Saturday

All the Mornings of the World (1991):

Sometimes when we call something an "art film," our meaning is imprecise. We're just referring to films made for the tiny so-called arthouse audience which prefers films made for their sensibilities to the films made by mainstream commercial filmmakers. When I refer to this one as an "art film," however, I am being quite literal. It is about the nature of art itself, and that same struggle between art and commerce.

The story is centered around two men who played a fairly important role in the development of French music. Marin Marais was considered the master of composing for and playing the viola de gamba, a seven-string predecessor to today's cello. Monsieur Sainte Colombe was Marin's teacher, and is credited with having added the seventh string to begin with. We know a bit about Marin, who was a courtier, but very little about Sainte Colombe. The latter was an austere man, possibly a practicing member of the Jansenists, who were kind of a 17th century French equivalent of the Amish, in that they preached simplicity and preferred the simple country life to the pomp of the Sun King's court. Sainte Colombe lived in a country estate and gave modest at-home concerts for his neighbors. He had two daughters who sometimes accompanied him in chamber performances when they came of age. That's about all we have, other than the music for some of his compositions. We don't even know his first name.

All the details of the film are supplied by the imagination of the author of the novel upon which the screenplay is based. In his version of the story, Sainte Colombe is a widower who is tormented by guilt for not having been present when his wife died. Since he had only two ways to communicate to the world, his music and talks with his wife, her death left him with nothing but his music. He was offered a position as the court violist, but passed on the opportunity because he played music for the love of it, not for the glory or financial rewards. As imagined here, Marain Marais (Guillaume Depardieu) comes to him as a young man from the working classes who has learned everything that his other music teachers could offer, and now seeks out Sainte Colombe to top off his education. Sainte Colombe is persuaded to take on the lad, not because of his admittedly outstanding musical skills, but because of the grief in his voice.

Their relationship doesn't work out at all. To the young Marin, music is his path from the lower classes all the way up to the king's side. To Sainte Colombe, this is the wrong reason to be playing music. He tells the lad, "You may make music, but you are not a musician." By the time the two men sever their ties, Marin has impregnated one of his mentor's daughters, but he turns his back on both the old man and the daughter, and marches off to the glory and glitter awaiting him in Versailles.

The central question which the film asks is, "Did the young Marin Marais make the right decision?" Subsumed in this theme is the matter of whether Marin knows or thinks about that decision. The story is told in flashback by old Marin (Gerard Depardieu, Guillaume's father), as he looks back on his own life and uses his experiences to form a cautionary tale which he uses to instruct the youngsters of the court.

All the Mornings of the World is a slow-moving, humorless French film filled with grief, tragedy and sadness. The old man is lost in his music and his daydreams about his late wife. The old Marin is filled with regrets about decisions he can never reverse because, "All the mornings of the world are without recall." The oldest daughter (Anne Brochet) is shattered when her lover abandons her for the splendor of Versailles, so she despairs, takes to bed, and eventually takes her own life. The somber tone of the film is accentuated by the heartbreakingly sad and low tones of the bass viola music, much of it actually written by the two real composers who were the models for this fictional story.

Are you still interested in this subtitled film after reading all that? Assuming that the whole concept is appealing to you, there is certainly no quality barrier. It won a bunch of Cesars (seven wins, including Best Picture, in eleven nominations), the French equivalent of Oscars. It is a very good film with excellent period details, impressive costumes, aesthetic visuals, generally good acting, and baroque music which was chosen perfectly for the subject matter. I had to struggle through the first ten minutes, which basically consist of a single camera on Depardieu's bloated face, but after that I did get involved.


Anne Brochet - some impressive nudity, including a few shots from the gyno-cam




 

Other Crap:

"Johnny Depp has the write stuff when it comes to signing autographs while Cameron Diaz is the worst"
  • Russell Crowe was voted as the most improved, as he has prmoised to start throwing lightweight cell phones at fans instead of those old klunky 1950's models. And some days, if you don't want a concussion from a vintage phone, he'll agree merely to nail your spleen to a coffee table.

Jerry Lewis to return to Vegas act

  • "His old, 2 1/2-hour stage act featured a combination of singing, comedy, dancing and pratfalls."
  • I may be an old cynic, but I'm pretty sure he's felled his last prats. The man is 80 years old, has been ill for six years, and was recently the size of a Buick Riviera.
  • (His spokeswoman announced that he's dropped back to 176 pounds, but I'm still not expecting many prats to fall.)

Could this headline occur anywhere but the UK? "Please don't floss with screwdrivers, dentists beg"

The trailer for Little Man

  • "Shawn Wayans plays a man so anxious to become a father that he mistakes a short-statured, baby-faced thief on the run, played by Marlon Wayans, for an abandoned toddler. He and his wife, played by Kerry Washington, take the 'baby' into their home and care for him. The 'baby's' partner-in-crime in a jewelry store heist, played by Tracy Morgan, tries to break him out and recover a stolen diamond."

The trailer from Gridiron Gang

  • "Gridiron Gang" tells the uplifting story of detention camp probation officer Sean Porter (Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson), who creates a high-school-level football team from a ragtag group of dangerous teenage inmates as a means to teach them self-respect and social responsibility. He is joined in this experiment by co-worker, Malcolm Moore (Xzibit).

"Racy photos of a Florida teacher have been found on the web -- and they're raising an uproar."

"HOLLYWOOD babe Halle Berry had to act out sex scenes by herself on the set of her new movie - because co-star Bruce Willis couldn't make the shoot."

"Colbert's Tip/Wag focuses on the U.S. Mint"

"Stephen Colbert asks Madeleine Albright how close we can get God and government."

Colbert Report: West Wing

  • "President Barlett, if you can find them, you must pardon the A-Team."

Colbert's word for the day "Fill 'er up"

Jon Stewart talks to former neo-con Francis Fukuyama about his book 'America at the Crossroads.'

The Daily Show's Jason Jones takes an in-depth look at the littlest division of the KISS Army

Daily Show: Corddry - Bird Flu Pandemic

  • "Informative docudramas are a long and brutal ordeal that rip apart the fabric of society."

eBay says New Zealand is not for sale

  • Before eBay pulled the plug, there were about two dozen bids and the bidding had gone as high as $3,000 Australian dollars. (I'm not kidding.)

"DWARF DRACULA: KNEE-HIGH ANKLE BITER TERRORIZING SEATTLE!"

USATODAY.com - What makes a film a phenom?

  • March of the Penguins, Dirty Dancing, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Porky's, Blair Witch ... they don't seem to have much in common

Letterman: "Top Ten Reasons I Love Being Dave's Mom (As presented by Dave's Mom)"

The HomePage of Quahog's Mayor Adam West

The Skeletor Show, Episode 1

"Spring Break in New Dehli!" Par-TAY!

A science experiment determines that Viagra keeps flowers from wilting.

George Costanza had children? Woman ditches wheelchair, flees police on foot.

Five clips from The Wind That Shakes the Barley.

A real popcorn flick:

  • Ireland 1920: workers from field and country unite to form volunteer guerrilla armies to face the ruthless "Black and Tan" squads that are being shipped from Britain to block Ireland's bid for independence. Driven by a deep sense of duty and a love for his country, Damien abandons his burgeoning career as a doctor and joins his brother, Teddy, in a dangerous and violent fight for freedom. As the freedom fighters' bold tactics bring the British to breaking point, both sides finally agree to a treaty to end the bloodshed. However, despite the apparent victory civil war erupts and families who fought side by side find themselves pitted against one another as sworn enemies, putting their loyalties to the ultimate test.

From Silent Bob's Myspace Blog: "Weinstein Co. has upped the 'Clerks II' release date from August 18th to JULY 21st!"

Here's that seven minute preview of X-Men 3, if you missed it last night.

Use your iPod Video, Nano or Photo as a Yahoo! Maps directions viewer!

Scientist/inventors finally do something useful, create hi-tech tailgate in time for NFL season.

  • It comes complete with a low temperate meat smoker, if you're not able to date Lindsay Lohan.

You know what just beats the hell out of N.Y. Yankee Fantasy Camp? Czech Pornstar Camp!

"Houston Rockets forward Juwan Howard was accused today of shoplifting a $2,000 pair of sunglasses from a Miami-area optical store."

  • Ironically, they are the new line of sunglasses from the Winona Ryder Collection.

''Lost'': Secrets of the shocking finale. (Major spoilers)

  • 'Lost': EW goes behind the scenes of the season's most anticipated finale, as the castaways uncover new secrets about the island and prepare to battle the Others

Chris Daughtry offered a gig as the new lead singer of Fuel

Lots more pics of Vanessa Minnillo in that c-thru Dress

Bar-B-Q Report (because every time you look around, Lohan is smoking some fresh meat): Lindsay Lohan is now wearing the same clothes permanently

Denise Richards has already been dumped by Richie Sambora

"We manage to go 30 years without a faux-SNL backstage show, then suddenly NBC gives us two at once!"

The Daily Show: "The United Nations has named some spit-take worthy nations to their Human Rights Council."

Get Sam Spade on the case ...Somebody is stealing all the horse poop from Middlefield, Ohio

Hillary has lost her appeal to the activist left.

  • Interesting article from England. It says that Hillary is virtually a shoo-in for nomination because she controls the Democratic machine, but will have a long row to hoe for election, and an impossibly long row if she runs against John McCain, who cuts deeply into her liberal power base.
  • Of course, McCain is far from a shoo-in for nomination, and the article does not discuss the possibility of a Hillary run against a Republican machine politician like Jeb Bush.

"President Bush's job-approval rating has fallen to its lowest mark of his presidency (29%), according to a new Harris Interactive poll."

  • The President has not yet dropped below 30 in the Gallup Polls, however. Four Presidents have made the twenties at Gallup.
  • The all-time worst Gallup number belongs to Harry Truman (23%).
  • Nixon holds the record for a President elected twice - he was at 24% before he resigned.
  • One-termer Carter hit 28%, and one-termer Bush the Elder 29%.
  • No other President ever dropped below 35%, so the current President Bush's 31% already holds the record for a President serving two full terms - assuming he makes it! Reagan previously held the record at 35%. (Neither Truman nor Nixon served two full terms.)

Sportsbook.com takes wagers on presidential approval ratings, impeachment, and other political arcana

 

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

 

"Midnight Warrior"

Midnight Warrior (1989) is a thriller. The one comment at IMDb suggests that they started with a good idea, and botched it. I agree that the film is badly botched, but am not sure which concept the writer thought was good, the official plot outline, or the actual plot. The plot outline reads, "A TV news cameraman, hailed as a hero for pulling a woman from a burning car, finds that his ratings-hungry boss is deliberately placing him in dangerous situations in a quest for even more ratings." In fact, after the rescue, our guy only covers one more story, a ground breaking ceremony with the state governor that is interrupted by an assassin in a helicopter. Given the rest of the story, this must have been arranged by our hero's boss, although the spectacular assassination attempt and fiery helicopter explosion is just dropped from the narrative.

Our hero, played by Kevin Bernhardt, is supposedly a ladies man, and we see him in bed with an unidentified waitress who shows breasts and buns, and with reporter Heidi Paine, in a sex scene that starts in a shower. She is his network reward for being a hero. She shows breasts and a hint of bush in this scene.

IMDb readers say 3.6, with a whopping 7 votes. Mine will lower the rating. The acting was completely incompetent, the film was ineptly assembled from bad photography, and the plot was full of enough holes to use as a strainer. This is a D-, or maybe even lower.


Heidi Paine



Unknown




 



Today we return to "Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals". Three ladies all with full frontal nudity.

Anna Maria Clementi leads it off with a "Babe in Bondage" scene after being captured by the cannibals. Warning: if you're squeamish skip the last couple of caps.


Anna Maria Clementi


Susan Scott naked in bed, then off to the jungle to have sex with one of the guides.


Susan Scott


Monica Zanchi pleasuring herself while watching another couple have sex.


Monica Zanchi




A few more hardcore 'caps from the The Gimp.

Today's batch feautres Anais Alexander doing her thing in scenes from "Sophisticated Sluts".


Anais Alexander



Today from Melaninis...an assortment of hotties barely staying clothed in scenes from an FHM DVD.

Tera Patrick


Lucy Becker


Javine Keeley Hazel Michelle Marsh Sophie Howard




From Squiddy...here's Andie MacDowell showing some serious pokies while out and about.

From the Skin-man...here is busty blonde newcomer Heidi Hawking topless (and showing a bit of bum) in scenes from "Grandma's Boy".


Pat's comments in yellow...

BIKINI MODEL TEACHER INVESTIGATED
I Saw Her In A Van Halen Video - At West Boca Raton High School in Florida, social studies teacher Erica Chevillar, 25, is being investigated after a parent complained that risque photos of her are on the Internet. In college, the sexy blonde Chevillar was a bikini and lingerie model under the name Erica Lee for the USA National Bikini Team, some of whom became Playboy Playmates. A school spokesman said this might be a "big concern" because teachers are supposed to set a high standard for students; but it's not criminal, school is almost over, and she's quitting at the end of May anyway to become a real estate agent.

* But the school board will continue examining the photos until at least September.
* Her students are protesting because she's a good teacher, they like her, and she hasn't even had sex with any of them yet.
* The outraged parent recognized her face while searching for bikini and lingerie photos...It's amazing he even noticed her face.


UNIVERSAL TO PAY $12 MIL PAYOLA FINE
Hope You Got Some Of This! - Universal Music Group, which reportedly put up $50 million to start a label just for Lindsay Lohan only to find that nobody wanted to hear her sing, has agreed with New York's Attorney General to pay $12 million, the largest payola fine so far. UMG hired a company to stuff the e-mail ballot boxes of MTV's "Total Request Live" and gave expensive gifts such as vacations and laptops to radio DJs and programmers to try to get more airplay for their artists, who include a number of one-hit rappers as well as teen popsters Ashlee Simpson, Nick Lachey and Lohan. The $12 million will go to New York charities that run non-profit music education and appreciation programs.

* Oh no! That'll put them out of business entirely!
* I bet we could've taken up a collection and easily raised $50 million to pay stations NOT to play these records.
* They can pay some stations to play it, but there's not enough money in the world to pay people to listen to it.
* My question: when are they going to start bribing people who make jokes about Ashlee Simpson and Lindsay Lohan records on the radio? Hey, it's PUBLICITY, people!!


ASHLEE WON'T CONFIRM NOSE JOB RUMORS
They Used The Excess Tissue To Make Breast Implants - Ashlee Simpson disappeared from public view for a week, and when she reappeared, talk swirled that she'd had a nose job. Her famously large hooked beak suddenly looks smaller and straight. But when asked if she'd had a nose job, she just giggled. When pressed again, she giggled some more and said, "Maybe. Who knows?"

* We do.
* She not only had a nose operation, the anesthetic hasn't even worn off yet.
* Sadly, this will not improve her singing voice...But at least it'll be quieter, without the megaphone.
* Her sister knew this GREAT plastic surgeon...