The Osterman Weekend (1983) was Sam Peckinpah's final film. He made it in poor health, with the studio execs breathing down his neck, and he was working on a screenplay that he had no creative control over made from arguably the worst novel that Robert Ludlam ever wrote. Not only that, he didn't have the right of final edit. This work is finally released on DVD, and includes a new transfer of the theatrical version, complete with a commentary by four Peckinpah biographers, and his original review cut, but in very poor quality.

The cast included Helen Shaver, Meg Ryan, Burt Lancaster, Rutger Haur, John Hurt, Dennis Hopper, Meg Foster, Cassie Yates, and more. I am going to resist the temptation to write a plot summary. There is no way to do so without a complete spoiler, and some of you who haven't might want to check it out for the nudity, which includes brief breasts from Meg Foster, extensive breasts from Cassie Yates and Merete Van Kamp, and full frontal from Helen Shaver.

Much of the film takes place at night, and most scenes have a depressing greenish tint. The commentary talks far more about Peckinpah than the film, which I suppose you would expect from four biographers. There was a retrospective I didn't take the time to watch, biographies, and a slide show of production stills on the second DVD. Note the blue shots of Merete Van Kamp. These were from a deleted scene, About half the deleted material had nudity, but was a repeat of what was already in the film. They also lost a major sub-plot, changed the beginning, and rearranged the ending for the theatrical release.

IMDb readers have this at 5.7 of 10. None of the usual critics have a review listed at IMDb. This film has a single surprise, and after one watching, with that spoiled, is kind of a long watch at 112 minutes. The DVD is a major improvement over the VHS version I first watched. It seemed like the novelist and screenwriter wrote an espionage thriller, and Peckinpah turned it into a study of voyeurism, the influence of media, and a good shoot-em-up. It is still worth the trouble due to the fine cast. C

Splash (1984):

These are Tuna's comments, which I need to repeat so I can build on them and not repeat them.

Splash is one of those PG films with an amazing amount of exposure. Tom Hanks plays a workaholic wholesale produce broker who does his own work and his good-for-nothing brother's (John Candy) as well. He returns to Cape Cod for a break, and falls in the water. He is rescued by a mermaid (Daryl Hannah). He is instantly smitten, indeed, he was smitten by the same mermaid as a young boy, but has no idea she is a mermaid.

She is smitten as well. She finds his wallet, and decides to visit him in New York. It seems mermaids are allowed to become human for a short time once in their life. She walks onto Liberty Island starkers, and the fun begins.

Director Ron Howard could have gone for over the top comedy, but, instead, focused on the love story, and lots of small but effective gags. Hannah has never been better, Hanks did his usual great job, and Candy was perfect in his role.

Seeing Daryl again in this role, I started asking myself what my favorite Hannah film was. With 44, there are a lot of choices. This grew into multiple questions:

• What is her best performance?
• Which film did I enjoy her in most?
• Which of her films is the best overall?

Surprisingly, my answer was different in each case. Maybe we can study this question.

Here are my own thoughts:

Splash is not rated spectacularly high at IMDb, nor was it a monstrous box office success. It was a small hit, and it is scored in the high average range, yet it was one of the most influential films of its time, perhaps of any time.

Although it did not single-handedly change the way people dressed or what they did for recreation, ala The Sting or Saturday Night Fever, it did take a bunch of unknowns and made them stars.

• Tom Hanks, now a venerable and much-awarded Hollywood institution, arguably the biggest star of his time, was known only as a featherweight sitcom actor before this film. Splash made him a movie star.

• John Candy and Eugene Levy were Canadian sketch comics from the original cast of SCTV. Levy was unknown. Candy was a bit player until Splash made him a comedy institution. (He is hilarious in the film.)

• Daryl Hannah had been in the obscure Summer Lovers and had a small part in Blade Runner. Some people knew her face, and remembered her character in Blade Runner, but nobody really knew her name at the time, including me, and I was a Blade Runner geek. Splash elevated her to the A-List.

• Ron Howard had directed Night Shift, which starred his old Happy Days pal, The Fonz, and some Corman crap, and that was about it. After Splash proved that he could make good movies with a good return on investment, he was Hollywood gold, and was able to develop projects like Cocoon, Apollo 13, and a Beautiful Mind.

Splash is, in fact, an excellent romantic comedy despite the crazy high-concept premise and the wishy-washy 6.3 at IMDb. I will argue that it is one of the best in the genre. We have often mentioned here that there are only about five erotic thrillers in history that are both erotic and thrilling. It is no small challenge to do both. The same rule of thumb applies to romantic comedies. How many films can you name which are both romantic and funny?

This is one of them. Ron Howard managed to pull it off by letting Hanks play the charming straight man, and letting John Candy deliver the crazy laughs. I should not slight Daryl Hannah, who was both beautiful and funny in her role as the mermaid. The director managed to allow her to be very funny by letting the humor come out of the character's naiveté in the ways of humans, and to her credit, Hannah never missed a beat. She also proved to be a truly extraordinary athlete in the underwater scenes, which she did herself.

The new 20th anniversary DVD features the rare audition footage of Hannah and Hanks (great to see because of its rarity, but not especially entertaining), a new "making of" documentary (which I enjoyed), and a director's commentary, which I listened to when John Candy was on, because I just can't get enough John Candy stories.

Sigh! Not only have 20 years passed since Splash came out, but it has also been 10 years since John Candy died. I sure miss the big lug. What a rare bird he was, and what a rare quality he had on camera! Has there ever been any actor in history who could deliver such totally obnoxious lines and still be as totally loveable?

• Daryl Hannah (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

UPDATES:

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site has been updated

OTHER CRAP:

• Huge Internet Superstars, "Jesus' favorite website", presents a review of this week's Smackdown
• Justice Scalia's argument against recusing himself from the Cheney case. He said: "while friendship is a ground for recusal of a Justice where the personal fortune or the personal freedom of the friend is at issue, it has traditionally not been a ground for recusal where official action is at issue, no matter how important the official action was to the ambitions or the reputation of the Government officer."
  • Let me translate that for you. He said. Dick Cheney is my very good friend, and this is a case which could completely destroy him if it goes against him, but that doesn't matter, because the law only requires me to recuse if the suit is against him PERSONALLY, not if it is against an official action taken by him. So I will not do it, and I am legally correct.
  • Presumably Justice Scalia IS legally correct.
• Federal regulators opened a new front in their crackdown on offensive broadcasts Thursday, saying that almost any use of the F-word on over-the-air radio and television would be considered indecent and profane.
• Saturn's moon looks like Canada, specifically like Hamilton, Ontario.
• Dick Cheney, Master Biologist:
  • On Oct. 26, 1965, 'The Selective Service declares that married men without children, who were previously exempted from the draft, will now be called up. Married men with children remain exempt.'
  • Elizabeth Cheney's birthday is July 28, 1966, precisely nine months and two days after the Selective Service publicly declared it would draft childless married men, but would not draft those with children.
• Girl of The Week Gallery
• Do you think my boobs look crooked?
• 13 year old Norwegian chess prodigy defeats Karpov.
• The boys of Hummer - baseball players love hummers. Yeah, I know a stewardess who said the same thing.
• Florida, a #5 seed, loses to 12th seeded Manhattan!
• Kylie Minogue has lived before, and can communicate with the dead. The good news is that she had a former life. The bad news is that she was Shirley Maclaine. Hey, Kylie, if you hear from my late dad, ask him where he left the keys to the safe.
• Globe magazine says: Kobe's accuser in Florida d-tox, needs to kick cocaine before the trial
• Student senator motions to impeach himself! My kind of guy! When I was in college, I ran for the presidency of student government, and my only campaign promise was to abolish student government immediately. I proposed to take the student government budget and pay it back proportionally to each student in the form of an instant tuition re-imbursement. Even with no posters, I'm pretty sure I would have won on word-of-mouth alone, if I hadn't skipped all the debates in order to drink beer and play poker and watch Dark Shadows.
• In 1971, President Nixon worried about a young anti-war activist - John Kerry. The Trickster's comments are found in the famous White House Tapes.
• Edy's Grand Peanut Butter Ice Cream is recalling 14,000 cartons of ice cream - because it may contain peanuts! God forbid. Hey, smart ass, you wouldn't think this is funny if you were one of those guys who was deathly allergic to peanuts, but still loved eating peanut-free peanut butter.
• Brande Roderick was the 2001 Playmate of the Year. Here are a dozen free nudes in her Playmate Gallery, courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• Here are four free short videos from Playboy Big Breast Babes!
• Urban Legend Debunked. "Psychologist B. F. Skinner raised his own daughter in a 'Skinner box'; as a result, she grew up psychologically damaged, sued her father, and committed suicide". Verdict: not only FALSE, but completely ridiculous.
• Post-tittygate hypocrisy report: MTV Edits Fountains of Wayne Video
• Donald Trump seeks to trademark "You're Fired" : "Donald Trump, reality TV star and rapacious New York developer, has filed to trademark the phrase sweeping an underemployed nation. That's right, if The Donald gets the nod from The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, he'll be able to exclusively slap the words 'You're Fired' on clothing and 'games and playthings,' and use it in connection with 'casino services.'"
• Courtney Love's Meltdown Continues With New York Arrest. This will be our last notification of Courtney Love arrests, based on the first principle of news: "If a man bites a dog - news. Dog bites man - not news." We will occasionally report days when Courtney goes through the entire 24 hours without getting in trouble.
  • T'was a time when rock stars were the Wild Children that every culture seems to produce. Guys like Jim Morrison and Keith Richards are nowhere to be found in the younger set, which seems to consist of the kind of guys who would pick up a few extra bucks by performing in a McDonald's cap, ala Timberwolf. (Would Jim Morrison have apologized for a wardrobe malfunction? Would he have tried to claim it WAS a wardrobe malfunction?) Courtney Love is the only Wild Child left in rock. A part of me, a small part which still resides in the 60s, thinks that is really cool. Another part of me, a larger part, thinks she's a bigger douchebag than the sum total of all the douchebaggery inherent in Ralph Nader, Donald Rumsfeld, and Hugh Grant combined. As the baseball guys say, "You make the call."
  • Courtney should be deported to Norway. They need her. Nothing exciting ever happens there, and she does something exciting every day.
• Ventura and Schwarzenegger. Who will be the third muscleman-turned-actor to become a famous politician? The Rock says he da man.
• The Daily Show analyzes the steroids controversy - in contract bridge! Strange, funny segment.
• The Daily Show is really jealous - because the White House does fake news better than Comedy Central!
• Here's the first trailer for Touchstone's The Last Shot. "Inspired by the true story of a sting operation in Providence, R.I. 'The Last Shot' revolves around a young filmmaker (Matthew Broderick) who is given millions of dollars to make his first movie by a mysterious benefactor (Alec Baldwin) on the condition that he shoot it in Providence. But the filmmaker eventually discovers that his film's producer is an undercover FBI agent."
• RIAA Claims Music On Car Radios Meant Only For Original Vehicle Owner!!!! The Recording Industry Association of America announced today it would be expanding its crackdown on copyright infringement by suing family members, hitchhikers and carpoolers. Lawyers for the RIAA maintain that the radio in each car was never meant to be listened to by anyone else except the original owner of the vehicle.
  • You know what is truly sad? I had to read the article to see if they were kidding. When I ran a group of stores in Wisconsin, some years ago, I was about to be sued because our store managers left the radios on while they worked, thus entertaining the customers without paying royalties for the songs! They told me I had three choices (1) be sued (2) sign a contract agreeing to pay royalties (3) turn off the radios. Guess which one I chose?
• Tower Records - The Punisher Soundtrack is here...along with download samples of all 19 tracks
• Batman filming begins in London. Hollywood shuts down as entire acting community reports to wardrobe in England.
• Will Jake Gyllenhaal be the Green Hornet
• URL says it all: FreeStern.com.
  • I think the protest is partially misdirected at Clear Channel. Clear Channel has no choice. They are in business. They have to drop Stern if the fines and boycotts exceed the revenues from the show. This is likely based upon the new penalties and the new awareness. Yes, Clear Channel is guilty of hypocritical pontificating about zero tolerance and the like, but the real reason is economic. If there were no fine, just a warning, they never would have dropped him in the first place. Clear Channel is just covering its ass. The real guilty party is the Federal Government, which has taken its responsibility to regulate the airwaves to a point where they feel they should control what one can and cannot say on those airwaves. If you do not feel they should have that right, by all means communicate that to your senator and representative.
• Man sells The Root of All Evil on e-bay. Very funny. Read down to the forms of payment he will accept. You can pay him in celebrity lunchboxes, but not in Canadian money. I assume he will not accept Canadian celebrities either.
• Singer Courtney Love repeatedly turned her back to the camera and lifted her shirt to flash David Letterman Wednesday.
• Arrow in the Head reports on the nudity in Dawn of the Dead: "We get some blonde gal (actress Kim Poirier) showing her ta-tas and her fine G-stringed butt during a quick sex scene. We also get another hasty tit shot via the end credits."
• Not many reviews are in yet, but the early scorecard for Dawn of the Dead is positive, including a solid A from Entertainment Weekly.
• Spanish Prime Minister-elect Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero suggested American voters should follow the example set by Spain and change their leadership by supporting Kerry for president.
• Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind scores big with critics. Rotten Tomatoes estimates that there were 91% positive reviews ...
• ... and Metacritic says the average reviewer scored Eternal Sunshine an 86/100 - about three and a half stars out of four.
• Brad Pitt to star as gunslinger Jesse James
• The Comprehensive Story of The Charles Manson Family and Their Victims.
• Online Encyclopedia - Sexual-slang
• vaginoscopio - half vagina, half kaleidoscope

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 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:

• If you are familiar with the reality show, Blind Date, this is the footage from the Blind Date "Uncensored" DVD. This date involved porn star Nicole Sheridan. It will be a long download, but it is pretty entertaining stuff. (.avi version, .wmv version)

• I love this scene. Short. but sweet. Melissa George in Dark City. (.avi version, .wmv version)

• Tuna covered this in the past couple of days. Mary-Louise Parker in The Five Senses.  (.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.

'Caps and a .wmv of Julie Delpy topless and being groped in a scene from "An American Werewolf in Paris."

• Julie Delpy (1, 2, 3)
• Delpy .wmv

Next up, 'caps and a .wmv of Vanity topless in scenes from the 1988 B-movie, "Action Jackson" starring Carl Weathers, Craig T. Nelson and a pre-fame Sharon Stone.

• Vanity (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
• Vanity .wmv

"Aquanoids"
If I make a statement such as "this 2003 mess is probably the worst horror film I've ever seen", you'd expect me to back it up, right? Let me quote the best line in the movie, by Kari Beltzer's character, Debra: "She's such a stuck-up bitch. I bet she takes dick up every hole".

That line pretty much sets the tone for the movie, but don't get the impression this R-rated pile of garbage has a lot of sexy stuff, because there's no real sex, and the nudity is basically just an effort to ease the pain. I love B-movie horror, but this gets an F for worse-than-high-school-drama-class acting, terrible photography, horrid not-even-good-enough-to-be-called-lame script, etc. It's pure trash.

• Kari Beltzer
• Nita Nichols

Here's the lo-down:
Links 1-6...Black undies and red dresses in scenes from "Wishmaster 3".
Links 7 and 8...Showing a little cleavage in "Ripper: Letter from Hell".
Links 9-14...Topless and some partial rear nudity in scenes from "40 Days and 40 Nights".

BIKINI MODEL'S BOOK REFLECTS HER THOUGHTS: BLANK
Her Arms Are Too Short To Hold Them In Front Of Her - The Daily Mirror reports that siliconed British bikini model Jordan made an appearance at the London Book Fair to hawk her upcoming autobiography. But when the publisher handed her some copies to hold for photos, she dropped them on the floor and onlookers noticed the pages were blank. The publisher insisted those were just props, and the book would be ready by the end of May to ship to 250,000 people who've already ordered it.