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Riders (1988) is a BBC TV epoch about Grand Prix horse jumpers. Although I would rather watch luge or speed skating, I guess this is a Brits idea of exciting sport. I suspect this was a mini-series for two reasons. One, I am probably the only living human stupid enough to sit through all 3 and 1/2 hours of this turkey in one sitting. Two, there is some nudity in each of the 7 half hour segments. Other than the horses, and the testosterone contest between a spoiled rich boy who is world champion, and another rider who was the mother of a cook at the prep school the rich boy attended, it was pure soap opera. Seems the rich kid made the cooks son walk the plank at sword point out the top floor window of the dormitory. The rich boy sleeps with anything in a skirt, but the main plot is the cooks son trying to get revenge.

On the plus side, there were lots of attractive women, most of which showed their breasts. If you are a lover of equestrian events, you might want to rent this, but, whatever you do, don't plan to watch it in one sitting. It certainly isn't worth seeing for the plot, acting or photography, which is mostly out of focus.

I guess I really can't say that I understood this movie since I originally saw it in French with Norwegian subtitles, and I didn't know what was going on. But I don't think that mattered, because nothing was going on. It is a movie about watching paint dry.

Now you may think I am referring to the old joke "about as much fun as watching paint dry". I'm not. This movie is really about watching paint dry. There are monumentally long close-ups of the artist's hand painting, sketching, whatever - sometimes five minutes without any other camera activity. Plus the movie is about 35 hours long and essentially takes place in one set. It really is 4 hours long in the director's cut, which must include several additional shades of red, which dry slower.

Sounds awful, doesn't it? Well it might be awful except for one thing. Emmanuelle Beart comes in, strips stark naked, and stays stark naked for pretty much the entire 35 hours. Beart is the lovely woman who co-started with Tom Cruise in the first Mission Impossible movie, or maybe you remember her from Manon of the Spring. If you remember her, you know that it is not so bad to watch her hang around naked for 35 hours. It is not as good a being there with her for some or all of those hours, but it ain't bad at all.

The script was actually pretty easy to write. "Open in the artist's studio. Beart gets naked. He paints her. The end." Not sure how much the screenwriter got for that script, but it must work out pretty good per word. And, come to think of it, it's Oscar material! Imagine if one of us amateurs had tried instead of a professional writer. We might have made a key mistake and had Dan Ackroyd naked for 35 hours instead of Beart. That's why those writers get the big bucks.

Actually, this puppy won some honors. It won the Grand Prize of the Jury at Cannes, and it's based on a story by Balzac, and a lot of people think it is great. Ebert gave it four stars, and nattered on and on about the nature of art and the creative process and suchlike folderol. Maybe I'll watch it again some day with English subtitles.

Na-a-a-a-ah! What was I thinking.

Also included are two other Beart collages (not mine) from "Une Femme Francaise", in which Beart shows off the results of her intensive training at the Juliette Binoche school of "looking like you're about to cry, and never trying out any other facial expressions".

Jr. Here...I'm looking forward to seeing if Ritchie can serve up another "Lock, Stock...". The last hot director to break into the biz like this was a cat named Quentin something. I think I saw him on a milk carton recently.

Sabrina Allen
(1, 2, 3)

Glori Gold

My thoughts on the vidcaps: Mixed feelings. All three of my other attempts at vidcapping have been with A movies, this was my first B. To watch it on the ol' Trinitron is one thing, but when I popped this bad boy into the 'puter for captures...that's another story. The colors and lighting suck on PC. Maybe it's just me. No, it can't be! I know I'm new at this but I've been working on "Eyes Wide Shut" and those look amazing. Conclusion: this movie sucks to work with. As an example, the best image I could come up with for Glori Gold is really lame. Maybe someday I'll find "Hot Springs Hotel" on DVD and make it up to you.

On the plus side, I give myself a pat on the back for web readiness. The largest file size is only 81k!

Now about the movie: Let's say that my feelings about the ease of 'capping this one are equal to my thought on the movie! I've seen a ton of stinkers in my day. Back in my days as a video store clerk, I even spent 2 years searching for the worst movie ever made. (By the way, "Tennessee Buck" was the big winner.) But this doesn't even qualify for consideration. It was pointless. The only reason this movie was made was to get Milano naked!.

Granted, in my book that's actually a pretty good reason to make a movie. Milano is a competent actress, and she probably could have made a helluva sexy vampire movie...However, what the producers ended up with was sex scenes that were dull, a "plot" that was worse, and a leading male role who was about as seductive, overpowering, and evil as Doug Henning. When you can watch a movie at 8x fast forward and a)Scenes are still slow...and b)You don't miss any part of the story...then you know you have a movie that even Alan Smithee wouldn't put his name on.

Sex life
Three couples wanted to be admitted into a new church. One was an elderly couple, one was a middle-aged couple, and one was a young couple.

The priest said, "Well, the only way you can get into my church is to abstain from having sex for two weeks."

"No problem," said all three couples.

Two weeks later, the three couples returned to the church.

"It was a piece of cake," said the elderly couple. "We didn't have sex for two weeks straight."

The middle-aged couple said, "It was kind of difficult, but we made it. We didn't have sex for two weeks straight."

Finally, the young couple said, "Well, we made it through the first five days or so, but then, as my wife was bending over to pick up a can of paint, I just had to give it to her right then and there."

The priest was stunned. "You do realize that you aren't welcome in this church, don't you?"

The couple shrugged it off. "That's ok. We aren't welcome in Home Depot anymore, either."

Airplanes
Taxiing down the tarmac, the jetliner abruptly stopped, turned around and returned to the gate. After an hour-long wait, it finally took off.

A concerned passenger asked the flight attendant, "What was the problem?"

"The pilot was bothered by a noise he heard in the engine," explained the flight attendant, "and it took us a while to find a new pilot."

Married Life
A man met a beautiful blonde lady and he decided he wanted to marry her right away. She said, "But we don't know anything about each other."

He said, "That's all right, we'll learn about each other as we go along."

So she consented, and they were married, and went on a honeymoon to a very nice resort. One morning they were laying by the pool, when he got up off of his towel, climbed up to the 10 Meter board and did a two and a half tuck gainer, this was followed by a three rotations in jackknife position, where he straightened out and cut the water like a knife. After a few more demonstrations, he came back and lay down on the towel.

"That was incredible!", she said.

"I used to be an Olympic diving champion. You see, I told you we'd learn more about ourselves as we went along."

So she got up, jumped in the pool, and started doing laps. After about thirty laps she climbed back out and lay down on her towel hardly out of breath.

He said, "That was incredible! Were you an Olympic endurance swimmer?"

"No. I was a hooker in Council Bluffs, Iowa and I worked both sides of the river!!.