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Tuna
"Butterfly Kiss"

Butterfly Kiss (1995) - I finally got my copy of this film today. The story concerns Eunice (Amanda Plummer) and Miriam (Saskia Reeves). Eunice is an itinerant, who travels from one gas station to another along the coast supposedly looking for Judith. She kills each clerk who isn't Judith, until she meets Miriam. Miriam is painfully shy, hearing impaired, and lives with her invalid mother. For some reason, Eunice doesn't kill her. She sits outside, and Miriam joins her, after seeing Eunice douse herself with gasoline. Miriam takes Eunice home, and the two become intimate. The next morning, Eunice is gone, and has written "You are not Judith" on the bathroom mirror. Miriam follows, and starts traveling with her, usually in vehicles stolen from Eunice's latest murder victim.

Miriam is out to save Eunice, and explains that you have to see the good in people. Eunice, for her part, is not especially nice to Miriam, and tells her, "I will make you evil before you make me good." Eunice is covered with piercings, chains and tattoos, which she says are to atone for her evil deeds, and goes on to explain that she has done much worse things than killing people. The film is narrated by Miriam, presumably from prison or a mental hospital.

The film is nearly impossible to categorize. Some say character driven drama, some say comedy. Some say it is a love story/buddy movie, others say it is a psychological study of two deeply disturbed women. I suspect that it is all of those. In reading every comment I could find about the film, I ran into the following line, which impressed me as the truest original thought I have seen about film in months. "The measure of an art is not by how GOOD it makes you feel in the end, but how much it made you feel, good or bad." By that measure, this film succeeded, in that proponents and detractors alike have strong feelings about it.

While the genre, and the merit, of this film is open to debate, the exposure is a sure thing. Plummer shows breasts, both with and without chains, in several scenes, full frontal in a dark scene near the end of the film, and a near gyno-cam rear view having sex with Reeves. Reeves shows her left breast in the same scene. The DVD is bare bones, and is a very poor transfer from First Run Features, a company that has quality all over the charts, but a very interesting collection of off-beat titles. I am glad I watched this film, but would really have liked a better transfer, louder audio (the accents were hard enough to understand as it was), and subtitles. A commentary from the director and writer would also have been welcome. The film, even with a good transfer, would have virtually no cross-over appeal, and, with this release, is a very hard watch. D+.

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  • Amanda Plummer (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
  • Saskia Reeves (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

    "Con Express"

    Con Express (2002) is a Blockbuster direct to vid with the way over-used evil Russian general is selling evil things to the bad guys, and soviet agent Ursula Karven and American treasury agent Sean Patrick Flanery have to stop him. They do ... the end. That premise, even though we know the story as soon as it starts, could still make for a watchable actioner. This one went way out of its way to screw it up.

    As the film opens, Flanery is being interviewed for his bosses job, and they want to go over his last case in detail to make sure he is one of the good guys. So, right off the bat, this trick added for easy expository scenes ruined all chances of suspense. He is being interviewed after the case is closed, and so, obviously survived. Not only that, but the mere fact that he and the two interviewers are alive shows that the deadly nerve gas didn't escape or fall into terrorist hands. They shamelessly mentioned September 11 in the opening sequence, and the name Con Express, probably taken from the Yukon Express train which figured prominently in the chase sequence, was more than likely trying to capture some of the name recognition from Con Air. At any rate, the interview is to take a hard look at the details of the case, to see if Flanery is on the up and up, so we are invited to scrutinize every detail of the case with the interviewers.

    So, how did they do with a believable case? Here are a few of the "lowlights." Early in the film, the rogue Russian General speaks English over a radio to a helicopter pilot, who answers in Russian. The general is hoping nobody will find out that he is still alive after a plane crash, so broadcasting this Russian language radio chatter is not the worlds smartest move. Even though the general is cuffed in the back of an FBI plane, he manages to parachute out from high altitude, and land within easy walking distance of a waiting vehicle. Flanery explains all of this in detail, even though he wasn't there, and everyone who was is killed before the end of the film. The escape and plane crash were caused when the male flight attendant on this FBI transport gave the passengers knockout drops in their cocktails. Not only do they have cocktails and flight attendants on an FBI transport, but the plane doesn't have a copilot, and so crashes when the pilot is shot. The Russian agent, of course, is a trained pilot, and manages to safely crash land.

    She and Flanery manage to walk to an abandoned but fully furnished cabin, break up a single chair for firewood, take off their clothes to dry, and stay warm all night from the fire from the single chair. The Russian's gang can't locate them, even though the smoke from the chimney had to be visible for miles in the desolate Yukon. Flanery tells Karven about his father's death. Seems daddy was a train driver, and had a heart attack. The train derailed, and he was killed. Nice thought, but trains have a dead man switch, and will stop if the engineer collapses. The marines guarding barrels of deadly nerve gas on the train are wearing HAZMAT suits, but begin to remove them when the train comes under attack, placing the barrels in jeopardy. I suppose HAZMAT masks are the last thing an expert would want around deadly gas. Later, someone throws tear gas into the car with the barrels. The guards are back in their HAZMAT gear, but the tear gas incapacitates them. Maybe removing the masks wasn't so stupid after all, if they can't even filter out tear gas.

    Flanery and Karven jump from a snowbank, and land on a snow covered top of a fast moving train. Evidently rules of inertia and momentum don't count in this tall tale either. The train controllers decide to send fighters to take out the train. Excuse me, but didn't they consider that blowing the train off the tracks might rupture the barrels, killing most of Alaska and Canada with this airborne nerve gas? Further, the fighters are told to look just east of "Twin Hammers," as we are looking at a situation map with a moving target indicator showing the train southwest of Twin Hammers. At one point, for no apparent reason, one fighter rolls out toward his wing man. The fighters are ordered to start an avalanche to stop the train, so they fire heat-seeking missiles at snow caps. Flanery goes into detail about what happened between Karven and the general after he was pushed off the speeding train, even though he wasn't there, and nobody survived the avalanche. Then, he drives the cab of an 18 wheeler to where his boss is selling the barrels to the Koreans, and they don't notice him sitting there watching them. Now, how do you suppose you stop a plane taking off with deadly nerve gas containers? By outrunning it in your 18 wheeler and crashing into one of the props, of course.

    I have never seen a film with as many obvious plot problems, and certainly not one where the director asked me to listen to the story critically.

    The news isn't all bad. Karven shows her breasts and panties getting out of her wet things in the cabin in good light. IMDB readers say 4.9 of 10. As a techno-thriller addict, and ex electronic warfare systems engineer, this is my kind of film, and I found it appalling. Given a choice between scrubbing the mildew from the bathroom tile grout and watching this film, reach for the Lysol and a toothbrush. D.

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  • Ursula Karven (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10)

  • Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy)
    The Sopranos, Season 3

     

    Or, as The Sopranos like to call it, "Season Tree". Kind of a disappointment. There was a lot of nudity in season three, but the only genuine exposure came from the strippers at Bada Bing. There were some sexy looks at the other women here and there, but nothing you wouldn't see on the beach at Disney World resort. With 13 hours of stuff to cover, I had to keep these collages to the bare-bones level in order to get it done today. (Tuna will do his usual presentation as time goes on.)

    Episode 1 -  no nudity, but severe pokiosity from Drea De Matteo

    Episode 3 - some topless strippers, and a sexy shot of Drea in her underpants.

    Episode - 6 a vast amount of nudity

    Episode 7 - topless background strippers, Drea in her bra

    Episode 9 - strippers and Sciorra in a bustier

    Episode 10 - more than an average amount of strippers

    • strippers (1, 2, 3, 4)

    Episode 11 - the side of Sciorra's hip in the second pic. This episode was directed by Mr Pink himself, indie film icon Steve Buscemi.

    • Sciorra (1, 2)

    Episode 12  - no nudity, but Sciorra in her undies, including a thong

     

    Other crap

     

     

    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 there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
    • A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
    • If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

    Graphic Response
    • Cerina Vincent Topless and rear nudity as foreign exchange student Areola, in "Not Another Teen Movie".

    • Beverly D'Angelo, still taking off the clothes to reveal her breasts at age 47 in scenes from the indie, film festival flick, "Women in Film"

    • Portia de Rossi, topless and baring her bum, also from "Women in Film".

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

    Rawhide Kid
    'Caps and comments by the Kid

    It's GQ's 45th anniversary and they gave us a present! It is the beautimous Heidi Klum starring as several different actresses from their most famous poses. There's a couple of copouts (like the net bikini she's wearing in the Marilyn Monroe heffer pose and the fact that her legs are completely crossed in the Sharon Stone Basic Instinct shot), but it is still Heidi Klum and she is near naked in a lot of them.

    Check out the Jaybe Mansfield shot, I think there's a tiny nip slip in it! I have to say though my favorite out of all of them is the back cover shot of Heidi coming out of the cake with frosting on her bum.

    Brainscan
    Rachel Roberts
    (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

    'Caps and comments by Brainscan:

    In the upcoming movie "Simone", the real life woman is Canadian fashion model, Rachel Roberts. And as is the habit of fashion models, Rachel has given up the goodies a time or two. None of these are my scans... wish they were... and I figured a lot of fellow readers have some or all of these. But thought I would listen to my mama and share.

    Helvete
    Emma Suárez
    (1, 2)

    Far too brief breast exposure from the Spanish actress in scenes from "The Red Squirrel" (1993).

    Leonor Watling
    (1, 2, 3, 4)

    Another Spanish beauty nude. Breast, partial bum, and full frontal exposure in scenes from "Son de mar" (2001).

    Maribel Verdú
    (1, 2, 3)

    Another Spanish babe showing all the goodies. Vidcaps from the movie "Goya" (1999).

    Hankster
    'Caps and commetns by Hankster:

    Today a little variety...

    First it's back to the seventies and a visit to the "Mad Butcher" played by Victor Buono as he peeps on Karen Field, and then torments her. Just a peek at a little boob exposure.

    • Karin Field (1, 2, 3, 4)


    Next it's back to the present with B-movie Babe Julie Strain who is not at all bashful about showing the goods.

    • Julie Strain (1, 2, 3)


    Finally, a quick look at a nice leg from Helen Hunt on "Mad About You".

    The Funnies by Number 6