Palookaville (1995) is an inept crook comedy, which could have easily been a Tarentinoesque violence thing, or a boring rehash of the "Over the Hill Gang." In stead, it is a low key comedy with lots of muted laughs, good performances, and wonderful character development. William Forsythe, Vincent Gallo and Adam Trese are lifelong buddies in Jersey City, New Jersey, all unemployed, all more or less in a state of perpetual childhood, and all looking for a way to make some money and have a life. Vincent Gallo still lives at home with his mother, sister, and jerk cop brother-in-law. He is having a secret relationship with a young neighbor girl, Kim Dickens. Adam Trese is married and has a child, but when he catches her supermarket boss trying to fondle her, he punches the boss out, turning them into a 0 income family. William Forsythe lives in squalor with is two dogs since his wife divorced him.

As they film opens, they are breaking into a jewelry store. Small miscalculation, and they end up in a bakery. Basically the optimistic sort, they clear out the few dollars in the register, and eat their fill of pastry. They try an abortive attempt at being an unlicensed taxi, then hit on "the idea." They will rob an armored car. Given their total lack of ability, you know they will not do well.

Dickens shows breasts flashing Gallo across the alley. IMDb readers have this at 6.5 of 10, and both Ebert and Berardinelli award 3 stars. I agree. I didn't get many belly laughs, but spent the entire film chuckling, grinning broadly, and enjoying the characters. There were excellent supporting performances from the likes of Frances McDormand, Lisa Gay Hamilton and Gareth Williams. They managed to create a fresh film even starting with an oft used premise. This film has a lot of heart. This is a solid C+.

Updates:

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated

Jude (1996):

Director Michael Winterbottom really has a thing for Thomas Hardy. He directed Jude, an interpretation of Hardy's Jude the Obscure, and then followed up four years later with The Claim, a Hardy story (The Mayor of Casterbridge) re-imagined in an American mining town in the 19th century. They are both good films, and they are both faithful to the original stories, to the extent that any long and complex novel can be adequately represented in a two hour screenplay.

These interpretations have earned Winterbottom a lot of respect in literary circles and among those who love filmed literature, but are not going to be his ticket to wealth and fame, because the number of ticket buyers in those literary groups is small indeed. Jude grossed only $405,000 in the vast United States market, and The Claim grossed an uncannily similar $404,000.

Of course, these novels weren't doing a lot for Thomas Hardy either. Many of his works were unpopular with the critics of his time, and Jude the Obscure was the least popular of all. A small, discriminating group of reviewers praised it, but in general it was panned so harshly and so vituperatively that Hardy never wrote another novel, despite living another 33 years.

If it was difficult for 19th century critics to endure Hardy, it is far more difficult today. In essence, he brought the grand themes of Greek tragedy to Victorian Dorsetshire, in novels that were bigger and better than life - more eloquent, more complicated, more emotional, more melodramatic. Above all, Hardy's vision of the novel required it to be more connected, and neater than life. The details and characters not only needed to be neatly intertwined, but all that twine had to get tied up into a neat little ball at the end, in order to offer the kind of closure rarely offered in real life stories. As a result of these characteristics, Hardy seems dated to for many reasons: his characters often speak in old-fashioned provincial dialects, his plotting seems too contrived even by 19th century standards (which were lax indeed!), and his themes seem too grand in scope and frankly just too damned depressing for the humble lives he portrays.

The film version of Jude is saddled with all that baggage. Our hero is a humble worker who studies Latin and Greek on his own because he wants to make something of himself. He amasses some impressive classical scholarship but the class system holds him back, and the great English Universities will not even give him a chance. He unwisely marries the first woman who pays attention to him, and this marriage haunts him the rest of his life. He then falls in love with his brilliant cousin and has two children with her while he is still technically married to his first wife. Society refuses to accept the relationship of the cousins, and this leads to tragedy after tragedy. Imagine the worst things that can happen to a man, and the things you imagine will probably happen to poor Jude.

My very short version of all this is that the movie is very good but very depressing. I mean this is a real bummer. Without spoiling the plot for you, I can't even hint as to exactly how depressing it is, but take my word for it that if you don't like that kind of movie, this is absolutely not for you. You have been warned.

I will speak now with the people who do like these sorts of serious literary adaptations. Someday you will want to have this film in your collection, because it is a good adaptation, it is performed beautifully, and the cinematography is exquisite. However ... there is no Region 1 DVD, and you do NOT want the current Region 2 DVD. The best thing about this film is its visual appeal - great sets, great costumes, photographed magnificently. Unfortunately, this DVD only includes a full screen version of the film in a 4:3 TV aspect ratio. If it were a full 35mm negative version, I would not complain, but this is a pan 'n scan version with the sides of heads cut off in two-shots, and other similar problems. I would like to own a properly mastered widescreen anamorphic DVD of this film, but I don't expect one to be available soon simply because there is no great economic demand for it. Today's DVD producers have plenty of profitable projects backlogged, and there is no urgent reason to interrupt those plans to work on a film which grossed $400,000, and is not likely to perform much better on DVD. If anyone does do it, it will have to be a labor of love with a minimal expectation of financial reward, unless it could be marketed based on the full frontal nudity from a young and ripe Kate Winslet.

Sigh. The bottom line is that Jude is a worthwhile small audience movie that I am simply not recommending for anyone at this time.

Nice nudity, though!

• Rachel Griffiths (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Kate Winslet (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

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• Three "caught on video" clips for Stealth.
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• Watch the first six minutes of Mad Hot Ballroom. Official blurb for this documentary:
  • "Eleven-year-old New York City public school kids journey into the world of ballroom dancing and reveal pieces of themselves and their world along the way. Told from their candid, sometimes hilarious perspectives, these kids are transformed, from reluctant participants to determined competitors, from typical urban kids to "ladies and gentlemen", on their way to try to compete in the final city-wide competition. Providing unique insight into the incredible cultural diversity that is New York City, this film profiles several kids from three schools (out of 60) at this dynamic age, when becoming that "cool" teenager vies for position with familiar innocence, while they learn the Merengue, Rumba, Tango, Foxtrot and Swing."
• || Fantastic Four || - International Trailer Don't know if the script is any good, but some great special effects!
• Both sides close their cases in Jacko trial.
• Paul Bettany joins the Da Vinci code as the villainous albino.
• National Treasure kicks ass in the video rental market. It held off the new releases yet again, to top the DVD rental charts for the third straight week.
• Lost in Translation - enter a phrase and the program translates it in and out of five languages, then back into English
  • I entered Hemingway's famous phrase "No one has explained what the leopard was seeking at that altitude."
  • The result was actually not as bad as I was hoping! "Nobody explained, of which what in the leopard to this height observed."
• Mariah Makes a Move on Elvis and the Beatles. She now has 16 number one hits. The article says that only the Beatles and Elvis have had more, making her the most successful female performer of all time. I don't believe that summary is entirely fair, because it requires us to treat Diana Ross's two careers as two separate acts. Diana had twelve number one hits with The Supremes, and then six more as a solo artist, giving her 18 altogether. I guess it would be fair to call Mariah the most successful female SOLO performer.
• Cosmetics-peddling giant Mary Kay is pulling out of a planned ad buy on Desperate Housewives following criticism from a conservative Christian group.
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• Will Finland soon be out of toilet paper?
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• Bring back those glory days at Trebuchet.com, "Dedicated to the art of hurling."
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• Roger Ebert reviews The Longest Yard. The review is really not about the movie, but about the fact that Ebert gave the film a lukewarm thumbs up on his video program, and is now regretting it. He has some bon mots. Here are three of his comments.
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• Get your name in Katakana or Kanji Hell, I don't know if it is really doing my name, but it's a cool idea. I told the translator my name was Scoopy Scoopy. (Having worked in Tokyo briefly, I just knew it would have no prayer with "Greg.") When I clicked on the pronunciation, it did say something like Soo-Koo-Pee, so I guess that could be the Japanese equivalent of Scoopy.
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Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links 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.

.Email Scoopy Jr. if suggestions for future polls.

Here are the results of our previous polls:
The Top 20 Nude Scenes of 2004
The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 80s
The Best Nude Film Debuts of the 90s
Which actress has been the most convincing playing a stripper.
Who has the best bum in Hollywood?
Best All Time Television Comedy
Best Nudity in an Oscar-winning performance
The Top 20 Best Straight Sex Scenes
Best Lesbian Love Scenes

I cranked up the old time machine and went all the way back to 1976. What I found was another "Babe in Bondage" in a grungy flick called "Satan's Slaves".

Sorry we don't know her name but she is stripped totally naked tied to a tree whipped & branded. Pretty wild stuff they could throw in a movie back in the 70's.

• Unknown Babe in Bondage (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

A little bonus for those who might like there pics a little tamer. So the "Hankster Light" segment for today gives you the always easy on the eyes Virginia Madsen, topless in the bathtub in "Candyman".

• Virginia Madsen (1, 2, 3, 4)

"Spiderbabe"
Prepare yourself for this 2003 sexploitation take-off on Spider-Man to be bad, then be surprised when it really isn't.

You know the story.....spider bites person (a girl this time), person gets super spider powers, person fights evil, yada, yada, yada. The difference is this person also has sex about every hour on the hour. A nice addition, actually.

They did a surprisingly good job with this spoof, even some special effects that were acceptable if not great, and of course as with any Misty Mundae flick, tons of sex including a lot of lesbian scenes.

A funny, campy, sexy flick that was surprisingly, and unexpectedly, good. Of course, the review and collages refer to the unrated version.

Incidentially, quite a few of the panels in the collages come from the deleted scenes. The unrated version is a 2-dvd set, with one DVD containing the R version and the other the unrated version. Both discs have a ton of features (different on each DVD) including deleted scenes. Like the movie itself, the DVD is pretty impressive for a B-movie sexploitation flick.

• Misty Mundae
• Darian Caine
• Julian Wells
• Suzi Lorraine
• Bethany Lott
• Shelby Taylor
• C. J. DiMarsico
• Juliette Charles
• Ruby LaRocca

Debbie Rochon
(1, 2)

Caitlin Saibins
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)

DARTH VADER: FLASHER
The Empire Strikes Out - Several women factory workers in two areas of Seremban, Malaysia, reported being shocked by a man dressed as Darth Vader. They said he got out of a car and strutted back and forth menacingly. They thought he was just a "Star Wars" fan trying to impress them with his costume. Then he opened up his cape to reveal his exposed penis, jumped back in the car and sped off.

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