Crimetime (1996) is supposedly a thriller made in the UK. In the not too distant future, crime reenactment is the biggest thing on TV. Stephan Baldwin is hired to play the killer in a brutal murder, and his girlfriend Sadie Frost is the perennial victim on the show. Not only does he do a good job, but her gets lucky when the killer strikes again and again. The killer starts phoning him with tips, and the two develop a symbiotic relationship.

This is just as bad as it sounds. The killer, played by Pete Postlewaite, is not developed enough to see why he does it, and Baldwin is not convincing as the spiring method actor. Frost is ok, but the only high point of the film comes in the opening scene, when Maryanne Faithfull sings a torch song in a club. Karen Black was terribly miscast as a British TV producer. Frost shows breasts twice.

IMDb readers have this at 3.1 of 10, and men were far more generous than women, voting 3.2 as opposed to women at 1.2. This really is that bad. The chief problems are the story, the performances, the editing and the direction. Oh, and it is not at all thrilling. D-.

The Professionals (1965)

If you look at the chart below, which shows the top 37 responses for a search of the Western genre at IMDb, you'll see one of the most significant shifts in the history of the movie industry.
 

• In the 33 years from 1939 to 1971, there were 31 top-rated Westerns.
• In the next 33 years, from 1972-2004, there have been only six. And three of those are on the very bottom of the list. Since 1980, there has been exactly one true classic added to the genre, Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven.

One of the most fascinating aspects of the demise of the movie Western was the speed at which it happened. The genre was still going very strong in the sixties, which produced four of the top eight films on the list, including the top two. Then, with the same speed as the cultural revolution which happened at the same time, the genre was all but dead. Between 1972 and 1989, there were no Westerns from the all-time top 20 (although, to be fair, The Outlaw Josey Wales should be in the top 20, but is not). There was a brief Western recidivism in 1990-1993, with three top films, and then another decade of drought until last year's Open Range, which barely cracked the list.

The Professionals comes from the last great era of Westerns, and it is quite a good one. It stars the laconic, rugged Lee Marvin and the chatty and charming Burt Lancaster, who play off each other well.  The action is solid.

The plot is also pretty damned good. Marvin and his crew get hired by a rich man to rescue his bride from Mexican revolutionaries who have kidnapped her for ransom. For the first half of the film, that rescue seems to be the real plot, but that turns out to be merely the set-up. It turns out that the Mexican Revolutionary, the wife, the rich man, the rich man's top aide, and a friendly native in Mexico are not what they appear to be, and several surprises ensue.

The film does suffer from some languid pacing in the first half, and a running time of 117 minutes that seems longer, but the IMDb score pretty much speaks for itself. If you enjoy classic Hollywood Westerns from the pre-realism period, this is one of the best the genre has to offer. I don't think you'll find any shocking originality or great surprises, but it gets the job done with a good narrative and well-defined characters.

• Marie Gomez (1, 2, 3)

Updates

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated.

some .wmv's of the "Abi Titmuss sex tape"

• Ms Titmuss (1, 2, 3)

OTHER CRAP:

• Mallard Fillmore - provoking a flap. On the comic pages, where it runs in most papers, the strip stands out like George W. Bush at a Michael Moore movie screening.
• WNBA Most Valuable Player Lauren Jackson posed nude in an Australian magazine that features Olympic athletes who will compete in Athens.
• El Paso, Texas objects to being called the sweatiest city in America.
• Uma Thurman loves to skinny dip!
• People with obsessive-compulsives find a friend in TV detective Adrian Monk
• Bloggers vent fury as weblogs.com ends free hosting service
• Is phi a mystical number as claimed in The Da Vinci Code?
• Lil' Kim forbidden to leave the country for a concert. (She is currently under indictment for perjury)
• Some stills from Kevin Spacey's Bobby Darin biopic, "Beyond the Sea"
• The South Park team works on a new film, a superhero spoof called Team America
• The Ray Charles funeral was shorter than Reagan's, but with much better music.
• The daily show looks at Maritime Salvage, Piracy, and Titanic memorabilia.
• The Daily Show looks at the links between Saddam and al-Qaeda
• Two trailers for Little Black Book. "aspiring newswoman Stacy (Brittany Murphy) opens a Pandora's box when her boyfriend Derek (Ron Livingston) leaves temptation - his Palm electronic organizer - in her path. As Stacy uncovers Derek's past and looks up all his former girlfriends, including a gorgeous fashion model and the perfect girl next door, comic mayhem ensues. In the end, Stacy winds up learning a lot more about herself than about her beau."
• The artist formerly known as Madonna wins most of her fight against walkers. Robin and the merry lads will no longer be able to poach deer on Her Ladyship's estate.
• So a bear walks into a hospital ... and says "doc, I can't sleep. It hurts when I lie near my wife". Doctor says, "tell the truth"
• Without a thong, the day would never end ...
• Jack Lord honored with bust. Next stop Mt Rushmore, followed by a British memorial in Bookham, the town he made famous.
• Casting for the new Willy Wonka movie
• URL says it all: AntiCapsLock.com
• A massive collection of Funny Band Names
• Pam Anderson not chicken in matters of breasts and thighs.
• The Ultimate Panty Raid - nearly 1,000 thongs and panties stolen from Victoria's Secret
• 71 percent of Americans describe themselves as "sexually experimental".
• Jordan keeps trying to remove her top in photoshoot for young boys' mag
• Sci Fi Channel schedules controversial Shyamalan documentary
• David Chappelle is in early talks to play Rick James in a film based on the funk musician's upcoming memoirs, 'Memoirs of a Super Freak.'
• That silly-lookin' Ben Grimm from the other day is not the movie's version.
• Report of a trailer for Batman Begins
• URL says it all: MamieVanDoren.com
• Poll Suggests Bush Support Has Grown. The White House responded with a plan to have a ceremonial burial of Ronald Reagan in every major city of the United States, stretching through election day, accompanied by a stage show with David Hasselhoff and the Baywatch Babes.
• Britney Spears seems ready to walk down the aisle again. She is said to be engaged.
  • Her friends say it's the real thing this time, and should last twice as long as her last marriage.
  • Ignore this item if you are reading it after noon on Friday. She's probably divorced by now.
• Larry King says he doesn't wear diapers.
• Our top story in Norway today: Sleeping Man Halts Trains
• Norwegian scouts offer merit badge in sex
• "this (Abu Ghraib) is lesson one million and 47 on why women shouldn't be in the military. In addition to not being able to carry even a medium-sized backpack, women are too vicious." The quoted words were spoken by Ann Coulter. I am amazed that such a generous, mild-mannered woman as Coulter would think that other women are vicious.
• Putin says Russia gave Bush intelligence that suggested Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was preparing attacks in the United States'.
  • Completely true. Russia did supply that. Of course, they made 90% of it up and the other 10% was wrong, but they did provide it, and that's what counts!
  • Joking aside, here's the key to the story. Buried in the small print of this article is this sentence: "He (Putin)said Russia didn't have any information that Saddam's regime had actually been behind any terrorist acts." Oh. Never mind.
• The Two Things. The easy part is to know that for every subject, there are really only two things you need to know. The hard part is determining WHICH two.
• Summaries of great literature in five words or less.
• Tampons: Satan's Little Cotton Fingers. "Stop Satan From Pulling The Strings"
• 80s bands on the comeback trails, or as USA Today calls them, the comeback "trials". This calls for a comeback of 80s articles. I think I will have to find my old 80s cooking article on how to strip, gut, and fry the members of Air Supply into a tangy BBQ.
• President Bush Re-asserts the right of the executive branch to continue making false assertions. When he was accused of being in denial, the President said, "I never go in da Nile. I'm afraid of da crocodiles."
• Get ready for 'American Christian Idol'. I think they should stop shilly-shallying around the real heart of the issue and have a contest to find the best TV preacher. It would be like that ESPN anchor search, with the charlatans competing for best miracles, best appeals for money, best fake sincerity, and so forth. Winner gets his own televised bible show.
• Roger Ebert writes about Michael Moore and the nature of documentaries.
  • Ebert raises a very good point. Almost no documentarian starts his film as a tabula rasa, exploring the truth as he goes, open to take either side of the argument, depending on what the evidence reveals. The documentarian is generally inspired to do his film by his passion for the subject, and passion for a political subject implies a point of view.
  • Using only the facts, it is possible to make a documentary showing that President Bush is a valiant, decisive leader who responded forcefully to 9-11, or that he is a manipulative, immature thinker who allowed irrelevant personal preconceptions to distract him from the really important elements of the War in Terror. The key question is "which set of facts do you want to look at?" A documentarian makes that call based on his own passion and his own inclination toward advocacy. I think we all know where Michael Moore stands.
  • What Ebert fails to say explicitly is the logical conclusion from his premise: that nobody watching a documentary should be persuaded by it, because the film he is watching is some small and carefully selected portion of the footage shot, that portion which best justifies the filmmaker's POV. And the portion which contradicts the filmmaker's POV was never even shot to begin with.
  • In other words, if you are moved or entertained or enlightened by Moore's film, then it has done its job, but if you think it is a scientific investigation into the truth, or an attempt to view the complete situation in balance, then you have not done your own job.
  • The key to Michael Moore's strategy is not to affect the hardened positions of the right and left. There are two things his film may accomplish (1) it may make a powerful enough case to stir some of those who agree with his position to override their natural apathy and go to the polls (2) it may influence those still in the "undecided" camp. Will Moore's film affect many votes? No. But it does not take many votes to affect the outcome of an election, as the State of Florida showed in the year 2000. Moore's film will have no impact at all on perhaps 99.9% of the tens of millions of people who vote in November. But that's not really important. If Moore can affect only 500 votes in a swing state, he may influence an election, and Lord knows that's what he's hoping for.
  • Well, that and to create a memorable film which a large audience can relate to in some way.
• The full theatrical trailer for The Polar Express, an animated kid's Christmas movie featuring Tom Hanks.
• The trailer for The Hunting of The President, a documentary about various efforts to discredit Bill Clinton.
• The full trailer for King Arthur. Pretty damned impressive.
• The trailer for The Aviator. Martin Scorsese's Howard Hughes biopic. Magnificently, meticulously storyboarded, as you would expect from a Scorsese project. Question is whether it will be interesting. After this trailer, the jury is still out.
• The Daily Show looks at the latest details of Saddam's fate.
• retroCRUSH reviews Dodgeball the movie and looks back on the violent games of youth.
• In the future, everyone will have a sex tape on the internet for fifteen minutes! This one belongs to Jenna Lewis. I suppose it is a celebrity sex tape if you know who Jenna is.
• GALLUP: Country's Problems Seen Through Partisan Lens. Kerry supporters say that the war and the economy are the most important issues, while the President's supporters say that the most important issues are good parking places and proper Saint Gipper tributes. Nader supporters say the most important issue is to distribute enough tinfoil hats to protect everyone from mind-control rays from the planet Tepthon.

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.

Kathy Shower, Part 1

Shiloh's tribute to the career of the buxom babe

• The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck. (.avi) (.wmv)

• The Further Adventures of Tennessee Buck. (.avi) (.wmv)

• Love Letters (.avi) (.wmv)

• Love Letters (.avi) (.wmv)

• Irresistible Impulse (.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.

"10"
The most memorable part of this 1979 comedy probably isn't the movie. Most people remember 10 as introducing Bo Derek (a lot of her) to the world.

Although the movie has lots of funny parts, it's fairly long and boring at times, so you may find yourself fast-forwarding to the good stuff (naked Bo).

Maybe you'll relate to the story of a very successful 42-year-old music composer who is jealous of his neighbor's many conquests, and then spots a beautiful young woman on the way to her wedding, and becomes obsessed with her. The movie's about a 6, but definitely, in this one at least, Bo is a 10.

• Bo Derek
• Dee Wallace Stone
• Various

Just wondering if you had any pics of Kelly Reilly? I think she had a nude scene in the UK movie "The Safe House"/

Thanks!

Jr's reply.
The only 'caps we have of her are these 'caps by Oz from the UK movie "Last Orders". No nudity, but she she does tease with some partial downblouse views.

• Kelly Reilly (1, 2)

GIBSON MOST POWERFUL CELEB
His Career Is Back From The Dead - Thanks to "Passion of the Christ," Forbes magazine ranked Mel Gibson #1 on their annual list of the 100 most powerful celebrities.