Junior is on holiday, so I am your acting compere for a couple of weeks.

9 Songs (1980)

At last, the end of this thing. This one is a long clip and not really worth it, in my opinion, but for you completists here is the original .avi and my .wmv conversion ...

• Some sex accompanied by romantic music, followed by stark naked chit-chat .(.wmv zipped -14meg, .avi zipped -21meg)

Ruby Cairo (1993)

SPOILERS

Ruby Cairo is an international thriller shot on location in Athens, Cairo, Veracruz, and Berlin. Laszlo Kovacs (Ghostbusters, New York New York) did the cinematography. The stars are Viggo Mortensen, and Liam Neeson.

Sounds pretty darned good, doesn't it?

It isn't. In fact, it's hard to imagine how it could be any worse, given all those attractive elements listed above.

Bessie Faro (Andie MacDowell) learned that her reckless but handsome devil-may-care husband (Viggo) had died in a fiery crash. She was dismayed to find out that she was not only a widow, but a poor widow, with a stack of bills to pay. She thought that her husband had some money, but didn't know where it could be stashed. She flew to Veracruz, where she found a tiny package of baseball cards hidden in her husband's ramshackle workshop. By piecing together some cryptic notations on the cards, she was able to determine which banks held her husband's secret stash, as well as the account numbers, and the false names associated with each account. 

She then proceeded tediously from bank to bank to bank, getting big stacks of money from each one until she reached Berlin, where she found that someone had withdrawn the money just before she arrived. Given the fact that nobody else had access to the baseball cards, she knew that the person withdrawing the money must have been her not-quite-dead husband.

Although her peregrinations from bank to bank were tedious, the plot was sort of interesting up until that point. From then on, however,  the flimsy house of cards quickly tumbled. Bessie had $840,000 already collected, and would never have to worry about money again, but she just had to meet her husband face-to-face one more time so that she could ask the time-honored noir question, "whyja do it, Johnny?" She really said those words. Unfortunately, MacDowell's genteel Southern drawl took some of the edge out of that question, which should be asked by a sharpie with a New York accent.

So she kept following the trail, putting herself in great physical peril for no reason just so she could see him face-to-face. As soon as she met him, however, she ran out and told him they were through. If she never wanted to see him again, she could simply have gone home after visiting the last bank. Meanwhile, although the husband had gone to great pains to get away from her, he wouldn't let her go after seeing her. Hell, if he wanted to have her around, he could have done so at any time, but he never let on that he wasn't dead.

If the character's motivations don't make sense, neither do some of the plot details. In fact, when I went back to watch some scenes again, I could clarify nothing. To the contrary, I found more problems because when I watched the movie the first time, I figured that certain enigmatic details would be explained when the secrets were all revealed. When I watched it again, knowing all the secrets, there were some things that just didn't make sense and other things which should have been explained or expanded, but were not. To choose one outstanding example, I thought that Viggo was leaving the baseball cards behind specifically so that his wife could find the money and avoid the poorhouse. That seemed logical because only she could have deciphered the sequential logic of the cryptology. When it turned out that Viggo did not intend for her to empty those bank accounts, the great unexplained mystery became "just why did he leave those baseball cards there, and whom did he leave them for?" I still don't know the answer to that question, and I could cite another half dozen similar problems.

What about ol' Schindler? I don't have any idea why Liam Neeson was in the film. He was a professor who was feeding the poor in the third world, and Bessie ran into him more than once as followed the money and her husband. Bessie and the professor had a brief and sweet encounter which promised to turn into a romance, but didn't.

There is one thing which may amuse you if you are a baseball fan. The Viggo Mortensen character is allegedly the kid who caught Bill Mazeroski's famous homer in the 1960 World Series. Of course, Viggo is too young to have been that kid. He had not yet reached his second birthday on that historic day (Oct 13, 1960). We should just ignore that pernickety point, however, and exult in the fact that Viggo lives in the Middle East under a pseudonym - Mr. Bill Mazeroski!

At one time, there was actually one good non-Mazeroski reason to watch this film. Beautiful Andie MacDowell did a nude scene, the only such exposure of her entire career. Well, guess what? The nude scene has disappeared from the version of the film seen on the DVD. The deletion of that scene would be reason enough to avoid this DVD, but the disc is disappointing in all other respects as well. It contains a 4:3 pan-n-scan transfer with the sides of heads cut out of scenes, and contains exactly no features of any kind. In fact, even the name of the film has been changed from Ruby Cairo to Deception for no special reason except possibly deception itself.

Oh, well. Here are some MacDowell collages and film clips of VHS quality.

• Film clip (zipped .wmv)
• Collages: (1, 2, 3, 4)

Other Crap:

• The Sun reports: The face of JESUS has appeared in an ultrasound scan of a baby in the womb.
• Q102 - "Bam Margera's ex-girlfriend Jen calls into our show to dish on his relationship with Jessica Simpson"
• Oprah Winfrey picks Faulkner for summer book club.
  • Within 24 hours of being picked as the summer reading pick for Oprah's Book Club, a boxed set of the three novels "As I Lay Dying," "The Sound and the Fury" and "Light in August" was the number two seller on Amazon.com, second only to the next Harry Potter book, which doesn't even exist yet. That shows you how much power Oprah has - who would have dreamed it was possible to elevate to best seller status three brilliant, obscure, complicated Faulkner novels largely forgotten by everyone but the literati. Not that it is a bad thing. Unlike many of the literary pretenders of the past century, Faulkner was a legitimately great writer, and I'm glad to see him get revived. But ... wow! Just wow!
• "Great moments in hook-up history" - the Penis in the Popcorn trick.
• OK, you didn't win the Irish Sweepstakes, but you still have a chance to win The "Poop on Ryan Seacrest's Star" Contest!!!
• "Welcome to SENSELESS ACTS OF BEAUTY the FREE 'good graffiti' picture site!"
• Forgotten car classics: The 1955-56 Dodge La Femme. Who says cars are a guy thing? This one was engineered "by appointment to her majesty, the American woman."
  • The predecessor to the La Femme was the 1954 Chrysler La Comtesse, pictured here.
• Some stills from the London set of V for Vendetta. The film stars Natalie Portman and Agent Smith, with a screenplay by the Wachowski Brothers (Matrix). It is based on a comic book graphic novel set in an alternate reality in which Germany won the second World War and Britain has become a Nazi puppet state.
• Daily Box Office - Friday, June 3, 2005. Interesting weekend, with three powerhouse carry-overs competing against a new Russell Crowe movie and a well reviewed chick-flick, plus a dark horse contender in The Lords of Dogtown.
  • The three carry-overs held on to the top three spots (with The Longest Yard a surprise in first place - it had been in third place on the two previous days).
  • In terms of "revenues per screen" it was just about a four-way tie between the Big Three and Cinderella Man.
• A creationist looks at dinosaurs. "dinosaurs, enraged by fallen angels, attacked Noah's Ark as the flood began in a no-holds battle to the finish."
• Klink!! General Burkhalter dead at 97.
• The Cincinnati Subway System. Great curiosity item, and classic use of the internet - one guy following up on his own curiosity and sharing his findings with the world.
• Laughter Can Help People Lose Weight. So laugh your ass off. And your gut as well.
• Us Weekly says: Kelly Osbourne in Drug Rehab
• A look at Gretchen Mol as The NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE. Sigh! Face only, although Mol's face is to die for. The article says it will open March 10, 2006. Rumor has it that there is substantial nudity and kinkiness, as would be expected, given the subject matter.
• Here's the trailer for Supercross
  • This motorcycle saga revolves around two brothers making their way into the world of competitive motorcycle racing. Daryl Hannah plays their mother.
  • It's hard to believe this is getting theatrical distribution, but it is supposed to "open August 10th"
• The 2005 WORLD WIDE UGLY COUCH CONTEST
• BBC NEWS - Message Board Argument Ends In Murder (It's yet another spoofed BBC article)
• Gunfire exchanged over stolen Harry Potter book. Because some things are just worth dyin' for! I didn't read the article, but I assume it was some sensible people trying to shoot the author.
• A new Yahoo-exclusive clip from Batman Begins
• Outtakes from Dave Chappelle's show - "if Bush and Ashcroft were black"

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.

Submission (1969) is a grindhouse film from the East Coast. There is not a lot of dialogue to help in understanding the plot, and some of the naked women don't seem to play a part in the plot anyway, but here is my best attempt:

Jennifer Wells is dominated by her boyfriend using such diabolical tools as candy bars and hot candle wax. Her gig seems to be having the two of them go to work for a rich lesbian as household staff, and then doing something dastardly, but we never quite see what.  They join the staff of June Adams, but Jennifer ends up liking her, which doesn't bode well for her boyfriend.

Adams and Wells show breasts. Two unknowns give a three B performance, having random sex with the boyfriend for reasons that did not seem plot related. The sex scenes are largely filmed with facial closeups, making it a very soft core effort indeed.

This is a D-.
 

• Thumbnails (1, 2)
• Jennifer Wells ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 )
• June Adams ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 )
• others ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 )

All clips and comments by the Ghost

Non nude but pretty...and jiggly...Ann Margret in "The Train Robbers."  (Also featuring John Wayne and my favorite movie cowboy, Ben Johnson.)

• Collages (1, 2)
• Videos (zipped .wmvs) (1, 2)

Videos from the movie "The Stuntman.(zipped .wmvs)

• Barbara Hershey (1, 2)
• Unknowns (1, 2)
   

Jeana Thomasina

Kline and Thomasina

Debra Blee

Kitt 5000 caps from 1982's The Beach Girls (typical mindless 80's fun - rated 3.9 at IMDb by people who love movie quality way too much)

"School is out, and three girls head to the beach for vacation. Two of the girls are world-wise party-goers who attempt to loosen up their naive, virginal friend, whose uncle has allowed the girls to stay at his beach house. When the near-sighted, drug smuggling Captain Bly dumps his cargo of marijuana, the bales wash up on shore. The two party girls, Ginger and Ducky, quickly stuff the dope into giant bags and spirit it back to the beach house, where it fuels a party with assorted misfits, delivery persons, and passersby."

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