Friday

Contact junior by writing junior@scoopy.com. Contact Scoopy by writing unclescoopy@msn.com. Contact Tuna by writing tuna@scoopy.com Send submissions to scoopy@scoopy.net

To see and use all the Funhouse features, you need Netscape 6.+ or MSIE 5.+.

• Netscape 6..2.1 is available free for download or on CD.
• MSIE 6.0 is available free.

Junior is on a mini-working-sorta-vacation, so I'm writing the page for a bit. He's in Amsterdam with some buds, the lucky dog, but will resume writing the page from Europe in a day or two, assuming he doesn't discover brown cafes.

MOVIES:

Original Sin is a soap opera, in convenient thriller format, but the unrated DVD is pretty damned sexy. It ain't no PG-13! Banderas and Jolie hump away for about three minutes in their first sex scene. S-s-s-mokin'. Between the two AVI's you will see the entire scene in near DVD quality, provided you can figure out how to read a DIVX 4.02 codec. I think they'll have something which will help you out at www.divx.com. I hope their new 5.x codec is backward compatible, because I haven't picked it up yet.

I made some movies because still captures don't really give you a feel for what's going on. At one point, they are pumping away like mad, and at another point, Jolie's boobs are bouncing around so fast you can barely see them. Very spirited!

By the way, the first still frame shows something dark between Jolie's legs - tattoos, pubes, crotch patch - who knows?

(I hear that her tattoos were digitally removed, by the way)

• Jolie (1,2,3,4,5,6,7)
• Someone else
• The sex scene - part one. Avi in DIVX 4.02  - about 5 meg - about a minute long, no sound
• The sex scene - part two. Avi in DIVX 4.02 - about 8 meg  - almost two minutes long, no sound.
• The best 15 seconds of the sex scene with sound. MPEG-1 format. About 5 meg

Deadly Drifter is pretentious and incoherent. How did the grounded, sensible Danny Glover get roped into this? He must have been desperate for work. Man, I love this completely incomprehensible 1982 film. My kind of gibberish!

True Blood is an undistinguished 1989 action/melodrama starring Jeff Fahey, but it featured some nudity from Sherilyn Fenn, which is a good enough justification to make a movie. I'll have those tomorrow. Both this DVD and the one for Deadly Drifter include quizzes on the movie content. I passed this one, but I flunked miserably on Deadly Drifter. I'll be able to figure out the time paradox in Donnie Darko, the puns in Finnegan's Wake, and Steven Hawking's Brief History of Time before I can piece that one together.

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.

"Camp Blood 2" (2000)

Camp Blood 2 (2000 video) is an abysmal slasher movie. The photography is a poor second to Blaire Witch Project, the plot is detailed in 6 words -- Tees slashed in woods by clown, and the acting would disappoint a grammar school Christmas pageant director. I will have to give them some credit for pretty good gore effects, and full frontal from Lisa Marie Bolick in a shower scene.

As it delivers considerable "bad movie" energy, and gore effects, I will award a C.


 

Scoop - as requested, here is Joely Fisher in Baby Bob (1,2)
 

• A second installment of the past weekend's efforts.  All of these are collages of Tuna's previously submitted caps.
  
   
• Annette Michelle Chavez is a little chunky but has a first rate set of hooties that she shows off in Warm Texas Rain.
• Astrid Frank (1,2,3) does all 3 B's and woulda done more if there were more to do. Even an upskirt pose in the immortal Au Pair Girls.
• Audretta Gay topless and in a thong bikini (also a scuba tank, if that's your particular thing) in Zombie.
• Beverly Lynne, cute as the dickens and topless, in a sport-humpin scene from Hell's Highway.  Crimony, that would be the Long Island Express any time of  the day or night.
• Brigitte Fossey (1,2), terrific French actress and all-around nice piece of tail (the first I can attest to, the other I assume) topless in one weird scene from Going Places.  That babe-magnet Gerard Depardieu was cut out of these frames because I have a very sensitive stomach.
• Carolanne Hawkins, lying around the dungeon with her bra at her side, in Zeta One.
• Catherine Deneuve (1,2,3) in Belle De Jour.  Onliest exposure here is some see-thru bum stuff in the second collage, but the images in third one are some of my  favorites.  At the time she made this movie, Deneuve was arguably the most  beautiful woman alive.
• Maribel Oporto, Mediterranean beauty, topless in Bravo.  In her case, brava.
• Marthe Keller, in a post-coital, topless pose with Dustin Hoffman lying  around on or near her... all from The Marathon Man.  This was the movie that turned a simple question, "Is it safe?", into a threat.  It also did wonders for the profession of dentistry.
• Mary Shannon, topless and doing the cowgirl thing in Dead Sexy, a feature film put out by the Society of Morticians and Undertakers.
• Maureen Larrazabal, topless and half-submerged in Blood Surf.
• Michelle Bauer and Karen Russel, both topless, in Dr. Alien.  Senior was right on about Ms. Bauer: she was nekkid in something close to forty movies and videotapes and it should be our collective goal to see that each on winds up in the Enycyclopedia.  A quest, gentlemen.  A lofty pursuit.
• Monique Gabrielle in the only non-Tuna caps of the bunch. These are JohnnyWeb originals from Deathstalker II.  Best parts of the whole movie were the out-takes, particularly the ones of Monique as she pretends to hump someone, when obviously only the cameraman could have been under her (frames  on the top left of the collage).  In the background you can hear people  cracking up over her "performance" and that prompts a spirited response from our heroine.  Worth the price of rental, alone.
• Finally, we have Nathalie Perrey with full frontal action in two movies, Levres De Sang and La Nuit de Traqueés.  Gotta love the Funhouse: a few months ago I didn't know Nathalie Perrey from Nathalie Merchant.  Now I've  seen more of her bush than of maybe four old girlfriends', Mrs. Brainscan's and a few dozen strippers'.

I think these Watty caps are the best ones I've seen from "Hardcore".

GR's collage from "Two Shades of Blue"

GR's collage from "Two Shades of Blue"

From Ananova.com, a new award for acting: the Keanus.  Now, here's an award that Ethan Hawke has a chance of winning...

Bad film awards named after Keanu Reeves

A website has launched its own worst film awards, and has named them after Keanu Reeves. The Keanus are described as the "alternate Oscars." Fans can vote for the Celebrity Most Likely To Be Crushed By The Weight of Own Ego or Actor Most Apt To Take Mantle From Keanu Reeves. According to www.alternet.org, the awards were named after Reeves in honour of the "Actor most able to make bad movie after bad movie, with little real acting skill in evidence, and yet emerge unscathed and well-loved."


From IMDB News.  Sounds like I'm not the only one who is baffled by the alleged appeal of Penelope Cruz...

Cruz Dropped By Ralph Lauren

Movie beauty Penélope Cruz has been dropped as the face of Polo by Ralph Lauren. The stunning Spaniard's contract with the women's collection has not been renewed, after Cruz starred in a string of box-office flops. American designer Lauren signed Cruz in 2000 after she was tipped as the next big thing in Hollywood. But despite starring alongside major A-list stars such as Matt Damon and Nicolas Cage, Cruz's flicks have failed to set the American box office alight. The Madrid-born star will continue to be the face of Lauren's newest fragrance, Glamorous, until 2003.

Another interesting Oscar trivia article from the NY Post by Lou Lumenick.  

WHITHER GEORGE CHAKIRIS  By LOU LUMENICK

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WINNING an Oscar can make an actor's career - but it can also be a terrible burden that ultimately reduces them to little more than an answer in Trivial Pursuit.

For every Walter Matthau or Goldie Hawn, who had lengthy strings of A-list hits after breaking through with supporting wins for "Fortune Cookie" and "Butterflies are Free," the Academy has embraced a brace of one-hit wonders.

You need to the scour the video-store racks (or watch TV) to follow the subsequent careers of winners Mira Sorvino ("Mighty Aphrodite"), Linda Hunt ("The Year of Living Dangerously"), Louis Gosset Jr. ("An Officer and a Gentleman"), Olympia Dukakis ("Moonstruck") Beatrice Straight ("Network"), Louise Fletcher ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest"), Marlee Matlin ("Children of a Lesser God") and perhaps the saddest and most obscure case of all, George Chakiris ("West Side Story").

Things can be even tougher for Best Actor and Best Actress winners, if recently history is any indication. Kevin Spacey, who won two years ago for "American Beauty" (and also has a supporting actor trophy for "The Usual Suspects") has gotten mostly terrible reviews for three bombs in a row: "Pay it Forward," "K-PAX" and "The Shipping News."  That year's Best Actress winner, Hilary Swank, was hailed for her work in "Boys Don't Cry" - but critics held their noses for her latest, "The Affair of the Necklace."  Angelina Jolie, who won 1999's Best Supporting Actress award for "Girl Interrupted," disgraced herself in two of last year's worst-reviewed movies, "Tomb Raider" and "Original Sin."

Or take the top winners in 1998. Gwyneth Paltrow has appeared on many more magazine covers than in watchable movies since being named Best Actress for "Shakespeare in Love." Her post-Oscar resume includes such dubious entries as "Bounce," "Duet" and "Shallow Hal."

And no one on this side of the Atlantic is exactly holding their breath awaiting the latest offerings from Best Actor winner Roberto Benigni:
"Asterix et Obelix vs. Caeser" and the self-directed "Pinocchio," with himself in the title role.  Sometimes the problem is that actors have already less-than-great follow-ups to Oscar wins already in the can, or are contractually committed to them. Good scripts can be few and far between - particularly for actresses - so even for Oscar winners it's often a choice between a lengthy hiatus or accepting B-grade material.  Julia Roberts, who won last year for "Erin Brockovich" has been marking time by taking smallish parts in ensemble pieces - "The Mexican" and "America's Sweethearts," which tanked, and "Ocean's Eleven," a hit. She's got good reason to be concerned.

Geena Davis ("The Accidental Tourist") lately has been playing second fiddle to a mouse in the "Stuart Little" movies and the sporadically
employed Jessica Lange's ("Blue Sky") latest assignment has her ludicrously impersonating a New York Jewish mother in the upcoming "Prozac Nation." Kim Basinger went directly from her Oscar win in "L.A. Confidential" into two certified dogs, "I Dream of Africa" and "Bless the Child." Speaking of canines, there was the sorry sight of winners Cuba Gooding Jr. ("Jerry Maguire") and James Coburn ("Affliction") as father and son in the woeful kiddie comedy "Snow Dogs" earlier this year. Was it a case of "Show me the money"?

Occasionally, someone escapes the curse of Oscar. Ben Kingsley, winner of Best Actor for "Gandhi," looked for years to go the way of F. Murray Abraham ("Amadeus"), whose biggest subsequent credit was the notorious Schwarzenegger dud "The Last Action Hero." But Kingsley hung in there and was subsequently nominated for "Bugsy" and is up again this year for perhaps his finest performance, in "Sexy Beast." So is Marisa Tomei ("My Cousin Vinny"), who's been nominated for her excellent work in "In the Bedroom." If she wins this time, there will be no cruel jokes that the presenter read off the wrong name.

I disagree with him on a few points.  For instance, I liked "Shallow Hal," which I thought did pretty well at the box office, and "Tomb Raider" didn't interest me, but I thought it was a pretty big hit.  I don't think those hurt Gwyneth or Angelina's reputations. By the way, did you hear that the producers of the Oscars decided there will be no dance numbers at this year's show?  First we get Whoopi Goldberg hosting, now this!  There'll be nothing to laugh at!  In previous years, the sight of Rob Lowe doing the bunny hop with Snow White or the Riverdance troupe stomping cockroaches to the love theme from "Saving Private Ryan" was the only moment of entertainment in four hours of tedium.  Makes my job that much harder, too. Oh, well, let's just hope that Geena Davis comes dressed as a giant accordion.