Three (2004)

Also known as The Billy Zane Sinking Ship Tetralogy, Part Four

I'd like to know how many times commercial filmmakers are going to remake The Admirable Crichton. I, for one, have been sick of these remakes since before many of you were born.

You never heard of The Admirable Crichton? I suppose I never would have either, had I not I majored in English Lit, with a specialty in Modern British and Irish Drama. (Very useful for making a living, right? Of course, that was the late sixties, when making a living was considered a sell-out.) At any rate, it is a play written by the same odd little man who wrote Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie, and the two plays were written at about the same time, just after the turn of the century. You can read the play online if you really care to, for it is in the public domain.

The plot was essentially this:

Rich couple gets shipwrecked with their butler. In the new dynamic of the island, the butler becomes the leader, because he is the only one with the grit and intelligence for survival, and the aristocrats take orders from him. When everyone is saved, the Lords and Ladies return to their high station, and Crichton goes back to being a butler.

Hey, don't get your hopes up for the play's potential for hot butler-on-girl action. This was not a predecessor of Red Shoe Diaries, although the condescending Lady did eventually find herself falling in love with her dynamic, ingenious butler - but only until they were rescued. J.M. Barrie was not much interested in sex, if at all. Although he married, some of his biographers have suggested that his marriage was never consummated and that he died a virgin. The relationship between Barrie's life and his most famous concept, a juvenile frozen in boyhood, would certainly have been an interesting topic for the analytical skills of his contemporary, Dr. Freud, because Barrie himself never grew up in many ways. He stopped growing in boyhood (he was about five feet tall), and apparently never developed any adult sexual capability. "Boys cannot love" is how he was said to have explained his impotence to his wife Mary, shortly before she divorced his tiny ass. In other words, he wasn't anything like Johnny Depp.

The Admirable Crichton itself has been made into several eponymous motion pictures, the first one coming out of the silent film era, and the most memorable starring Kenneth More as Crichton. As the twentieth century progressed and the leisure classes developed an ever increasing interest in sex, various filmmakers with a healthier libido than Mr. Barrie started to realize that the entire dynamic of The Admirable Crichton really ought to have a sexual component. After all, as the "dominant male" on the island, wouldn't Crichton also get the hottest babe(s)?

Enter Lina Wertmuller and her "Swept Away ..." in 1974, in which the guy from the lower classes asserts his complete domination over the Lady when they get shipwrecked. He knows she can't survive unless he provides for her, and she knows it too, so he uses this advantage for his amusement, beating her, abusing her, raping her, turning her into his menial slave, and so forth.

Swept Away was remade by Guy Ritchie into a notorious stinker in 2002. Ritchie chose unwisely to feature a certain non-actress named  Madonna as the rich bitch. I doubt if he had many options, since he was married to her.

The latest twist on the story is called Three. A rich couple (Billy Zane and Kelly Brook) take a private yacht into the South Seas. It sinks. What is the deal with Billy Zane and boats? This is the fourth film in which he has gone down on a sinking ship! (Dead Calm, Titanic, Cleopatra). At any rate, Zane is nowhere to be seen when Kelly washes ashore on L'isle D'Gilligan with Manuel, the hired hand. The usual Admirable Crichton dynamic takes over. Manuel is the one with survival skills, and he's a horny guy, so she becomes dependent on the handsome hunk, and they become romantically involved. This actually seems to be working out quite well until the scriptwriter remembers that the Gilligan's Island theme song mentions "the millionaire and his wife." Enter the millionaire, who washes up on the same island. Oh, you know it's gonna get nasty in a "two men enter, one man leaves" kind of way, except this island thunderdome involves Zany Bill instead of Mad Max.

The film's distribution has been problematical, and rumors circulated that Zane did everything he could to block its uncut release after he and Brook became a real-life couple. Something about nude scenes! Perhaps the greatest problem is that Brook is not seen loving long time with Mr. Zane, but mainly with a hunky guy from Argentina named Juan Di Pace. Whatever Zane's arguments may have been, they had no legal merit, and the film is available now in Greece. Given the internet, that means it will probably be seen everywhere immediately, because the astounding and naked Ms. Brook was recently chosen by FHM magazine as the sexiest woman on this or any other planet.

Here are three film clips of Kelly making hay with Manuel (If you live in Scotland, he's the guy who plays Luca on River City, that soap opera about Glasgow.)

• Kelly Brook (1, 2, 3)

Today we take a look at "Malèna", an Oscar nominated movie set in war time Sicily during World War 2. It's the story of a young 12 year old boy growing up and being fascinated by and falling in love with an older woman who is widowed by the war. Malena is beautiful and has to do many things to survive. A very good and thought provoking movie.

Malena is played by Monica Bellucci with some scenes of nudity and the final scenes of brutality as she is beaten by the women of her village. She was lusted after by the men and scorned by the women.

Monica Bellucci

MOVIE REVIEWS:

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.
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• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

NO REASON FOR HALLE BERRY NUDITY
You Need A REASON?! - Halle Berry says she knows there was no reason for her first topless scene, sitting by a pool in "Swordfish," but she had to do it to get over her fear of nudity for "Monster's Ball." She said it was "very exploitive...Just sit there, show 'em, get past my fear and move on...I thought, 'They've already seen my (boobs), they're not going to see much more than that, so hey.'" But she doubts she'd show them again in another scene like that, adding, "That moment has passed."

Currently on disability. If you'd like to get in touch with him, his email address is tuna@scoopy.com

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