Tuesday

Tuna
"Capone"

Capone (1989 TV Movie), AKA The Revenge of Capone is not actually about Al Capone. Rather, it is the story of a G-Man who brought him down. In this tale, Elliott Ness was a pompous pretty-boy and Hoover sycophant who, at best, made meaningless busts. Agent Michael Rourke (Keith Carradine) is the one who nailed Capone for tax evasion, and then campaigned to have him transferred to Alcatraz, since he was still running the mob from his Cook County jail cell.

The film opens with Capone at home in Florida. He has invited Rourke, who comes to see the man, who is dying of untreated syphilis. The rest of the film is a flashback. Highlights include Capone's attempt to kill Rourke's family, his successful assassination of the mayor of Chicago, and a disastrous affair between Rourke and Debra Farentino. Turns out she was a plant by Capone, used to discredit Rourke. Most of the film ranged from typical TV faire to downright slow, but there was one excellent moment. Farentino is in bed with Carradine when reporters bust in. She admits that Capone sent her, and then says, "Sorry. I really do love you, but this is just business."

Farentino shows breasts is two very dark sex scene. Three unknown showgirls show breasts in a long and well lit fan dance. IMDb readers have this at 5.2 of 10, but with only 33 votes. The only on line review was not complimentary. I doubt that this was even an attempt at accurate history, although I am no expert on this era. As a TV movie, this is at the low end of acceptable, or C-.

  • Thumbnails
  • Thumbnails

  • Debrah Farentino (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)
  • Unknowns (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

  • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    Luther the Geek (1990):

    It was only about a week ago that I was talking about The Godfather, which is considered by many people to be the greatest of all movies. It is only fitting, therefore, that I give equal time to its greatest rival for that honor, Luther the Geek.

    In fact, if you just pick scenes at random, it is difficult to say which of the two movies the scene might be from.

    Or not.

    SPOILERS - not that it matters.

    Luther the Geek is actually an eccentric splatter film about - well, a geek. Sort of. First of all, I suppose we should establish what a geek actually is. Although in modern usage it has come to mean the same as "nerd" or "dweeb,"  in the early 20th century the word "geek" had a far different meaning which derived from the slang of America's touring carnivals and their sideshows. The addenda in Webster's 1954 dictionary defined geek as "a carnival ‘wild man’ whose act usually includes biting the head off a live chicken or snake."

    That's the kind of geek we are talking about here. The story began with a prologue which pictured Luther as a young boy, on a night in which he watched a bunch of villagers with torches (no kidding) storm a barn and force the caged geek to do his act. In the course of this humiliation, the boy reached into the straw in the barn until he found some strands covered with chicken blood. He tasted it. He liked it.

    The story then fast-forwards to the present, where a 30ish Luther is in prison for serial homicide. It seems to be fairly obvious that he belongs behind bars somewhere, since he has a full set of sharpened metal teeth, and does not talk, but simply clucks like a chicken, except for the occasional bust of joy when he crows like a rooster. A dismissive verdict of "obviously nuts" is not the way the system works at parole time however, and the system is the system. Luther is granted parole because the parole board is breaking in a trainee (again, no kidding).

    Damn those liberals!

    Luther is thus placed back into mainstream society, and you can just sense that he's ready to make the most of his opportunity.

    The rest of the film  ...

    Well, I don't think you have to have the IQ of Steven Hawking to determine that he spends the rest of the film clucking like a chicken and killing people indiscriminately, since clucking and killing are pretty much the only activities he can perform. His killing technique involves driving his metal dentures into the victims' throats, geek style. Since Luther is on camera as much as or more than anyone else, a good percentage of the sound in the movie consists entirely of fake chicken noises. In fact, the last intended victim manages to survive when she confuses Luther by acting like a chicken herself, thus matching Luther's fake chicken noises cluck for cluck.

    I don't suppose the soundtrack was a big seller.

    When ol' Luther finally gets his comeuppance on the wrong end of a shotgun blast, the woman who shoots him feels relief, but then tastes some of his blood, likes it, and starts clucking again, even though Luther is dead ...

    Is there anything more to say?

    This effort is marked by the classic horror movie convention that all the characters have to act as stupidly as possible in all situations in order to keep the film from ending a half dozen times before the story is finished. We need the parole board to release a guy into the mainstream even though he wears sharpened metal teeth and clucks like a chicken? No problem - two flaming liberals and a "parole board trainee" will release him.. We need a woman to stay tied to a bed though her daughter arrives to rescue her? No problem - the daughter can't undo the knots and can't think of any other way to free a woman tied to a bed. Need an armed cop to discover the problem and fail to subdue an unarmed suspect. No problem - he's the world's dumbest cop.

    Combine that with amateurish photography, day-night continuity errors, illogical plot points, slow pacing, a budget of zero, and a monster more silly than scary, and you have a true high camp bad movie classic. I suppose one-time director Carlton Albright has long since returned to his night shift at Circle K, because the revenues from this film probably didn't give him a comfortable retirement.

    Yet this film is rated above six at IMDb and it received almost universally positive reviews from the genre sites, who compare the suspense and gore levels to those achieved by The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and who love the crazy originality of the splatter. Whatever, dude. The IMDb score will probably settle in below four eventually, as more people see the film besides those predisposed to like it, but that doesn't change the fact that there actually are people predisposed to like it. Perhaps you are one of them. I am not.

    The transfer is a crappy 4:3 print that looks like VHS, but there are reasons to own or rent the DVD. The extras are a lot of fun, and include lots of additional footage and discussions with the director. The best part of this is additional nudity from Stacy Haiduk. (Buns and even a quick look at the pubic area). I don't really know what Stacy is up to now, but her career seemed promising for a while there. She was Lana Lang on the TV Superboy, and then she was on SeaQuest for a couple of years, and had some decent roles in other TV shows that didn't make it big.  It looked like she might have pretty good career momentum, but it all fizzled, more for lack of a hit than lack of talent and looks. As you can see, she was pretty, and had a tremendous chest.

    • Stacy Haiduk in the film (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
    • Stacy Haiduk in the deleted footage (1, 2, 3)

     

     

    The L-Word:

    March 13 Episode. Yeah, yeah, I know I'm a week late. Zipped .wmv's from Shiloh's avis.

     

     

    Other Crap:

    Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links 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.

    Jr's Polls
    This week's poll is another look at a poll from a few years ago...
    Best Sex Scene
    We're talking mainstream movies! No skinemax or adult stuff.

    Here is a short list of nominees (including most of the nominees from when we first ran this poll).

    Denise Richards, Neve Campbell, and Matt Dillon in "Wild Things"
    Sharon Stone and Michael Douglas in "Basic Instinct"
    Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke "9 ˝ Weeks"
    Kathleen Turner and William Hurt in "Body Heat"
    Ellen Barkin and Dennis Quaid "The Big Easy"
    Rebecca DeMornay and Tom Cruise in "Risky Business"
    Jessica Lange and Jack Nicholson on the table in "The Postman Always Rings Twice"
    Rene Russo and Pierce Brosnan in "The Thomas Crown Affair"
    Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton in "Monster's Ball"
    Hudson Leick and Ryan Alosio in "Denial"
    Madonna and Willem Dafoe "Body of Evidence"
    Julianne Moore and Mark Wahlberg in "Boogie Nights"
    Demi Moore and Rob Lowe in "About Last Night"
    Glenn Close and Michael Douglas in "Fatal Attraction"
    Maria Schneider and Marlon Brando in "Last Tango in Paris"
    Jennifer Jason Leigh and Robert Romanus in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"

    Email Scoopy Jr. with more nominees, comments or suggestions.



    Here are the results of our most recent other polls...
    The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2004
    The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 80s
    The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 90s
    Which actress has been the most convincing playing a stripper.
    Who has the best bum in Hollywood?
    Best All Time Television Comedy
    Best Nudity in an Oscar-winning performance.

    Crimson Ghost
    NOTE: We currently have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Instead of viewing them online, save the zip files to your hard drive in the directory of your choice, un-zip and play from there.


    Today from the Ghost....'caps and clips from the 1996 mega-lo budget comedy "Busted", directed by and starring Fun House favorite Corey Feldman. (and yes, the other Corey co-stars). By the way, if you don't normally check out clips from the Ghost, these might be worth your time. Why? Because you get to hear some of the ultra-silly "witty-banter" dialogue and see some of the lame sight gags.

    Actually, with a little better direction, some script polishing and a few more dollars in the budget, this could have been a pretty decent tongue-in-cheek sex comedy.

    DeadLamb
    Another great batch of HDTV 'caps featuring some prime time skin.

    Bridgette Wilson
    (1, 2)

    Most of us know and love her best as Veronica Vaughn from the Adam Sandler movie "Billy Madison". Here she is guest starring on a episode of the new John Stamos series "Jake in Progress".

    Constance Marie The co-star of the ABC series "George Lopez" stripping down to her bra and showing off some nice abs.

    Kellita Smith Showing some bikini cleavage on a recent episode of "The Bernie Mac Show".

    Kate Levering
    (1, 2, 3)

    We see Kate showing bra and stockings while gettin' it on in a couple of scenes from a recenet "Kevin Hill" episode. #2 features some especially nice partial breast views.

    Paris Hilton The extremely overexposed socialite playing Barbara Eden (in full-on "I Dream of Jeannie" costume) on "American Dreams". Talk about a cheap attempt to get ratings! Let's face it, there is no other excuse since there isn't a casting director working today who could possibly look at Paris and say, 'yes, she's perfect for the role!'.

    Let's compare:
    Eden: 5'3"...Hilton: 5'8"
    Eden: 36 C...Hilton: 34 B
    Eden: Cute, funny, talented comic actress with bubbly personality, good at physical comedy...Hilton: one facial expression, wooden monotone delivery of every word (including normal conversation), apparently not physically capable of any movement other that 'striking a pose'.

    Variety
    Lisa Barbuscia
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

    Vejiita 'caps featuring toplessness, bottomlessness and even a far off full frontal view (link #11) in scenes from the Jeff Fahey flick "Serpent's Lair" (1995). Some folks may recognize her as the sexy Native American guide from the Chris Farley/Matthew Perry movie "Almost Heroes" (1998).

    Lisa Robin Kelly
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

    Here are Señor Skin 'caps of the former co-star of "That 70's Show" topless while riding a dude in "Amityville: Dollhouse".

    Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com
    Pat's comments in yellow...

    MICHAEL JACKSON'S NORMAL DECOR
    Barely Normal - Michael Jackson's lawyers objected to prosecutors showing the kinky magazines and "Barely Legal" DVD found in his bedroom as if that was all he had. They kept asking detectives if they'd also noticed perfectly normal things in his bedroom, like letters from US presidents and Steven Spielberg, a card from Liza Minnelli, Three Stooges and Shirley Temple memorabilia, and a mannequin duplicate of Jackson's young female cousin.

  • Hey, they're right, that sounds just like MY bedroom!
  • Afterall, what 47 year old man DOESN'T have a mannequin of a young female cousin in their bedroom!
  • The detectives knew Michael was flaky because all his Three Stooges memorabilia has Joe Besser.


    CHEWING GUM BOOSTS BREASTS
    Juicy Fruit - A chewing gum called Bust-Up that promises to enhance the size, shape and tone of breasts is a big seller in Japan. It contains an extract of a plant called Pueraria mirifica used by tribeswomen in Thailand and Burma. Thai university tests found that it mimics estrogen and increased bust size by up to 80 percent. The gum has proved so popular in Japan, there are plans to start selling it in convenience stores.

  • The food sold in convenience stores can increase your entire body size by 80 percent.
  • This gives a new meaning to the term "the Doublemint Twins."
  • It gives women horrible breath, but men don't care.
  • They're working on a bubblegum version called "Hubba-Hubba-Bubba."

  • A quick site note
    Hey gang, we invite you to check out our new affiliate program at Scoopycash.com.

    If you have your own site or blog, sign up today and earn some extra cash in 2005 by promoting the Fun House!