Thursday

Tuna
"Ice Cold in Phoenix"

Ice Cold in Phoenix (2004) is a direct to vid thriller. The film starts with Jose Rosete outside the Phoenix airport, obviously broke with nowhere to go. He hijacks an arriving passenger, takes him out into the desert, and kills him. He then drops by to see his alcoholic abusive father, then goes to the man's house with his shrink wrapped body in the trunk. He handcuffs the wife, has sex with her twice, and she asks him to kill her husband so she can be rid of him and collect the insurance. When a maid and a pool cleaner arrive, he kills both of them, then kills the wife. We next see him burying two bodies in the desert.

He then checks into a hotel room with hooker Pamela Campbell, but can't get it up at first. When she threatens to leave with his money, he more or less rapes her. Cut to the next day, when he picks up hitch hiker April Shepard. Things seem to be going well when the two have sex in the desert. Then, she and her boyfriend turn the tables on him for a double surprise ending.

Campbell shows breasts and buns in a Tback. April Shepard shows breasts. There are several problems with this film. The first is that it has absolutely no nuances, but is a flat, emotionless narrative. Second, there are no sympathetic characters. As a matter of fact, the film makers went out of their way to make even minor characters into jerks. IMDb barely knows it exists. The video release is rated R for language, sexuality and violence, but there was an NC-17 version at some point. Most scenes are in focus, and the editing isn't jarring, but set design is whatever was there when they borrowed locations. This could have been a C- erotic thriller with lots more nudity and sex, and something to create suspense and dramatic tension, but as it is, it is a D-.

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  • April Shepard (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)
  • Pamela Campbell (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)

    "The Driller Killer"

    The Driller Killer (1979) is a very early effort from Abel Ferrara (The Bad Lieutenant, King of New York, Cat Chaser, The Funeral) which was dismissed at the time as exploitation with no merit in the US, and was banned in several countries, probably undeservedly, as it just wasn't that gruesome. After Ferrara gained a reputation, the film was revisited. It was shot on weekends on a shoestring budget on 16 mm.

    It is the story of the decent into madness of and artist (played by Ferrara). He loves with his girlfriend (Caroly Manz) and another girl in a 4th rate New York apartment. He is getting pressure from the art dealer who handles his work, and has given him an advance, to finish his latest painting, the roommates are broke, and a punk band rents a room next to theirs where they practice day and night. Ferrara goes slowly mad from the pressure, and starts using an electric drill with a portable power pack on anyone in his way, including a lot of winos.

    Carol Manz shows breasts and buns in a gratuitous shower scene, probably caused by Ferrara's desire to see her naked. The DVD includes a commentary from Ferrara. His public address style reminds me very much of Bob Dylan, and I found most of it nearly as unintelligible as the film itself. IMDb readers have it at 4.2. The film does have cult fans, who seem to enjoy calling it a Punk Rock film. Several of those commenting at IMDb mention the great soundtrack. It was as distasteful to me as Punk usually is, so I suppose it might have been excellent Punk. The entire film is dark, Ferrara played a one note character, and it was not nearly as shocking as what I had expected based on the hype. Watch at your own risk. The likelihood of this entertaining you is proportional to your love of the gruesome, punk music, and New York 70s style. Most would be well advised to avoid it. This is a D.

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  • Carolyn Marz (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

    • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)

    3-Way (2004):

    3-Way is a twisting noir thriller based on a 1963 Gil brewer novel called Wild to Possess. It was directed by Scott Ziehl, who most recently did Cruel Intentions 3.

    Dominic Purcell plays Lew, a drifter who is down on his luck. In a flashback, the prologue shows him walking onto a power boat and discovering the dead bodies of his wife (Roxana Zal) and her lover, apparently not long after the wife left him. Having a criminal record and knowing full well that he will be the #1 suspect in the double murder, he takes the boat out to sea, sinks the bodies with the boat's anchor, then abandons the boat and rows back to shore in a dinghy.

    The story returns to the present. Lew is working at a loser job, planting bootleg signs on the side of a lonely highway in the dead of night, when he hears the unmistakable sounds of human fornication in the near distance. He investigates and finds a car parked in a secluded spot, its inhabitants (Ali Larter and Desmond Harrington) simultaneously having sex and planning a crime. The couple intends to kidnap the guy's rich wife, then kill her after they get the money from her family. After Lew overhears the plot, he realizes he can be a good Samaritan and an entrepreneur in one quick stroke, by employing a plot in which he re-kidnaps the rich wife, thus saving her life while using her to get the money for himself.

    That was a pretty good plot right there, and was probably complicated enough on its own, but the story gets much more complex, perhaps too complex. Someone from Lew's past shows up, gets wind of the plot, and wants in on the action. Ralph's girlfriend (Joy Bryant) finds out about the plot and may or may not double-cross him. The kidnapped wife (Gina Gershon) is a real pain in the tush, and completely ungrateful for Lew's having saved her life. The six main characters (the two kidnappers, Lew, Lew's girlfriend, the guy from the past, and the kidnapped wife) form and re-form alliances, often double-crossing each other, pretending to, or appearing to.

    It is not a noir classic, but it isn't a bad little mystery/thriller for a straight-to-vid. Production values are solid, the acting is satisfactory, the plot is fairly interesting, there are no deal-killing plot holes, and the characters aren't completely generic. The only major weakness is that the plot gets excessively serpentine.

    There's nothing so vivid or original as to knock you out, but you should find it to meet your minimum standard if you like the genre, and it has some nudity to boot.
     

    • Joy Bryant (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
    • Ali Larter (1, 2)
    • Roxana Zal. (1, 2, 3) She had about four lines, and was dead before the opening credits stopped rolling. Roxana's qualification for this role consisted of the fact that she looked enough like Gina Gershon so that a man seeing one in a quick flash might think of the other.
    • Gina Gershon (no nudity)

     

     

    OTHER CRAP:

    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.

    Shiloh

    Words from Scoop.

    .avi's from Shiloh.

    .wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

    NOTE: because of a unique combination of circumstances with the Windows media player and some substantial bandwidth theft, we will have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Left click on the files as you normally would to view a picture. When you get a choice, click on "save", and put it on your hard drive in the directory of your choice. UnZIP and play from there.

    I know this is not especially convenient, but it allows the film clips to continue. I can protect .zip files from hot-linking in the same way I can protect still images. For some reason, if I protect .avis and .wmvs from hot-linking, they will not play in the Windows media player, and I can't get a satisfactory work-around. Perhaps I will find a better solution, but for now this new policy allows you to continue getting the movie clips you want to see, which is much preferable to my abandoning the clips altogether.

     

    Diane Varsi

     

    NOTE FROM SHILOH

     

    The Lost Horizons clip was from TCM. Most of my really old clips come from premium channels or TCM. TCM has been showing Lost Horizons for as long as they've been a network, they usually don't edit the really old movies ...  I haven't rented any movies from video stores in about two years. I rent occasionally over the net. That's what's great about the net -  you don't need video stores, and I believe they will soon be extinct.

     

    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.

    Graphic Response
    • Joan Collins in undies, topless and baring her bum in scenes from "The Devil Within Her" aka "I Don't Want to Be Born" (1975).

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

    Brainscan
    'Caps and comments by Brainscan:

    It is an avocational hazard, this watching of stripper movies. It has to be done no matter the cost on personal time and fragile psyche. First rule of stripper murder mysteries: one of the gal has done it. Sort like the butler in rich and snooty murder mysteries.

    But not in Stripteaser II, which I guess takes up where Stripteaser I left off. Cabbie goes looking for his lost sister on the streets of LA, meets a veteran stripclub dude and figures out, with the help of a woman planted in the club as one of the strippers, what happened to sis, who done it and why. All of that is just fine and dandy. Nothing great, but nothing downright awful, either (despire an IMDb socre in low 2's).

    What separates SII from most other stripper murder movies is the quality of the women playing the strippers. No, you don't get Kay Lenz or Daryl Hannah or that gal from Saved By the Bell who isn't Tiffani Amber Thiessen. But you do get a collection of extremely fine-looking B-movie types who honest-to-goodness strip like gals in these clubs, rather than act out some complex, highly choreographed scene. Major points there.

    Kim Dawson plays the manager of the club. She doesn't strip but she does the sport-humping and shows off a form that was still el primo a-way back in 1997.

    • Kim Dawson (1, 2)


    All the other exposure is from clothing removal professionals.

    Stacey Leigh Mobley (who practices the adult film arts under the name of Holly Hollywood) shows a fine rumpus and a well-shaped upper bod in a couple of stripping-for-the-paying-public and tied-up-for-the-VIPs scenes. She also spies upon Kim and her paramour whilst topless. Good choice.

    • Stacey Leigh Mobley (1, 2, 3, 4)


    Lisa Ann Brown whips out the jumbo jacks in a bunch of scenes. This gal has a pair of enhanced twins that are certainly large but not grotesque. In fact she is the reason I capped this puppy. Ya might recognize Lisa from the pages of the Hefmag's newstand specials.


    Kiva shows up a couple of times and Maria Ford appears briefly as a stripper in a club that competes with the movie's main venue (rule number two of stripper murder mysteries: Maria Ford will play some role, big or small, in the movie).


    That leaves Taylor St. Claire. Taylor started out as a B-movie actress but moved into hardcore things around the turn of the century. She is attractive, but if she had Catherine Zeta-Jones' mouth she would be one of the sexiest women on the planet. That's 'cuz she has a delightful natural body. Really kick-ass is what I mean.

    Taylor has two stripping scenes and a backstage, dressing room scene. Grabbed frames to make up one collage each from the first stripping thing and the dressing room exposure. Then I ran into what I figure is the most-attractively choreographed and best-photographed stripping scene in the history of these things. Put together 13 collages from that scene and could have done a dozen more but I didn't want you guys to think I'd gone cheese-brained on you.


    There you have it. Within in its own genre...stripper murder mysteries... this is a 2.2 times 4. Really. Some thought went into it and some care was shown in casting and performing. And the babes... well, they are impressive.

    Crimson Ghost
    NOTE: We currently have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Instead of viewing them online, save the zip files to your hard drive in the directory of your choice, un-zip and play from there.


    Today the Ghost takes a look at the Jim Wynorski flick "Hard to Die" (1990).

    Dann
    'Caps and comments by Dann:

    "Songwriter"
    The biggest surprise in this 1994 music comedy/drama is that Willie Nelson can act. Unfortunately, the story isn't as strong as the performances.

    A singer/songwriter aspires to be a music mogul, and he wheels and deals with fellow singer/songwriter Kris Kristofferson to outwit a bigtime promoter.

    The story's pretty lame and sometimes boring, but there's plenty of good Country music, and Willie pulls off his role very well. Enjoyable if limited.

    DB
    Scoops,

    On Tuesday you posted a link about the new production of Mozart's Serail from the Komische Opera in Berlin.

    Here, for your enjoyment, is an edited clip of the news-story from Berlin Tv.

    Warning, female and male nudity.

    Here in another link to the story

    • Nekkid Opera zipped wmvs (1, 2)

    UC99
    Vanity
    (1, 2)

    		The singer and former Prince protege going topless in scenes from the 1986 movie "52 Pick-Up"...directed by John Frankenheimer.

    Giulia Siegel The German actress going topless in scenes from "Die Singlefalle".

    Variety
    Catherine Bell
    (1, 2, 3)

    		The "JAG" star barely keeping the twins contained at a photo event.

    Jennifer Connelly
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

    		Señor Skin 'caps of the long time Fun House favorite topless in scenes from "Mulholland Falls" (1996).

    Pat Reeder www.comedy-wire.com
    Pat's comments in yellow...

    STARBUCKS DRINKS MAY BE FATTENING
    Wake-Up Call - Today, Starbucks is introducing low-fat frappuccino drinks and nutritional brochures to help customers shocked by a recent report on how fattening their beverages are. For instance, it turns out a large Java Chip Frappuccino contains 650 calories, 50 more than a Big Mac. A University of Washington dietitian told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that people have a perception that if it's something you drink, it doesn't have calories.

  • Like a milk shake!
  • That explains all the beer bellies.
  • So wake up and smell the coffee!
  • At least with Starbucks, all the caffeine makes you burn off the calories by twitching.


    MOM ATTACKS CHUCK E. CHEESE
    Guess Disneyland Is Out? - Police in Macon, Georgia, report that a teenage girl was dressed in a large rodent costume at the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant Sunday when an unnamed woman threw a slice of pizza at her. The woman accused the mascot of not paying enough attention to her child, then threatened to "whip" the girl when she changed out of her costume. The cops were called, but no charges were filed, and the angry mom was released.

  • They sent her to a rest home for parents driven insane by Chuck E. Cheese.
  • I'm guessing that DAD was supposed to take the kids to Chuck E. Cheese.


    SHARPTON TO HOST REALITY SHOW
    He Has "Spike" Hair - Al Sharpton may never be president, but he has landed a gig as a reality show host. Spike TV hired him to host "I Hate My Job," in which eight men will quit their jobs and work with two "life counselors" to figure out what they want to do, and a panel decides which ones have to leave each week. A spokesman said Sharpton is the perfect host because he had a modest upbringing and is now a major political force. And Sharpton declared, "I'm the working man's (Donald) Trump."

  • Sharpton's not Donald Trump...He's not even a working man.
  • How does never having a real job make you qualified to host "I Hate My Job?"
  • He's probably THE most major political force currently hosting a game show...He beat out Bill Clinton for this job.


    TRUMP LAUNCHING MAGAZINE
    Skip The Hair Section - Donald Trump is launching a magazine called "Trump World" that will cover the best of everything, from real estate and fashion to food and entertainment. He first put it out in Trump hotels in 2002, shelved it, then decided to revive it to cash in on his hit, "The Apprentice." An industry expert said everyone wants to be rich and famous, so for $5.95, he's giving them a vehicle to "be just like me."

  • Only with a lot less money.
  • But they already have bad hair and are paying alimony and child support.
  • The first cover story is "101 Things You Can Do With Gold Leaf."