Lagrimas Negras (1998), or Black Tears, is a Spanish romantic tragedy staring Ariadna Gil, who was cast against type, and gave a stellar performance. As a matter of fact, she was nominated for best actress Goya. Fele Martinez is living a nice life. He has a nice apartment, a nice fiancee (Elena Anya), and a nice job editing film and doing photography, which is exactly what he wants to be doing. After dropping his girlfriend one night, he is kidnapped at gunpoint by Ariadna Gil, and her heroin addict girlfriend, Ana Risueño. Before they steal his car, they tie him up, and Gil has sex with him.

A few weeks later, his car turns up. One of the tires is flat, but nothing, including his camera, is missing. When he spots Gil in a video he is editing for a shrink, he learns that she is rich, but disturbed, and sets out to meet her. This leads inevitably to a sexual relationship. The question is, will this woman with a degenerative mental disorder be his ruin, or will he be her salvation? The more he learns about her sordid past, and the prognosis for her mental condition, the more determined he is to save her.

Gil, who usually plays hip, attractive, witty leading ladies was absolutely brilliant as the deranged, often unkempt woman. Risueño was also very strong in her role, and Anya was more than believable. Gil shows breasts in two scenes, and Anya shows breasts and buns in a sex scene.

IMDb readers have this at 7.6 of 10, with nearly equal marks from male and female, and young and old. Rocardo Franco, who co-wrote, and started the directing died before filming was completed. They continued with Fernando Bauluz in the director's chair, but stayed true to Franco's vision. The cinematography was wonderful, with some breathtaking shots of the Portuguese coast, and interesting night shots of Madrid. In short, it is a very well made film. A tougher question is, will you enjoy it? I felt like Martinez was being stupid all along, and would have preferred a happier ending, but it did hold my attention the entire running time. This is a high C+. It was shown at one Spanish Language film festival in the US, and is only available on Region 2 PAL from Spain. If tragedy is your idea of good cinema, this is a very good one.

Dark Harvest (2003)

(Here's a requested film.)

Stop me if you've heard this one,

A bunch of city kids plan to spend a week in an isolated, deserted farmhouse which they have never seen. When they stop for directions, the crotchety and somewhat inbred ol' geezer at the general store tells them to stay away from that place, because something awful happened there years ago. They ignore the warning, frolic around for the rest of the day, then start dying at sunset. Some of them survive.

Oh, you've heard it?

In this version, one of the kids inherited the farm from a father he never knew. Way back in the thirties, his crazy ancestor had managed the farm to bumper crop after bumper crop in the midst of drought, famine, and the closure of everyone else's farms. He did that by killing his neighbors and using their bodies as scarecrows. I'm not clear why this technique worked, but it did. In the present time, the scarecrows are still hanging around the ol' farm in convenient ghost form, and when they find out that our modern-day hero is a descendant of the guy who killed them, they are some mighty angry-ass scarecrow ghost dudes.

The film has many negatives.

(1) The acting is way below par. It would be below par for a porn film. I never heard of any of these "actors", and neither has IMDb.

(2) the special effects are about as bad as any film not made by Ed Wood

(3) well, you've read the plot summary, so you there's nothing original

(4) the dialogue is routine stuff "We have to leave now". "C'mon, don't tell me you believe those old legends". Yadda yadda.

In the midst of the bad acting, special credit must be given to Joshua Dodrill, whose performance as Scarecrow #2 was only exceeded by his turn as Scarecrow #3. There is a rumor that the Oscar committee may give him two of the five "best supporting actor" nominations, because they just can't decide which scarecrow was better.

There are some minor positives:

 (1) Some of the photography is quite good, even though the camera movement and editing were not especially proficient. The scenes from the 30s actually look pretty darned good.

 (2) There is a good skinny-dipping scene.

 (3) The ending credits include funny outtakes which demonstrate the problems with no-budget filmmaking. This was absolutely the best part of the film.

Aside from that, move along. Nothing to see here except this nudity:

• Jeanie Cheek (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• Aimee Cox (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Jessica Dunphy (1, 2)

Wild Things (1997)

• A .wmv clip of the famous pool scene, which includes nudity in the newly-released unrated version.

OTHER CRAP:

• JoBlo looks at Oliver Stone's new Alexander the Great movie.
• Porn Industry May Face New Safety Law. No. You're thinking that those OSHA inspectors just want to spend all day checking out porn sets. You cynic.
• The Daily Show looks at outrage in the Middle East
• NEW HARRY POTTER BOOK SET IN BUSH WHITE HOUSE
  ‘Wizards of Mass Destruction’ Latest Tell-all Memoir.
• Watch Britney Spears's controversial 'Everytime' (Suicide) Video
• Maverick gazillionaire Mark Cuban writes his own blog - rips Trump a new one
• URL says it all: CandidDingDongs.com
• The fire in George Tenet's hair
• Vida Guerra Thong Gallery
• Alanis Morissette likes to walk around naked
• British kids to be fed orange juice with fish oil. Thankfully, they are British, and this will taste better than their usual food.
• Biggest news EVER in Norway: 26 seniors from two high schools in Norway will participate in a porn film to finance their end of the year parties.
• Heimlich saves Nicole Kidman
• Monday, April 26: the Bureau of Engraving and Printing will unveil the new-look $50
• Tom Brokaw, the face of 'NBC Nightly News' since 1983, will retire December 1
• Tarantino to direct Jimmy Kimmel Live
• Super Hero Hype goes nuts with new Batman news.
• Complete specs - original Star Wars Trilogy DVD
• abe vigoda life status -updated constantly
• Eminem sux in the sax
• TheDeadballEra.com - dedicated to deceased major leagers. Is A-Rod on that site yet?
• Celts add dance/cheer squad - last team in NBA to do so.
• Lucid Dreaming - Frequently Asked Questions Answered by The Lucidity Institute
• Funny hockey promo.
• Sony develops paper DVD Maybe a professor from Sony could have gotten Gilligan and the gang off of the island.
• Pop star Christina Aguilera seems to have taken her career to the next step by deciding to appear naked in a phone ad
• Medicine perfects cosmetic 'Voice Lift' Surgery Get in line behind Minnie Driver and Bill Shatner.
• People pitch in to help porn stars in need. Sally Struthers says that for only pennies a day, you can feed one of these poor waifs. Except maybe for Ron Jeremy. Feeding him might cost you a few bucks.
• A former Nevada prostitute is suing former Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil, the brothel and its owner.
• Disgusting food from around the world.
• New theory states humans evolved from pigs, not monkeys. That does explain Roseanne Barr.
• Weekly World News Editorial: "I'm madder than Adam with a one-inch fig leaf at how these left-wing heathens, atheists and agnostics are trying to stuff this evolution baloney down our kids' throats!"
• The Sun catches curvy Kelly Brook on the beach in a tiny bikini
• The Best Things in Life are Free - Free Ice Cream tomorrow at Ben & Jerry's
• Was Hitler in the closet?: "'The Hidden Fuhrer: Debating the Enigma of Hitler's Sexuality.' " Tonight on Cinemax, seven Eastern.
• Colin Powell: "We were instructed to talk to Woodward".
• Advanced foreign policy analysis from the Jackson family. Jermaine weighs in on US-Islamic relations. Next up: Tito joins Michael Kinsley and Bill Kristol for a debate about the Uruguay round of the General Agreements on Tariffs and Trade.
• Maradona filled with more coke than an Atlanta 7-Eleven.
• Babies may die after being fed the 'traditional African way', which occurs, of course, when they feed the baby to a pack of starving hyenas. The amazing thing is the use of the word "may". Sometimes the kids tough it out.
• Kate Beckinsale Promises Van Helsing Is Titillating "Although the Hugh Jackman thriller features Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein, Beckinsale tells 'GQ' magazine she '...doesn't think you'll ever see more boobs in a movie.'"
• Hello, Dalai. It's Goldie and Dalai - together at last. Rumor is he hit on her. Big hitter, the Lama.
• Five years ago he was the league MVP and the superbowl MVP. Three years ago he was again the league MVP and almost broke the single season record for passing yardage. Today the Rams told Kurt Warner he will be cut.
• John Kerry refuses to release more military records. Turns out he got the Purple Heart for getting a sour milkshake at the officer's malt shop.
• William Hung: Racism, Or Magic?
• The Stepford Wives poster
• This week's DVD releases
• Media Groups Ask F.C.C. to Reconsider NBC's "Bono Ruling". Or, as Bono replied, "fook 'em"
• Der Spiegel covers Spring Break in America 2003. Mit den nudipics.
• The great Manhattan hamburger hunt.
• Interesting blog: Meeting Quentin Tarantino at the mall.
• Michael Winslow's NOW HEAR THIS! This is the site of that guy in Police Academy who does the mouth noises.
• This could be the beginning of some serious shit. Broadcasting & Cable - FCC Gets S-Word Complaint Or the END of some serious shit.
• 'Net ninjas' take on web censorship. Gotta root for these folks. Their goal is to prevent a government or governments from taking over the people's technology, so that certain foreign governments can't block the freedom of their people to access the internet, and so that the web doesn't become another radio, where people may only say what the FCC allows them to say.
• Dr. Seuss Went to War. A catalog of political cartoons by Dr Seuss.
• The latest Woodward excerpt: Cheney Was Unwavering in Desire to Go to War.

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.

Backbeat 1993

• Beatles-related biopic about Lennon's mate, Stu Sutcliffe, who dropped out of the group to study art, and died while still a 21 year old student, before he could ever do anything significant. Kinda cool movie if you are interested in The Beatles, but just routine if not. Sheryl Lee's nude scenes are delightful in either case. (.avi, .wmv)

• Sheryl Lee in Backbeat. (.avi, .wmv)

• Sheryl Lee in Backbeat. (.avi, .wmv)

Wings of the Dove 1997

• Helena Bonham Carter. Total chick-flick which may put many to sleep before the last reel. That's a shame, because Helena gets VERY naked in the last few minutes. By the way, it is a decent chick-flick. Beautiful period settings and costumes, fairly interesting story, magnificent photography of Venice. The DVD quality is gorgeous! Unfortunately, these clips appear to be from VHS.  (.avi, .wmv)

• Helena Bonham Carter in The Wings of the Dove  (.avi, .wmv)

• Helena Bonham Carter in The Wings of the Dove  (.avi, .wmv)

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.

Call Girl (1995) used to be entitled "Nighttime Lover" back in the olden days, when videotapes ruled the earth. With the change in title any and all forms of subtlety leave this movie. For you see, this is a movie about an artist... a female photographer of erotic images... who struggles to make ends meet and takes up high-priced hooking because, after all, prostitution is just another lifestyle choice, like driving a Lexus or owning a Siamese cat.

Her visits to forbidden places of the night bring out the kinky in our artist, making her photographs edgier and oh so arty. Art with a capital F, that is.

Everything about this movie fails. What is supposed to be erotic is boring, what is meant to be disturbing is laughable. None of the male characters is the least bit interesting, for the most part because the guys what play them can't act a lick. And who in hell wrote the dialogue? An 8-yr-old can do better... an eight-yr old border collie? But them dogs is really smart.

Women do get naked. Melanie Hall, aka Meilani Paul, who IMDb says was one of the back-up singers in the Ray Charles Pepsi commercials, is the artist-turned-hooker. She shows boobs and bum, in a scene shot with a camera strapped to Katherine Hepburn's head.

• Melanie Hall, aka Meilani Paul (1, 2)

Two of her models romp around a lot. They are played by veteran B-movie babe, Jennifer Leigh Burton, and former Heffer, Pia Reyes (Miss Nov 1988). Both are fleetingly fully frontal. Pia is something of an enigma. She was in 8 movies from 1993-1996 and gave up some goodies in most of them, but she is one of the least known former Heffers of the past two decades. I think she was a real cutie and so I grabbed just about every frame of Pia's performance. The collages show her in a playful photoshoot (collages 1-4), the black-and-white products of that shoot (5 & 6) and finally in a kinkier shoot later in the movie (#7).

• Pia Reyes (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
• Jennifer Leigh Burton (1, 2, 3)

JJ Mantia is another veteran of B movies who does an almost triple-B performance. JJ plays a woman chosen to engage in copulatory acts as her husand watches behind a window. Yep, that's what the screenwriter decided was so very forbidden.

• JJ Mantia (1, 2, 3)

Dominique Simone and Jenna Lynn Minardi play streetwalkers hired to pose for photographs when Pia can't stop laughing over what Melanie wants her to do.

Shari Eckert has the oddest scene, as a woman tied up and hooded, apparently frightened as a man undresses her and gropes her. I think you are supposed to be disturbed by it all, but it was so damn silly I took Pia's cue and laughed my way through it.

And then there three attractive unknowns who fill out the roster in one of the forbidden hideaways where only the rich and perverted hang out. The poor and perverted hang out on the internet.

• Dominique Simone
• Jenna Lynn Minardi
• Shari Eckert
• Unknowns

So, yep, sure, uh-huh there are a bunch (a pod, a herd, a covey) of nekkid babes but yumpin yiminee the tedium you must endure to see them is near-bout unbearable. IMDb scores this one a 3.2. I think someone misplaced a decimal point.

"Striptease"
In May of 1998, my first collage was of this 1996 comedy/drama. The collage was gawdawful I still have it on my site just to laugh at it. It was really bad. When the unrated DVD came out, I got it right away with the intent of doing a new version, but it got buried in the stack until now. Hopefully, this version is an improvement. :-)

An FBI secretary loses her job because her estranged husband is a crook, then loses custody of her daughter to the no-good husband because she is out of work. She gets a job as a stripper to try and win her daughter back then gets involved with a slimy politician who promises to help with the daughter.

The story is campy and often lame, but despite being just a mediocre movie, it was very successful because of a sometimes naked Demi Moore. The movie, if you are one of the three people in the world who haven't seen it, is worth watching because of Demi, but probably not for any other reason. In addition, the Unrated version does have some nice additional nudity.

• Demi Moore

Aussie actress and "Alias" co-star Melissa George showing off some lovely toplessness and rear nudity in scenes from the underrated sci-fi movie "Dark City".

• Melissa George (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
• A .wmv of Melissa George

Next up, from the so-bad it's good horror/creature flick "Python" (2000), LoriDawn Messuri is topless in a lesbian love scene.

• LoriDawn Messuri (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• A .wmv of LoriDawn Messuri

VIDEO PRODUCER SUES RAPE ACCUSER
Mr. Wonderful - "Girls Gone Wild" video mogul Joseph Francis filed a defamation lawsuit against the Texas woman who accused him of rape. Francis claims they had consensual sex, he even had lunch with her and her friend the next day, and he won't "sit back and be called a rapist." He is suing for $25,000,036. That's $25 million for defamation of character and $36 for the cheeseburgers the two women ordered from Room Service for lunch.