Sunday

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Split Second (1992) features Rutger Hauer reprising the Nick Nolte role in 48 hours. It is London, early 21st century. London is flooded due to global warming, pollution makes living difficult at best, and the city is plagued by rats. A serial killer is loose, and killed Hauer's partner, which sent Hauer off the deep end. Hauer has been suspended, but, when the killer strikes again, ripping the heart out of his victim, and eating half of it, then sending the rest to Hauer at the police station, Hauer is reinstated and given a new partner fresh from school, Dick Durkin (played by Neil Duncan). Durkin is mostly there for comic relief, and does provide many of the high points of the film. Hauer never really establishes a clear character, but rather rants and rails about everything.

Kim Cattrall plays Hauer's ex-partner's wife, whom Hauer had an affair with in the past. We see her breasts when interrupted in the shower by Hauer. Tina Shaw plays a nightclub stripper, exposing her breasts and buns. IMDB readers say 5.3 of 10. I was also not impressed. Hauer was in every scene, and didn't really take the character anywhere. It was no great surprise that the killer wasn't human, and, while long on atmosphere, the film was light on suspense. C-.

INSIDE SCOOP:

The entertainment gossip sites are all a-twitter with how "Friends" should end. Luckily, I have a friend on the inside, and he's revealed all to me in an exclusive interview. Remember when you see this episode come to life that you read it here first.

Rachel joins the U.S. Special Forces, because she thinks it will offer the most rigorous post-natal conditioning program to get her figure back. "It's like getting paid to go to a fitness farm!". She's thrilled with the conditioning, but imagine her disappointment when they send her to Afghanistan, a country without a single Sak's.

Joey makes it big in, of all things, a sitcom, playing the part of Matt Le Blanc, a relatively untalented guy who somehow hits the big time in show business, and therefore abandons all of his old friends to pal around with people like Hugh Grant and Madonna. The naive Joey Tribbiani, thinking that this is the way life should work, follows suit in his personal life, dumping the other five "friends" so he can hang with George Clooney and Marky Mark. All four of those people guest star on the final episode, in an attempt at the all-time ratings coup.

Ross, heading for new levels of whining, blames all of his personal problems on America, and joins the regrouping Taliban guerrillas in the hills.

In the second-last scene, just before the final commercial, we see Hugh Grant soliciting a prostitute on the streets - and it turns out to be wacky Phoebe. Quick cut to Ross and Rachel in the mountains of Afghanistan, pointing their automatic weapons at each other, each unaware that the other is in the crosshairs, because Ross has an untrimmed beard, and Rachel's trademark hair is covered by her military headgear.

Cut to commercial.

In the final scene, which takes place 20 years in the future, Chandler and Monica head back to Greenwich Village to buy some art. Monica is now even fatter than she was in high school, but she looks like Twiggy compared to Chandler. Walking with them is whiny Ross Jr (played by David Schwimmer in a bad wig), whom they have raised after both his parents were lost in action.

They walk past a movie theater that is playing Ocean's 39, and stop to look at the poster of Clooney and Tribbiani with their arms around each other, both smiling broadly and looking younger and handsomer than ever. Ross Jr tells them that they should try to call Joey for old times' sake, and they reply that they would, except that he slapped that restraining order on them. Swept away by nostalgia, they head for Central Perk, only to find that it has been converted to a dive filled with crack ho's. Chandler pushes away a particularly skanky old ho who is trying to hand him something, and they call for their driver to take them back to Westchester County. As they drive off, the skanky ho sticks her hand in their window, apparently asking for change, but they roll up the window, disgusted, and make some cavalier jokes. The camera follows the crack ho's POV over her own outstretched hand, watching the limo drive off. Then it switches to the limo's POV, looking back at the hooker with the outstretched hand. The camera zooms in on her, tighter and tighter, we see a tear in her eye. We don't really recognize her, but we have our suspicions. The camera goes down to see what was in her hand - she wasn't asking for a handout. She was trying to hand them something - an autographed picture of perennially youthful Joey Tribbiani, signed "To Phoebe, for the old times".

End.

Words:

As I watched a film called "Lady In Blue" (caps tomorrow, but don't get excited. They suck.).  I was amused to hear Kira Reed mispronounce so many words in the opening monologue.

My two favorites: 

"quallum" (rhymes with Gollum) . She was trying to pronounce "qualm". There are a few ways to pronounce it , but no standard one include an "l" sound, and none at all involve two syllables

1. kwahm (rhymes with CD-ROM)
2. kwawm (rhymes with Somerset Maugham)
3. kwalm (same as number 1 above, but with an 'l' sound - becoming accepted in the USA)

"ogling". this is one of the more mispronounced words in America. Many people say oo-gling, using the 'double o' sound from 'boot', as Kira did here. It is pronounced "o-gling" with a long 'o', or ogg-ling, with a short 'o', but never oo-gling.

The film kept mining in that vein,  and is riddled with such statements as, "we were hot, so we commenced with the small talk, and went straight to the sex". (They meant "dispensed", I suppose). Who wrote this, Leo Gorcey?

MOVIES:

It's Irene Jacob day in my corner of the Funhouse. Two movies in which she was substantial nudity, and a new encyclopedia volume. (It may be easier for you to go to the encyclo, since that page has thumbnails)

• Irene Jacob (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Irene Jacob (1, 2, 3, 4)

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 I inexplicably determined there might be something of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

• Candice Daly in maidenform underwear and showing mega cleavage
• Marilyn Tokuda dances in bikini top and non-revealing shorts.
• Frankie Thorn is briefly topless

• Barbara Edwards, only wearing a bikini bottom. 1984 was a big year for Barbara. This role marked her acting debut, and she was also the Hefmate of the year.

• Suzanne Regard, close up breast views.

• Sybil Danning, in a bikini.

• Lori Sutton, several scenes with breast and bum exposure. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Thumbnail preview

Candace Kaye Kroslak

Melissa Sagemiller

Angela Featherstone gets topless while making out with Eliza Dushku.

Candace Kaye Kroslak in a scene that I am sure is "Hankster Approved".

Melissa Sagemiller shows some partial exposure.

I've always liked Madeline a lot, so I was glad when the DVD appeared of China Moon. Why? Because she did a great nude scene with topless and full frontal nudity! The scene is dark and without color so I tweaked and tweaked and tweaked with all sorts of color settings to come up with this result.