Tuesday

Stuck

(2008)

Stuck is an indie melodrama based on a real incident so incredible that if it were a work of pure fiction, one would never believe it. Court TV described the case as follows:

"Chante Jawan Mallard was driving home from a dance club in Arlington, Texas, in the early hours of Oct. 26, 2001, when she struck 37-year-old Gregory Biggs. The homeless man's upper torso smashed through her windshield. What happened next is almost unbelievable. Except that Mallard admits to it. With Biggs still embedded in the windshield, she continued to drive to her Fort Worth home and parked her 1997 Chevrolet Cavalier in her garage. According to police and Mallard's confession, she periodically checked on Biggs, who remained stuck in the windshield, alive and moaning in pain. Mallard said she apologized to Biggs during the visits, but never made an effort to extract him. Nor did she contact police or summon medical help."

The film's screenplay is not meant as a docudrama. The cinematic version includes plenty of fictional embellishments and a completely different ending, but none of the fictional elements are as strange as the reality you read about in the preceding paragraph.

Director Stuart Gordon and screenwriter John Strysik did a remarkable job of taking that basic story and showing how such a thing might possibly happen, given a recipe that takes the right ingredients from the range of human behavior and mixes them in the right combination. Selfishness, extreme intoxication, panic, and ignorance form a powerful concoction.

I am impressed by this film. On the one hand, it manages to be a legitimate drama, a powerful morality play about a real case of extreme human behavior. On the other hand, it draws on the sleaziest elements of genre films and exploitation cinema to make an exciting tabloid story filled with plot twists and dramatic tension in scene after scene. Because of the economical screenplay and efficient direction, the film never lost me for a minute. What are those sleazy elements? From the world of horror films, there are the severe injuries to the homeless man and there is plenty of gallows humor. From the Tarantino-inspired world of the cavalier black comedy, there are heartless actions which leave us wondering whether to laugh or cry, and there is gangsta rap blaring out its ugly themes. From the world of erotic thrillers, there is gallows lust. The best thing about those lurid elements is that they really don't seem trashy in context. Every punch is completely appropriate, even necessary, to deliver the knock-out. For example, the main sex scene takes place in the bedroom of the driver's house while the victim is still struggling for life, pinned inside the windshield of the car in the nearby garage. The scene carries a tremendous emotional punch. The driver is ignoring the man's plight even while she is racked with guilt. She screams every time she pictures the homeless man going through her car window, while her oblivious partner pumps madly away and mistakes her screams for lust.

Perhaps best of all, the writer managed to come up with an ending for the film that is both satisfying and completely appropriate - and if you think about it for a bit, you'll realize that was no easy task.

Stuck is essentially a straight-to-vid because it grossed only $67,000 and never reached more than 16 theaters. That's a shame because it is original enough, profound enough, and accomplished enough to have earned a decent theatrical run. Although it is a film which very effectively combines the visceral and the psychological and was a crowd-pleaser at some genre festivals, I can understand why distributors were loath to take a chance on such a dark movie. At any rate, the lack of anything more than a perfunctory theatrical release allows me to say that this may be the best damned straight-to-vid film I've ever seen, and I'm not surprised that it is rated 8.2 at IMDb, an incredible 8.6 from the top 1000 voters, a tough crowd which gives the exact same 8.6 grade to The Godfather!


Mena Suvari shows her breasts repeatedly, plus brief glances at her other goodies, in a sex scene.

Sharlene Royer shows about everything that can be shown without pulling an NC-17. This happens when Suvari pulls her out of bed stark naked and kicks her ass out into the hallway.

 

Untamed Heart

(1993)

Untamed Heart is a sweet, undeservedly forgotten film starring Christian Slater and Marisa Tomei. I reviewed it when it first came to DVD in the year 2000, and I liked it very much.

There is no nudity.

Until today.

"What?", you are thinking.

It seems that Marisa Tomei did a topless scene which never made it to DVD or video, not even as a special feature, but appeared in a recent TV broadcast of the film in Europe.

Tomei was 27 or 28 in this scene.

Here's the clip, and below are two sets of captures. The second one, the collage, is from Rokwatch. (Other Rokwatch collages are in his usual section)

 

 

  • * Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

  • * White asterisk: expanded format.

  • * Blue asterisk: not mine.

  • No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cannibal Doctor

(1999)

Cannibal Doctor is a previously unreleased video starring the artist formerly known as Misty Mundae, plus Tina Krause, and Misty's then-boyfriend, William Hellfire.

Hellfire is supposed to be a doctor, and Mundae arrives to interview for a position as his secretary. He must first give her a physical examination. We then watch for thirty minutes as her fondles her panty hose. Finally, we get down to business and discover that Mundae is to be a meal for Tina Krause (part of her beauty regimen), and Hellfire is just checking the meat for the proper tenderness. Tina does some last minute tenderizing with an industrial strength vibrator, then Mad Doctor Hellfire realizes that Ms. Krause is entirely too bitchy and swaps out her brain.

Amateur Hour. The acting, except for Misty, is way over the top, and there is barely enough script for a 10 minute short. And not a very good one at that. Still, Mundae completists will need to own it. It is part one of an upcoming two-disc release which includes Dinner for Two.

Misty shows everything.

Krause shows breasts.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Sommer '06

2006

Today we have cute Martina Gedeck with some T & A - not a whole lot of nudity, but sexy.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notes and collages

Looker

1981

Susan Dey

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Retribution

2001

Film clips here. Samples below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This section will present film clips to accompany Charlie's collages (which are found in his own site).

Today's star is Ana Prucnal in Le Dossier 51

 

 

 

 

 

Pics

Mischa Barton can't quite stay inside her net bikini

 

Film Clips