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Third party videos:
LC captured the latest installment of Masters of Horror, this
one called "Imprint," directed by Takashi Miike. If you're
familiar with his work, you know that Miike's films can be kinda
brutal, so be forewarned that these scenes will be
comparable to the nasty ways in which Brave Sir Robin was "not at
all afraid" to be killed.
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| Michie Ito |
Miho Ninagawa |
Lena Olin has spent most of her
movie career trying to make worthwhile and meaningful films, but
every once in a while she cuts loose, and Romeo is Bleeding was
the loosest. She created one of the most memorable villainesses in
cinema history. Tuna and I disagreed radically on the movie. He
hated it, but I think it is a marvelous exercise in excessive
atmosphere and style, one of those films that works as a genre
film and a genre parody at the same time. (Movie
House Review.) Most critics agree with Tuna. Be that as it
may, Lena Olin's breasts were certainly award-winning. (Three
.avis zipped together)
Melissa McGregor in Satan's Little
Helper (Two
.avis zipped together)
OTHER CRAP:
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"Cameron Diaz Showing Her
Ass Crack In A Sexy Thong"
The top 10 ugliest, most
embarrassing fashion trends of the past 25
years
Daily Box Office for
Friday, September 22, 2006
- Jackass the Second
opens BIG with an $11+ million Friday.
(Expectations were in the 6-7 range.)
Jackass took in more than the next five
films added together.
- Jet Li is on target
for about nine or ten million for the
weekend, as expected
- Flyboys is more or
less on target toward its predicted six
million range.
- The critical
hammering of All The King's Men was an omen
for its box office performance . At this
point, it doesn't seem to be able to achieve
even the very modest hopes of the
forecasters (five to six million). Looks
like it will struggle to reach four million.
It not only lost to the other new movies and
last week's champ on Friday, but it also
lost to last week's disappointment, The
Black Dahlia!
According to unauthorized
Kidman bio, she called Scientology "absolute
bullshit."
Richie Valens gets
battery charge.
Osama allegedly dead.
France to probe leak of secret death report
- The GOP is livid
about this leak, which was supposed to
happen much closer to election day
"In his latest attempt to
deflect attention from his insult to Muslims,
Pope Benedict XVI has attacked Madonna,
calling her a 'worthless, thousand-lire whore
who ought to be raped on a cross for embodying
all that's tawdry about decadent Western
culture.'"
NBC ADDS 15 MORE SHOWS
ABOUT LATE-NIGHT SKETCH COMEDY SHOWS
Grey's Anatomy Beats CSI
head-to-head
The trailer for Home Of
The Brave
- The story of four
American soldiers nearing the end of their
tours of duty in Iraq. Shortly after
learning their unit will soon return home,
they are sent on one final humanitarian
mission to bring medical supplies to a
remote Iraqi village. The unit is ambushed
and takes heavy losses. The surviving troops
suffer both physical and psychological
injuries.
The high quality trailer
for Eragon
- Based on the
best-selling novel, this epic
fantasy-adventure centers on a young man
named Eragon whose destiny is revealed with
the help of a dragon. Eragon, now a Dragon
Rider, is swept into a world of magic and
power, discovering that he alone has the
power to save – or destroy – an Empire.
- Yeah, I know it
sounds like a Uwe Boll movie, but it has a
decent buzz and a solid cast, so it must be
a lot better than it sounds. Jeremy Irons,
Sienna Guillory, Robert Carlyle, Djimon
Hounsou, Garrett Hedlund, John Malkovich.
Cops: "Don't Open Your
Door, There's a Gator on Your Porch"
- By the weirdest of
coincidences, this is also the title of 14
different Zydeco songs.
Russia prepares emotional
return for last Tsar's mother
- Hell, you'd be
choked up, too, if someone who died in 1928
showed up on your porch. Especially if they
were near the alligator.
Letterman:
"Top Ten Questions To Ask
Yourself Before Eating Spinach"
Youngsters reach baseball
milestones
- It's been a bad
year for Jimmy Foxx, who formerly held the
record for most homers for a hitter playing
in Boston (50) and Philadelphia (58), and is
on the verge of losing both in the same
season. Ortiz took the first record down a
couple of days ago. Ryan Howard tied the
second one last night, hitting number 58
against the Marlins.
- (XX actually set
his record playing for the Philadelphia A's,
an American League team which later moved to
Kansas City, and then to Oakland. Foxx still
holds the season record for that franchise.
The Phillies record was 48 before this
season, a feat accomplished by Mike
Schmidt.)
- Miguel Cabrera
become the fourth player to have 50 doubles
and 25 homers in a season before his 24th
birthday.
Just for fun: the
celebrity x-ray gallery
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Movie Reviews:
Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format.
Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.
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Coup de Torchon (1981)
Coup de Torchon, a French language film released in the USA as Clean Up, is
based on Pop. 1280, an American pulp novel by Jim Thompson. The noted French
director Bertrand Tavernier read the book and very much wanted to make it into
a movie, but could find no way to adapt the story to a French locale. It
concerns a southern sheriff who gets no respect, and one day decides to start
killing the people who make his life difficult. Since there's nothing
comparable to a small-town sheriff in France, and the theme of racial
differences wouldn't quite work, he was stuck until it occurred to him to set
it in French Equatorial Africa in a time just before WW II, when the local
policemen were very sheriff-like, and a handful of decadent French were riding
roughshod over the black population. Tavernier shot the film on location and
made an effort to present a realistic Africa, with a muted color palette, and
dusty streets.
Philippe Noiret plays the ostensibly feckless local policeman who never arrests
anyone, and is the butt of local jokes. He gets less respect from the
community than Rodney Dangerfield, and things are no better at home. His wife
harasses him, steals all of his cash from his pockets, and seems to be
sexually involved with a house guest she claims is her brother. He does find
his own diversions with a school teacher, Irčne Skobline, and the abused wife
of a local blowhard, Isabelle Huppert. One day, he decides he has had enough,
and starts killing those who are a thorn in his side, making up stories to
cover their deaths.
Philippe Noiret was excellent as a man who has completely hidden the fact
that he is intelligent, and hence can get away with his schemes. Unfortunately,
the deliberate pace made this a hard watch for me. Although this was clearly
intended to be a very dark comedy, it just didn't have good comedic timing --
everything was too slow and methodical.
This is far from the only film adapted from Jim Thompson's writing. The
Getaway, The Grifters, and After Dark, My Sweet are others that come to mind.
I can't help but wonder if there is room for an American film in Pop. 1280,
which is available
used at Amazon for as little as $2.99. The only drawback is that the MPAA
would likely ruin it. The American distributors narrowly avoided an NC-17
rating for the French version by trimming a scene in which Noiret shoves his
hand under Huppert's skirt.
Roger Ebert didn't get it, and awarded 2 stars, but the film was nominated
for the Best Foreign Language Oscar, and most of the Cesars.
IMDb readers say 7.6.
This is a C.
Praise (1998)
Praise is an Australian film about a co-dependent couple. He is a
chain smoking asthmatic who works in a package store and lives in a flop
house. When he is asked to work a fourth day in a row, he quits his job and
becomes a full time loafer, filling his time with cigarettes, beer, and
conversations with his fellow flop house residents. Out of the blue, he gets a
call from a barmaid (Sacha Horler) who had worked in the pub portion of his
workplace. The slightly plump girl with hideous eczema turns out to be a
nymphomaniac and a recreational user of drugs and alcohol. His kind of woman!
It would be a perfect match, except that he is rather ambivalent about sex,
and a premature ejaculator. When they move in together, it looks as if they
may forge a relationship, but, in the end, they are not compatible.
It's similar to Leaving Las Vegas in the themes it explores and the mood it
establishes. Like Leaving Las Vegas, you might not enjoy it, but you will
almost certainly admire it. While I generally don't appreciate films about
truly unpleasant people, this one is a big exception, perhaps because the
performances are just so outstanding. Both characters are presented so
intimately and believably that you can almost feel them as you are watching.
Sacha Horler is especially brilliant as the barmaid, and does full frontal and
rear nudity as well.
This is a C+.
It won numerous Australian Film Institute awards, including best
performance by an actress, and best screenplay. James Berardinelli praised it
and awarded three stars.
IMDb readers say 7.1. Most of the IMDb comments are full of superlatives.
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Soem miscellaneous non-nudes that struck my fancy. Left to
right: Jessica Simpson in Employee of the
Month, Buffy in The Return,
Elisha Cuthbert in The Quiet,
Sharon Case on The Young and the Restless.
Notes:
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When I watched Hollywoodland, that film about George
Reeves, I was struck by the fact that it could just as easily be about Sarah
Michelle Gellar. Let's hope her bio has a happier ending. If nothing else,
she made a lot more money as Buffy than Reeves made as Supes.
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Sharon Case looks great in a bikini!
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Monica Keena in Left in
Darkness. I watched this and thought it was pretty damned good for a zero
budget film, but I passed on capping or reviewing it because this plumber's
crack was it from Keena, and the only other nudity was two unimportant
sorority babes flashing in bad light and focus. It's
kind of a thinking man's horror film - very little violence or nudity or
splatter, more like a Rod Serling idea in that the heroine dies almost
immediately - and has to run a demonic gauntlet to get into heaven. |
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Helen Latham in Episode 34 of
Footballer's Wives |
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Three from Rokwatch. Left to right: Paula Prentiss very naked
in Catch 22, and two sexy non-nudes: Colleen Camp in Clue, and Patricia
Arquette in Tales From the Crypt |
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