Cut and Run (1983) -- In Aerospace, we used to say that a camel was just a horse designed by committee. That also goes a long way towards explaining what is wrong with this film. The producer, Alessandro Fracassi, wanted director Ruggero Deodato to do a sequel to his box office smash, Cannibal Holocaust. Deodato wanted to make something more like a documentary on Amazonia. One of the writers was trying to create a character driven drama, while the other writer was after an action thriller. Much of the plot and many of the characters still have me puzzled, but this is what I was able to piece together.

A Toxic Avenger clone is attacking and killing drug manufacturers with the help of some natives. An ex army guy, who supposedly died at Jonestown, is cornering the world drug market. This is somehow supposed to get even with the world for not understanding Rev. Jones. A reporter and her photographer friend cover a drug related massacre in Miami, and find a lead to the ex Jones-ite, and none other than the long lost son of their boss. We never do find out why the kid is there, but we do know he isn't happy. At any rate, the kid has one friend, a female who also is working for the gang against her will. It is into this jumble that the reporter and her friend fly.

Valentina Forte, as the one ice woman in the gang, is seen topless during a rape scene, and then naked afterward in the shower. There may or may not be a glimpse of her bush as she takes of her skirt. Several unknown natives, cadavers and strippers show body parts over the course of the film. IMDB readers have it at 5.3 of 10. This is a terrible film which would need years of therapy to find its identity. C-.

Punch (2002):

If I tell you that this is a movie about an angry champion topless lesbian boxer, you'd form a certain concept of what it is like.

Let me add some more sensational details. A father and his 18 year old daughter seem to have an unhealthy bond, which is challenged by a new love in the dad's life. The daughter resents the woman so much that she punches her in the face. Unfortunately for the daughter, she has punched the sister of the angry lesbian boxing champion. Eventually, the two violent women set at one another.

The story arc is set. Have you formed your idea of a lurid grade-B orgy of tits and violence?

You're wrong. It kinda starts out in that direction, but does a complete about face.

In fact, it is a sensitive and well-written comedy/drama which is beautifully acted, and resembles no movie more than American Beauty. In crazy sensationalist films, people start out in natural situations and become crazy as the movie progresses. In this film, everyone starts out a little crazy and one dimensional, but each character reveals more and more humanity as the story develops.

I actually liked this modestly budget Canadian film.

One thing about the film is very uncomfortable. The director of the film, a former newspaper columnist named Guy Bennett, directed a spread-eagle nude scene which featured his own daughter, Sonja Bennett. This not be comfortable under any circumstances, but in this case it is a mirror of a scene in the film, in which the daughter, jealous of her dad's lover, pretends to be concerned with a lump in her breast, and asks her doctor father to look at it. He doesn't want to, but he gives in because she is acting scared and she's his little girl. In other words, it is a film about a father doing an inappropriate pseudo-sexual thing with his daughter, filmed by a father who in the very act of filming it did an inappropriate pseudo-sexual thing with his daughter. In the film, the father tells his girlfriend what had happened and she says "that's creepy".

I tend to have the same reaction to him filming his daughter's spread shot. Bennett justifies it in the commentary by saying that he wasn't in the room and was watching in another room on a very low resolution monitor, He therefore misses the point that your average director wouldn't insert a spread-shot in any sensitive film about a troubled teen, let alone one which featured his own daughter opening her legs.

"That's creepy".

Even more so because he thinks being in the other room makes it OK. A little less creepy, yes, but not uncreepy. It reduced it from 100 on the creepy scale down to about 90.

Of course, I took a good look, so who am I to talk?

Oh, did I mention that he also wrote the script as well as directed? Do you think a lot of this film came out of his own life?

Oh, well, Guy and Sonja Bennett have to work out their own issues. Their film came out fine, if an unusual blend of sensationalism and sensitivity.

You have to love the fact that it was partially funded by Telefilm Canada. Normally when national film boards spend their taxpayers money on projects, they try for projects with an artistic pedigree and an intimate connection to their national heritage - Peter Greenaway's The Tempest and Tarkowsky's Andrei Rublev come to mind. Canada says to hell with that arty crap and funds a topless lesbian boxer movie. Canadians, you can feel that your taxes are being spent wisely, because this is, in fact, the Citizen Kane of topless lesbian boxer movies. In fact, it is pretty good for any kind of movie. C

• Sonja Bennett (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Meredith McGeachie(1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Kathryn Kirkpatrick. (1, 2, 3) (Note: those of you who wrote in to complain about our pictures of Kathy Bates are advised to avoid Ms. Kirkpatrick. In a world full of this woman, Kathy Bates would be their Michelle Pfeiffer.)
• unknowns (1, 2)

OTHER CRAP:

• Report: Drugs, violence marred Kennedy-Bessette marriage.
• How long will you live. Lifeline calculator. Damn new-fangled stuff. In my day we had old gypsy crones to do this and, by God, that was plenty good enough for us.
• Eminem, who earned 21 million last year, was hailed as the saviour of modern poetry by one of the world's greatest poets. Seamus Heaney, winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature, said the rap phenomenon arouses interest in poetry in the way Bob Dylan and John Lennon had in the 1960s and 70s.
• Saddam Nabbed Buying Potter Book: "CIA agents secretly nabbed Saddam Hussein at midnight last Friday while the former Iraqi dictator was waiting in line at a Topeka, Kan., Barnes & Noble bookstore. Saddam was waiting to buy the just-released Harry Potter book, the spy agency revealed today."
• Break out your Dead Pool entries one more time. Buddy Hackett is dead.
• MovieJuice!: The Hulk - Size Doesn't Matter
• Steven Hawking runs over Jim Carrey's foot. Amazingly, The Prof and The Mask are good friends.
• Where Are the WMD? The Winners Are . . . (washingtonpost.com reader poll)
• BBC poll determines the "worst film accent'. Amazingly, Dick Van Dyke did NOT win for Mary Poppins - he finished second.
• College English professor suspended for requiring a story by James Joyce.
• 'My Wild, Partying Days Are Behind Me' by Dick Cheney
• OJ finds the real killer, says Weekly World News: "AFTER years of intense, behind-the-scenes detective work, insiders predict O.J. Simpson is close to revealing who really killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. "
• Carson Daly responds to his roast: "I thought I was a nice guy, but I've come to realize I'm just a big douche bag". Wow, it's amazing to see a man with such self awareness. Other famous douchebags, like Al Gore and Hugh Grant, don't seem aware of it at all.
• Bush team to seek reversal of American Idol vote at Supreme Court
• NewsMax to sell dead Iraqis as souvenirs
• President to wear flight suit at all public functions
• Nader considering another try at White House in 2004, Republicans rejoice.
• Oregon's medical marijuana program is running such a big financial surplus that it is cutting fees charged to patients who want to smoke pot to ease their pain.
• Strom Thurmond Obituary: STROM THURMOND MURDERED BY SHOCK OF SUPREME COURT INTEGRATIONIST SODOMY RULING: President Decries Judicial Slaying of Hero Senator

Other crap archives. May also include newer material than the ones above, since it's sorta in real time.

Mailbox:

Dear Uncle Scoopy, I doubt that anyone cares much, but “unknown 1” in your caps from Stripteaser 2 (the dancer wearing the white mask) is Elena Sahagun, in a scene from a 1990 movie called Naked Obsession. 

Tall Paul

Scoop's note: Wow! So even more footage in that film borrowed from elsewhere! (See the other details in yesterday's edition.)

Hey Scoop, I found a used video of Hard Drive (aka Enter Delilah -  play on words).   One of the actresses, who was just in a dream sequence in this movie, was Melanie Moore.  Not to be confused with Melissa Moore, who was in the Sorority House slasher movies, as well as Angel Fist.  I was surprised to see that Melanie Moore has over 180 movies listed in the IMDB, most of them porn.  She must hold some kind of record.  What I found interesting was the non-porn movies listed, like Lady in Red,  Return to Melrose Place, Lethal Lolita (Amy Fisher Bio/Doc),  Adventures of the Neutron Man, Mystery Date, Student Nurses, I Want a Divorce, W.A.S.P, Arsenal of Fear, and possibly more where the title could be taken two ways. Julie Strain only has 93 entries.   Shannon Tweed is a lightweight with 68.  I found this to be pretty amazing. 

Copperhead

Scoop, the August issue of Playboy includes a black-and-white photo of Patricia Heaton in a see-through black sweater at an event this
spring. I am not asking for a posting of said photo because of its appearance in the bunny mag, but if anyone has any color photos of
Patricial in this outfit, please. There apparently are several on WireImage, so they're out there.

3finger

 

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 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.

• Justine Bateman and her much talked about topless scene in last week's episode of the Showtime series "Out of Order".

• Courteney Cox, very brief partial exposure as the "Friends" star gets groped and has her breast kissed in scenes from "The Runner" (1999).

• Ţrúđur Vilhjálmsdóttir full frontal nudity the Iclandic movie "101 Reykjavík" (2000).

• Victoria Abril, full frontal and full dorsal nudity, also from "101 Reykjavík".

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

Getting ready for the 4th with with a few former Hef-mates...

First up, Julia Schultz in Tomcats, clothed...just barely... and looking better than any woman except one who adores me has any right to look. Julia plays the love interest of a confirmed bachelor who eventually falls for Shannon Elizabeth. I, myself, would have taken Julia. The header to these frames is from the funniest part of this disappointing movie. Julia is messing around real close to our hero's privates when she asks him to say the "three magic words." He assumes those would be "I love you" and beats a hasty retreat. Shee-it, if Julia's face was near my privates I'd recite the Declaration of Independence... backwards, if necessary. Of course, the three words she wants to hear from the nimrod is "Suck my cock." And as the door to her escape elevator closes she gives him the one-finger salute. Asshole deserved it, too.

• Julia Schultz (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

Next up is Katie Lohmann in Tomcats and in Embrace the Darkness 2.

In Tomcats she plays a centerfold model come to life as our hero spanks his monkey in a sperm-donation clinic. Katie's image soons turns into Shannon Elizabeth's and as a result the male personage is able to donate several cups full of precious bodily fluids. Katie shows lots o' cleavage in this movie but nothing really vital.

Not so in Embrace. There she shows off her man-made mighty-fines, does the full-frontal tango and does the gyno-cam dance. Nothing left to the imagination, for which we are all thankful.

• Katie Lohmann in "Tomcats" (1, 2)

• Katie Lohmann in "Embrace the Darkness 2" (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Kimber West plays the part of a waitress dressed as a french maid in Dish Dogs. Not a lot of exposure but good gawd, the woman is a beauty.

Shannon Tweed is a commando of sorts in Shadow Warriors 2. The people who made this film watched too many Ah-nold movies whilst puffing on the crack pipe. They managed to combine elements of Commando (damsel in distress, held by mercenaries, only in this case the damsel is plural and is played by a team of gymnasts... some of whom are guys but should properly be thought of as damsels anyway) and Predator (team of commandos to the rescue including one who fires a chaingun and another who is played by Carl Weathers). The result is truly, mind-bogglingly awful. But Shannon shows off her aging but still righteous hooties in a sport-humpin scene and gives us a major pokie scene a while later.

• Shannon Tweed (1, 2)

Last up is Stella Stevens in Troma Production's Monster in the Closet. Stella must have been fifty when she gave up the top goodies in a very long shower scene, but she looked passably good anyway.

The movie, I should add, was a mess even by Troma's usual standards.

• Stella Stevens (1, 2)

"Hable con ella" aka "Talk to her"

This Spainish film by Pedro Almodóvar won the 2002 Gold Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Understandable, because it's a great drama, although a little slow in parts. In Spanish, with English sub-titles.

A week after meeting and falling in love with a young woman, a male nurse becomes her caretaker after she's left in a coma following a car accident. Four years later, he befriends another man who is trying to cope with the goring of his bullfighter girlfriend, which has also left her in a coma. Very well done, with an interesting and unexpected ending.

The black and white collage is of a silent movie shown in the film. Most of the nudity (except the full-length shot) is simulated, but it's one of the stranger sequences I've ever seen, so I had to cap it.

• Leonor Watling, topless
• Paz Vega, breasts and a far off side frontal view.

• Ana Álvarez (1, 2)
• María Adánez

Next up, scenes from "100 Girls" (2000).

• Emmanuelle Chriqui, a little cleavage.
• Katherine Heigl, mega-cleavage.
• Marissa Ribisi, topless.

And finally, from "200 Cigarettes" (1999)

• Christina Ricci, showing some cleavage