1. Deuce Ossifer, Male Philosopher
2. Duece Bourse, Male Nurse
3. Deuce Bruise, Male Muse
4. Deuce Brandy, Male Dandy
5. L'il Deuce Couper, Male Trooper
6. Deuce Barrier, Mail Carrier
7. Duke Bing, Future King
8. Deuce Thalia, Male Genitalia
9. Postage Deuce, Male Masseuse
10. The Fourteenth Warrior

1. We can take a five day trip with one suitcase. If it is a tropical vacation, it requires only one set of clothing to wear on the plane, and a wallet to buy a bathing suit when we get there.
2. We can open our own jars.
3. We don't feel compelled to make a hotel bed.
4. Nobody cares if we are 39 and single
5. We only need three pairs of shoes
6. Car mechanics tell us the truth
7. We can stop in to visit a friend without bringing a little gift
8. We feel no need to know the names of more than five colors.
9. The same hairstyle lasts for years
10. All of our christmas shopping takes 11 minutes on the morning of December 24th at Eckert's.

Julie Hughes, Sandra Taylor, Stephanie Niznik, Stephanie Niznik, Tanya Reid, Dan Ackroyd. Oh, sure you're all man, but he's the one guy who could make you change.

(#1, #2)

Members Bonuses

This is a movie that has been alternatively labeled a masterpiece and a pretentious art film, and that fact alone probably tells you what kind of movie it is. Quick hint: no car crashes.

It is the famous Prague Spring. In syncopation with the cultural changes in the West in the laste 60's, Czechoslovakia was experiencing a great flowering in 1968. Prague had developed its own kind of hands-off socialism, and in that glorious spring, the hearts of the Czechs were filled with the certainly that they could break away from the Soviet Union and recapture their freedom. They thought there was nothing Russia could do to stop them, and that the West would not allow it even if Russia wanted to stop them. Their lives were feeling free from the heavy burden of communist oppression, and they were able to begin taking love and freedom for granted. Their hearts were light. The lightest hearts of all belonged to Tomas, a surgical casanova, and Sabina, a free-spirited artist in the true Bohemian tradition. Their theory of love includes complete lightness - no commitments, no jealousy, nothing but joyful sex. He never even spends the night with any woman after sex.

The movie uses these two parallel developments, the political and the personal, to show how the lightness disappears. Russia does not allow the Czechs to break away. Just as they did with Hungary in the 1950's, the Russians send division after divison of tanks rumbling through the streets of Prague, and more divisions to secure the Western border. The carefree lives of the Czechs are shattered, and the West watches newsreel footage of as the try to use flowers to counter Russian tanks (Ghandi wouldn't have had much success against the Russians), or stampeding toward the border before it gets secured. The Russian hearts remain untouched. Tomas is caught in this political whirlwind. Several plot developments lead him from the summit of his surgical skills to a career as a window washer, with no passport and no options, and not even any freedom to speak his mind in the new Russian crackdown.

While Tomas loses his position in society and his economic freedom, he is also becoming gradually more involved with a waitress he met in a small spa town. She follows him to Prague, gets him to put her up for the night, then gets him to let her move in, and then finally proposes to him and won't take no for an answer.

And so our Tomas gradually loses all his freedom. His time is not his own, he can't travel, his thoughts are censored, he is working a menial job, and he finds that the woman he sleeps with is always there all night. How does this get reconciled? Well, I guess you'll have to watch it to see that final piece.

I like this movie very much, perhaps because I can understand the Prague Spring so immediately. It is the ultimate symbol for crushed hope in the second half of the 20th century. The Czechs were giddy with freedom one moment, despondent and fearful the next. One of my good friends was born then, just across the Czech border, when his parents snuck out hidden in a tourist bus. I read Kundera's novel many years ago, liked it, but wondered how such a disjointed interior monologue could be transferred to film. To Philip Kaufman's credit, he did a great job of capturing the essence of the book in a more coherent and sequential format.

The title has another meaning. maybe several more, but clearly this one. The wife is not someone who can take everything lightly. She carries the world on her shoulders, and takes every one of his infidelities very hard, and is so happy when he is jealous. She's just made that way, and Tomas isn't. But his "lightness" is unbearable to her.

Kaufman is in interesting fella, to say the least. Harvard Law grad who became a pretty damned good screenwriter. Wrote a couple little pictures you never heard of, name of Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Outlaw Josie Wales. Then he turned out some pretty good directorial efforts, like The Right Stuff. Good resume, right? But totally mainstream. Then, out of nowhere, he decides to become the erotic art baron. He did Unbearable Lightness and Henry and June back to back, and now he's working on a biopic of that loveable rascal, The Marquis de Sade. (Kate Winslet will star, and will presumably continue her own descent into erotic art.) You have to think he'll work some naughty stuff into that story. Hank&June was rated NC-17, and Unbearable had to be near the upper limits of "R" as well. He may need an entirely new rating if he decides to make a truly raunchy DeSade movie that is also aesthetically brilliant - and you know what, he's capable of doing just that. What would Hollywood do if he shows up with the next Clockwork Orange, but it goes way over the line with an established star like Winslet. Kinda fun to think about, isn't it?

The nudity here comes from Juliette Binoche, Lena Olin, and a couple of minor characters. The three leads, Lena Olin, Juliette Binoche and Daniel Day-Lewis, are cast beautifully in their roles. It's hard to imagine any other actors in the roles after watching them, especially Binoche as the needy, sensitive wife whose gentle soul and intrinsic goodness always brings back the wandering Tomas. There is plenty of casual nudity as well, but I skipped it. Let me also point out here that this movie is filmed exceptionally well (Sven Nyquist, the king of cinematography, was in charge), and the DVD is beautifully rendered with vibrant colors, and Prague is probably one of the five or ten most photogenic cities in the world. (There's a poll for lawdog in there somewhere - Prague, Bruge, Venice, Paris, San Francisco .... surprisingly, not many movies are filmed in Florence, which also belongs on the list. Where else? Bergen (Norway), parts of Rome, New Orleans, the Forbidden City, maybe Rio ... yeah, not a bad poll.). The DVD also includes a feature-length commentary (and this is one long feature- 172 minutes) from Kaufman, the head screenwriter, and Lena Olin. If you are at all interested in the movie, the DVD is an exceptional treat. Rent it and keep it for a couple of nights. I actually bought a copy. I'm one of those loonies who thinks it's a masterpiece. Some of the best presentations I've ever done.

Binoche (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6) Olin (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8) minor character minor character

"Zandalee", from Tuna

We discussed this a couple of weeks ago. Previously capped on VHS, now available on DVD for the first time. Erika Anderson (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17, #18, #19, #20, #21, #22, #23) The Obligatory Designated Strippers (#1, #2, #3, #4, #5, #6, #7, #8)

My favorite was the time that the station manager accidentally booked an Ingmar Bergman film for Monster Chiller Horror Theater because it was titled "Whispers of the Wolf" (Actually a hybrid of two Bergman film titles "Cries and Whispers" and "Hour of the Wolf"). Count Floyd had to bullshit his way through the live segments. "Arooooooooo! Oh, dat was pretty scary, eh, kids? With all those faces and moods, and they were depressed a lot, weren't they, kids? You don't think it's scary to be depressed all the time? Arooooooooooooooooooo!"