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* Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).
* White asterisk: expanded format.
* Blue asterisk: not mine.
No asterisk: it probably sucks.
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OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
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La Belle Captive
La Belle Captive (1983) was adapted by director Alain Robbe-Grillet from
his own novel, a surrealist story illustrated with 32 images from Belgian
surrealist Rene Magritte. The film is equally surreal, and recreates many of
the Magritte images.
The plot line is intentionally hard to follow, but I will try to summarize
it:
A young man is hanging out in a bar, and tries to pick up an attractive
young woman ( Gabrielle Lazure) when he is called to work by his boss, a
woman on a motorcycle. She wants him to deliver a letter to a Count. On the
way there, he finds the same woman he was romancing in the bar. She is lying
in the road, bound, and missing one shoe. He takes her to the nearest house,
where he is locked in a room with her. He awakes with memories of sex, and
holes in his neck. The room he wakes up in is trashed, as is the entire
building.
He soon learns that the Count he was supposed to deliver the letter to is
dead, as is the woman from the previous night. The rest of the story is told
in flashbacks with Magritte images, and consists of the young man trying to
puzzle everything out.
This is a truly odd arthouse-meets-thriller film. I could not get involved
with the film; I am not entirely sure I know how it ended; and I am sure I
don't know what the message was.
But I did like the frequent nudity and the impressive imagery!
This is a C.
IMDb readers say 5.7 with almost no votes. There are no reviews.
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L'Institutrice
In 1949, Jeanne (Claire Borotra) is named teacher in a small village
of Auvergne, where she finds that her childhood friend Henri teaching in
the same school. She notices one of the kids, Maurice Rolland, is very
sensitive and contained. She learns he is been like that, since the
death of his mother. He also must constantly face the mockeries of his
friends, for whom he is only "the son of a collaborationist". His
father, Pierre Rolland, former mayor of the village, has a reputation as
a dangerous man. In spite of the warnings of Henri, Jeanne agrees to
give particular classes to Maurice to try to help him. Then, Jeanne
starts a relationship with Pierre, who she finds out to be a very
disturbed man.
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Decoys 2
Sometimes, bad is good. At least, that's what I thought about the
original Decoys. At the time, I said it was "stupid, dumb, lame, campy,
clever, funny", and filled with good one-liners, which really saved it. I
liked it a lot. The exact same description holds true for the 2006 sequel,
although it isn't as funny. On the plus side, it has a lot more
good-looking women than the original.
Set at a different college, a group of guys set up a contest to see who
can score with the most beautiful co-eds. Unfortunately, the male
contestants start mysteriously disappearing. Meanwhile, a teaching
assistant recently transferred from another school (and from the first
movie) is running around warning about female aliens who first love, then
kill, their prey. Naturally, no one believes him.
Yeah, B movie-badness again, but a load of fun, and more nudity than
the original. Unfortunately, not quite as funny as the first, but still a
good night in front of the DVD player for all but hard-core Sci-Fi fans,
who will think it's just plain silly.
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| Kalin See |
Lindsay Maxwell |
Margherita Donato |
Michelle Molineaux |
Natasha McFetridge |
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Notes and collages
"Farscape" - Part 1
... lots of cleavage and beautiful women in this smart sensual sci-fi TV
series which got cancelled because the special effects cost more than the ad
revenue could cover
I highly recommend this series for rental or purchase based on the
obvious love put into this production. Some of the episodes are a bit odd in
terms of psychological focus, which I really could have done without, yet
the imagery is so lush I give it three thumbs up in an overview.
When the series got cancelled the fan-based impetus of a two-part
mini-series to wrap up the loose ends did exactly that in a spectacular
manner!
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Telefoni Bianchi
Telefoni Bianchi (1976) aka The
Career of a Chambermaid
is an Italian comedy/satire. Aspiring actress Marcella sleeps her way to the
top of the Italian society, ending up with "Il Duce."
Agostina Belli is stunning
throughout the film - her wardrobe is impressive too - and there are also cameos
from Vittorio Gassman and Ugo Tognazzi. Director Dino Risi has an impressive
filmography (he also directed the original Scent of a Woman: "Profumo di donna")
and I think he and other Italian film makers of the time, like Ettore Scola, are
unfairly neglected today. Far from flawless, this is a film I enjoyed
and a refreshing change of pace from the Anglo-American way of making movies.
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Kira Reed and Janine Lindemulder in Price of
Desire. (Film
clip) |
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Bianca Gascoigne (Love Island winner) pulls a
Britney |
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Pat's comments in yellow...
Having sold a lot of compilation CDs, Starbucks announced that it is
launching its own label to record original material, and they're close to a deal
with Paul McCartney to be the first release. One insider said Starbucks has a
"very targeted, efficient distribution channel" for selling music to coffee
drinkers, and that McCartney fits with the Starbucks demographic.
* Yeah, he's the type of person who can afford Starbucks
coffee.
A Chinese parliament member has joined a campaign to force Starbucks to close
its coffee shop inside the Forbidden City, the former home of Chinese
emperors. Jiang Hongbin said "As long as
it stays in the imperial palace, it poses a challenge to our traditional
culture." The Starbucks has been there for seven years, and they did remove the
logo from the building, but otherwise, they remain open as usual.
* Just like the McDonald's next door.
Researchers from Poland's University of Gdansk studied the measurements of
24 beauty contest finalists and sexy male celebrities, as well as average men
and women, to develop a scientific formula for attractiveness. They found that
the ideal
man is 6-foot-2, with legs the same length as his upper body, which makes him
appear more muscular. "Super beautiful" women have waists one-third smaller than
their hips and three-quarters of their bust size, with longer legs and less fat
on the thighs and calves than the average woman, and their ideal height is
5-foot-9. Under this formula, the ideal male would be "Batman Returns" star
Christian Bale, and the perfect woman is supermodel Naomi Campbell.
* To put it another way, "A bunch of Polish nerds got tax
money to measure beauty contestants' bodies all day long."
Two female researchers from Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital
in Australia did a study of women's sexuality from age 40 to 79, and found that
women with no partners could achieve orgasm more easily than those who had a
man. 55.2 percent of women said they could always orgasm while masturbating,
while only 24.6 percent always did with a partner. The study's authors said
they were amused that women thought that was terrific, but "men get really
disconcerted about it. They go 'hang on, what are we doing wrong?'"
* They know there's something they should be doing
differently, but they can't put their finger on it.
Friday in Racine, Wisconsin, a judge imposed $50,000 bond on
Mario Sims for cutting off his electronic monitoring bracelet. His lawyer
argued that it was unnecessary because he was already on a $20,000 bond for a
bail jumping charge, but the judge said it was justified because he deliberately
absconded, admittedly for a unique reason: He had to leave the house to travel
by limo to Chicago to be on "The Jerry Springer Show's" "Outrageous Nuptials"
episode. They advertised that Sims was a proud father who was "ready to marry
his
baby's mother, who's also his half-sister!"
* She's also his mother, and she's VERY disappointed in
him.
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