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"Inventing the Abbotts" (1997)
I watched Inventing the Abbotts (1997) today, and was shocked to discover that Scoopy plagiarized my entire review, almost word for word. Not only that, he did it weeks before I even saw the film. Seriously, Scoop already said exactly what I was planning on writing. Here is a summary of the key points:
1) Impeccably shot not only reproducing the look and feel of 1957, but using a photographic and editing style from the period.
2) Fine first performances from future stars early in their career: Jennifer Connelly, Billy Crudup, Joaquin Phoenix, Joanna Going, and Liv Tyler.
3)Connelly shows breasts twice, once in fair lighting, and once in very dim light.
4) The thing that keeps it from being great is the plot. The film is an ensemble piece and coming of age story, but done as a soap opera.
I call it a near miss, only suitable for genre fans, which makes it a C.
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Jennifer Connelly
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| Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)
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Ya gotta love Elizabeth Hurley. She continues her streak of never wearing any clothing in public by showing up at the Blow premiere in another see-through top. The second one shows it off best.
Kimberly Stewart (Rod's kid). wore a transparent dress, no bra.
I took a look at The Killing Fields. Excellent movie. No flesh.
I took a look at Enemy at the Gates. Or, as I like to call it "Saving Private Ivan". Top-notch $80 million dollar war film, worth seeing if only for the first twenty minutes, but only a brief butt shot from Rachel Weisz, with no face in the shot. Not worth doing on bootleg. Let's wait for the DVD.
| Brainscan
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Tax time and when you are fortunate to own something resembling a business and have a wife whose parents left her a few stocks and things you can spend some serious hours on this stuff, even with an overpaid accountant at your side. No whining, though: thems dues for being part of the least exclusive and most rewarding club on the planet.
So before the feces hit the fan Tuna sent me all his raw caps of Reform School Girl. An awful movie in some regards: overwrought performances, illogical actions, stupid dialogue. But it has Linda Carol. Naked. A lot. So much so her T's and her A ought to have gotten separate billing in the
credits (read that one in a review of Patricia Arquette's performance in Lost Highway. Was true for Patty, doubly true for Linda baby). And it has two major babes as Uncredited Showergirls (that would be Leslee Bremmer and Michelle Bauer; heard Streep and Dench wanted those roles badly but the
producer thought it beyond their reach). And it has other babes prancing 'round in two, count em two shower scenes. That kind of thing can make up for some serious deficiencies in pace, plotting and direction.
RSG does carry a few valuable lessons about life in a girl's reform school:
1) girls in reform school buy all their lingerie at Victoria's Secrets;
2) you can be 35 and look 45 and still be sent to reform school;
3) stupid, ugly guys can get laid in a girl's reform school but probably not for long;
4) you can be part of a holdup in which your male accomplice and a guard are shot yet still spend a few months in reform school (shoot, in the Republic of Texas that gets you a one-way ticket to death row).
So let's follow the outline of the movie by tracking the delightful Miss Carol's hooters and bum through their various scenes:
1) First link shows her and four others in a room filled with DDT; banned in the 70's, not particularly good to breathe but ahh, who cares. Two of the four (Laurie Schwartz and Robin Watkins) have speaking parts and will show up again, but Mary Brando and Jennifer Sophie are billed simply as Paddy Wagon Girls. They are the small brunette next to Linda and the weightlifter. Don't know which is which.
2) Linda has a close-up in the DDT scene; Tuna nailed it dead solid perfect.
3) Linda, Mary and Jennifer share a shower with the two others; I split these caps and will have Laurie and Robin's contribution in just a sec.
4) Linda takes a shower with everyone and her cousin; lots of bums and hooters and a few flashes of the pubis. Not to worry, guys, you will see every bit of flesh somewhere in these caps 'cuz again Tuna got every damn micron.
Linda in the shower
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5) Linda in a truck, boffing some moron, who then proceeds to turn her in at the reform school gate. And the probability of you ever getting laid again is exactly how close to zero when the other girls find out? Sheesh. I can tolerate actions in movies that require some suspension of belief, but this one???!!!
Linda gettin' it on
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6) Linda after she's caught trying to escape and is forced to strip so that the sadistic, bull dyke guard can hose her down. Crimony, Linda was an uber-cutie who made a few other appearances and then vanished from the screen. IMDB has this weird note that she left Hollywood because of threats
from the Mafia. Man, I'll let them provide hookers for Presidents and whack the odd teamster or two, but when they get in the way of me seeing more of Miss Carol, I say we send them to sleep with the fishes.
Linda stripping
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Okay, on to the other babes in the movie. Leslee Bremmer is an inmate who takes a shower with everyone else. Major babe this Leslee; have seen in a couple of videos purporting to be audition tapes for strip scenes or shower scenes. But that was loooong ago; if'n I could find them again I would cap them because Miss Bremmer has a recreational body.
Leslie in the shower
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(Yet more to come guys; and Tuna, I think you might have labeled a couple of Leslee caps as Linda Carol when you first sent them into the Funhouse. I can see why: they are both as lovely as can be).
The other uncredited shower girl, Michelle Bauer, starts the shower scene with the camera focussed on her marvelous face; it then slowly pulls back to reveal her first rate body. Note to Hollywood: all movies, including those set in the Middle Ages and aboard submarines during WWII, should include a scene in which the camera starts on some major babe's face and then pans out to show her goodies. Got it?
Michelle's turn in the showers
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Robin Watkins and Laurie Schwartz were in the original shower scene with Linda baby and the Paddy Wagon Girls (a 70's rock group, or at least it should have been). Robin is the tall blonde. She shows very little and then appears in one other short scene later on. Laurie is the stubby, paunchy brunette. She reveals the goodies and winds up in a dozen other scenes. Uh, Mr. Director Auteur, sir, don't mean to quibble with casting choices but are you f..king out of your mind? Ditch the beauty and show us the frump?! The boy's IQ must be that of room temperature... centigrade.
Andrea Darnell plays a tough cookie with a good heart. Every reform school has at least one.
Darcy Demoss plays a tough cookie with an evil heart. Every reform school has.... oh, never mind.
Alrightee then, we get to a couple of babes who I concluded are named Terri Lynn and Sylvia Dohi. They are credited as Bad Girls, and they sho' 'nuff play bad girls without speaking parts in this Oscar winning movie. Watched this opus carefully again and matched every credited name with someone else, leaving us with the blonde and brunette babes as Terri and Sylvia... but I would not bet the shop on it. Whoever they are, it is fair to say that speaking may not be what the director was looking for when he cast them.
Terri Lynn and Sylvia Dohi
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And we end this foray into the juvenile criminal justice system with the late Wendy O Williams. Not to speak with unnecessary harshness toward the dearly departed, but Wendy would not have been my first choice to play the part of a "girl." Maybe the part of an "old hag", a "scary-looking geezer"
maybe even a "dried-up b....", but not of a "girl." This casting choice is either immeasurably stupid (see comment regarding IQ, above) or an act of surpassing irony. Having viewed RSG too many times to count (only to make sure I assigned the right names to the right people, mind you) I am forced to vote for the former.
Again, let us all praise Tuna, who capped this target-rich environment of a movie and let me play with the results for as long as I wanted. Much longer than that, as it turned out.
| Helcrom
| | Bess Armstrong |
Topless in "The House of God".
| | Darlene Colaiuta |
Some serious robo-hooters in "Angel's Dance".
| | Penélope Cruz |
Beautiful topless images from "Abre los ojos" (1997).
| | Jennifer Love Hewitt |
Jennifer showing a lot of skin below the boobs! She's wearing undies of course, but still, anything other than cleavage is a bit of a rarity for JLH. 'Caps from the movie "The Suburbans".
| | Ashley Judd |
Breast exposure plus love scenes from "Normal Life".
| | Sheryl Lee |
Topless, and very far off full frontal exposure in "Angel's Dance".
| | Scorpion
| Amanda Prentice
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Showin' all of the goods (above and below), plus simulated sex from an episode of "Passion Cove".
| Brandy Davis
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Another Skinemax babe that is not exactly shy. Vidcaps from "Private Lies".
| | Celeste Sheeley |
Acrobatic sport humping in more scenes from "Passion Cove". The 'caps are great but don't even begin to show off the jumpin' and humpin' that goes on in this scene. Try to catch it on cable if it comes on. It's the first scene of the episode, so at least you won't have to watch any "acting" first.
| | Arthur Figgis
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I'll tell you why I am unhappy: I began as an "imaging artist", at least that's what we call and consider ourselves, but I haven't posted much material recently. The reason can be seen here: I produce just crap.
I have the best programs on the market, I have an ok PC, so what seems to be the problem? Am I nothing more than a pathetic nerd, hangin' around on his computer thinking, he is good, but obviously overrating himself? Hmm, maybe, that's the case, but on the other hand...
I did some DVD stuff, that I am quiet pleased with.....
Astrid Fünderich, breast exposure from the German TV series "Hallo, Onkel Doc!"
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Chiara Schoras going topless
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Susanne Uhlen, topless in the pool, talking on the world's largest cordless phone in scenes from "Das Erbe der Guldenburgs"
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| Rawhide Kid
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Paulina Porizkova heads up Part 9 of the SI Babes! Paulina, for this calendar seemed to have a thing for vinyl. This shot, she's in orange vinyl and in #2, she's in pink vinyl. Is that the same girl? Must be the suit.......
Paulina
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One of The Donald's former flames, Manon Von Gerken makes a good impression in a little bikini and a big hat.
Here's Nomie Lenoir apparently rising from the depths in a nice bikini with cacti all over it! And in #2, she's looking pretty serious in yellow and gives us a nice smile in #3, wearing a white bikini.
Noemie Lenoir
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| | Elisabeth |
For the "Survivor 2" fans, by Akira. By the way, she is my favorite, and I could easily see her turning this into a movie career like Colleen from the first "Survivor". According to the rumor mill, Elisabeth will be one of the finalists.
| | Jennifer Leigh Hammon |
The soap star topless in scenes from "Allyson Is Watching". Vidcaps by Wausau.
| | From the mail bag
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RE: Robin Williams...
In Tuna's list of Robin Williams movies, I noticed "Aladdin" (7.5 at IMdB) was left out. This movie occurred between "Shakes the Clown" and "Toys." His performance in this movie brought him back into a good standing among the movie-going public (people actually started to go see a movie because Robin Williams was in it instead of avoiding it). Many people wanted him to win some sort of Oscar for his performance (one critic even suggested adding a "Best Voice Over"/"Best Voice Talent" award, even if it was just for that year). It also made doing a voice in a cartoon, especially a Disney
cartoon, a "hip" thing. Before "Aladdin" came out, many big name actors wouldn't do cartoons since they wouldn't get the notoriety. Since then, big name actors are involved with almost every Disney cartoon: Jeremy Irons and James Earl Jones in "The Lion King," Demi Moore and Kevin Kline in "The
Hunchback of Notre Dame," Mel Gibson in "Pocahontas," James Woods in "Hercules," Tom Hanks and Tim Allen in the "Toy Story" movies, Kevin Spacey in "A Bug's Life," and Glenn Close and Minnie Driver in "Tarzan."
On a side note, this is the second time Glenn Close played a voice talent for a Tarzan movie. In 1984's "Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes" the producer or director didn't like Andie MacDowell's voice in her role as Jane (don't know what they were smoking), so they dubbed in Glenn Close's voice.
-D Slack
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