Hardcore (1979) is one of my three favorite George C. Scott films. He is a Dutch reform Calvinist and single father in the midwest who runs his own furniture company. His daughter (Ilah Davis) goes to a Calvinist youth camp in Bellflower, California, and disappears at Knott's Berry Farm. He hires a private detective to find her. After several weeks, the detective produces an 8 mm porn loop starring his daughter. Scott goes back to California to help in the search, and finds his detective with a very young hooker, and fires him.

Scott starts his own investigation in the sex markets of LA. At first, everyone takes him for a cop or a weirdo due to his conservative appearance and attitudes, but he learns and "hips up." Eventually, he hires one of the girls in the business (Season Hubley) to help him. Before the film is over, he learns more than he ever wanted to know about porno films, massage parlors, peep shows and really sick perverted vies as well. The question is two-fold. Will he find is daughter, and will he want the daughter he finds?

Davis shows breasts in the 8 mm porno loop. Hubley does a full frontal. Gigi Vorgan, Linda Morell and Leslie Ackerman all show breasts, and several unknowns show more or less of their bodies. IMDb readers have this at 6.3 of 10. While the world George C. Scott is forced to immerse himself in is certainly seedy and lurid, the film delves pretty deeply into moral questions, religious beliefs, and explores the sex industry mainly from the standpoint of the girls. I have always found it a fast watch, with an excellent performance from Scott and Seasons. This is a very high C+.

• Charlie's French Cinema Nudity Site is updated.

Norma Jean and Marilyn (1996):

This is yet another good looking biopic from HBO, but this one is incredibly shallow. The subject, as you undoubtedly already know from the title, is Marilyn Monroe. Actually, Marilyn's name was Norma Jeane with an "e", which shows you about how much effort they put into this film.

The film uses a gimmick. It splits Marilyn into two personalities, the drugged-out Hollywood star and the ambitious girl who first came to Hollywood, and it has those two personalities played by two different actresses. Mira Sorvino plays movie star Marilyn in what is essentially an extended impersonation. Ashley Judd gets the more complex job of bringing to life Norma Jean, the real person beneath the public persona.

The two actresses did fine. In fact they were both nominated for Golden Globes and Emmys (this was an HBO original). The film itself, however, really fails to deliver anything of merit because, like many biopics, it tries to cover too much with no clear idea of what point it wants to make or even why it exists. It covers Marilyn's entire life from age eight or so until her death. Given the monumental scope of her life, which included a brilliant movie career, and romances with the greatest playwright, the greatest acting teacher, the greatest ballplayer, and the greatest politician of her era, as well as with several other men, including Columbia's boy genius musical director, Fred Karger. And those were just the significant relationships. She added purely sexual flings with plenty more of the famous and near-famous. She crammed all of that into a few short years, and just that decade and a half would be far too much for a movie, even without the childhood and pre-fame portion of her life. By trying to cover her entire life, this film becomes a string of superficial cameos. Lee Strasberg, Monty Clift, JFK and RFK have about one line each. Joe DiMaggio is portrayed as a complete, one-dimensional asshole, but he seems like Mr. New-Age Sensitive Guy compared to Fred Karger. Playwright Arthur Miller does get somewhat better treatment than her other lovers. In fact, this might have been a very good movie if it had used the same split personality gimmick to focus in exclusively on the relationship between Arthur Miller and the two sides of Marilyn's personality. But that's another movie, not this one.

Because of its overly ambitious scope, the script could touch only on symptoms, isolated from their root causes. We see that Marilyn became a mess at the end, taking mammoth quantities of drugs, rarely showing up for work, and making bizarre emotional outbursts that pushed away all the men who might have cared for her. Unfortunately, the film offers no insight into how or why she became that way. She seemed to be doing great just before she became famous, cold, calculating, and really in control of her life after surviving an abusive and often loveless childhood. Then, a few minutes of screen time later, she had degenerated into a pill-popping bimbo and self-flagellating perennial victim. Huh? I never could figure out the logic in that. The script seemed to imply that childhood trauma was heavily implicated in her deterioration, but in the earlier scenes in pre-fame Hollywood, she was carrying around all that childhood trauma with no trouble. What happened? Despite various moments with her shrink and other mental health professionals, the script has no insight into the relationship between her self-esteem problems and her ultimate degeneration. I learned nothing at all from this treatment beyond the superficial chronology that you and I already  know by heart.

Despite a lack of insight into Marilyn the person, the film could have redeemed itself it it had captured the charisma of Marilyn the star, but it dropped that ball as well. The few re-creations of her career highlights were perfunctory and dull.

So it doesn't really show why Marilyn was a great star, and it doesn't show why Norma Jean lost control of her life. It's neither educational nor especially entertaining, and every portion of her life is given short shrift. That doesn't leave much to recommend.

I can give you one reason to watch this film. In the first half or so, Ashley Judd is stark naked several times. She does full frontal nudity in a dream sequence in a church, and she does full frontal and rear nudity when recreating Marilyn's famous Playboy spread. Throw in a little skinny dipping and flashing here and there, and you have some magnificent career-best nudity from an exceptionally attractive woman.

OK, I'm a shallow guy, we all know that, so you shouldn't be surprised when I admit this. If the film had offered no nudity, I would have hated the fact that I spent 132 minutes of my life on such a facile and unenlightening project. Given the magnificent nudity from Judd, and some flashes from Mira Sorvino, however, I felt it was a reasonably entertaining way to pass the time. Call it a C-. If you have no interest in seeing beautiful chicks naked, skip it because it is a lousy biopic. On the other hand, for the vast majority of men who do like to look at beautiful woman naked, you should find it easy enough on the eyes.

• Mira Sorvino (as Marilyn) (1, 2)

• Ashley Judd (as Norma Jean) (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

• Erika Nann (as Jane Russell)

NY-LON (2004):

This is not a movie, but a British TV series filmed in London and New York's Lower East Side. The subject is the mismatched romantic pairing of a bohemian New York record store clerk, and a successful London stock broker.

I haven't seen the show, but I know Rachel Miner, the former Mrs Richie Rich, is one of the minor or miner characters, and she got naked. What more do you need to know?

• Rachel Miner pictures (1, 2, 3)

• Rachel Miner film clip (.wmv zipped)

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.

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.

'Caps of her amazing toplessness can be found in the archives (Sept 8, 2004. Sept 9, 2003. Nov 28, 2003)

Currently she is filming the new Harry Potter movie, "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire".

• Clémence Poésy Bienvenue chez les Rozes (2003)

Another batch of assorted video goodies from the Ghost. Zipped .wmvs as usual.

• Former Heffer Ava Fabian (August '86) topless in a preparing to get it on scene, and then gettin' it on. Scenes from 1991's low-budget ski comedy, "Ski School" (1, 2)

• Bonus Ava Fabian nudity. Here she is topless and very briefly showing the other two B's in scenes from one of her many "Erotic Confessions" appearances.

  
  

• A few clips of Regina Russell in one of those typical, slow-moving Skinemax sex scenes from "Sex Files: Sexual Matrix" (1999). Toplessness in #1, breasts and bum in #2 and #3, with possible pube views in #3. (1, 2, 3)

• Two more of Regina Russell. This time we see in a slightly more energetic pseudo-sex scene from "Sex Files: Alien Erotica II" (2000). Breasts in both of course, plus a hint of pubes in #2. (1, 2)

A quickie today...

"Traffic" (2004) miniseries
The only nudity is by Jennifer Rae Westley but her boobies were fuzzed by the USA Cable Network makeing her look like a carpenter's dream. But the DVD release slated for November 2 is the director's cut so her topless scene should be restored.

• Jennfer Rae Westley: partial boob.

The debut episode of the "Friends" spin-off was actually not too bad. Definitely better than most of the crap on TV these days. Will it be a huge hit series? I doubt it. Will it fail miserably? I doubt that too.

NBC knows there is a lot riding on "Joey", and I think they've put together a very solid sit-com to try and fill that "Friends" time slot. My guess: I think it will do pretty well for one season...Long enough to ride out the "Friends" wave. But I wouldn't expect much else.

As some folks may recall, I consider this scene to be the best part of "Scary Movie 3". For those who missed my rant the first time, check out the May 28, 2004 update.

CLINTON'S FAVORITE RESTAURANT CHANGES MENU
Pronounced "McLard's" - Now that Bill Clinton looks good to recover from quadruple bypass surgery, his favorite restaurant in Hot Springs, Arkansas, is changing its menu to keep him alive. McClard's Barbecue is having a cardiologist review their recipes and portions to cut down on carbs and make it comply with the South Beach Diet. Owner Scott McClard says he likes the publicity of having Clinton as a customer, but doesn't want to be known as "the place that stuck him in the hospital."