Other Crap:

• Update on the Indiana Jones 4 Script
• Actresses wearing fake prosthetic breasts
• Two really dumb guys decide to walk through the African savannah in a zebra costume
• The Daily Show's Rob Corddry's explosive investigation is a dark tale of public feline urination, hush money, and meows of outrage.
• TIME.com: Inside the Wire at Gitmo. It turns out that the days when they flushed the Koran were the good days. Political prisoners were tortured with satirical puppet shows and Christina Aguilera music!
  • I was sympathetic to the torturers before I read this. After all, the prisoners are murdering terrorist lunatics who want to destroy civilization, so they should expect a few Buicks hot-wired to their 'nads from time to time. But no humans, no matter how depraved, no matter how far they have strayed from human decency, should have to endure Christina Aguilera music.
  • Let me be the first to call to close Gitmo down and move the prisoners somewhere else - presumably someplace secret, where we can get some decent torturing done out of the sight of Time Magazine and Amnesty International.
• Mr and Mrs Smith assassinate the competition at the weekend box office - June 10-12, 2005
  • Because Brangelina finished eleven million above expectations, and the total weekly box office is somewhat fixed, carry-overs did worse than expected, and two of the new releases bombed as well
  • The only carry-over to hold up against expectations was Star Wars.
  • The biggest losers of the weekend were (1) A new release named High Tension, which was virtually ignored despite a lot of love from some genre reviewers; (2) The "prestige" carry-over, Cinderella Man, which underperformed its modest expectations and dropped about 50%; and (3) The Honeymooners, another new release, which underperformed substantially.
  • To be more accurate, the total box office is not completely fixed. Adding the overs and unders is not precisely a zero-sum game, although it comes close. Because The Smiths kicked ass, the nine films listed below amassed five million more than their cumulative projection. That was not enough, however, to drag the weekend's total above last year.

  
  
   

  Title	Warrior Prediction	Actual	Diff %
  Mr and Mrs Smith	$39.5	$51.0	+29
  Madagascar	$17.5	$17.1	-2
  The Longest Yard	$14.3	$13.5	-6
  Star Wars: Episode III	$13.1	$14.9	14
  Cinderella Man	$12.3	$9.5	-23
  Shark Boy and Lava Girl	$11.3	$12.5	11
  The Honeymooners	$8.0	$5.8	-28
  The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants	$6.1	$5.7	-7
  High Tension	$4.4	$1.8	-59

   

• Pink Floyd to Reunite for Live 8 Concert
• URL says it all: TVShowsOnDVD.com
• URL says it all: BozkovaStranka.com
  • Oh, man, I love that song. Sing along with me. "Una bozkova stranka ... I'm just a bird in the sky ..."
  • Just kidding. For those of you who need to sharpen up your Czech, I think it means "nekkid Czech Czichs covered with body paint"
• Here's a trailer for the dark teen comedy Pretty Persuasion
  • Here's the blurb: "The new independent film PRETTY PERSUASION accomplishes the nearly impossible feat of making the lives of privileged teenaged girls into the stuff of sophisticated comedy, featuring a star-making lead performance by one of today's most exciting young actresses, Evan Rachel Wood (THIRTEEN, UPSIDE OF ANGER). Wood plays Kimberly Joyce, an insanely intelligent, wildly funny, shockingly cruel and sexy-beyond-her-years Beverly Hills teenager who will stop at nothing to become famous. Believing the world is an orchestra and she is the conductor, Kimberly masterfully manipulates all those around her. She convinces her two best friends to join her in a campaign against their befuddled teacher, Mr. Anderson, played to nebbishy perfection by Ron Livingston (ADAPTATION, OFFICE SPACE). Kimberly entangles the entire Beverly Hills community in her carefully woven web of seduction and deceit. A clever comedy with many turns, PRETTY PERSUASION has an ending that nobody but Kimberly can predict! Wood leads an all-star cast that also includes James Woods, Elisabeth Harnois, Jane Krakowski, Jaime King and Selma Blair. It is the directorial debut of acclaimed music video director Marcos Siega, and written by Skander Halim."
• Russell Crowe's hotel tantrum has cost him a dinner date with the Bushes and a sleepover at the White House.
  • Instead, he will attend a Giants game at Pac Bell Park, where he will throw out the ceremonial first phone
• FilmJerk's indispensible Early Report for June 12
• Eight clips from Bewitched. The clip "I want three trailers" is worth a look. Will Ferrell is making all kinds of celebrity diva demands, some of which are very funny.
• Nine clips from Batman Begins
• Here's the trailer for Red Eye
  • "From director Wes Craven (the 'Scream' franchise) comes 'Red-Eye,' a suspense thriller at 30,000 feet. Lisa Reisert (Rachel McAdams) hates to fly, but the terror that awaits her on the night flight to Miami has nothing to do with a fear of flying. Moments after takeoff, Lisa's seatmate, Jackson (Cillian Murphy), menacingly reveals the real reason he's on board: He is an operative in a plot to kill a rich and powerful businessman... and Lisa is the key to its success. If she refuses to cooperate, her own father will be killed by an assassin awaiting a call from Jackson. Trapped within the confines of a jet at 30,000 feet, Lisa has nowhere to run and no way to summon help without endangering her father, her fellow passengers and her own life. As the miles tick by, Lisa knows she is running out of time as she desperately looks for a way to thwart her ruthless captor and stop a terrible murder."
• Here's the trailer for Roman Polanski's OLIVER TWIST, starring Gandhi as Fagin.
  • Here's the blurb: "Following their Academy-Award winning film, The Pianist, director Roman Polanski and writer Ronal Harwood re-imagine Charles Dickens' classic story of a young orphan boy who gets involved with a gang of pickpockets in 19th Century London. Abandoned at an early age, Oliver Twist (Barney Clark) is forced to live in a workhouse lorded over by the awful Mr. Bumble, who cheats the boys of their meager rations. Desperate yet determined, Oliver makes his escape to the streets of London. Penniless and alone, he is lured into a world of crime by the sinister Fagin - the mastermind of a gang of pint-sized pickpockets. Oliver's rescue by the kindly Mr. Brownlow is only the beginning of a series of adventures that lead him to the promise of a better life."
• The trailer for Terrence Malick's latest, The New World, starring Colin Farrell
  • It is a spectacularly beautiful film, as you would expect from Malick. Let us hope that it is missing some of the negatives you might also expect from Malick. Pretentiousness, for example.
  • Here's the blurb: "'The New World' is an epic adventure set amid the encounter of European and Native American cultures during the founding of the Jamestown Settlement in 1607. Inspired by the legend of John Smith (Farrell) and Pocahontas, acclaimed filmmaker Terrence Malick transforms this classic story into a sweeping exploration of love, loss and discovery, both a celebration and an elegy of the America that was - and the America that was yet to come. Against a historically accurate Virginia backdrop, Malick has set a dramatized tale of two strong-willed characters-a passionate and noble young native woman and an ambitious soldier of fortune-torn between the undeniable requirements of their civic duty and the inescapable demands of the human heart."

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.

All the Colors of the Dark (1972) or Tutti i colori del buio, is a Spanish Italian co-production, and is more or less a Giallo. Edwige Fenech is struggling with the emotional aftermath of a miscarriage caused by a traffic accident, when she finds she is being pursued by a determined group of Satan worshippers. She has no idea whom to trust, and, in fact, her own sister, Susan Scott, is playing for the other team. The mystery, I suppose, is to figure out who the good guys are, if any.

Fenech gives a three B performance, Scott shows breasts in a mirror. IMDb readers have this at 6.1. Comments at IMDb seem to indicate that the story did not make a whole lot of sense, but that is not that big a problem with gialli. Where the film failed for me was that I just didn't care about any of the characters.

C-. Giallo fans will find it an adequate one.
 

• Thumbnails (1, 2)
• Edwige Fenech ( 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14)
• Susan Scott (1, 2, 3)

Comments and caps by the Scarlet Spectre himself:

Pics and a video of Anna Thompson...or Anna Levine...or possibly Anna Levine Thompson...could be Anna Levin Thomson....or maybe Anna Thomson.  Maybe she should carry some identification with her to help answer those tricky "what's your name" type questions.
 

The film is 1994's Hand Gun.

• Collages (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Film clips

"Gwen is a teenager living in a small coastal town. Lise is her best friend, a city girl who comes every year with her family to spend the summer. This year things are different though; at first Lise might not come at all, and when she does it is obvious that Gwen grew up faster than she did."

"A devious husband hires a male escort and a private detective in an attempt to embroil his wife in scandal and take control of her family assets."

"When reporter Steve Roberts acts on a call from his good friend, Dr. Charlie Venco, urging him to leave Seattle and report on a hot scientific story in Bulgaria, he ends up in a world of disappearance, death and deception. It begins with Dr. Venco's suspicious death and funeral where he meets Alexa Campos, a beautiful associate of the doctor's. A romantic liaison between Alexa and Steve is thwarted by local thugs and military police who are all after the meddlesome Roberts. Roberts discovers what he should not - that the supposed blood research is in fact the development of a 100% addictive drug "Blue Mist" - and that Charlie was in on the whole deal with the Russian Mob. Roberts and Alexa must find a way out: their only hope being some pretty quick thinking and the best martial arts ever to hit Bulgaria."

"One winter's day Jacob and his sister Marie are left behind in the woods by their unemployed father. In his coat Jacob finds a note from his mother urging them to go to their uncle in Spain. They arrive in Spain only to find that their uncle has died. Marie meets Diego, a rich surgeon, and falls in love with him. Diego lives with his domineering sister Teresa. Marie marries Diego. Jacob keeps jealously trying to tear his sister away from Diego. His efforts are in vain and Jacob starts to provoke Diego. It soon becomes clear that Jacob's defiance won't go unpunished."

"J.D. returns to his small Texas hometown where four years ago he left Carrie at the altar. She's now a deputy sheriff, and she's not happy to see him. He soon has a job offer in Bakersfield, so he's off to California with Carrie telling him not to come back. Late that night he stops to help a woman whose car has broken down, and soon he's both her protector and her lover, little realizing she's an escaped mental patient - a serial killer who adopts the name, dress, gestures, and mannerisms of her latest victim. As they head toward California, she leaves a trail of bodies. The FBI, with help from Carrie, is on the tail of the lovers. But is J.D. her next prey?"

• Piper Perabo and Sarah Polley in The I Inside
• Amelia Cooke in Species III
• Sunny Mabrey in Species III
• Penelope Cruz visits Conan
• Kristin Davis visits Conan and demonstrates her uncanny ability to duplicate Jim Carrey's facial expressions.

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