Tuesday

FILM CLIPS:

Absolutely spectacular HD film clips of Tanya Roberts in Sheena. (Movie House review.) Great photography, great transfer, and Tanya looks great. (Two .avis zipped together.)

Sherilyn Fenn is an incredibly beautiful woman, and she did eventually attain at least some minimal level of acting competence, but you ain't gonna believe how bad she was in The Wraith. (Zipped .avi) She makes one long for the deep and subtle line readings in the Pam Anderson/ Tommy Lee sex tape.

 

A Good Woman (2005)

The critics didn't much care for this interpretation of an Oscar Wilde play called Lady Windemere's Fan, but I found it worth the watch. The first half of it was too glib, with various characters simply competing to mouth Wilde's aphorisms, as if in an HBO comedy contest. But glib is not all bad. It was modestly entertaining throughout. Wilde's droll humor still holds up fairly well, and the screenwriter modernized it a tad to make it seem peppier to our ears. (Some critics objected to his having tampered with the master's words, but that didn't bother me.) The second half of the film, I felt, was better, more heartfelt. The characters got off their high horses, stopped orating, and started to develop some genuine human emotions in between the cynical comments.

One thing I simply could not figure out was the reason for the screenwriter having taken the action out of Victorian London to locate it in Italy in the 1930's, with several American characters. I mean, why not either leave it in its original context or go the whole distance and try to make it work in modern times (which is cheaper than designing period sets and costumes)? After having thought about it, I concluded that the decision was more or less arbitrary. The American characters were undoubtedly added as a marketing decision, to cast some American stars with name recognition (Helen Hunt, Scarlett Johannson).  Moving it out of Victorian England allowed Scarlett and Helen to wear sexy outfits, but keeping it out of modern times allowed a bit of extra atmosphere, the mystique of the Jazz Age, and a more formal manner of speech than would seem natural in our times. The Italian locales were simply elegant and beautiful, and just seemed to suit Wilde's refined sensibilities.

So you have some nice sentimental moments, lots of Wilde's witty and cynical observations, Tom Wilkinson stealing the show with his usual outstanding bit of characterization (is he ever less than great?) as the self-deprecating Tuppy, and Scarlett Johansson wearing revealing clothing. All in all, very pleasant, if insubstantial.

C or C+.

 

 

Helen Hunt

Scarlett Johannson

 

OTHER CRAP:

From the Mailbox:

"As I was listening to the Opie and Anthony radio program the other morning on 92.3 free FM in NYC, the hosts had mentioned that WB-11 news personality Jill Nicolini had posed naked. I went home and did a little searching and here is what I found: Ms. Nicolini is a former Miss Long Island and was forced to give up her crown when her nude photographs were discovered. Here are some samples."

STARBUCKS TO OCCUPY LEBANON ... Only International Force Willing to Go, Says Condi

  • Starbucks will create a buffer zone between the two warring nations by building a Starbucks franchise every two blocks along the Israel-Lebanon border.
  • Elsewhere, despite the death of the head of its military wing, Islamic Jihad is determined to continue its struggle against Israel, according to its new spokesman Mel Gibson.

"Compared with a decade ago, U.S. drinkers are drinking more frequently and drinking more drinks each week."

'Pirates' passes $300 million overseas

  • "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest logged a fourth week atop the foreign box office as its total raced to $305.5 million after a hefty $55 million weekend from 40 countries.

Beltran hits his third grand slam of July, and has another double dinger day

  • When Beltran went on his late tear in 2004, it seemed he would soon join Pujols among the elite young hitters, and the Mets paid him accordingly, only to see him finish last year at .266 with 16 homers. The Mets were patient and their patience was rewarded. This year he is on pace for 50 HR, 150 RBI!

Free Movies in the Public Domain

JoBlo's complete wrap-up of Comic-Con

Beirut Names Street After Mel Gibson

  • The most common name for Arab newborns is no longer "Mohammad" It has been replaced by "Mel"

US Airways auctioning airplane on eBay

  • Any bets on how long it will take for china.com to report this as a legitimate news story?

London Underground History - Disused Stations on London's Underground

  • "There are about 40 abandoned or relocated stations on the Underground network along its entire 255 miles of trackway - some subsurface and some above ground. Some have vanished without trace whereas others are almost intact, grimey time capsules of the era when they were closed."

PRODUCTION BEGINS ON PAM ANDERSON - KID ROCK SEX VIDEO

  • Her director said, "Pamela was looking for a better storyline without losing that raw, amateurish look to the video. I honestly think this is going to be my ‘Godfather II.’"

GIBSON OPTIONS ANTI-SEMITIC TIRADE FOR NEXT FILM

Are there methane lakes on the surface of Titan?

 

 

 

 

Movie Reviews:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

 

The Parole Officer (2001)

This is a Steve Coogan comedy from the UK. He plays a failed parole officer who was transferred from his office to Manchester when all of his co-workers complained about his disruptive influence on the office. He only has four successful cases to his credit. Once in Manchester, he witnesses a murder by a policeman, and is framed for it. The only way he can clear his name is to obtain the security tape which will show the murder. Unfortunately, it has been locked in a bank vault.

Coogan enlists a group of successful ex-cons to help him break into the bank and get the tape. The group includes Om Puri, Ben Miller, Steve Waddington, car thief Emma Williams, and, eventually Omar Sharif in a cameo appearance. To give an idea of the level of humor, a police woman takes him to a museum exhibit of erotic objects, where he manages to break off the penis of a fertility carving, and then ducks into the ladies room to hide it.

I enjoy caper pics, including caper comedies, and found this one occasionally hilarious, and a very quick watch. C.

  • IMDb readers say 6.4.
  • British critical reaction was mixed
  • This one has not made it across the pond.

Scoop's note: this film was directed  by the same guy who did one of our favorites, Sirens.

Lena Headey shows breasts and buns reflected in a mirror.
 

 

 

 

 
 

Any reader of the Funhouse could score big points in a Celebrity Nude game of Jeopardy with these clues.

 A. Charlotte Ayana, Elizabeth Berkley, Daryl Hannah, Bai Ling and Demi Moore

Q. Who are famous babes who have given up major goodies while playing strippers.

But add Roxana Zal and whole bunches of folk would ask, "Who?" Thing is Roxana belongs. She was a majpr teen star back in the early 80's...won a frickin Emmy for heaven's sake when she was 15, playing a victim of incest (Ted Danson played daddy dearest in Something About Amelia). Roxana went on to do dozens of TV movies and shows, playing an adolescent and then a young adult, but around 1993, when she was only 24 the roles seemed to dry up. By 1995 she was giving up top goodies in Red Line, a DTV feature directed by John Sjogren. Three years later and we arrive at Strip and Run aka The Stripper and The Thief. Roxana plays the stripper and, my oh my, she does not disappoint.

Roxana came to my attention as I was going through the Gimp's list of most-capped nude scenes. She was nowhere to be seen even though she has appeared topless in several movies...most of the time that has attracted the attention of a few folk...Tuna and Scoop and Dann...but none of the less active cappers, such as yours truly. I had figured to do three or four of her performances at one time but Strip and Run captured my attention. It is not, to say the least, a good movie... even though it stars some of the best character actors in Hollywood. As Scoops pointed out so well in his review of this movie a long while ago, Strip and Run has the highest density of astounding coincidences and unexplained behaviors of any movie ever made...including Battlefield Earth. Stupid things happen because the screenwriter and director could not come up with a logical way to movie the action along without them. Yet that screenwriter, L. P. Brown III, is no idiot. He plays the part of the protagonist in this movie and wrote one scene where Roxana gives him a lap dance...and another scene in which she sport-humps him. \

Smartest mofo in the business until Vincent Gallo came along.

All of the plot incongruities are minor annoyances and the essential stupidity of the movie is no big deal really, because entertainment is to be found everywhere. Even when the movie is done. For not only do we get to see the impressive Sita Thompson and three uncredited strippers dance around topless in the  movie's action, we then get to see Sita and two nameless ones in raw footage, presented in the DVD extras. And if that were not enough, there is a 5-minute sequence of raw footage from which the Roxana topless sport-humping scene was constructed. Mon dieu, such a nice little surprise that was.

My favorite part is in collage #17....a view of her thong-clad rumpus. Her righteous rumpus.

In the end I have only one complaint about the shoddy work behind the movie. It has to do with the exterior shot of the strip club. It promises fully nude gals (see the header to the Roxana collages) but there isn't a furry bit in sight in the whole dang movie. Looks like false advertising to these aged eyes.

Okay, so about the collages. I went batshit capping the Roxana scenes. Mea culpa, y'all...but at 29 she was still a major babe. Twenty-three collages covering three scenes. Sita Thompson does a strip scene and has a speaking part...shows up in the credits, but not on IMDb. Too bad, because Ms Thompson has (or had) a righteous set of mighty-fines. Thought I would send along a collage from another of her movies, Rod Steele, just to make that point very clear.

Roxana Zal
Sita Thompson
Sita Thompson in Rod Steele

And we got clips.

Two Roxana strip clips (avis zipped together). First one is the lap dance. Not that I would know about these things at all, nosiree, not a clue, but it looks to me like Ms. Zal brought to this role the same professional attention to detail that she brings to all her performances. Uh huh. And the second has her remove her top as bad guys threaten her with all sorts of bad things...like guns and shouting and mean, ugly grimaces.

Sita's stripping (zipped .avi)

I will have more tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dann reports on King of the Lost World:

I'm not going to list all the things wrong with this 2005 version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic adventure. Suffice it to say that no budget and weak acting don't get it done with this type of movie. There were some interesting parts, but overall it's a poor effort.

Everyone knows the story, I imagine. A plane crashes stranding survivors in an isolated jungle where prehistoric creatures still roam. The area is dominated by a giant ape, ala King Kong, although the ape is pretty laughable and badly done in this version.

Too bad. Great story, poorly executed.

Amanda Ward

 

 

 

 

Lindsay Lohan at the beach, showing some serious freckles and some alligator skin.

Maria Menounous with just a hint of see-through action
Robin Weigert. Here's Calamity Jane nekkid yet again!
Jennifer Aniston in The Break-Up
Keira Knightley in Domino