Monday

Sunday Night Cable

True Blood - the only nudity was supplied by Sam Trammell.

Hung - excellent nudity. Alanna Ubach supplied another noisy sex scene, and Rebecca Creskoff showed her breasts in a scene in which Anna Heche flashed deep cleavage.

Entourage - there was some brief female nudity, but it is not worth your time. It lasts about two seconds; it's an unknown; and nothing is really visible anyway. But here it is, for you obsessives.

 

  • * Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).

  • * White asterisk: expanded format.

  • * Blue asterisk: not mine.

  • No asterisk: it probably sucks.

OTHER CRAP:

Catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ken Park

1995

Maeve Quinlan film clip

Raw screen grabs

Tiffany Limos film clip

Raw screen grabs

Scoop's notes from July, 2003:

I'm sitting here thinking that I don't really know what to say about this movie. On the one hand, I want to say nothing. On the other hand, I want to write a book about it. Maybe that is a story in itself.

Ken Park is the latest film from Larry Clark, the Oklahoman who had already established a controversial body of photographic work when he decided late in life to make his still photographs move. He was 52 years old when he took up filmmaking. His subject matter is ... well, I think the title of one of his books of photographs says it all: "Teenage Lust." His entire life seems to be devoted to cataloguing the sexual urges and escapades of adolescents. His filmmaking career seems to combine that interest with a need to keep pushing the outside of the "decency" envelope, to test what can be shown by the camera in the storytelling process.

For better or worse, we live with conventions, and we assume that they will be followed. We assume that when people go into the bedroom in a film, that we will see nothing more than some romantic, inexplicit coupling accompanied by syrupy music. Mr Clark is not one to follow the conventions. Some of his earlier films had been more explicit than people expect from movies about teenagers, but Ken Park goes all the way. It never pulls the camera away. If there is oral sex going on, we see genitals being licked and swallowed. If there is masturbation, we see it in real time, complete with erect penises and dripping fluids. If someone goes to the bathroom, we see the penis and the stream emerging from it. Larry Clark knows he is courting controversy with this level of candor, and he seems to relish it.

The thematic material is no less disturbing than the explicit visuals. The film forms a loose tapestry from the stories of four teenagers in Visalia, California who know each other. Each of their relationships with the adult world is abnormal.

  • Tate lives with his grandparents, nice enough old codgers who show genuine love for one another and for Tate. But Tate is some kind of darkly disturbed individual, and he terrorizes the oldsters, as well as his dog. When Tate is not exhibiting sociopathic behavior, he's busy practicing sexual asphyxiation while he masturbates. (We see all this in real time, including the money shot.) Finally, he gets naked and slips into his grandparents' room one night and kills them. For our benefit, he narrates the murder, including his report of how it aroused him sexually. He tells us that he killed his grandfather because he was bad at games. It is fortunate that he didn't live in Detroit, or he would have killed all the sports teams.

  • Shaun seems to have a normal life and a sweet girlfriend with a nice family. Except that Shaun is also having sex with his girlfriend's mother. In bed with the mother, he discusses what she has in common with her daughter. No, he's not discussing their smiles or their favorite flavor of ice cream. It's stuff like, "you have the same pussy smell".

  • Peaches is a straight A student being raised by her deeply religious father. In appearance, she is virtually a clone of her deceased mother, so you can bet that dad will eventually decide that his daughter can fill in for mom in certain ways, but not before he comes home early one day to find his beloved and presumed virtuous daughter mounted on her boyfriend, who is tied to her bed.

  • Claude has a problem with his macho dad, who abuses him physically and berates him for being a pussy and preferring sissy sports like skateboarding to manly stuff like weightlifting. Dad does make an unusual attempt at reconciliation with his son. He comes home drunk one night, goes into the boy's room, and starts sucking his cock.

That pretty much runs the entire gamut of dysfunction and incest.

As you might imagine, the film has already left behind a trail of controversy. The Office of Film and Literature Classification in Australia refused to classify it, so it is currently banned for screening in Australia. Last week (July 3rd, 2003) an imported DVD was projected at the Melbourne Town Hall but the exhibition was shut down after a raid by the Police.

Mr. Clark says his movie is not pornographic, but that he's just being honest and revealing events that happen in real life. He says all of the characters are based on real teens who have modeled for him over the years.

Clark's films always have a limited story line. One reason is that he tries to create a cinema verite feel, a sense that we are watching real people in real time, and that they don't know they are being filmed. If the plot were highly contrived, it would detract from the sense of "reality". Another reason for the minimal story is that when one shows sex, masturbation and urination in real time, it doesn't leave much time for plot development. Those activities take up a lot of screen time without moving the characters forward. In terms of storyline, this film will never be mistaken for The Man Who Would Be King, but it manages to develop at least some kind of a forward movement. It ends the film with a threesome between the three main characters who are still alive and free. In one sense, the threesome is unexpected, since we have not previously been aware that the characters are intimate, and have not seen them together at all. In a larger sense, the threesome represents their refuge from the abnormality of their family lives. The tone of that scene is unlike that of the rest of the movie. This coupling is loving, and the talk is gentle and harmonious. These characters find with each other a degree of peace they can't achieve with their families.

We don't know if the final scene is actually happening. Maybe, maybe not. In a sense, it simply represents the time when one generation breaks away from the previous one and tries to build its own sense of cultural values. The sweetness and mutual acceptance in this scene represents a ray of hope in their otherwise doomed lives.

Clark has not only taken explicitness to new levels, but has also refined his production values over the years. The look of "Kids" is primitive, and "Teenage Caveman" is virtually at a home movie level. That is not true with Ken Park. Although the cinema verite feel is still present, Clark hired a true professional to be his D.P. and co-director. Here are some of the films in which Ed Lachman has been the cinematographer.
 

  1. Erin Brockovich (2000)

  2. The Virgin Suicides, The (1999)

  3. Far from Heaven (2002)

  4. The Limey (1999)

  5. Light Sleeper (1992)

  6. Mississippi Masala (1991)

  7. Desperately Seeking Susan (1985)

  8. The Lords of Flatbush (1974)
     

Some pretty famous names sat in the director's chair for those movies. Two of them were directed by Stephen Soderbergh, one by Paul Shrader, one by Todd Haymes. There are some brilliantly photographed films on that list, including one with a deserved recent Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography (Far From Heaven). That should give you an idea that Larry Clark is not only making more explicit films, but also more professional ones. Not only is there more to see than in his earlier works, but you can actually see it, and it looks good.

Is it a good movie? Well, now, that's complicated. Who the hell can give you an unbiased answer to that question? Both Clark's explicitness and his cinema verite techniques cause a lot of obfuscation. People tend to talk about the explicitness of the content, and not the quality. People tend to fume about the disjointed nature of cinema verite without trying to determine if it produces an impact upon the audience that can't be achieved by a typical storyline.

You won't find me to be much more objective than most people, but my bias is different from most people's. I just get bored with body parts. Porn movies, for example, bore the bejeezus out of me. I don't have any objection at all to explicit sexual portrayals, but I think that they slow down the film too much when presented in real time, and I'm not convinced that the real time concept adds value. Take for example, the scene where the kid is masturbating while choking himself. Is there any value to watching this for two minutes? Couldn't the same impact be achieved more economically and dramatically in a couple of seconds? After all, masturbation is just a hand going up and down. OK, I understand the impact when you "show me the money," but do I need to see every stroke?

The film has some merit, but it's pretty damned tedious and doesn't have much content besides coupling and sex talk. Let's face it, if they created an airline version, it would barely fill up the flight from Miami to Ft Lauderdale. Merit aside, it has been both praised and disparaged. Some people praise it excessively simply because other people condemn it and censor it, ala the works of D.H. Lawrence. Who knows, future generations may see Clark as a cinema pioneer, in the way that we look back upon Lawrence as a literary pioneer.

I think that Clark is evolving a technique which may some day result in a very powerful piece of cinema, given his daring and his inherent maverick nature. He has demonstrated the ability to create strong moments. I'm still not convinced he has put enough moments together in one place to make a really good film. I think his best film was Bully, not Ken Park. In Bully, Clark managed to find a way to keep his unique "eavesdropping" grittiness, while adding form, structure, and cohesion. He was working from authentic source material based on a true story, and he hired some additional screenwriters to flesh out the story and characters.

Well let's see. He brought in writers to work on Bully, and a cinematographer to work on Ken Park. I wonder what would happen if he tried doing both in the same movie.

Jeez, he might be on to something there.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Recon 2023: The Gauda Prime Conspiracy

 (2009)

Third and final installment of the Recon scifi series recently released to DVD in Canada but those in the United States have to wait until November. Two words about this movie: "giant chicken".

Edith Labelle: partial boob and butt

Danika Wintowt: topless in threesome with Edith Labelle.

Dominique Arganese: topless as low definition virtual stripper

Jenny Poussin: boobs and buns as fantasy girl


more of Jenny Poussin


ActionGirls.com volume 5: showing her robohooters

Masters of Horror episode The V Word: playing an attractive corpse

hardcore: Jenny showing her Poussin in one of her many hardcore modeling pics from the iner'net


Surveillance

(2009)

Recent DVD release.

Julia Ormond & Pell James: lesbian scene in threesome.

Shannon Jardine: sexy but dead.


The Boondock Saints

(1999; Collector's Edition)

My third attempt at this as the previous DVD release only contained the widescreen version which had a lot less picture area than the fullscreen version that aired on cable. The recently released collector's edition has both.

Lauren Piech (purple top) & Gina Sorel: pokies

Jeanna Fine: mega cleavage and boob. However the fullscreen version for some reason cropped out a cameltoe shot that aired on cable. My quest for the cameltoe version still continues!


"Guns"

(2009 miniseries)

Big deal when this aired on CBC last week but the truth is it's been available on DVD in the United States since June.

Eva Simon: partial boob as obligatory stripper.


"About a Girl"

(2007 tv series; episode "About an All-Nighter" )

Skinless tv series but in this episode Chiara Zanni flashed her boobs thinking her roomates were passed out.


"Higher Ground"

(2000 tv series)

Another skinless tv series but in the first episode "Scott Free" there is a rare shot of A.J. Cook in a bikini.


"Rescue Me"

season 5 finale

Andrea Roth shows her gams in an excellent upskirt during catfight


"Paradise Falls"

season III, week 2

Still no (female) nudity but Michelle Latimer and Meredith McGeachie share a lesbian kiss on the first date. As for week 3, according to lesbian dating etiquette, on the second date one of them brings along a U-Haul moving truck.
 


 

 

The Chaos Experiment

2009

In this horror/thriller, a totally wigged out former professor conducts an experiment to prove his theory of global warning, and his guinea pigs are six hapless strangers who thought they were winners of a luxury weekend from an Internet dating site. Oops, not quite.

A man (Val Kilmer) appears in a newspaper office demanding his story warning of a global warming catastrophe appear on the front page. If the paper doesn't publish the story, six people relaxing in a steam bath will discover they are trapped and unable to leave. Eventually, the 130 degree heat will kill them.

The editor calls a police detective friend (Armand Assante) and as the cop and the scientist begin a cat-and-mouse game regarding the location of the hostages, the six begin to feel the effects of the heat and turn on one another with extremely nasty results.

Mostly a B-movie, it still provides an interesting story, with a twisty ending in the last minute. A little draggy in parts, horror fans may still enjoy it, and Eve Mauro's topless scenes definitely help.
 

Eve Mauro
 

Pics

Anja Rubik

Carla Velli

Melinda Messenger

Juliette Lewis in Natural Born Killers

 

Film Clips

Barbara De Rossi in La Piovra

Florinda Bolkan in La Piovra 2

Giuliana de Sio in La Piovra 3

Kinsey Packard in Infestation

Marta Larralde in Leon y Olvido

Linsey Dawn McKenzie showing off her ginormous chest

Yoima Valdes in Un Rey en la Habana