the DVD has two full-length commentaries if you
really get into it.
Other Crap:
KIEFER SUTHERLAND is considering making a spoof film version of his hit TV show
24.
The Weekend
Warrior's box office predictions for the upcoming weekend
- He's calling it 1-2 for two new offerings, Date Movie and the doggies.
- His total implies that the top 12 would come in about 1-2% below the
comparable weekend last year, which seems about right.
This week's movies (2900 screens):
Date
Movie - no major reviews yet.
- Date Movie is to date movies as Scary Movie is to scary movies. The humor
in the previews looked completely obvious.
This week's movies (2300 screens):
Freedomland - 22%
positive reviews
- Described as a Joan Crawford movie without Joan Crawford. A single mother
blames an African-American man from the projects for the kidnapping of her
child.
This week's movies (2900 screens):
Eight Below -
85% positive reviews
- This is Disney's new doggie movie, and I have to admit that I'm going to
see it on the day it opens. The previews got me totally hooked.
- Hey, c'mon. How many of you cried when Old Yeller died? Let me see those
hands.
Pink's video pokes fun at 'Stupid Girls'
- "Pink goes through various incarnations in her video, looking like an
Olsen, Simpson, Lohan or Hilton at times."
Forgive me, Father, for I have guns...
The Daily Show talks about the press feeding frenzy over Cheney's hunting
accident
"Jeff Goldblum is in final negotiations to star in NBC's drama pilot 'Seeing
Red'"
- Ah, the circle of life. The wheel of time. The great mandala. When I wore
a younger man's clothes (after having stolen them from his clothesline), I
used to watch Goldblum in a pretty cute TV series called "Ten Speed and Brown
Shoe." Goldblum played a nerd who dreamed of being a romantic private eye like
Sam Spade. His partner was a master of stings and disguises (played by Ben
Vereen!)
- I don't know about the new series, but I'd love to see Brown Shoe in
action again, if only in re-runs
Actor
John Corbett (My Big Fat Greek Wedding) becomes a country singer.
- Here is your math quiz for the day. Corbett is the Grade B Edward Burns.
But Burns himself is the Grade B Ben Affleck and Affleck is the cut-rate
Christopher Reeve. The question is a two-parter: (1) Calculate Corbett as a
percentage of Reeve.(2) Is that percentage greater to or less than the
comparable percentage for Keanu Reeves? Do all scratch work in your Blue
Books.
- Jeez, I'm old. Do Blue Books still exist?
Watch the first
eight minutes of Stoned, a murder mystery about the death of Rolling Stone
Brian Jones.
Five clips from
Night Watch (Nochnoi Dozor), a highly regarded Russian genre film.
Three new clips and some premiere footage from V is for Vendetta
"BUSH
PROPOSES 'NO QUAILS LEFT BEHIND' ... New Education Initiative for Hunters
Attempts to Defuse Cheney Crisis"
"Daily Show Headlines - Duck and Cover"
- "Amid questions about the timeline of the Cheney shooting there was a Duck
Hunt on Scott McClellan."
A tribute to the cult hockey movie,
Slap Shot
Letterman:
Top Ten Things You Don't Want To Hear On Valentine's Day
The Top Ten
Sci-Fi Films That Never Existed
Lawrence O'Donnell: "Every lawyer I've talked to assumes Cheney was too drunk to
talk to the cops after the shooting."
Duke's Redick sets NCAA mark for career 3-pointers
The French
poster for the next "Pirates" movie!
Movie Reviews:
Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format.
Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.
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Mischief (1980)
Mischief (1985) is a coming-of-age buddy story set in a small Ohio town in
1956. Doug McKeon plays the son of the local dentist, and he's expected to
take over his father's practice. In his senior year of High School he fancies
Kelly Preston, who is the object of every teenager's lust, but is currently
seeing one of the town's rich brats. McKeon is the human equivalent of Bambi,
and trips over himself whenever she is around. Everything changes for Doug
when Gene (Chris Nash) moves onto his block. Gene is a bad boy with a
motorcycle and James Dean's style and charm, the kind of guy your mother warns
you about, and the kind who can have his pick of girls. In fact, he had to
leave Chicago when the mothers of two of his conquests had him kicked out of
school. The biker and the dentist's son become unlikely friends, and Gene
swears he will put McKeon in the sack with Preston. As for Gene, he wants
Preston's best friend Bunny (Catherine Mary Stewart), and also wants to even a
score with the richest boy and biggest asshole in the school who is dating
her.
The other main character is the sound track, which featured every 50s
mega-hit I can remember.
- The Great Pretender
- Blueberry Hill
- Young Love
- Sweet Little Sixteen
- Maybe Baby
- School Daze
- I'm in Love Again
- Love Is Strange
- Be-Bop-A-Lula
- One Summer Night
- Ain't that a Shame
- Since I Met You Baby
- It Only Hurts for a Little While
- Everyday
- My Prayer
- A Lover's Question
- See You Later Alligator
- Peggy Sue
- At the Hop
- Since I Don't Have You
- Don't Be Cruel
- It's All in the Game
- Heart and Soul
- Rip It Up
- That'll Be the Day
The nostalgic value of the film is outstanding, with excellent attention to
period details, realistic performances, plenty of laughs. I remember the era
and the music and the attitudes, and I never cringed - except when they
totaled a gorgeous red 1956 Chevy convertible.
Bitter Harvest (1993)
Bitter Harvest (1993) is a bad erotic thriller. Stephen Baldwin has just
lost his father, who left all of his money to a TV preacher, but his valuable
coin collection and his large farm to Baldwin. The father was no great loss,
as he regularly beat and abused Baldwin, and made him sleep in the hay loft.
Jennifer Rubin shows up on his place, ostensibly lost, and worms her way into
his home and his bed. Then Patsy Kensit shows up, supposedly wanting to buy
the farm, and also seduces him. Next thing you know, the three are all doing
each other.
Meanwhile, bank robbers are busy in the area. This is the misdirection
portion of the thriller. Didn't work for me. Two drop dead gorgeous women who
look somewhat alike showing up in the same town to seduce the same repressed
hick at the same time stretched the suspension of disbelief to the breaking
point. Then two of the robbers are killed, and Baldwin burns them in his
furnace, and the three lovebirds decide to hold up a bank for sexual kicks.
That is about the time I lost all interest in where the plot was going, and
the nudity was over by then as well.
Both Kensit and Rubin show breasts.
IMDb readers scored this at 4.2. It seems to be a mostly forgotten film,
and deservedly so. D.
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"Blindman" is a "spaghetti" western , co-starring Ringo
Starr (as a Mexican bandit, brother of the main baddie) and "presented by"
Allain Klein (like "El Topo" was), so maybe it was made with Beatles money.
The story: A blind gunman who can shoot straight must deliver 50 mail
order brides to their husbands. Along the way he's betrayed and loses the
women, and the rest of the film chronicles his attempts to get them back. The
film portrays the 50 women as little more than property to be used and abused.
The photography is impressive as is the score. The star Tony Anthony is not
bad and there are many humorous scenes. Although the Time Out Guide film review
is a bit harsh, this is among the better of the non-Leone spaghetti westerns.
Among the brides are some very impressive females.
I liked Magda Konopka the
most (couldn't find any good pics of her around the web) ...
... however Agneta Eckemyr ...
...
and Marisa Solinas are not bad either.
One more from Blindman, featuring Ringo and some naked chicks.
"The Strangers Gundown" a.k.a. "Django il bastardo" is directed by
Sergio Garrone, of the nazi-ploitation films fame, and "presented by" Herman
Cohen
A man called "Django" arrives at a western town and starts killing selected
people who had betrayed him in the past. Who is he? Is he a "devil from
hell?" Is he for real or a ghost? It's a typical revenge plot, copying elements
from Leone and Django westerns. Some people have noted horror film elements and
similarities with the later-made "High Plains Drifter" and "Pale Rider."
Writer/star Anthony Steffen (Antonio de Teffe) is overdoing it with the Clint
Eastwood imitation - he's clad exactly like Clint in "The Good the Bad and the
Ugly." The film is slow going; the lightning is bad; and only a "crazy brother"
character makes it a little interesting.
No nudity, but I found Rada Rassimov very impressive (where can I find more
from her?).
 
"Borsalino & Co" is produced by and starring Alain Delon. Set in the 30s, the
film begins with Delon attending the burial of Belmondo (!), then he tries to
get revenge but his gang is completely wiped off by the new Marseilles crime
lord, so he retreats to Genoa and eventually makes a comeback, after taking some
years to get it right this time. Delon goes through a lot of hardships but
is impeccably dressed all the time and his baby face always remains smooth. The
new boss is a rightwing extremist who wants to use heroin as a means to alienate
the French population so the Nazis will take over France without fighting. But
Delon destroys him and then goes to the USA.
The film is not outstanding, but - like most Delon films - is at least good,
above-average entertainment.
No nudity , only some sexy stuff from Catherine Rouvel.
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Pat Reeder's comments in yellow: The debunking of James Frey's "A Million Little Pieces" has started a wave of
unraveling memoirs. First, the "Native American" author Nasdijj, who wrote of
teaching the mystical Navajo ways to adopted HIV-positive sons, turned out to be
Timothy Patrick Barrus, a writer of gay erotica. Now, gritty novelist J.T.
LeRoy, the mysterious 25-year-old former male prostitute and drug addict who was
never seen in public, was revealed to be Laura Albert, a 40-year-old woman who
invented LeRoy to get her work recognized. Her ex-partner revealed that he'd
helped with the hoax by posing as LeRoy during phone interviews with trendy
magazines and hip celebrities. His attorney said he did it to "come clean" and
"take the high road," and he's signed a movie deal to tell his story.
* Gay erotica? That explains why the Navajo men were always going off
together on fishing trips.
Someone on eBay is cashing in on "Brokeback Mountain" by selling two male
"Ken"-like fashion dolls dressed as gay cowboys Jack and Ennis. They come with
two horses, dog, campfire, miniature can of beans, flashlight, liquor bottle,
tent and tree, on a detailed mountain set made of wood and fake grass with big
sky backdrop. At last check, bidding was up to $102. The seller says it's
"just beautiful," it's one of a kind, and "the dolls are fully pose-able!"
* Well, one is pose-able, and the other is bendable.
* It's about time someone made action figures who get a little action.
* Plus, you can add a Spongebob action figure and have a three-way.
* Now we know where Ken really was when he broke up with Barbie for two
years to "find himself."
(LINK:
ebay) |
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