Knightriders (1981) was first envisioned by George Romero after attending a Renaissance Faire and seeing the joust. When he pitched it at United Artists, he jokingly said that he was going to put the knights on motorcycles rather than horses. United Artists loved the idea. It was made for about $1M, got pretty good reviews, but only lasted one week in the theaters. It is the story of a group of performers and artisans that travel from town to town putting on jousts on motorcycles. The king, Ed Harris, had a monkey on his back, a chip on his shoulder, and a challenger for his authority. Not only are they a troupe of stunt performers, but they are also lifestylers, and follow a chivalrous code. The conflict between the king and Morgan pretty much drives the plot.

Several women show breasts. Maureen Sadusk', who was many years (and at least as many pounds) past her prime, brought enthusiasm and a strong sense of erotic, hedonistic abandon to the small role that I found very enjoyable. Amy Ingersoll, as the queen, shows breasts in the opening scene. Amanda Davies shows breasts in a short sex scene, and Patricia Tallman shows breasts in a dark outdoor after sex scene.

Stephan King and his wife appeared as Hogie Man and Hogie Man's Wife in a crowd scene. It was his first and her only film appearance. The parallels between this film and the Arthurian legends extended even as far as having a Lancelot-like character who has a thing for the queen. The film was released the same year as Excalibur, and Time called Knightriders a better film. The DVD is side-boxed (black space left and right) to preserve the original aspect ration, and is a good transfer with good color saturation. For an indie, it has amazing costumes, stunts and score. The DVD contains a feature length commentary with many of the cast and crew. With my personal interest in Renaissance Faires, I was predisposed to enjoy this one, and I did. Not only did they have all of the elements of a fair in place, but they also captured the comradery and sense of family common to faire participants. The stunt work is top notch, the costuming colorful, there is an early sympathetic gay theme, and some fine performances. It is a little long. This is a strong C+. You know by now if it is of interest to you, but even if it is not your kind of film, it is easy to watch.

I guess you probably know by now that Open Water (currently playing) is about two vacationing divers who were mistakenly abandoned at sea by a scuba excursion boat.

My impression is that reviewers may have over-hyped this a bit, but I'll tell you what it does have going for it. Although the acting is below the professional level, the back story (slash) character development  is mundane and trite, and there are some parts which are static and repetitious, the film does have about three or four great scenes which are so filled with tension that you will be squirming in your seat.

1) At one point, the two yuppies are caught in a powerful lighting storm. They bob around, seeming to be miniscule elements dwarfed by massive waves and overwhelming thunder cracks, illuminated by a natural strobe effect created by lightning. This film does as good a job as any I have seen of showing the insignificance and powerlessness of man in the face of the brutal strength of the unharnessed elements.

2) As the divers are circled by sharks, the POV shots capture their fear and confusion perfectly. There's the fin, no it isn't. It's coming this way, no it isn't. It's big, no it isn't. Did something brush my foot, or was that you? How many are there? The divers' point of view switches rapidly from just barely above water to just barely below, just as it would in reality, offering tantalizing glimpses of the threat they face. This is especially effective as the end nears, when other people finally realize the divers are missing, and the sharks close in on them while an armada of boats and choppers engages in a frantic search.

3) The closing credits are spectacularly effective, but I can't really tell you why without spoiling at least two key secrets.

4) There is an unexpected last-minute plot twist which is quite emotionally affecting in a quiet way, kind of a "what did I just see?" moment that delivers its punch some time after it actually happens.

The film has been compared to The Blair Witch Project, and it does have both strengths and weaknesses in common with that earlier effort. First, it was made on a shoestring budget with unknown actors. Second, the build-up of tension is far more effective than the pay-off. (Which is not really a major negative, as I see it. I think that means the film concentrates on the psychological elements of fear rather than delivering the kind of gore and guts you might see in a slasher or splatter film. In case you care, this is not one of those "when animals attack" thingies where limbs are torn graphically from torsos.) Third, when the film is not delivering thrills, it fails. The dialogue is generally banal and ineffective, the actors are not very polished, and the quiet moments are so slow that my mind drifted completely away from the movie until a shrieking violin warned me that something was happening and snapped my head back up.

A lot of critics complained that the film just consisted of treading water in more ways than one. It's dull and uninvolving until the big moments. Well, a roller coaster ride is about the same, isn't it, except in more compact form? To those who said the film was a cheap stunt, I say - hey, that's pretty much what made it worth watching. It's not much longer than a roller coaster ride (75 minutes), and it delivers the same kind of alternating loose-taut involvement. I didn't really enjoy the film because it isn't my kind of film. I don;t like having my blood pressure manipulated like this, but it sure had my blood pressure going up and down, so I think it delivers what it is supposed to, namely pretty damned good management of tension for a miniscule budget.

I think this flick could scare the livin' bejeezus out of you if you saw it after burning one. THAT would be intense.

And it has nudity to boot!

• Blanchard Ryan. (1, 2) Her real name is Susan Ryan, but the guild rules do not allow her to use that name, which is taken. She is called Susan in the movie, and the actor named Daniel is called Daniel.

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.

Peet-Mania

• Amanda Peet's incredibly charming topless scene(s) in The Whole Nine Yards ( .avi- zip) (.wmv - zip) .

• She's not so charming this time, but still her breasts are seen in clear daylight in Igby Goes Down ( .avi- zip) (.wmv - zip) 

Two more

• Claire Forlani's best nudity is still in that CIA Trackdown movie she made when she was 19 or so, but she provided a nice look at her breasts here in Into My Heart, which I have not seen. ( .avi- zip) (.wmv - zip) .

• This one is not from Shiloh. It is the oft-reviled Ali Macgraw in Just Tell Me What You Want  (.wmv - zip) 

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.

The lighting here isn't the best, but Annette Bening still looked great for her nude scenes in the 1990 movie "The Grifters". Topless only in #1, topless, full frontal and brief rear views in #2!

• Annette Bening zipped .wmvs (1, 2)

"Fallen Angel"
The story is one of unfaithfulness but that takes only about 5 minutes. Naked performances by Kira Lee, Alice Kohiakovska, Amanda Colville, Simona Votypkova, I Wan and Samantha Phillips.

• Kira Lee (1, 2, 3)
• Alice Kohiakovska (1, 2, 3)
• Amanda Colville (1, 2)
• Simona Votypkova (1, 2, 3)
• I Wan
• Samantha Phillips (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

"Between the Lies"
The story is one of jealousy but who cares. We see a naked Melissa Williams and Colleen McDermott, and there are four others who weren't identified in gratuitous nude scenes.

• Melissa Williams (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
• Colleen McDermott (1, 2, 3)
• Unknown #1
• Unknown #2
• Unknown #3
• Unknown #4 (1, 2, 3, 4)

"Warning : Parental Advisory"
Warning : Parental Advisory is supposed to be the true story about how a group of people worked towards a rating system for music CDs. Mariel Hemingway plays Tippy Gore and there's a brief upskirt when she does some table-top dancing during the closing credits.

• Mariel Hemingway (1, 2, 3)

"Just Married"
No nudity in Just Married but some very watchable cleavage by Brittany Murphy, and Valeria Andrews goes topless but is facing the wrong way.

• Brittany Murphy (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Valeria Andrews (1, 2, 3)

CLONED KITTENS FOR SALE
"Meow-Meow-Meow-Meow..." - A California-based company called Genetic Savings and Clone announced that it had created the world's first cloned pets, two kittens named Tabouli and Baba Ganoush. They said they're both healthy and identical to the donor cat, which is a major breakthrough. They plan to clone more cats and sell six of them to the public this year at $50,000 each.