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Wednesday
Contact junior by writing junior@scoopy.com. Contact Scoopy by writing unclescoopy@msn.com. Contact Tuna by writing tuna@scoopy.com Send submissions to scoopy@scoopy.net
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Use this search device to seek additional information from amazon.com about any of the books or movies you read about here.
To see and use all the Funhouse features, you need Netscape 6.+ or MSIE 5.+.
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| Tuna
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"Signs & Wonders"
Signs & Wonders (2000) is one of the artier "art house" films I have seen this year. Stellan Skarsgård as Alec is married to Charlotte Rampling, and has a son and a daughter. He finds portent in the most trivial of things, such as sewer covers, and then makes life decisions based on what he has divined. He works in Athens as an investment broker, and is banging a woman in the office. It looks like that will end when he confesses the affair to Rampling. Later, he meets her on a ski slope, and decides that fate wants him with the girlfriend, so he divorces Rampling and moves to the US with the girlfriend. That doesn't last long, however, when the girlfriend admits she set him up, and the meeting wasn't a chance encounter.
Naturally, he goes back to Athens and lets Rampling know that he intends to reunite the family. The fact that she is engaged to a former Greek dissident and activist doesn't faze him much at all. His son is on the side of the Greek, but his daughter is on his side. Rampling shows her breasts in a sex scene near the end of the film with Alec, then meets her Greek to marry him. IMDB readers say 5.6 of 10, and the film was nominated for a Golden Bear in Berlin. It is a critics sort of movie, as evidenced by Ebert's 3 stars. 63% of the top critics gave it a positive at IMDB. Trouble is, it is a really hard watch, and painfully slow. It is not always clear to me what was happening, there was no hint as to why the characters became what they were, and I had the feeling from start to finish that it was dripping with symbolism, but I couldn't decipher the symbols. It is decidedly not a film for the masses. The DVD transfer was mushy and oversaturated. C-.
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Charlotte Rampling
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"Restless Souls"
Restless Souls (1998) is a direct to vid soft-core supernatural thriller that doesn't seem to be listed at IMDB. The plot set-up is old news. Newlyweds have car trouble, and decide to spend the night in a haunted mansion. When the bride is abducted by the house, the groom's rich father hires a team of paranormal researchers. It is here that the writers had some original ideas. One of the team could see past and future by touching objects, which meant that he could see simulated sex from throughout history. The other man was the team leaders. One of the women, get this, was sexually irresistible to spirits (and living people as well), but the real genius was the fourth team member, who had telekinetic powers, which, at one point, she used to sexually arouse her partner.
The team discovers that the house is indeed haunted. It was owned by a civil war general, who made a pact with the devil. He would furnish the devil a virginal bride to procreate with, and the devil would make the south win the civil war. Unfortunately, the generals blushing bride failed the purity test. Now the general, long sense dead, is taking a last try at fulfilling his part of the deal.
DVD quality was abysmal. It was dark, and full of noise. The good news is lots of nudity and simulated sex, including full-frontal from Amy Hite, Leslie Lindsay, Maureen Flaherty and Ravenelle Richardson. Not that crotch patches were very evident during the hottest sex scenes. Admiring the writers few inspired plot elements was not enough for me to like this film, but a good transfer would have made it an acceptable genre effort. D+.
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Amy Hite
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Leslie Lindsay
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Maureen Flaherty
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Multi region DVD Issues cont'
Help is still pouring in from readers, who have pointed out that MAC AV versions such as the 6300AV and 7200AV ignore Region encoding and have no trouble with PAL and NTSC formats. AV models are discontinued, but available used for reasonable prices. The Playstation 2, which also plays DVDs, can be hacked to ignore Region encoding as well. I personally use a Toshiba DVD-ROM and Power DVD to watch films on my PC. A FLASH upgrade is available for the player to switch Region codes up to 6 times, and there is a program called DVD Genie which changes the coding on the drive without incrementing the counter. So, for those who are interested only in watching DVDs from other regions on their computers, there are solutions available.
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| Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)
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Movies:
Gosford Park is the award
magnet directed by Robert Altman. Having been aware of the critical acclaim, I
was disappointed. I thought it was an OK genre film, but not great, and of no
interest to people not already predisposed to like this kind of film. I think I
need to go back and watch The List of Adrian Messenger to cleanse my palette.
No nudity
Affair of the
Necklace is a boring, uneven costume drama which took a real story and
romanticized the hell out of it. Funny thing is, the real story would have made
a good movie, even though this version was basically a snoozefest, and bombed
big-time at the box office. (Lavish production, only $400,000 domestic gross).
It is eligible for a special Scoopy Award which can only be presented to films
with both naked women and our resident god, Christopher Walken.
Other crap:
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Sometimes an actor or actress is just born to play a certain role. Larry
Olivier was born to be Heathcliffe. Katherine Hepburn was born to play
Eleanor of Aquitaine.
And Matthew Lillard is the very essence of Norville "Shaggy" Rogers. The
Washington Post called it "a highly accurate and intensely sublime
performance". Break out the Oscars early this year, then tell Norton and
Branagh to say home on Oscar night, because they won't have a chance.
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When I used to work a "normal" job, we used to worry about BFOQ's - bona fide
occupational qualifications. For example, you can't normally discriminate
against people under 5'6", since it affects women than men, Asians more than
others, unless there is a BFOQ. For example, you can set a height requirement
if the job requires taking stuff off the top shelf in a narrow corridor where
no artificial aid would be possible. I would have thought that literacy was a
BFOQ for a job as a magazine reporter, but I guess not, because
Pam Anderson is now a columnist for Jane magazine.
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The world's dumbest bumper stickers.
Honk if you love quiet.
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Salon magazine's choice as the best
college editorial cartoonist
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 I inexplicably determined
there might be something of interest.
- A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or
Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
- If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.
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| Graphic Response
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From the movie "The Monkey's Mask"...hot lesbo action and plenty of nudity
Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.
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| Blackshine
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Non-nudes from the master of fashion scans today, but these are beautiful images with interesting animal themes. From the German Amica, 10/96.
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| Hankster
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Scoop,
Today is a combo of "Hardcore Hankster" and "Babe in Bondage" images as we take a look at Leslie Ranae in the XXX flick "Lust World". The first 4 'caps feature her getting carried off into the jungle and tied up. Then the action turns hard-core in the last 6 caps.
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| Variety
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Heather Graham
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A few never before seen DVD 'caps of Heather in the mysterious "Killing Me Softly" by Mas_90. This puppy has been released in some European countries, and the IMDb user comments that have starting to come in all say pretty much the same thing...not even Graham's nudity can save this from being dull and unwatchable.
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Saskia Wickham
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Breast and bum views in scenes from "Prince of Jutland" aka "Royal Deceit" (1994), by Watty. From what I was able to gather, this is a retelling of Hamlet with a very talented cast (including Gabriel Byrne, Helen Mirren and Christian Bale) that is apparently extremely poorly written, and has been bannished to the bargain bin.
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| Christiane Paul |
Full frontal nudity and some very nice up close and personal rear views in scenes from the German movie "Dumm gelaufen" (1997), by Osacre.
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Anne Gautier
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Very nice toplessness from the French Horror/Mystery flick, "Le Démon dans l'île" (1983). Vidcaps by Helvete.
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| Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com
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Pat's comments in yellow...
>From IMDB News. The perfect man for Britney: she can perform his favorite sex act and still keep her virginity...
Britney Knows Hugh Mr. Right Is
Britney Spears knows exactly who she wants to get cozy with once she hits the dating scene again--suave British actor Hugh Grant. The 20-year-old pop princess may still be nursing the pain of her split from 'N Sync star Justin Timberlake, but she says when the time is right again, Hugh could be her man. The "Oops!...I Did It Again" singer giggles, "Hugh Grant is so cute." And the good news for Britney is that Notting Hill actor Hugh is just as keen on her as she is on him. Hugh, 41, said recently, "If I had to
decide who to ask on a date, I'd have to say Britney. She's very special."
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| Other Britney News
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Please just kill me now. I never want to have to see this or hear about this ever again...Britney is slated to appear in a film about NASCAR
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