Monster (2003) is finally being released on DVD. Ebert called Charlize Theron's Oscar winning performance "one of the greatest performances in the history of the cinema." After watching it, I have to say that he greatly understated the case. This is a biopic about a highway hooker in Florida who ended up killing 7 Johns and was eventually executed. The film makers took the trouble to walk the areas she walked, meet her friends, read all of her correspondence from prison, which was mainly remembrances of her life. IN short, they really did their homework. They didn't try to make her a sympathetic character, but they did show what events and conditions in her life severely limited her choices to the point that she committed the murders, all in an effort to live a real life with her first female lover.

This attention to detail, and serious research into what made the woman what she was would have resulted in a better than average serial killer film, and no more. That brings me back to Charlize Theron's performance. Had I not known it was Charlize I was watching, I never would have guessed it was her. It wasn't just the 30 pounds she put on, the fake facial skin, contacts or false teeth, it was the fact that she became a completely different person, with different body rhythms, different speech patterns, and a different voice. From the few clips of the real Aileen Wuornos included in the special features, Wuomos is the character Theron became. The film was shot in the actual physical locations from Wuomos life. If the film has a moral stance, it is that, when people pushed down for long enough, they have no other choice than to commit horrid acts. However, the film doesn't excuse the acts.

Theron shows breasts in a shower then sex scene, and also is seen in a bra and panties washing up in a public restroom. IMDb readers have this at 7.4 of 10. It earned $34.5M against a budget of $8M. I watch a lot of serial killer films, as they normally have at least some nudity, and this is head and shoulders above the others, primarily because of Charlize Theron. I honestly had no idea she had this kind of talent. With the Best Actress statuette of Uncle Oscar under her arm, she should pull some more big roles now, and I am looking forward to seeing them. This is a clear B, rising above the genre due to good research/writing and an amazing performance. If you haven't seen it, put it on your rental list.

Some oddball stuff in .wmv clips

• Olympic gymnast Corinna Ungureanu doping topless floor exercises.
• Superdupermodel Elle Macpherson in the "making of" video from a modeling shoot. When I was a kid we had no supermodels. We had models, and we had Superman, and we never got the two confused. Except for that one time when Lex Luthor used Pink Kryptonite, and I can't bear to think about that.
• See-through runway action from another superdupermodel, Gisele.
• Kate Hudson in About Adam. Kate has recently been doing family-oriented romantic crap targeted at young teen girls. But at one time in her life, she was doing much more important projects, namely more mature romantic crap targeted at older teen girls. Here she flashes one of her small but stylish breasts in About Adam.
• Cute clip from SNL - Cheri Oteri in a sweater with some interesting action below it.

OTHER CRAP:

• Tigress raises piglets. Personally, I think she's just fattening them up.
• Mr Montgomery Burns joins the Bee Gees. Excellent.
• GALLUP: Higher gas prices may mean less driving for Americans this summer.
• Italy approves jail time for P2P file sharers.
• Filmmaker Moore Says He Has Footage Of a Nick Berg Interview. He will keep it private. Hey - I thought this was the guy who favored complete openness.
• Memorial Day 2003: President Bush Honors America's GI Joe Sixpacks Who Couldn't Cough up the Cashola to Escape Combat Duty
• Should sword-swallowing be taught in our schools?
• WTF??? US asks private sector to ease bullet shortage No bullets? Well, there goes that whole, wacky conquer-the-world-for-Jesus idea.
• The international trailer from Crimson Rivers 2: Angels of the Apocalypse (Written by Luc Besson, starring Jean Reno)
• Another clip (#6) from Raising Helen.
• The international trailer for The Best of Youth: "Spanning four decades, from the chaotic 1960s to the present, director Marco Tullio Giordana's passionate epic 'The Best of Youth' follows two Italian brothers through some of the most tumultuous events of recent history. In a final period of hopeful innocence, free-spirited Nicola (Luigi Lo Cascio) travels the world and settles for a life as a successful psychiatrist, while his tragically introverted and idealist brother Matteo (Alessio Boni) joins the Italian police with the hope of righting society's wrongs. Their politics and personalities are inextricably intertwined as the world around them violently shifts and they are pushed together and pulled apart by the tides of history and their own divergent dreams"
• Remembering Dan Quayle, who was a heartbeat away.
• The Daily Show looks at Donald Rumsfeld's testimony and policies.
• Three new clips from Soul Plane
• Chicago 7 defendant, activist David Dellinger dies at 88
• BUSH VOWS "EXTREME MAKEOVER" FOR IRAQ Offers Free Plastic Surgery to Every Iraqi.
• Star Magazine tells how much naked pictures would be worth for various big celebrities. It ranges from $1.2 million for the Mouseketeer to $1.98 for Carrot Top.
• CNN.com - World's 'oldest university' unearthed in Egypt: World's oldest keg found nearby.
• Chicago to get 1st Wal-Mart
• Are You as Dumb as Jessica Simpson?
• Movie-Today.com - short film competition
• Have sex, Croatian coach tells players.
• Ozzy Osbourne: The Rock Star people would most like to pelt with a beer bottle
• 'Fruity' Celeb Baby Names Irk Singer's Daughter
• 'Hunting for Bambi' creator admits Nevada videos were fake (Supposedly Most Dangerous Game paint ball hunts for naked women.)
• 'PrimeTime Thursday' updates its controversial segment on porn
• Cattrall declines 'Sex and the City' film.
• Ultrachrist! is now available for pre-order on DVD: He's back, and this time He's wearing spandex.
• Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter is now on DVD : IMDb calls it a "Kung-Fu Action / Comedy / Horror / Musical about the second coming". Tagline: The Power of Christ Impales You
• For Some, the Blogging Never Stops
• Trailer and pictures from The Terminal, with Tom Hanks
• This week's movies: The Mother - 71%. Limited distribution. "An acerbic, astute comic drama about fidelity, family, and sexagenarian sex." From the U.K. - directed by the guy who did Notting Hill.
• This week's movies: The Five Obstructions - 87% positive reviews. Don't be fooled by that number. It is another "experimental" film from that nutty arthouse hotshot, Lars von Trier. Far too many critics love that kind of stuff.
• This week's movies: Soul Plane - 67% positive reviews. That may be misleading, because it is based on only six reviews. If the movie really is that funny, they really need to fire the guy who did the trailer, because I mentally blew the film off after watching the preview.
• This week's movies: Raising Helen - 26% positive reviews
• This week's movies: The Day After Tomorrow - 56% positive reviews.
• A "best of" The Daily Show - Ah-nuld wins the California recall.
• Gwyneth Paltrow to Play Marlene Dietrich . If true, Gwyneth had the shortest retirement in history. (About two weeks ago, she was going to stop acting until her babies are grown.)
• Interesting GALLUP poll: Which Branch of the Armed Forces Is Most Important? For the first time since the late 40s, people are not voting overwhelmingly for the Air Force. It is now a virtual three-way tie between the Army, Marines, and Air Force.
• Halle Berry says "Give me a baby and I'm yours". I don't think there will be any shortage of applicants for that position.
• Crime laboratory evidence shows the woman who accused Kobe Bryant of rape had consensual sex with another man hours after the Kobe incident, MSNBC reported on Wednesday. Most important, this seems to be DNA evidence from the prosecution's own laboratory.
• Zogby poll: if election were held today, Kerry would win by 102 electoral votes.

  
   

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.

Various

• "Three's Company" babe and Thighmaster spokesperson Suzanne Somers, in Magnum Force, one of the Eastwood films featuring supercop Begrimed Harold (.avi, .wmv)
• Screen nudity pioneer Glenda Jackson strips off in Women in Love. She was one of the first mainstream actresses to do extensive nudity. (.avi, .wmv)
• Elisabeth Shue in Molly. I think this was Shue's last screen nudity.(.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.

• Shannyn Sossamon, Emmanuelle Vaugier and Natassia Malthe in scenes from "40 Days and 40 Nights" (2002). Sossamon and Vaugier briefly show some breast views, Malthe bares her bum.

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

• Angela Aames, the B-movie babe who sadly died way before her time. She's probably best known from "H.O.T.S." (1979) and as the 'Baby Picture mom' from the 1984 Tom Hanks comedy classic "Bachelor Party". Here she is topless in the tub.
  (1, 2, 3)

• Angela Aames .wmv

  
  

• Ann Dusenberry, the 'star' of the movie...well the lead character anyway. In typical B-movie fashion, she's the kinda, but cute girl who doesn't get nekkid until the end of the movie.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

• Ann Dusenberry .wmvs. Nice cleavage in #1, topless in the others. (1, 2, 3, 4)

  
  

• Barbara Peckinpaugh and Erika Dockery playing "Salesgirl #1" and "Salesgirl #2". Not exactly sure which is which, but both are topless and one is mostly full frontal while lying on her side.

• Barbara Peckinpaugh and Erika Dockery .wmv

  
  

• Rhonda Shear, the B-actress and former host of the USA Network's "USA Up All Night". Here she is as a brunette, and topless before any alterations.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

• Rhonda Shear .wmvs (topless in #1) (1, 2)

  
  

• Three unknown actresses. Full frontal nudity in 1 and 2. All 3 B's in #3. Toplessness only in 4 and 5.
  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• Vids of the three unknowns, plus a few other assorted body parts in pool full of nekkid people. (1, 2, 3)

  
  

• A .wmv of topless parachuting babes

Jenny McCarthy

As a huge fan of "Airplane!", "Top Secret" and "The Naked Gun" movies, it hurts to say this, but I think David Zucker really needs to stop directing. "Scary Movie 3" was at best a series of 'dick and fart' jokes sprinkled with Leslie Nielsen recycling lines that he originally delivered in "Airplane!" (and that time, they were funny). As a fan, perhaps I'm still a little pissed at Zucker for delivering one of the worst director commentaries ever (see my review of "Top Secret"), but in this case, I think I can step away from that, look at the pieces of the SM3 puzzle objectively, and still say he fell very short.

First off all...He missed the point of the "Scary Movie" series. Yes, poke fun at popular movies, but the key element was poking fun at the horror movie genre and all the genre's wonderful clichés. "Scary Movie 3" lacks the focus and/or plot found in the first two. Instead, it's just all over the map with parodies. Including poking fun of: "The Ring", "The Matrix Reloaded", "Signs", "The Hulk", "The Others" and "8 Mile". Granted there are some funny scenes, but only in one-liner, or 1 minute scene form. Then followed up by 5-10 minutes of bouncing around between other, moronic sub-plots and parody ideas that are just plain not funny.

My second major problem with this movie...TONS of comic talent wasted. Charlie Sheen, Anthony Anderson, Eddie Griffin, George Carlin and Timothy Stack (aka my brother's hero "Notch Johnson") to name a few. Each was able to get a few one-liners in, but with this much comic power, Zucker should have been able to get more laughs on screen.

Number 3 (and I think this answers all). While watching the behind the scenes featurettes, Zucker proudly announced several times that much of the movie was made up as they were shooting. Often, he would do re-writes at night, then deliver lines to the actors the next day along with orders for the crew to build new sets. Call me crazy, but how the hell do you get work in Hollywood as a director working like that? And more importantly, where do I sign up! Give me a 45 million budget, a cast of some of the funniest comic actors in the business and I guarantee I could do better!

end of rant

FANTASIA IS NEW "AMERICAN IDOL"
American Voters Finally Get One Right! - Last night's "American Idol" results show was stretched out nearly to Super Bowl length, complete with a pre-show and Tamyra Gray singing the National Anthem. Not surprisingly, favorite Fantasia Barrino beat Diana DeGarmo, although Fox claimed the vote was within one percent. * Diana's demanding a recount in Florida. * Fantasia knew she'd made it because she was immediately sued for copyright infringment by Disney Corp. * After the show, millions of people called in and tried to vote for Tamyra Gray. * It's become just like the Super Bowl, except the Super Bowl features musical entertainment.

ART DESTROYED IN WAREHOUSE FIRE
God Is An Art Lover - The British modern art world was shocked by the news that a raging warehouse fire in London destroyed dozens of works by top contemporary artists. It included art by Damian Hirst, famous for his rotting-sheep-floating-in-formaldehyde, and Tracey Emin's "Everyone I Have Ever Slept With, 1963-1995," which was a tent upon which she had stitched the names of dozens of her past lovers. Art critics called it a devastating loss.