Sunday

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

• Netscape 6.2.2 is available free for download or on CD.
• MSIE 6.0 is available free.

Thief of Hearts (1984) stars Steven Bauer, who, together with partner David Caruso, specializes in burglarizing homes of the rich, and is very good at what he does. When he hits the home of Barbara Williams, he gets more than he bargained for, as a locked chest contained her personal journals, in which she wrote every intimate detail of her life, as well as her secret fantasies. Bauer decides that he will steal her from her husband, and armed with his knowledge of her, nearly does. All of the principles have pronounced New York accents, but the film is set in San Francisco.

Williams shows breasts in a bath scene and a sex scene. Unfortunately, the entire sex scene was in poor light and had severe motion blur. Romy Windsor (who has enjoyed steady work since 1984), as a young prostitute, showed all three Bs in good light. IMDB readers have this at 5.0 of 10. The highlight for me was the appearance of George Wendt in a minor role. He is always entertaining. Evidently there is a European cut somewhere with an extra minute of footage on the sex scene. Although the concept was interesting, the story didn't hit any high notes, or cover any new ground, and the ending seemed off to me. C-.

Movies:

Coming Home is a film about the aftermath of 'nam - what the soldiers faced back in the "real" world. It was once considered a great film (including by me), but that must have been because people agreed with its politics. It is really only mediocre, despite having been nominated as Best Picture.

• Jane Fonda (1, 2, 3, 4)

Many people, from movie savants like Roger Ebert to ignoramuses like me, have said that Fatal Attraction was an intelligent, well-grounded psychological thriller ruined by a truly stupid supernatural ending that was tacked on after-the-fact. The original ending is on the DVD, and it makes much more sense. Plus, it is a really cool and appropriate ending!

• Glenn Close (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

I haven't seen the new movie Frailty, but I was struck by the rich diversity of critical opinion.  I usually read three reviews of all new movies, and they couldn't have been more different.

• Roger Ebert gave it his highest possible score, which he does only a few times per year, and declared it an extraordinary work.
• Our local movie reviewer, a very literate and knowledgeable man named Chris Garcia, gave it his lowest possible score.
• James Berardinelli gave the official "wishy-washy", dead center score of 2.5 stars.

What is that all about?

Updates:

Honte has two updates this week:

Issue 99

Issue 100

Silly stuff:

Comedy Wire items From Pat Reeder. (Pat's comments in yellow. Actual news items in white.)

WINE SNOBS TRICKED WITH RED DYE
Sponsored By Carlo Rossi - Psychology Today reports that psychologists in Bordeaux, France, added red food dye to cheap white wine, put it in an expensive red wine bottle, and served it to 54 expert wine tasters.  They praised it as a "marvelous," "fruity," "robust" and "forward but charming" red wine.  But when it was served to them from its real bottle, they panned it as "thin," "weak" and "too light."  The researchers said it's a psychological phenomenon: the bottle and color made them expect a certain taste, so their senses told them that's how it tasted.

*  Or maybe all wine snobs are really just pretentious posers who can't tell a Chardonnay from a urine sample.

*  They further signaled the snobs by serving the "good" wine with pate and the "bad" wine with Cheeze Doodles.

*  The wine snobs called the psychologists "bitter," "impudent," and "fruity."

*  So the good wine in the $200 bottle turned out to be cheap swill from a $100 bottle.

*  Look for this to turn up as a plotline on "Frasier."

Scoop's comment.

Pat's first joke reminded me of a guy I used to know - a friend-of-a-friend named John P. This guy was the most pretentious pseudo wine snob ever, and when a liquor store owning friend brought a special bottle to one of our parties, this guy went on for hours about this wine, even (I'm not making this up) using our flip pad to draw a map of France (incorrectly, I might add), so he could pinpoint the exact location of the wine's origin. As I recall, he knew the exact vine, the time and date of picking, the name of the guy who picked the grapes, and which hand soap the guy used when he washed his hands. (You can taste the soap in the wine, you know.) He also sprinkled his lecture with plenty of high school French.

I was drunk and feeling curmudgeonly so, at the urging of some of my crueler accomplices, I deposited several drops of my urine in the expensive wine bottle on my way to the more conventional plumbing facilities. I don't think I ever would have let John drink the tainted wine without warning him, but some of my friends were not quite so charitable. I wandered off somewhere, high as a kite and probably trying to hit on some unattainable woman,  so I missed the actual tasting, but I'm advised by those who attended that his report was highly favorable. Apparently, my piss has a bracing bouquet which makes it consistently daring without being dangerously avant-garde.

I grant you the guy was drunk, but you'd think he would still be able to distinguish a Rothschild with piss from one without. He couldn't, or if he could he never let on that there was anything wrong, and he drank several glasses because nobody else wanted to try it. (They were either in on the gag, or were warned away by those in the know.)  His girlfriend, a woman I knew well and used to work with, reported later that he was mysteriously sick for two days after the party, but I never told her the probable cause.

So much for wine connoisseurs. Pat thought he was joking up above, but he's right. They can't tell a bottle of expensive wine from a urine sample.

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.

Karen Stephen

You can order "Road of Death" which stars Thora Birch's parents by clicking here.

More from "Justine:Exotic Liaisons". Here's quick look at Kimberly Rowe and Jennifer Behr and a promise of more skin to come from them. Daneen Boone is seen in another dream scene doing some lovemaking.

• Kimberly Rowe

• Daneen Boone

• Jennifer Behr (1, 2)

First...up pop stars as seen in the May 02 issue of the German Maxim.

• Pink

• Alicia Keys

• Shakira

• Sheryl Crow

• Britney Spears

Category #2...The New Trek Babe

• Jolene Blalock barely dressed on the pages of Maxim. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• 'Simpsons' Producer Brooks Apologizes to Rio

• Jennifer Aniston must describe her breasts in court