The Year of the Yahoo (1972) was Hershell Gordon Lewis' last film before he moved on to mail order, and is the closest thing he ever made to a straight film. It was based on a serious script by Allen Kahn about a country and western singer (Claude King, who had the hit Wolverton Mountain) who was drafted by political handlers to run against an incumbent senator. This was made at a time when the general public was not really aware of political handlers, and still wondered why politicians never kept their campaign promises. Other than a totally gratuitous sex scene with one time wonder Leslie Slater, where she shows breasts and buns, Lewis tried to make this a straight film. Unfortunately, the film lacked the political jargon to give authenticity, didn't have enough story to fill a feature length film, and was not exactly well acted. The character arc of the candidate has been used several times since, and very effectively.

Unfortunately, this DVD was remastered by Something Weird Video from the only surviving print, and it is in terrible shape, with serious scratches, and sound track problems throughout. While this subject ended up being redone in films like "The Candidate" very effectively, this one was not well written, produced or directed enough to be important as the start of a genre. It is really only of interest to exploitation buffs, and has little or no entertainment value. E.

Run Ronnie Run! (2002)

Ronnie Dobbs is a lovable public figure in his small town in Georgia, kind of a redneck mullet-sportin' icon because he's never grown up, and still gets arrested a few times a week for sophomoric drunken stunts like riggin' the bowling return machines to spit out balls at cannon velocity, or stealin' the school bus. Ronnie gets arrested so often, and offers such totally implausible excuses to the police, that he is noticed by a Hollywood producer who is desperate for a new "Cops"-like reality show. The producer bails Ronnie out and drags him to California to star in a one-man reality show called: "Ronnie Dobbs Gets Arrested," in which the unshaven bumpkin is dropped into a different city every week, and eventually arrested.

Of course, Ronnie gets rich and famous, and brings all of his friends to Hollywood, where they mingle uneasily with the likes of Jeff Goldblum, Garry Shandling, and Ben Stiller, in sort of a Beverly Hillbillies for the new millennium.

Although it came from the brain of the guys who created Mr Show, the film itself just isn't too good because there are a lot of dead moments when the jokes just don't work at all. In fact, virtually nothing from the main storyline was worth watching, but the movie does have about 10 minutes of wild inspiration which make it a fun little project to watch with the fast forward button.

1) The Hollywood Gay Conspiracy is pictured exactly as conservatives might fear it most, with armies, spies, and war rooms.

2) Jack Black appears in a bit of completely unrelated lunacy. At one point, a stentorious film censor interrupts this film and announces that Run Ronnie Run has been cut, so you won't see the scene that should have come next,  but you will see a scene cut from a different film. The scene which follows involves a group of lovable chimney sweeps, ala Mary Poppins, singing a merry musical number called something like "Give 'er a kick in the cunt". Jack Black takes the Dick Van Dyke role as the head sweep. THAT was funny.

3) When the producer is considering what to do for his next show, he watches a little bit of the then-leading reality show called Elimination Island, which is sort of a Donner Party Reunion. The premise is that several people are sent to a deserted island with no food. Each week they vote for which member they will kill and eat! "And now, we feast!"

4) There is one of those "here are the rules of the theater, now go to the lobby and get a treat" cartoons, and that is wildly funny.

5) Mandy Patinkin appears as himself, playing the lead in "Ronny Gets Arrested: The Musical", the inevitable Broadway spin-off from the hit reality series.

6) There are mock rock videos with obscene and subversive lyrics sung in the manner of saccharine contemporary love ballads. Actually, that wasn't as funny as it sounds. The first 10 seconds were funny, but the concept dragged on repetitiously.

Unfortunately, all of those scenes, although very funny, had little or nothing to do with the main characters and didn't even feature the main performers. The Jack Black piece had nothing whatsoever to do with this film. It's a shame the writers couldn't figure out any relevant material that was as funny as the digressions.

I guess it is a C- as a high concept comedy which failed, but included some amusing digressions. The two guys who created the film now say that they were disappointed in it, so who am I to argue?
 

• Nikki Cox - not nude, but there is plenty to see of the full-figured Nikki (1, 2, 3)

TRIVIA:

Quick - identify this woman. She's a gorgeous blonde with distinctive lips. She was born in Georgia on December 8th, is now about 40, and has done a lot of sexy movies. Her name is Kim.

If your answer was Kim Basinger - wrong. She's actually about 50 now, not 40.

The correct answer is Kim Dawson, who looks a bit like Basinger, is also from Georgia, and is ten years younger TO THE DAY! She has now done nudity in more than 25 projects, even though she had done no screen nudity at the time of her 30th birthday. See her update in the Encyclopedia today. (All updates listed below)

ALLEGED HUMOR:

Years ago, the site had a designated humor columnist and occasional scanner named Stone Cold. I found one of his columns in a back issue yesterday, and thought it was still pretty funny (changed a little by me to update the references):

Top Reasons why Scoopy is getting too old and mellow to be a hip webmaster.

• Thinks any mention of Zamfir is good for a big laugh.
• Would have been played by Richard Farnsworth in the Scoopy biopic, but Farnsworth would have required too much  "aging make-up".
• Planted trees you can now drive through and keeps referring to Johnny Appleseed as "Johnny-come-lately Fruit Boy"
• Hired Junior in order to spend more time panning for gold in local creek, by cracky.
• Willard Scott's office keeps calling to get his birthday.
• Earliest childhood memory: sister carried off by pterodactyl
• Offered help crossing street by Mike Wallace.
• Thinks Cher is starting to look kinda foxy.
• Wrote a good review of Shatner in "Free Enterprise"

OTHER CRAP:

• Lap Dancing banned in L.A..

• Brits reject missionary position.

• The home page of the Republican Babe of the Week. I didn't make that up. Honest.

• fuck, marry, or kill? Very entertaining site.

• Vanity Fair slams Celine Dion's Vegas show, calling her "a weird hybrid of Pinocchio and Buffy the Vampire Slayer"

• CHRISTIANS FOR THE CLONING OF JESUS.

• First tokers of Health Canada cannabis call it disgusting, want money back.

• A twisted love life? Princess Stephanie of Monaco has married her boyfriend, a Portuguese circus acrobat. Oh, sure, they have a lot of balance in their relationship, but wait until it all comes tumbling down. I wonder if they have to make love to the "Saber Dance".

• The State of Colorado unwittingly publishes the name of Kobe's accuser

• Weekly World News: civilization was wiped out by a nuclear war - 30 million years ago

• Yoko does not get naked for Peace. Oh, she was willing, but the audience was too small to cut off all her clothes. Darn, I guess that means another two millennia of war, or another six weeks of winter.

• Amish turn to Silicon Valley for buggy headlight technology

• The All-Overpaid Baseball team

• Will the Olson Twins go to NYU? Don't feel bad, girls, not everyone gets into Erotic U. (see below)

• La Vida Lopez. Best tidbit: one of the few critics who dared to say anything nice about Gigli was Variety’s Amy Dawes, who says her write-up prompted her boss to relieve her of her reviewing duties.

• The internet's top site dedicated to cross-dressing sumo wrestlers

• Erotic University has declared October as National Orgasm Month, and will host two bids to set world records for orgasms. One will be during their homecoming game against Wassamatta U. Why didn't Erotic University exist when I was going to school? Ah, it's probably like any other college. The all night sessions discussing Bush. The penetrating analysis.

• What is the new Batman movie all about?

• Wrestling superstar Triple H is about to join The Rock as an actor. First will be a role in BLADE: TRINITY. After that the main character in JORNADA DEL MUERTE for filmmaker John Milius (CONAN THE BARBARIAN). "

• Astronomy Picture of the Day

• Denver Broncos Cheerleaders

• Will Ferrell will be Ignatius J. Reily

• J.Lo Booty Photos

• Our favorite mouseketeer does an impromptu set (and strip) in Vegas

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 inclusion in Other Crap

PIRATE COUNTDOWN:

• Link goes to (where else) TalkLikeAPirate.com - now with new English-to-Pirate instant translator

• Top 10 Pirate Pick-Up lines "Prepare to be boarded"

UPDATES:

• Update volumes: Suzanna Hamilton, Glenda Jackson, Amanda Donohoe, Kim Dawson.

UPCOMING MOVIES:

Mr Skin's nudity reports from the Toronto festival:

• The Mother: Anne Reid shows breasts, and maybe a bit more, but in artistic scenes
• Haute Tension: breasts from Maiwenn LeBesco
• In The Cut: Meg Ryan, of course.
• 21 Grams: an entire film dedicated to Naomi Watts's breasts
• Alexandra's Project: Helen Buday sits bare-breasted for long stretches in front of a video camera.
• Young Adam -  Emily Mortimer shows breasts in three sex scenes with Obi Wan. Mortimer exposes bush in a later scene. Tilda Swinton exposes her own breasts in several more brutal sex scenes with Ewan McGregor. Obi Wan exposes his light saber, as he seem to do in every movie when he's not actually playing Obi-Wan.
• Twentynine Palms - (not the one with Rachel Leigh Cook, which is written "29 Palms") - Yekaterina Golubeva shows it all from several directions.

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.
• If there is a white asterisk, it means that there isn't any significant humor, but I inexplicably determined there might be something else of interest.
• A blue asterisk indicates the review is written by Tuna (or Lawdog or Junior or C2000 or Realist or ICMS or Mick Locke, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

• Kate Vernon...Dean Wormer's daughter goes topless in scenes from "Bloodknot" (1995).

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

Susie Porter
(1, 2, 3, 4)

PLAYBOY TO DO "WOMEN OF WAL-MART"
Clothes 70% Off! - Playboy.com is searching for models for a "Women of Wal-Mart" pictorial. The magazine already exposed the women of Enron and Starbucks, but this is a first for the website. They say Wal-Mart employees are famous for being cheerful, and Playboy is "giving them a chance to smile for the camera" and "roll back their clothes." Wal-Mart is famous for censoring provocative CD and magazine covers, but a spokesman wouldn't say whether they would retaliate against employees who pose nude.