Thursday

Niagara Motel (2005):

This is another one of those self-reviewing movies. Well, actually, the premise of the film could result in a very good movie or a very bad one: a slice-of-life dramedy about eight down-and-outers who take up temporary residence in a sleazy low-rent motel in Niagara Falls, Canada.

OK, maybe it leans toward the sucky side of the street, but good movies have been made with worse concepts.

What is self-reviewing, however is the DVD box.

"Tragedy waltzes with comedy in an intense dance of life. The characters are all in personal crisis. They are adrift, as in a fishbowl, where we can observe them thrashing, struggling, and fighting for their lives."

Ah, the dance of life! There was a time when I was young and vital, and I could dance the dance of life, but then tragedy struck. I developed an unnatural fear of life-dances, and could no longer bear to perform in them, or even to watch them, so this film was personally painful for me. Many doctors say this condition is a corollary of my allergy to tone-poems. I don't want to talk about it, however, because this condition is a personal tragedy for me. Throughout all my childhood, I was groomed to be a tone poet, as Mozart was groomed to compose music, and then the allergy struck. Many people say I might have been the Lord Byron of tone poetry. Coupling that with my title of Lord of the Dance of Life, I could have been the first-ever double lord.

Alas and alackaday! It was not to be.

I must say, though, that even in my youthful life-dancing prime, I had a hard time dancing and thrashing at the same time.

And what is the deal with a film which stars Caroline Dhavernas as an aspiring porn star and keeps her clothes on? That's just not right.

The film does have one thing to do a life-dance about: Anna Friel flashes her breasts in one scene, and shows most of her bum in in another.

Here's the zipped .wmv.

Here are the collages:

Anna Friel

Here are some women who seem to be doing the dance of life topless.

 

Assorted Video Clips:

Here's the last of the clips from Roman Polanski's Bitter Moon. (Movie House page.) Crappy movie, but very hot!  Two .avi clips zipped together of Emmanuelle Seigner (Polanski's wife) doing more naughty things.

An oldie but goodie. A rarely-seen clip of Judy Davis stark naked in On My Own. (Zipped .avi) This film was nominated for many awards by the Aussie academy, but has never been issued on DVD in Regions 1 and 2. I suppose it's not on DVD in Australia either, because this was done by our former contributor "Aussie", and is obviously from a video tape. The quality is not great, but it is better than the alternative, which is nada.

Barbara Crampton and Leslie Winston in The Prince of Bel-Air (Zipped .avi). Sample capture below. See Tuna's complete uncoverage and a brief review in the back issues, May 15, 2005.

 

 

 

OTHER CRAP:

URL says it all: CrazyRussian.com (And a good thing the URL says it all, because I can't read a word of it)

Jetliner pilot locked out of cockpit after toilet break

The first three minutes of The Covenant

  • In 1692, in the Ipswich Colony of Massachusetts, five families with untold power formed a covenant of silence. One family, lusting for more, was banished - their bloodline disappearing without a trace. Until now. Directed by Renny Harlin and written by J.S. Cardone, "The Covenant" tells the story of the Sons of Ipswich, four young students at the elite Spenser Academy who are bound by their sacred ancestry. As descendants of the original families who settled in Ipswich Colony in the 1600's, the boys have all been born with special powers. When the body of a dead student is discovered after a party, secrets begin to unravel which threaten to break the covenant of silence that has protected their families for hundreds of years.

The trailer for Curse of the Golden Flower

  • "In the spirit of such landmark Asian films as Akira Kurosawa's 'Ran' from Japan and Zhang Yimou's own 'Hero' and 'House of Flying Daggers,' 'Curse of the Golden Flower' promises to be Zhang Yimou's most colorful and biggest production to date, fusing high drama and romantic intrigue with the best of contemporary martial arts. The plot concerns the volatile balance of power between the King (Chow Yun Fat) and the Queen (Gong Li) and his three sons, which entails betrayal, deceit and passion, pitting the King against Queen and father against sons. The glorious canvas includes many of the creative team behind 'Hero' and 'House of Flying Daggers': cinematographer Zhao Xiading (Oscar nominated for 'House of Flying Daggers'), production designer Huo Tingxiao, action director Tony Ching Siu-Tung, sound designer Tao Jing and producers Bill Kong and Zhang Wei Ping. The music is composed by Shigeru Umebayashi ('Hero, '2046,' 'In the Mood for Love') and the costume designer is Yee Chung Man ('So Close')."

The trailer for Broken Bridges, a drama starring C&W singer Toby Keith

  • "A country music singer falls from the spotlight and returns to his hometown where he is reunited with his childhood sweetheart, and also meets his 16-year-old daughter for the first time."

Actor Glenn Ford dies at age 90

Hurricane Katrina Anniversary: President Bush Trumpets Miraculous Transformation of Devastated Gulf Coast into Fabulous Real Estate Opportunities (WHITEHOUSE.ORG)

I never thought Travolta would be the first scientologist out of the closet. Don't Get Excited, Captain Travolta Greets All Of His Passengers This Way

The Lord's way of telling you that you have too much money? You sell booze for a living and turn down Tara Reid's liquor business.

A "training video" for Microsoft UK employees.

In Week Before Labor Day, Pointless 'Filler' Columns Abound ... Lazy Columnists Pad Out Stories by Quoting Experts, Experts Say

A slice of life - photos made in the Moscow subway

Jim Carrey managed to find the only woman in the world who makes sillier faces than he does.

Filmthreat.com has an interesting article on Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains

  • In addition to the other points they mention, this cult film also represents the first of many nude appearances for the delightful Diane Lane. She was 16 at the time. Hey, it was the 80s!

Four movie clips from Jackass: Number Two (2006)

Ahmadinejad Challenges Bush to Arm Wrestling

The Weekend Warrior's box office predictions for the Labor Day Weekend

  • He does not think that any of the new films have enough muscle to wrest the scepter from The Invincible.

President's Remarks to Evangelical Pharmacists Association Lamenting FDA Approval of "Plan B" Slut Vitamins (WhiteHouse.org)

 

 

 

 

Movie Reviews:

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

 

Screwed (1998)

Neji-shiki is a surrealist film from near the end of director Teruo Ishii's career, based on a manga by Yoshiharu Tsuge. A comic artist has run out of ideas, then money. He finds a live-in job for his wife as a cook. He later discovers that she is carrying condoms that are not intended for him. He is living with a male friend who would like sex with him. When his wife announces she is pregnant, he attempts suicide. Failing that, he goes on a road trip. First, he runs into a servant in a restaurant who wants to trade sexual favors for a pair of red shoes. When he is unwilling, he watches as some ruffian mauls her nipple. If she can stand ten minutes, she gets the shoes.

He gets disgusted, and heads back to Tokyo, but heads back the next year. The girl doesn't recognize him. He misses the last train for the night and ends up in a cheap hotel, where he sleeps with the owner's daughter. Then he sees a naked woman, but wants nothing to do with her. Finally, he goes to the beach to dig clams, is bitten by a jelly fish, and things get strange. He is looking for a doctor, but nobody will direct him to one, so he boards a train driven backwards by someone in a cat mask. He finally approaches an old woman, who he decides is a candy heiress and also his mother. She gives him directions to a female gynecologist, with whom he has sex. Then she operates on him with a monkey wrench, and installs a valve in his arm. She cautions him not to close the valve because it will stop the flow of blood ...

... so he closes it.

The box sports a quote from Quentin Tarantino praising Ishii, and the trailer has a similar quote from John Woo. The film is, evidently, highly regarded, but I simply didn't get it. Lots of flesh is always good, but I didn't understand the lead character (Tadanobu Asano) any better at the end than the beginning. This is probably a C+, but is not one I will rewatch, or even consider again after posting these comments.

IMDb readers say 6.4 with only a few votes.

 

We have a nipple from Tsugumi, the woman who was trying to win the red shoes ...
... breasts and buns from Mutsumi Fujita ...
 
... breasts from Kaoru Mizuki ...
... and breasts from several unknowns. One of the women is from a long scene with the woman who tries unsuccessfully to seduce him, the others come from a red-tinted surrealist opening.
 		  

 

 

 

 

 

Famed attention whore Paris Hilton attending a party at the Playboy Mansion.

The actress who fell out of her dress on Emmy night was Mindy Kaling

Lucy Liu in Lucky Number Slevin

Jennifer Miller in Lucky Number Slevin

Sarah Pacelli in Sunday's episode of Deadwood

Nadine Riess in Three Below

 

 
Pat's comments in yellow...


On this day in 1979, President Jimmy Carter was attacked by a rabbit while canoeing in Plains, Georgia.

*  He could've whacked it with a paddle, but instead, he asked for a U.N.
resolution condemning it.

Father Gabriele Amorth, Pope Benedict XVI's official exorcist, told Vatican radio that Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin were possessed by the Devil.  He said you could tell by their behavior and actions, and that not only people, but groups and entire populations can be possessed by demons.  Recently-released Vatican documents from World War II showed that Pope Pius XII tried to do an exorcism on Hitler from a long distance, but Amorth said it did no good because long distance exorcisms rarely work.

*  They're only slightly more effective than U.N. sanctions.