"Nowhere Man might be the best film ever made about a guy who gets his dick cut off."

 - The Village Voice

"It might be the only film in history in which a cameo by Troma kingpin Lloyd Kaufman actually increases its overall class content."

 - The Onion A.V. Club

At the beginning of Nowhere Man, we hear a couple arguing. She has taken something from him and he wants it back desperately. She says she'll return it for $560. Lacking the cash, he refuses the deal.

As the story develops, much of it flashbacks, and flashbacks within flashbacks, we discover that the missing item is the man's penis, which the woman has snipped off, Lorena Bobbit style. The guy, who resembles the notorious Mr. Bobbit, then goes on a typical film noir detective pursuit - well, typical except that he's not looking for a falcon statuette or a missing person, but his own dick, which adds a certain urgency to his quest. The two stories, past and present, unfold in parallel. In the present, he pursues his missing pee-pee. In the flashbacks, we see why he lost it in the first place, and gain some unexpected sympathy for the woman. As the story unfolds, we find that Rochon is not just an insane bitch, but was reacting to a flurry of abuse heaped upon her after the guy, who supposedly loved her, discovered her porno past and was unable to deal with it.

I'm not sure what relationship, if any, this film had with Troma Studios, but there seem to be some connections, as noted in the quotes which begin this article. The emperor of Troma, Lloyd Kaufman, appears in the film as the doctor who explains the victim's medical options. The Lorena part is played by the film's co-producer Debbie Rochon, who is to Troma approximately what Gwyneth Paltrow once was to Miramax - their muse, their resident diva, and their best actress. She's the centerpiece of their repertory company, and can handle almost any kind of character. I suppose she is the low-rent Paltrow - kind of a Gwyneth Skidrow, so to speak. Whatever connection may exist, this film is not a Troma campfest, but a tense drama with some occasional offbeat and pitch black comedic fringes.

Unexpectedly, it did receive a brief mini-release into theaters. According to IMDb, it had an opening weekend below $200 (!!)  in one theater on the March 13th weekend (2005). The actual weekend gross of $173 is the lowest such number I have ever seen. Assume three showings per day  for three days, that's $19 per screening, and I guess that would be $19 at Chicago prices, because the film was reviewed by several Chicago-based critics. (I didn't see an Ebert review, however.)  Nowhere Man later expanded to another theater, finishing with a domestic gross a bit above $2,000. I guess the second theater must have been in New York, because the film picked up notices from The New York Times, The Post, and the Village Voice, and they pinpointed an opening date in late March. The metacritic score was 41, which is not so bad, although that forty one was not derived from a bunch of wishy-washy 40/100 reviews, but consisted of scores in a very wide range from 0/100 to 80/100. There were some harsh pans, to be sure, but Nowhere Man also picked up four pretty good reviews. (Village Voice, Film Threat, L.A. Weekly, Chicago Reader.)

I think director Tim McCann did yeoman's work to stretch the non-existent budget as much as he could to create a film with some tension and a professional look and sound. The film is only 75 minutes long so it's a short trip, and the road is made a bit smoother by the fact that Rochon did a good job in the lead. One would be hard pressed to find a better actress in the world of B and C movies.

That's the good news.

The bad news is, well, let's face it, it is still a no-budget movie about a guy looking for his dick, and the rest of the actors can sometimes descend to the porno film level.

Debbie Rochon. The quality is deliberately poor, since her husband is watching her in an old video tape.

Wedding Crashers (2005)

I went to this film in an actual theater!

I'll write more about it tomorrow. For now here's the nudity report.

1) Many women are seen topless in a musical montage at the beginning of the film which shows how successful the guys have become with their wedding scam. They are all hot, but I have no idea who they are.

2) No nudity of any kind from Rachel McAdams

3) Isla Fisher's character shows buns and breasts, but I don't think any it was actually Isla's body parts. The juxtaposition of flesh and face was obviously avoided. (It's possible that some brief flash belongs to Isla, but I'd have to be able to pause it to draw that conclusion. For now, my verdict is body double.

4) Jane Seymour does show her breasts in a funny scene with Owen Wilson, but I couldn't see any nipple. It seemed to me that Owen's hand was covering the pink stuff. It is possible that there may be a couple of frames which expose the nipple or areola before Owen's hand gets there, but I couldn't see that with the film moving at normal speed.

In general, I thought the film was worth watching - not as good as American Pie, but at least as good or better than any of the Pie sequels. Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson make a good team, and play off each other well. Vaughn, the improv king, is typically blustery as the hyperkinetic and insensitive motormouth, and Wilson is typically cuddly - but subtly subversive - as the laid-back half of the team.

Today we are still cruising around in the old Time Machine and after yesterday's visit to 1973's "Invasion of the Bee Girls" we stopped in for a visit with on my favorites, Phyllis Davis. Here she is in scenes from 1973's "Sweet Sugar".

Now Phyllis had a long and varied career, appearing in sexy movies like this one as well as several roles in various television series. She probably was best known for her role in Robert Urich's "Vegas" which ran from 1978-81.

Here we have Phyllis and her ample bosom being shown off in a very sexy dress. Great legs too, and then topless in a bathtub scene with her lover. In the final five 'caps she windsup as a "Babe in Bondage" for a whipping scene. Plus she also gets a hot gun shoved down into her shorts.

Phyllis Davis

A quickie from the Ghost today...

Here is Leslie Harter aka Mrs. Robert Zemeckis, topless and baring her bum in scenes from an episode of the late night cable series, "Women: Stories of Passion".

The videos are arty and very slow moving. If you're a fan of hers, you may enjoy them. If she's a new name for you, then stick with the collages...they have almost as much movement in them as the video clips.

Leslie Harter

Here is the first American Idol Kelly Clarkson wearing a semi-revealing outfit on stage.

You can read all about it in Scoop's review, but for now...here is what you need to know about this cool little flick:

Melanie Griffith...18 years old and buck nekkid!

Susan Clark...topless!

Jennifer Warren...topless!

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.

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

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COOTER URGES "DUKES" BOYCOTT
Will Cooter Heads Prevail? - Ben Jones, who played Cooter on "The Dukes of Hazzard" and owns a "Dukes" museum and runs a yearly fan festival, is urging fans to boycott the new movie version with Johnny Knoxville and Jessica Simpson. He said he was shown the movie script, and "they trashed our show." He said people love "Dukes" because it's clean, family fun, but the movie script was full of profanity and sex. He said it's "like taking 'I Love Lucy' and making her a crackhead."

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