Monday

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The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring is being released to home video with a street date of August 5. I was lucky enough to see an advance copy. You have a choice of Widescreen or Full Screen two disk sets. Disk one contains the theatrical version, and disk two, the special features. The entire release is just a teaser for the collectors edition release scheduled for November, which will be a 4 disk set, and include an extended version of the film. This, of course, one month before the theatrical release of the second film in the trilogy.

The special features consist mainly of typical behind the scenes and making of footage, and several different versions are presented, but most of them have the same footage just assembled differently. There is also a quick advance look at The Two Towers. It is pretty clear that New Line Cinema is going to milk this project for every last farthing they can get from it. On the other hand, they have done something unprecedented here, producing three films simultaneously, and bringing a work to the screen that was thought to be too hard to do. They got my money for the current release, and will get my money for the November release as well. It is my guess that there will be a definitive edition of the entire trilogy eventually, at which point I will most likely purchase my third copy.

The buzz in the special features is that The Two Towers is orders of magnitude better than The Fellowship of the Ring. I read the trilogy in the late 60s while in the US Merchant Marine, after being told by several people I trusted that it was a must read. Aboard ship, there is lots of reading time, and little else to do, so I devoured the trilogy non-stop, and marveled at the detail, and the vastness of the world created by Tolkien. Even though there is little doubt that good will triumph in the end, the plot is never predictable. In my opinion, The Fellowship of the Ring perfectly adapted not only the content, but also the spirit of Tolkien's work to the screen. One recurring theme in the special features is that everyone involved with the project was a huge fan of Tolkien's work, and thus it became a labor of love. This dedication shows. On a more practical level, this project demanded a full two years of your life, so was not for the faint of heart.

Clearly, The Fellowship of the Ring is an A, with critical acclaim and a huge box office.

Don't Bother to Knock (1952) is the final Marilyn Monroe film in the Diamond Collection II set, and quite probably the last of her films that we will see on DVD. Monroe delivers an excellent performance in this psychological drama, which did succeed in getting the attention of directors. While I appreciated her portrayal of a mentally ill, delusional and suicidal young woman, despondent over the loss of her pilot boyfriend when his plane crashed, I can't say it is an enjoyable film. Marilyn has been released after three years in a mental hospital in Oregon, and is sent on doctor's advice to live with her cousin, an elevator operator in New York.

He gets her a gig baby sitting the young daughter of some guests, while they attend a banquet downstairs. Marilyn goes off the deep end. First, she tries on clothes and jewelry belonging to her employer, then she attracts Richard Widmark, a pilot on the outs with his girlfriend, Anne Bancroft, who is a singer in the hotel lounge. Monroe decides that Widmark is actually her dead fiance, who has come back to her.

Exposure, of course, is minimal, but there are pokies near the end (image 1), and lots of leg when she adjusts her garter belt. It takes a very determined nipple to poke through 1950's vintage bras. They took some pains to restore this 4/3 ratio B&W film. Marilyn fans will want to see it. For me, different pacing could have built some suspense, and this tension would have made a more watchable film, but as is, it was an exercise in slow motion depression. C.

Other crap:

• The Elizabeth Hurley and Heather Graham scenes were cut from Goldmember because ...  well, frankly, because test audiences thought they sucked.
• Music's ten all-time sexiest moments
• knothead reporter unknowingly repeats bogus celebrity gossip from a satire site
• is everything on the internet? The art of Adolf Hitler. and "he could paint an entire apartment in one afternoon. Two coats."
• why isn't James Carville a manager in the WWF? Isn't McMahon missing out here?
• The internet sites banned in Saudi Arabia. We didn't make it.
• sort of a "Mad Magazine on the internet" kind of thing - Banner ads we'd like to see
• I noticed that fansites.com has a page dedicated to me (why ??!!), but that I have neither fans nor fan pages (not unsurprisingly, since I haven;t ever done anything). I therefore decided to create one. There are those who do not believe my story, but I say there are others who don't believe in shaving a kitten's whiskers, or in the gentle poetry of an oil refinery rhythmically spewing its noxious effluvia into our air. And I figure if my dad, at the age of 9, could kick Ty Cobb's ass, the least I could do was to star in films made before my birth. So damn the cynics to hell, and read the inspiring, bittersweet legacy of my greatness. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

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 I inexplicably determined there might be something of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

Special thanks to DAI and Graphic Response.

• Kim Cattrall
• Kristin Davis
• Cattrall, Davis, Nixon and Parker

• British actress Jacqueline Bisset, in a great topless scene from early in her career. From the movie "Secrets" (1971)

• Melissa George in the sci-fi movie "Dark City". Cool movie, fantastic nudity!

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

• Brandy Davis, all three B's and plenty of pseudo-sex. (1, 2)

• Gina Ryder, robo-hooters. (1, 2)

• Gina Ryder and Susan Featherly, breasts, a hint of pubes, and some lesbo lovin'

• Julia Kruis, mostly breasts and and fakes sex, with just a tad of pube and rear views.

• Kristin Harner, fake boobs visible in sex scenes.

• Peggy Trentini, the B-movie regular bares her big'uns.

• Stacey Howell, very nice fake breasts, plus some minor pube sightings.

• Susan Featherly, topless.

• Tess Broussard, topless in scenes from the episode "The Art of Biting".

When I saw The Centerfold Girls for sale I didn't give it a second thought. I should have. An early Troma effort, this movie has four women of some fame in it, and all of them, plus two more do some topless action. The Centerfold Girls, itself, is an atrocious film, propelled by the kind of stupid acts committed by clueless morons that Cary Grant's character made fun of in Arsenic and Old Lace. Example: five people are stalked by a serial killer on a remote coast, but the killer is armed only with a knife AND one of the intended victims is a pretty sizable fellow AND there all kinds of things lying around to whack the crap out of a knife-carrying crazy. So what do the good folks do? They split up, so as to present themselves as much easier targets. Why? Because. Would any reasonable group of people do so? I dun thin so, Lucy. On top of all this wretched movie stuff, we also have the problem that the good folks at Troma packed the tape with 15 minutes of trailers and then copied it all on Extended Play format. The result was a series of hyper-mega-lousy frames capped for most of the babes, some so bad I could not bring myself to work on them. For shame, Troma dudes. The ones I did capture took some serious editing, of the type I had forgotten since taking up DVD captures. Managed to get something presentable on most the babes (one by the name of Kitty Karl is topless, but the scene is so dark and the tape so wretched, I had to give the whole scene of hers a pass).

So who are the babes?

Ruthy Ross, Hefmate of the month almost thirty years ago (June '73). Ruthy plays a nude model posing for a photographer, in what has to be the most inspired casting effort in the history of cinema. Close up topless caps with good lighting... the best of the bunch.

• Ruthy Ross, (1, 2)

Jaime Lynn Bauer of soap opera fame. Three topless offering: One collage has her stripping down to her BVDs, a second has her rising from bed to investigate some noise and the third, a single frame, has an uninvited house guest holding one of Jaime's nipples between her thumb and forefinger. Don't ask.

• Jaime Lynn Bauer (1, 2)

Tiffany Bolling, who did a fair amount of nekkid babe movie work in the early 70's. These are from a fairly long shower scene. The second collage shows not only Tiffany's small hooters but also her very long neck.

• Tiffany Bolling (1, 2)

Janet Wood, who played minor roles in several movies. Here, she is in bed, alone but nekkid.

• Janet Wood

Also giving up the goodies was Connie Strickland.

• Connie Strickland

That's it... the whole sheebang. Doing these VHS things had me thinking that we of the Funhouse should present the inventors of DVD players with a lifetime achievement award, or something like that, just to show our appreciation.

A little "Hankster Lite" today as we look at Holly Sampson starring as the new Emmanuelle in "Emmanuelle's Intimate Encounters".

• Holly Sampson topless in all, rear nudity in #1, frontal in link #8. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

I found this pic of Jeri Ryan on the net. Just wondering if you've seen it before or if you can verify that it's really her and not a fake.

-M

Our money is on fake, but if anyone out there has any info, let us know.