Japanese Story (2003) is an Australian cross cultural communications study and a look at just how relationships, however fleeting can impact our lives. It is told within a tragic love story. Toni Collette is a bright geologist, and partner in a firm trying to sell its software modeling program. She is called upon to play tour guide to a visiting Japanese businessman, and, hopefully, get him interested in the product. She knows nothing about Japan or the Japanese, and is not thrilled about this baby sitting task. Their initial meeting doesn't go well at all. He gives her his business card, and she unceremoniously stuffs it into her back pocket. He waits for her to load his luggage into the van. She is sure he is an arrogant asshole, and he sees her as nothing but a driver with a loud mouth and a big butt.

It is not until he forces her to drive off the highway and they get stuck in a bog in the middle of nowhere that they start communicating. Somethign about being in a life or death situation breaks down the barriers. Seems he was experiencing burnout, hence his trip to Australia. It is two short steps from understanding to bed, and then she discovers that he has a wife and kids in Japan. Meanwhile, he no longer feels like his life with family and work obligations and an overcrowded country are closing in on him.

Spoilers Ahead

He breaks his neck diving into a shallow billabong, and the rest of the film deals with notifying his wife, making arrangements, and Collette making peace with the wife and herself. This third act is really the meat of the film, and it is very well crafted.

End Spoilers

IMDb readers have this at 7.1 of 10. It not only won every award in the entire country of Australia, but I think they invented some new ones as well. Both Ebert and Berardinelli adored it at 3 1/2 stars. It is a character piece start to finish, and we understand the depths of emotion of all the principles as well as exactly how deeply a brief encounter can touch us. The photography is stunning, and Collette shows breasts and buns in the sex scene. Those who know something about Japanese culture will probably get more from it than those who don't. The deleted scenes, which were cut for the American release to pick up the pace, are included on the DVD, but contain no extra nudity. There is also a director's comentary. This is a C+. If it is your sort of film, and you should know by now, it is very well made.

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (2003)

I covered this in great detail at The Movie House, and you need to read it there, since it is filled with pictures and hyperlinks. I liked a lot of things about it. Another first-class effort from HBO

• Alexa Davalos. (1, 2) If you are a fan of  "Angel", the Buffy spin-off, you'll recognize her. She will be in The Chronicles of Riddick this summer.

• Rita López Carrasco. For all I know, she's not even an actress. Although she's in a couple of scenes, I don't remember her speaking, and she has no other credits.

Updates:

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated.

OTHER CRAP:

• Intel will today tear its Pentium 4 and Xeon roadmaps to shreds and announce the cancellation of its 'Tejas' and 'Jayhawk' processors and their successors. They will shift all efforts to the Pentium M series.
• Rumsfeld Testifies Before Senate Armed Services Committee: Search for McCain's questions.
• 52 Millon Friends See Off "Friends"
• The Daily Show looks at the Iraq situation.
• The trailer for Primer. Four men in a suburban garage have built a cottage industry of error-checking devices. But, they know that there is something more. There is some idea, some mechanism, some accidental side effect that is standing between them and a pure leap of innovation. And so, through trial and error they are building the device that is missing most. The story of 'Primer' is what happens when two of these men find the device and immediately realize that it is too valuable to market. The limit of their trust in each other is strained when they are faced with the question, 'If you always want what you can't have, what do you want when you can have anything?'"
• Olsen twins toothpaste.
• Four Free Short Vids from Playboy's Cheerleaders & College Girls!
• Playmate Gallery - Victoria Fuller, Jan 1996 - Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• Michael Moore admits he knew of Disney ban "almost a year ago".:
  • In an indignant letter to his supporters, Moore said he had learnt only on Monday that Disney had put the kibosh on distributing the film.
  • But in the CNN interview he said: 'Almost a year ago, after we'd started making the film, Michael Eisner, told my agent he will not distribute it.'
• The Spider-Man 2 promotion seen on the last episode of Friends .
• Kurt Warner to the Giants? Maybe.
• NBC to air "The Adventures of Superman and Seinfeld"
• MLB Power Rankings - headed by ... the Angels?
• Barry Bonds is on pace for 132 INTENTIONAL walks this year.
• Dave Barry's Blog takes on spyware.
• Krispy Kreme says diets hurt doughnuts ( - and vice-versa.)
• One of al-Sadr's senior aides told worshippers in Basra that anyone capturing a female British soldier can keep her as a slave, but no man should do so unless he can afford her dental care.
• STALEMATE: Presidents who have won re-election have had job approval ratings of at least 52% in May before an election. Those who lost had ratings no better than 47%. Bush's rating is a tweener - 48%-49%.
• China shuts down 8600 internet cafes.
• Subject of possibly the most famous credit in TV history, "With Zulu as Kono", Zulu has passed away at 66.
• I don't care how paranoid you are, this guy is worse. Of course, he's kidding, and you really believe that crazy shit. 
• Darth Eisner negotiates to sell Miramax back to Harvey Weinstein.
• Check out an internet-exclusive clip from I, Robot.
• The entire country of Estonia may soon have free, wireless internet access.
• Air America's chairman and vice-chairman resign. The company fails to make payroll. Looks like savvy liberal businessmen are as rare as Republican singers.
• Baseball changes its mind about that Spider-Man crap
• The Other Crap Hypothesis: For every perversion, no matter how obscure, there is at least one web site - like Farthammer.com
• Bardot on trial for inciting racial hatred in France. Racial hatred is illegal in France? Aha, there's the problem with France's attitude toward Yanks. Americans are not a separate race, so it's OK to hate them, and the French are not allowed to hate anyone else, so Americans get a monopoly! Seriously, Bardot is one twisted nutburger who seems to hate pretty much everyone. (Her anagram: Bigot, bit retard.)
• X-Entertainment: Return of the COMIC BOOK ADS.
• Entrants in the Big Pussy contest. (Warning: it isn't kitty cats. Graphic stuff)
• w o r k | s u c k s | support me. The society to prevent my employment.
• An America Online customer service rep illicitly surfs the company's customer database, ferrets out private data on celebrity members and then hunts them down online under a false identity. And it works! She is getting a script produced.
• Comcast Fires entire staff of TechTV.
• Holy Shit! Forensic evidence indicates Phil Spector may have been telling the truth! Whoda thunk that?
• The Daily Show looks at the latest in the 2004 Presidential Campaign
• The trailer for A Slipping Down Life: "Based on the novel by Anne Tyler, 'A Slipping Down Life' is the story of the peculiar courtship of an awkward young woman (Lili Taylor) and a charismatic singer/songwriter (Guy Pearce), and the profound effect that their unlikely relationship has on each other's lives and futures. "
• The trailer for Matt Damon's new thriller, The Bourne Supremacy
• A second full trailer (trailer B) for Shrek 2
• The trailer for Tom Cruise's new thriller, Collateral
• First pics of Babs Streisand as Mother Focker
• The man they call Dr. Fuck, because that's his real name and title! He's Reinhardt Fuck, and he has a Ph.D in Geology. ... Comment (0)
• President Bush celebrated a major milestone today as the The Guinness Book of World Records announced that he had set the world record for consecutive days without making a mistake or apology of any kind.

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.

Don't Look Now (1973)

• The movie has that requirement for all artsy films pre 1975 - an evil dwarf! He's also a serial killer, and he wear a bright red raincoat. That was to make his serial killing easy, because nobody ever notices an insane dwarf in a bright red raincoat. We have a family of evil dwarves next door, and they ALWAYS wear red raincoats, even on sunny days. Our Reviews.

• Julie Christie - bathroom scene.  (.avi, .wmv)

• Julie Christie - sex scene, part one.  (.avi, .wmv)

• Julie Christie - sex scene, part two.  (.avi, .wmv)

I have read about the uncut version of the scene, in which Sutherland is obviously lapping on Christie's labia, but I have never seen it, except in miscellaneous stills. It is not on the DVD, nor in the clips above.

Center of the World (2001)

• Minor film. Tuna hated it. I recommended it only for the arthouse/hothouse set. It's not a pleasant movie, it is deliberately cheap-looking, and is not very entertaining, but it does have some artistic merit, and Molly Parker is way hot. Our Reviews.

• Aliska Klass and an unknown.  (.avi, .wmv)

• Molly Parker. To my ears, she has the sexiest voice in the business. (.avi, .wmv)

• Molly Parker.  (.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.

A few .wmvs to compliment Brainscan's recent look at "Passion Network". Check out the May 6, 2004 update in the Daily Archives for Brainscan's 'caps and reviews

• Former Heffer Devin Devasquez shows breasts and pubes in a very spirited sex scene! (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Jane Smith aka former adult star Tina Tyler. All natural toplessness, plus some pubes in #3. (1, 2, 3)

• Maggie Louie...a pseudo sex scene in the bath tub (while the guy still has his pants on). (1, 2)

• Nichole McAuley...the busty blonde shows all 3 B's as she joins Devin Devasquez for a 3-way with some dude. (1, 2,)

• Stephanie Beaton, baring all while flying solo in #1, then riding a dude still wearing pants in #2. (1, 2)

• A decent lesbian threesome scene. (1, 2)

• Tracy Turner a couple of pseudo-sex scenes with robo-hooters and clean shaven views. (1, 2, 3)

• April Blosson. The Adult film actress taking a side trip down Skinemax Lane. Here she is showing breasts and full frontal nudity. (1, 2, 3)

• Ava Molina, a brief brest view.

• Olivia Saint, another hardcore actress doing a little softcore. Here she is topless and almost going frontal. But seriously, why shy away from showing some pubes on Skinemax whe you co-star in movies like "Big Cock Seductions 3" and "Ass Cream Pies"?

• Ava Molina and Olivia Saint, of course...the lesbian scene. Ava shows more skin and gives up toplessness and pubes.

• Chelsea Blue, all 3 b's and some pseudo sex from another hardcore actress crossing over to the softcore world. (1, 2)

"Love Actually"
This 2003 British comedy/romance is easily the best of it's type that I've seen in several years. A big-name ensemble tells 10 separate but intertwined stories, set in London two weeks before Christmas. As the movie counts down the days to Christmas, things build to a climax.

There's nudity, but better yet, there's some great stories performed beautifully by the exceptional British and American cast, and it never gets boring. The comedy is subtle rather than slapstick, and the romance well handled and sweet without getting sickening, and as a bonus has a really good sound track, so most people should really enjoy this movie. Excellent!

• Joanna Page
• Laura Linney
• The Women of "Love Actually"

Mira Sorvino
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Both bared their breasts and a little bum, Judd also shows pubes in #4.

PETA TARGETS FAT CELEBRITIES
They Must BE Nuts - People for the Ethical Treatment of animals has declared Michael Moore, Ruben Studdard, Luciano Pavarotti, John Madden and John Goodman as their "Flab Five," and they're trying to convince them to switch to a vegetarian diet. PETA is offering all five obese celebs a "Veg Eye for the Fat Guy" makeover. They will each receive a free care package containing health and diet tips, suggestions on how to change your lifestyle, and PETA's "vegetarian starter kit."