Fruits of Passion (1981) was one of my earlier projects. This is what I said at the time.

"It appears to be a forgotten film. There are no reviews anywhere on the net that I could find, and there are only 13 votes at IMDB. Directed by noted Japanese director Shuji Terayama, it is a sequel to the Story of O and stars Klaus Kinsky as Sir Stephan, Isabelle Illiers in her debut as "O" and Arielle Dombastle as another of Sir Stephan's girlfriends. O is taken to Hong Kong and made to work in a brothel as the next step in her education. Meanwhile, the Boxer Rebellion is starting around her, and Stephan is ignoring her more and more. As I am recommending this one, especially in light of the recently released DVD version, I won't write a spoiler.

"This film has less discipline and S & M than the first O story, and is mostly about submission with a little bondage thrown in. The locations are spectacular (which is the main reason I threw in the unknowns), and the photography creates some memorable images. The acting is good, the pace could have been a little faster, and the plot is a little thin, but this is erotica we are talking about with major stars. Anchor Bay did a good job on the DVD transfer, and included a mini-bio of Kinsky."

A few more have discovered it since my last writing, but the reviews now listed at IMDB are not favorable. The current rating is 5.4 based on 35 votes. The story isn't as good as I thought the first time through, but the imagery and nudity were even better than I remembered. This film is a C as erotica, but would be lower as a drama.

Intacto (2001):

Intacto is a European production which will soon be remade by an American studio, in the tradition of other innovative recent European films like Abre Los Ojos (remade as Vanilla Sky) and Insomnia (remade as Insomnia).

Intacto takes place in its own universe, which is very similar to ours except that luck doesn't even out over the long run. Luck is a spiritual and physical commodity, like a special talent, or seventh sense. It is a quality we possess, like intelligence. People who are exceptionally lucky are always lucky, just as an intelligent person today will still be intelligent tomorrow. The only time the luck of the gifted fails them is when they are matched against someone who has even more luck, in a situation in which only one of them can win. The theology of chance also includes these credos: (1) someone's luck can be changed by physical touch (2) very gifted people may steal all of another's luck.

A luck cult exists. The luckiest people in the world meet to test themselves against each other in contests of pure chance. For example, at the entry level of the luck competitions, three people sit in a room with molasses on their hair, and the winner is the one who attracts a giant insect to his or her head. At an intermediate level, people run through a forest blindfolded, going as fast as they can until all but one have run into trees. At the highest level of competition, two people play Russian Roulette with five bullets in the six chambers.  The stakes of these games range from personal possessions at the lowest levels, to the stolen luck of other people in the mid-levels, all the way to "everything" in the Russian Roulette game. If you lose that last test, you lose your life, your possessions, and whatever else you wager, like the luck of a loved one.

The cult of luck includes people like a bullfighter who never received a single scratch in a long career. The master of luck, the "fucking king of fate" as another character says, is a concentration camp survivor (Max Von Sydow) who was the one and only Jew left alive when the allies overran his camp. If his luck needed to be attested further, one need only look at his octogenarian life despite a long history of playing the five bullet version of Russian Roulette, in which he always goes first. Since he keeps winning other people's luck, he just keeps getting luckier and luckier.

Four decades after The Seventh Seal, Van Sydow is still playing with Death, still winning.

The entire cult of luck is aware of Van Sydow's undefeated record, and few are confident enough to challenge him to a face-to-face Death Game, but some others in the cult take on a scouting role - remaining eternally vigilant in the search for a protege - a prospective newcomer who might be introduced to the cult, and might some day become the new king of destiny, splitting the proceeds with the scout who discovered him. One scout thinks he has the right man, the sole survivor of an airline crash who walked away virtually unharmed despite the fact that everyone else aboard was fried to a crisp. (It sounds a lot like Unbreakable at this point, but the connection is merely superficial.)

The storyline of the movie traces the intersecting destinies of the newcomer and the "fucking king of fate", during which time the young man rises through the gaming ranks in pursuit of the king, while he himself is pursued by an intrepid policewoman, and perhaps betrayed by his own scout.

How will it end? This is a movie worth seeing, so you'll get no more hints from me. I don't often like strange films, but this one impressed the hell out of me, and I hope Hollywood does it justice on the remake.

I hope Van Sydow lives long enough to reprise his role for Hollywood, because he maximized the impact of his limited screen time by turning in one of the most remarkable performances of his already impressive career. He is one of the most adaptable actors around. As he has aged, he's done whatever was necessary to stay at the top of his profession, never repeating or trying to recapture what he used to do when he was young, but constantly reinventing himself at a new stage, as if he were not one man, but several who shared the same body at different times.

Based on this description, this film is a C+. Will you like it? Look at the description above, and be aware that it is spooky and ethereal, and is a very arty and peculiar movie which takes place in an alternate universe, like David Cronenberg's Crash. It is mostly in Spanish, although French and English are also spoken from time to time. It is humorless. Most of you have lost interest by now. Are you still interested? If so, you are going to love it, because it is unique and, in many ways, a somber masterpiece of startling originality, and the game playing is a fitting postmodern equivalent to Van Sydow's chess game with death in The Seventh Seal.

• Mónica López (1, 2)

Sangre Eterna (2002):

"Eternal Blood" is a role-playing game, kind of a vampire version of Dungeons and Dragons, which is played by the Goths in the university at Santiago, Chile.

We see many vampirical things happen, but those turn out to be adventures spun by the players during the game. Then one of the Goths begins to suspect that his colleagues are not just a bunch of kids who fantasize about being vampires. He secretly witnesses some events which lead him to suspect that some of the players really are vampires. Fearing for his life, he steels himself for battle against the forces of darkness, and starts killing his friends, or at least trying to.

So the mystery, such as it is, is this:

1. Is he killing vampires, or is he a deeply deluded druggie killing his friends?

2. Did any of the vampire adventures actually happen, or were they simply more visualizations of events created within the game?

I know that I , for one, didn't care about either question..

This Chilean genre film is not especially interesting, but it does try to conceive of some new vampire mythology, and this leads to some pretty cool splatter scenes. For example, the vampires don't bite one's neck. They pull off one's head with their super-strength, then hold the head aloft and drink from the dripping blood.

You have a choice of Spanish with English subtitles or English dubbing. Neither is adequate. The English dubbed dialogue is more accurate and flavorful, but the actual dubbing is incompetently performed by non-actors. The subtitled English, on the other hand, is a watered-down version of what they are actually saying. The most fun can be had by watching it dubbed in English with English subtitles, because its like watching a Tarantino film translated into Disneyspeak.  A character will say something like, "that's totally fucked", and the subtitles will say something like, "gosh, that isn't good".

It's a classic C- movie by our rating system. If you like vampire films, this adds some new concepts with some interesting visualizations. If you don't like vampire genre films, it's another one with some heavy-handed rapid editing and an oppressive heavy metal score, in which the creative visuals don't offer enough of what you are looking for in a film. Plus you either have to watch it in Spanish or poorly-dubbed English.

• Blanca Lewin (1, 2, 3)

OTHER CRAP:

• The worst superhero costumes ever
• The latest entry into the lat-night gabfest wars? Tom Green. I hope this doesn't mean a delay in the production of Freddy Got Fingered Again.
• British journalists note that American journalists seem to have a notable lack of cojones
• Teenager Svein Tore Hauge must have one of Norway's strangest summer jobs. The 14-year-old will be earning money following cattle around with a pan, collecting cow flop for research
• "Martha Stewart Investing" - special jailhouse edition
• Man, I have to get this new airport scanning device
• Dying of boredom is literally true - no, really, dude, I read it in Weekly World News.
• Speaking of WWN, their panel of scientists has determined that a new type of cigarette can add years to your life. Atypically in the scientific community, their lead scientist is named "Spike"

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 Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

• Kristin Davis thumbnail previews (1, 2, 3)

• Kristin Davis (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)

• Tanya Roberts topless.

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

"The Notorious Cleopatra"
Basically, this 1970 sexplotation movie tells the story of Antony and Cleopatra, pretty much as you've always heard it. The difference in this version is they left in the nudity and sex, not a bad thing to leave in. :-)

More fun than the history channel!

• Dixie Donovan, full frontal.
• Sonora, also full frontal.
• Various...assorted breasts, bush and even a gyno view.

In yesterday's Fun House you mentioned Justine Bateman as "finally" getting topless. However, I'm positive she appeared topless in a cable TV movie a few years ago called "Another Woman".

-B

Scoop's response:

I have never heard of that nude scene, and no other sources mention it either.

1. It is not listed as a Bateman nude scene in The Bare Facts
2. It is not mentioned in any of the Bateman articles in the back issues of Celebrity Sleuth
3. It is not listed in the Bateman skin scenes on Mr Skin's site, and there are no caps from this film on that site or any other celeb site that I checked.
4. It is not listed on the Celebrity Nudity Database site.

I would have ordered the tape, but the movie is not available anywhere, at least not so far as I can see, so I guess we may have a long wait to see those scenes.

BAGHDAD BOB (POSSIBLY) CAPTURED
What Roadblock? - The London Daily Mirror reports that Iraq's Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, better known as Baghdad Bob or Comical Ali, was captured at a roadblock in Baghdad. An anonymous coalition source said, "He has some serious talking to do...this time." There was no other confirmation of the story.