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Troy - director's cut
The new director's cut of Troy is a two-disc set with all the usual
"making of" features and a version of the film which is some 30 minutes
longer than the theatrical release. I believe the film is now better for
several reasons:
- The longer version it allows for a fuller development of the
characters.
- It also includes some tiny imaginative details which were lost in the
drive to create an economical running time for theaters, thus maximizing
the number of daily screenings.
- It has more nudity, and the naked people on screen are about as
beautiful as any two you can think of: Diane Kruger and Brad Pitt (in
different scenes, of course). Name a couple more beautiful than that! One
male, one female. Something for everybody!
I must also add that this film looks marvelous on DVD. I never saw the
theatrical cut on DVD (since I saw the film in a theater), so I can't
specifically address that one, but this expanded version looks so much
better than a projected rendering. I'm really starting to believe that the
theatrical experience has no advantage except timeliness. To hell with
theaters! If you want to see a film in its optimal rendering, you need a
high definition DVD and a large high definition screen to play it on!
Hotel Chevalier
I can't see any point to reviewing this one, since it's only a few
minutes long, and the film "clip" is pretty much the actual film! It'll only
take a few minutes to watch it and review it for yourself!
Here's my review: Natalie Portman's bum.
She's becoming quite the bum specialist. She basically showed it in
Closer, since she was wearing a thong. Then she showed it in the confession
scene in Goya's Ghosts, and now again in this short film. Still no look at
her breasts, but only because Mike Nichols deleted and destroyed the brief
topless scene in Closer. One suspects that the sight was not so spectacular
as to be treasured for its aesthetic merits, but of course we are still
hoping to see those goodies, even if they are average.
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* Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe).
* White asterisk:
expanded format.
*
Blue asterisk: not mine.
No asterisk: it probably
sucks.
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OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe
version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
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La Bimba de Satana
(1982)
Satan's Baby Doll, has much in common
with Malabimba, which I covered in Tuesday's edition. Both were written and produced by the same person, and
both take place in a castle where the family matriarch has died, and the young daughter becomes possessed. Further, Mariangela Giordano plays a
girl about to become a nursing nun in both films, and both
films have an uncle who is a vegetable.
Marina Hedman has just died, but seems
to come back to life and scares young daughter Jacqueline Dupre. The
rest of the household consists of the daddy, who uses uncle vegetable's
smack and rules everyone with an iron fist and massive ego; a superstitious handyman; and a doctor
who visits frequently. Soon, some unholy combination of the dead
mother and the young daughter start killing everyone who ever had sex with
the mother, which just happens to be everyone in the castle, including
the nun.
I was unimpressed. The
transfer is grainy, unlike the other Severin releases, which have been
almost universally excellent. A perfect transfer could not have saved
it, however, because the story is not at all engaging, and the erotica
is nearly absent. There is some masturbation, but no sex in this film,
and the nudity is nothing special. An IMDb comment alludes to a XXX version lost forever, but I
suspect they were confusing this with Malabimba, especially since the
director, in a newly taped interview, said it was only a 72 minute
script, so he made a 72 minute film. On the plus side,
it is another bit of Eurosleaze that is no longer lost, with points
added for creepy atmosphere and the nunsploitation angle.
17 IMDb readers rate it a cellar-dwelling 2.7.
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Demon Keeper
We time-travel back to 1994 for this horror flick.
Catherine Loveday as a "Babe in Bondage" tied to the stake for a witch-burning.
Jennifer Steyn admires her boobs in a mirror and then
an ugly-looking creature feels them up.
Katrina Maltby bares her chest for a gal-pal, and then the creature gets
his turn.
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Notes and collages
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Broken
Women got kidnapped by a crazy guy, taken to the woods and then put through a series of
tests, much like the ones in Saw.
The movie starts by saying it is based on true events.
Right.
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Emmanuelle Chriqui is topless in Deceit, but you can't see jack. I'm
beginning to think Chriqui is going to take the Alba route in her career,
but this seems to hold out at least a faint glimmer of hope. |
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The Comedy Wire
Miller Brewing, a sponsor of this weekend's Folsom Street "leather" fair in
San Francisco, asked to have their logo removed from the poster after seeing it
was a parody of the Last Supper that portrays Jesus and His Disciples as
half-naked sadomasochists.
* And instead of drinking wine, Jesus is saying, "It's
Miller time!"
Police in Flagstaff, Arizona, are searching for a thief who stole 350 bras
from Victoria's Secret.
* They brought Oscar de la Hoya in for questioning.
Paris Hilton announced that she plans to finally fulfill her jailhouse
promise to bring attention to social causes by visiting Rwanda.
* Doesn't Africa have enough STDs already?
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