Supernova (2000) was a fairly high budget Sci Fi thriller attempt at $60M. Total box office was $14.2M, and almost half of that was on opening weekend. They had decent sets, and some reasonably talented people like James Spader, Angela Bassett and Robin Tunney, but sometimes the whole is much less than the sum of its parts. IMDb readers have it at 4.2, and that might be a little overly generous. The story takes place on a deep space paramedic ship. As we are introduced to the crew, we learn that the new co-pilot is a recovering addict, the doctor, Angela Bassett, had a disastrous relationship with someone addicted to the same drug, the captain is a nut on 20th century history, and paramedics Robin Tunney and Lou Diamond Phillips spend all of their spare time fucking. Engineer Wilson Cruz is in love with the ships computer.

After we get this liberal dose of character development, the film actually starts. They receive a distress call from the very man that Bassett had the affair with, and from the outer reaches of the galaxy universe. No problem, they have the ability to "dimension jump," which requires that they take off all of their clothes, then seal themselves in pods. This allows them to travel millions of light years in seconds. Once they arrive, the one they are rescuing in not what he at first seams, he has secretly brought aboard an alien "thing" that proves as deadly as he is.

Bassett's character shows breasts and buns getting into her chamber. Tunney shows breasts getting into the chamber, and during two sex scenes. The film was full to the brim with rather weak special effects, probably an attempt to make up for the poor plot. In the end, it is really just a testosterone actioner with nothing especially new or interesting. D.

Love Object is a horror film that I can best describe as a cross between Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (man tries to make woman more like his ex-girlfriend, with big twist ending) and Richard Attenborough's Magic (a dummy is jealous of the ventriloquist's girlfriend).

I guess it is quite similar to all of the various movies in which the ventriloquist's dummy seems to take over the ventriloquist, except that such a description only touches the surface of what it is about. The doll in question is not a ventriloquist's dummy, but a plastic sex doll. A lonely, painfully shy technical writer gets himself a very realistic doll, and is quite pleased with it. He establishes a relationship with it that includes dancing, S&M games, even watching The English Patient to get "her" in a romantic mood. She becomes more and more real to him, a sign that his mental condition is deteriorating.

At the same time that this relationship evolves, the talented writer is given a nearly impossible deadline to make, and a female assistant to help him make the deadline. The female assistant is a beautiful girl, kind of a fuller-figured version of Gwyneth Paltrow, and for some inexplicable reason, she takes a fancy to the writer. Because she is fairly aggressive, and he is not yet completely insane, he gradually begins to date her, and do things with her. In his half-sane world, he pushes his new girlfriend to become her more and more like his imaginary girlfriend. (To heighten the effect, the special effects wizards actually formed the sex doll from a cast of the actress who played the real girlfriend. It was meant for the doll to look like a doll, but the wizards matched her closely, down to some creepy details. The eyes, for example, were actually formed from Melissa Sagemiller's eyes by a medical professional who creates artificial eyes).

Here's the problem - the imaginary girlfriend "gets jealous", and the writer's sanity continues to deteriorate.

Any further explanation would probably be too much because, in my opinion, this film is worth seeing.

• The bondage scenes with the live girlfriend are hot, for those of you into that sort of thing.

• The film is permeated with black humor, but it is generally subtle and understated enough so that it doesn't spoil the tension or the credibility of the scenes. (There's nothing worse than a horror film that doesn't take its own premise seriously, unless it is intended to be an outright comedy.)

• Several scenes maintain an excellent level of tension. (1) The writer's neighbor/landlord lets himself in when he hears strange noises. (2) The cop who lives downstairs is headed to the writer's apartment (for all the wrong reasons), just as the writer is about to do something horrible to the live girlfriend. Will he arrive in time?

• The ending is a real hoot! Classic twist.

This movie played the minor festival circuit, then went to video. It inspired no theatrical distribution, and little critical enthusiasm (rated in the low 40s at both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes).  I can see how the film could inspire weak sequels and copycats, but this is the original, and I enjoyed it! (As did Tuna, who reviewed it almost a month ago.). IMDb voters also show some support, with a respectable 6.3 score.

I think you'll enjoy renting the DVD. The movie is pretty good, and the section on the special effects is one of the most interesting features I've seen in some time.

• Melissa Sagemiller (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

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:

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.

Various

• Jessica Harper flashes her seldom seen mini-hooters in Pennies from Heaven. ( .avi- zip) (.wmv - zip) . Haven't seen this in years. Is now on DVD, so I think I'll take another look at it soon. If I recall, I hated it when I went to see in in the theaters in 1981.

• The incredibly beautiful Dominique Sanda showing all the goodies in The Inheritance ( .avi- zip) (.wmv - zip). Visually beautiful movie with the gorgeous Sanda, but the package has never (to my knowledge) been given proper treatment on a DVD. The existing DVDs are just atrocious.

• Brandy Wilde in Stay Hungry ( .avi- zip) (.wmv - zip)  (This is the same Schwarzenegger movie with the Sally Field nude scene)

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.

Scoops, here's a follow up from yesterday...a few video clips from "Lust for Freedom" (1987). (divx avis-zipped)

This first one features Michelle Bauer and Lisa Stagno (Crystal Breeze) as attractive, gentle, loving and topless lesbians behind the walls of a desert Southwest prison.

• Michelle Bauer and Lisa Stagno (Crystal Breeze)

And here is one with Crystal (Lisa Stagno) all by her lonesome.

• Lisa Stagno (Crystal Breeze)

Last up are the uncredited gals in the default, de rigeur, delightful shower scene.

• Shower Babes

First up from the Ghost...brief, but very nice breast views from the early 80's TV star in scenes from "Coach" (1978). Some folks probably remember her best as the co-host of "That's Incredible!". She was also a regular on "Circus of the Stars" and "Battle of the Network Stars"

• Cathy Lee Crosby zipped .wmvs (1, 2)

Next up, 'clips from the ultra-low budget-direct-to-video-sci-fi flick "Crash and Burn" (1990).

• Eva LaRue Callahan (wmv-zip) wearing black undies. You may have seen her recently on the NBC series "Third Watch".

• Katherine Armstrong (wmv-zip) showing the only toplessness in this batch during a shower scene. Very nice natural breasts. (1, 2)

• The always cute Megan Ward (wmv-zip) showing pokies and squeezing her boobs together to make some cleavage.

"La Balance"
French crime drama from 1982 features a good job by Nathalie Baye as a prostitute whose pimp boyfriend becomes the target of police attention.

The title refers to informers who are used by the police to keep the balance between mob gangs who try to rule the streets, and the police. When they lose another "rat", as they call them in the film, they decide to recruit a small time hood and pimp. To do this, they use harrassment of his hooker girlfriend as bait.

The film spends a lot of time focusing on the internal battles that streetwalker Nicole goes through as she tries to protect her man while keeping herself out of trouble with the cops. While the action is very low-key, the film stays interesting as the viewer watches the cat and mouse game unfold.

Somewhat dated but well-done movie with some very good performances.

• Nathalie Baye

Scoops,
I took this picture of the former "Dukes of Hazzard" star at Comic-Con International a week ago. Catherine Bach was so nice and listened to me babble on about long teenager showers induced by "Daisy Duke". However, she was unrecognizable.

-TPP

• Catherine Bach

PAM ANDERSON, NOVELIST
War And A Piece - Pamela Anderson became a "novelist" this week with the release of her book, "Star," written "with the help of" ghostwriter Eric Shaw Quinn. It's an oddly familiar tale of a hot blonde named Star who rises to fame on a TV show called "Lifeguards Inc." The book features a semi-nude Pam on the cover and overheated prose, such as this description of the young heroine getting her figure: "Her breasts came on suddenly and tenaciously, as if trying to make up for lost time."