Angel of Destruction (1994) is a naked martial arts actioner starring Maria Ford and set in the Philippines. As a matter of fact, it is probably the best naked martial arts actioner of all time. As the film opens, Jimmy Broome, ex Green Beret mercenary, kills everyone in a hotel room because they let him and his troops down in Angola, then returns to his room and performs a ritual murder on a hooker. Meanwhile, detective Charlie Spradling kicks the crap out of a mobster and his gang and rescues the girl they lured to their room.

Meanwhile, Jessica Mark is a popular vocalist who, together with her live in lover, Chanda, does a strip B&D musical routine in a club. After the performance, she finds a severed finger that Broome placed there. The finger has a unique ring, and identical rings were found a the scenes of the murders. Mark hires Spradling as a body guard, but Spradling is immediately murdered by Broome. Maria Ford is called to the scene of the previous murders, and finds out about the death of her sister, She is assigned to protect Mark and Chanda, and catch the bad guys. We also learn that Mark is promoted by the same mobster we already met. He wants her to clean up her image and her act, as her record sales are in the crapper. When she refuses, he decides the only way to recoup his money is to collect on her life insurance.

My favorite scene is the one where Maria Ford, wearing nothing but a thong, kicks the crap out of a b8unch of expert trained assassins. Tat was her first nude scene, and before the film is over, she has sex with her boss who is also her boyfriend, and is forced by circumstances to do a strip act. We have breasts from two unknowns, and breasts and buns from Mark and Chanda in addition to the nudity by Ford.

IMDb readers have this at 3.7 of 10. which may be right if you compare it to the4 Godfather, but we are talking about a genre with fairly low standards, the martial arts genre, and throwing in enough nudity for a tittie flick. Sure, you have to wonder why all the leads are American and running a police department in the Philippines, but the fight scenes are well done and Ford seems to do her own fighting, we have shootouts, explosions, and even a short car chase. I don't know what more people could want from a B film. This is clearly a C-. If Naked martial arts films appeal to you, this is Nirvana.

Bubba Ho-Tep (2002 0r 2003)

This is almost certainly the Citizen Kane of "Elvis and JFK battle a zombie in a cowboy suit" movies.

If you watch as many movies as I do, your most common complain about them is probably something like "I felt like I had seen it all before". You wonder if there are any ideas that is truly fresh and original. Tell you what. You really can't lodge those arguments against Bubba Ho-Tep. Whatever else you may say, you can't deny it is original.

Years before his "death", Elvis switched places with an impersonator and returned to private life. As the film begins, he is living in a rest home in East Texas, a Sad Sack walking with the aid of a walker, and his best friend is an elderly black man who insists that he is really JFK. The real "assassination" conspiracy, he insists, involved LBJ removing him from power and dying him black so that nobody would ever believe his claim that he was really the President. In fact, when JFK later hears the mummy in the corridor, he thinks it is Lyndon Johnson coming to finish him off. Elvis says, "Lyndon Johnson is dead", and Kennedy answers, "Dead? That won't stop Lyndon."

Somewhere near their rest home, there was a fierce storm which threw a truck into a river. Inside that truck was a rare Egyptian mummy and ...  well, to make a long story short, the Mummy is back. Elvis and JFK are heroes, and if heroes won't battle an evil resurrected mummy - who, I ask you, will do so? Besides, the great heroes are feeling useless and this fight is a change to restore their youthful glory.

Very funny idea. In fact, the movie could have been both very funny and very touching, because Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis are both magnificent as Elvis and JFK, and both men play their parts perfectly straight, and completely convincingly. Campbell nails an "old Elvis". Davis doesn't try to impersonate JFK, but I think that's because we're supposed to believe that JFK is simply a crazy man who thinks he is JFK, while Elvis really is Elvis. Not that it really matters.

The source material was an award-winning oddball short story by Joe Lansdale. All the stars seemed to be aligned, and I was really looking forward to this film.

Unfortunately, it just doesn't really work, and the blame falls squarely in the shoulders of director Don Coscarelli, who just couldn't seem to put the whole thing together so that it was emotional, and funny, and coherent at the same time. Perhaps that could have been done, but it would have required a master to do it, and Coscarelli is basically a hack. Imagine Andy Sidaris directing American Beauty, and you'll get the idea. The final showdown between Elvis and the mummy is so clumsy that it strips all tension as well as all humor from the battle. Coscarelli's best previous films are Phantasm and The Beastmaster, two films which I like but which weren't really all that, and both were made more than twenty years ago. In the twenty years between Beastmaster and Bubba Ho-tep, his directorial output consists mostly of inferior sequels to his two successes from so long ago.

1. (5.21) - Survival Quest (1989)
2. (5.21) - Phantasm II (1988)
3. (4.76) - Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)
4. (4.59) - Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)
5. (3.96) - Beastmaster III: The Eye of Braxus (1996)
6. (3.32) - Beastmaster 2: Through the Portal of Time (1991)

Given the fact that he had no film rated as high as five in the 1990s, the film world must have been shocked to see Coscarelli, suddenly, at the age of about 50, direct a film rated 8.0 at IMDb! Bubba Ho-tep isn't really that good, of course, but it has a solid cult following because a lot of great ingredients: an original concept, two solid performances, and some good one-liners. If you are looking for something very different, you may join its tiny but devoted legion of fans!

It is an incredibly comprehensive DVD, if you are a fan.

• Anonymous Egyptian chicks (1, 2)

Shade (2003)

Unbelievably enough, we give two thumbs up to a Sylvester Stallone film!

Scoop's comments in white:

Shade is the best movie Sly Stallone has done in a long, long time. Maybe the best since Party at Kitty and Stud's. It's one of those films that I can't say much about because (1) even slight hints would spoil some of the fun, and (2) it's worth seeing, so it should not be spoiled.

The basic idea is that grifters are constantly working to out-grift one another. The specific grifters covered here are poker players, and the storyline focuses upon a "mechanic" - a card sharp looking for the big score. One of the most interesting things about the film is that many card manipulations are shown in real time from above and below a glass table, so that the audience can see how the sting works from the viewpoint of the mark (above the table), then see it again from the viewpoint of the grifter (shot from beneath).

Stallone plays the old master who, like a gunfighter, travels from town to town taking on the young guns who want to make a name for themselves. He does a good enough job in a laid-back role, but he is not the focus of the film.

If you liked Confidence, you'll find this film very similar, and maybe a bit better. I thought it was quite an effective combination of the more cerebral sting films, like The Spanish Prisoner and Heist, with the more grotesquely violent modern gangster sagas, ala Pulp Fiction or The Usual Suspects. It's not wildly original, but hey, Mamet meets Tarantino - that's not a bad combination at all!

• Erika Nann Baranco (1, 2, 3, 4)
• J. Katherine Novy (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• other chicks

see Tuna's section for detailed collages.

Cruel Intentions 3 (2004)

Unlike Cruel Intentions 2, which was a prequel to Cruel Intentions, this one actually takes place after the original. Of course, it doesn't have a goddamned thing to do with the original other than:

1. The two main characters mention that they are related to Sebastien and Kathryn.

2. It is about a bunch of spoiled rich kids betting on whether they can fuck other people and each other.

Point number two is pretty the entire plot summary. The reasons don't matter much. They are universally mean-spirited, and the characters use more elaborate stings and scams and counterstings than in the previous versions of the story. In case you had forgotten, Cruel Intentions (Ryan Phillippe and Buffy) itself was a modern interpretation of an 18th century French tale which had already been made into several period movies, like Dangerous Liaisons (Glenn Close and John Malkovich) and Valmont (Annette Bening and Colin Firth).

As in all of previous interpretations of Dangerous Liaisons, the main characters are lacking in heart, relying solely on guile and calculation, and their sexual escapades have nothing to do with pleasure, but are all about power and advantage. The leads are lacking in charm, and you will hate them all. (Only Colin Firth, playing the title role in Valmont, has ever managed to bring any humanity and charm to any of the lead roles in this series.)

This is not the best of the Dangerous Liaison impersonators, but it is not the worst either (that would be Cruel Intentions 2). The dialogue in this film is quite weak, but the movie is otherwise marginally competent, and actually looks pretty well appointed! Miraculously, despite the uniformly unpleasant and underdeveloped characters, I made it through without the fast forward button.

• Elizabeth McDonald
• Tara Carroll

MAILBOX:

Scoops:

Any better pics of those college kids riding the roller coasters naked?

Scoop says: as a matter of fact, yes! (1, 2, 3)

Scoop:

Here is a .wmv clip of Valeria Golino's breast being exposed on Italian TV.

OTHER CRAP:

• Step aside, Brad Pitt, for Michael Moore. Some like him, some hate him - but you have to admit he is one sexy hunka burnin' love.
• The Daily Show's Lewis Black talks about censorship and Michael Moore's new movie. Very funny report.
• Roger Ebert reviews Michael Moore's new film.
• Richard Biggs (Dr. Stephen Franklin on 'Babylon 5') died Saturday at 44.
• The 69 worst titles for country music songs! “She Don’t Love Me More Than NASCAR”
• BUSH TO USE GIANT HYPNO-COIN IN SPEECH TO U.N. You Are Getting Very Sleepy, He Tells World Body
• Kobe Bryant's defense team may try to get an acquittal based on text messages that the accuser made from her AT&T cell phone.
• DNA Study Finds Chihuahuas Aren't Dogs . Among other findings, the analysis determined that the Chihuahua is actually a type of large rodent, selectively bred for centuries to resemble a canine. (If I were you I would take this site with many grains of salt, maybe even an entire salt mine.)
• URL says it all: NOBODYforPresident.net - because we need an America with nobody in charge. Wait. How is that different from Bush or Clinton?
• Christmobile crashes in multi-car crucifixion.
• Freakin' awesome tool! NASA - JPL Solar System Simulator
• I-65 closing turns out to be a false alarm.
• What's the origin of "in a coon's age"?
• Bush Twins College Graduation: Congratulations Card from the President and First Lady
• First look at the dorkier-than-Bill-Gates poster from Catwoman.
• Teeing off at Kabul Golf Course
• Eating strawberries and raspberries can increase your sex drive
• URL says it all: InvadeCanada.US
• Oregon Prisoners Must Pay to stay in jail. "Sorry, Jimbo. If ya don't pay, we're just gonna have to evict ya."
• Welcome to the Cooper Cooler - chill beverages instantly, on demand
• The 213 Things Skippy is No Longer Allowed to Do in the U.S. Army
• Marvel Comics to enter made-for-DVD market
• New internationmal trailer from I, Robot
• ESPN.com's - Ten Greatest Canadians
• President mispronounces Abu Ghraib three different ways in one speech!
• Universe Measured: We're 156 Billion Light-years Wide!
• Investigators Say They've Broken Up Large Movie Pirating Ring.
• Minor league team cancels "sports criminal night" promotion
• Walter Cronkite - at MTV news - ???
• Victoria Beckham plans to try and crack America because her manager has told her the British public hate her. And that's the same public that calles Madonna "Madge" affectionately. OK, we'll take Posh, but she has to learn to speak with a phony American accent, to make it an even swap for Madonna.
• Goldie Hawn says laughter keeps her looking young. True. The laughter of her plastic surgeons as they cash their checks.
• RARE: Peter Seeger's produced but unreleased 1970 version of Country Joe's Fixin' to Die Rag. Not very good really, but something you've never heard.
• Letterman's top ten chapter headings in Bill Clinton's memoirs
• Creepy - Helter Skelter Manson movie reviewed by former Manson family member!
• Police Close I-65, Search Suspicious Truck: Secret Service Describes Incident As Related To 'Homeland Security'"
• GOP Creating Own '527' Groups for soft money collection.
• Dirigibles are making a comeback
• Jake Gyllenhaal talks about "Day After Tomorrow"
• New trailer for Ju-On: The Grudge (Japanese horror film)
• URL says it all, although I don't know exactly what "all" is: DUCKOMENTA.de
• Now your table-top soccer game can have scale model streakers.
• University Cancels Annual Pornfest.
• The Daily Show's Jim Colbert talks about clothing decency laws. "Low rider pants are a gateway garment."
• Wizard Stan Winston to design the new Superman effects
• Old Snoop Dogg to divorce, learn new tricks.
• Gallo's "The Brown Bunny" gets North American distribution.
• Exclusive look: Meet the 'Fockers' in advance
• JoBlo does Cannes, Part 13

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.

Romance

About once a year a French movie is so explicit in sex or violence that it causes a great international controversy over art and censorship and yadda yadda. Five years back, it was Romance

• Caroline Ducey (.wmv, .avi).

• Caroline Ducey (.wmv, .avi). The guy is Italian porno star Rocco Siffredi

• Caroline Ducey (.wmv, .avi). Pounded from behind this time.

Malice and Malicious

OK, so "malice-based words" is not really much of a theme, but these are fairly rare.

• A rarely-capped scene of Nicole Kidman in Malice. (Too dark to see much) (.wmv, .avi)

• Molly Ringwald in Malicious. She grew up a lot after 16 Candles (.wmv, .avi).

• More of Molly Ringwald's very fine chest, in Malicious. (.wmv, .avi).

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.

Kirsten Imrie has been a popular U.K. model for a good long while. Lots of photoshoots in lots of magazines. Lots. Even appeared across the pond in Penthouse as the Pet of the Month for December 1989 (used the name Kirsten Stewart).

Only a couple of movies. Bit parts... unlike the ones she, herself, sports. Did a video in mid-90's that's been repackaged as a DVD and retitled as U.K. Celebrity: Kirsten Imrie. The disk has some video of a couple of photoshoots and another four or five erotic posing thingees. I capped the living beejeebers out of it (grand total of 456 frames) and put the best of them together into 30 collages. Too many words to describe each, so I made some thumbs to help out.

This fits into the strip-n-wiggle category of disks. More than a little entertaining the first time through.

• Thumbnail previews
• Thumbnail previews
• Thumbnail previews

• Kirsten Imrie (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)

• Taimie Hannum bares all while dancing on stage, then also bares breasts and a little bum in a sex scene. Check out link #21 for a very brief rear gyno-view.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27)

• Taimie Hannum .wmvs. #1 is her dancing scene, #2 is the has the pseudo-sex. (1, 2)

  
  

• Taimie Hannum and Susan Featherly doing some more stripping. Hannum is mostly topless with a hint of pubes in #5 and #6, Featherly bares all. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Taimie Hannum and Susan Featherly .wmv

Scoops,
While working on the images and videos for "The Awakening of Gabriella" I had a feeling that I had seen the actress Crystal Craft someplace before. And I was right!

She is also known as Venus in hard core porn movies, as well as in two Skinemax movies ("Passion Crimes" and "Deviant Obsession"). It turns out she has also posed for Penthouse under the name Angelica Costello.

As evidence for the Crystal Craft/Venus theory I offer the following three images from the movies. Please note the same black tattoo on her right shoulder blade:

• Crystal Craft/Venus in "Deviant Desires"
• Crystal Craft/Venus in "Passion Crimes"
• Crystal Craft/Venus in "The Awakening of Gabriella"

• .wmvs of Crystal Craft/Venus in "Deviant Desires" (1, 2, 3, 4)
• .wmvs of Crystal Craft/Venus in "Passion Crimes" (1, 2)
• .wmvs of Crystal Craft/Venus giving a BJ in a hard core vid.

"The Mountain of the Cannibal God"
For those who like films that have everything, try this 1978 Italian production (in English). It has a campy story with lame acting, nudity, graphic wildlife shots including a giant boa eating a monkey, fairly graphic sex scenes, torture and cannibalism, a very graphic scene of a female native masterbating, and oh yes, the DVD uncut version has a scene of a native having sex with a pig. The DVD cover (Uncut version) called this movie a "notorious shocker" and I can accept that description. The movie was banned in Germany, and heavily cut everywhere else. In the USA, it was released with an R rating and 17 minutes of film removed.

The story tells of a sister and brother on an expedition in the jungle of New Guinea to find her missing archeologist husband. As mentioned, it is campy and lame, but the location photography is beautiful, and the wildlife footage, while often gross, is also breathtaking and dramatic. Aged 42 when she made this, Ursula Andress still looked pretty darned good nude, and there are plenty of attractive naked native girls for those who don't like older women.

This is basically a typical gross and shocking Italian exploitation film, but I must admit I found it intesting, as a time capsule to 1978 film making, and another glimpse of how far director Sergio Martino, who also made the shocker Torso, would go.

If you get the DVD, be sure to note the title shot where the movie name is proudly proclaimed to be "THE MOUNTAIN OF OF THE CANNIBAL GOD". Perhaps the guy that did the English title had a little problem......with English. :-)

• Ursula Andress
• Luigina Rocchi
• Unknowns

Anyone kind enough to share their booty of copies of her booty, please do!

Jr's note.
Sadly, I missed the 'Variety Hour' myself and have yet to see any images. If anyone mananged to suffer through it, please send in some 'caps!

Subject: The Skinemax/Porn connection
I'm suprised that no one brought it up, but Anna Kaminskaia (from the Crimson Ghost's updates in the May 23rd and 25th Fun House archives) is also known as the mega-hot porn star Nikita.

Jr's note.
So much porn...so little time. Thanks for helping ID her!

ARNOLD'S COUGH DROP YANKED FROM EBAY
This Sucks! - Friday, eBay yanked an auction of a cough drop allegedly spat out by Arnold Schwarzenegger. The seller claimed he retrieved it from the trash, and it was a "must-have" for celebrity item collectors because it contained Arnold's DNA. eBay said that violates their ban on selling body parts. But the seller could put the cough drop back up for sale if it's reclassified as a "collectible."