Street Smart (1987) stars Christopher Reeve as a writer for a magazine who has lost favor with the editor. He pitches a story, a day in the life of a pimp, and gets a go-ahead. He finds, much to his surprise, that pimps are not very nice people, and are not anxious to tell all their secrets to a journalist. In desperation, he invents a pimp and writes his story, which becomes a cover, and puts him back on top. Meanwhile, real life pimp, Fast Black (Morgan Freeman) has been indicted for murder two for kicking in the face of an abusive John, who died of a heart attack.

Freeman's lawyer comes up with a brilliant strategy. Since everyone thinks the story was about Fast Black anyway, they will claim that Reeve's notes exonerate Fast Black, and rely on the fact that Reeve is not going to reveal his sources to turn it into a First Amendment battle rather than a murder trial. Meanwhile. Reeve can't turn over his notes, as there aren't any.

That set-up makes the film sound better than it actually was. The only highlight for me was an Oscar nominated performance by Morgan Freeman. While the set-up was good, the film never really decided if it was a comedy or a thriller. Marie Barrientos, as the prostitute being abused by the John, shows breasts and buns.

IMDB readers have this at 5.9 of 10. Ebert awarded three stars, admitting that the movie was deeply flawed, but praising the performances of Morgan Freeman and Kathy Baker as one of his stable. between the two, they accounted for 6 awards and another two nominations. Given very limited nudity, and a film rescued by two great performances, this is a C. You might enjoy seeing Freeman and Baker doing it right.

THE ITALIAN JOB (2003):

A solid hit with a hundred million at the box, The Italian Job is a big budget, PG-13 popcorn film which includes two spectacularly filmed and ingenious heists. Vehicle chase scenes generally bore me, but this has some of the most original pursuits ever filmed. Sometimes you go to a movie to think a little, and sometimes you just go to see some cool stuff. This belongs to the cool stuff variety.

Yesterday I wrote about The Hard Word, a heist film with totally boring heists and great characters. The Italian Job is not much on characterization or relationships or quirkiness or humor, but the heists and locales are fabulous. Too bad the two films couldn't meet in the middle.

The film begins with the criminal gang breaking into a spectacular palazzo in Venice. From the floor beneath a safe, they do a Wily Coyote and cut a hole in the ceiling above them, so that the massive safe filled with gold comes crashing through several floors. They then flee the scene in a large speedboat, which is ostensibly carrying the safe. The safe's owners pursue in their own boats, in an incredible chase scene which actually seems to have been filmed in Venice. Meanwhile, the safe is not on the boat. It is far underwater, where some safecrackers are opening it and unloading it.

And that's just basically the opening credits.

The first 20 minutes are great fun, and the last 20 are also very cool. Those are the two heists. In between, the characters plan and recruit, and the middle section drags a bit because of some low-energy acting and some poorly defined relationships, but the film is still worth watching for the two heists and the creative chases.

No nudity. Not even close. Film is rated PG-13, but could probably be PG, except for some cartoon violence. There's no problem to take your mom.

• Charlize Theron

THE DON IS DEAD (1973):

Contrary to what you might be assuming, this is not a film about the demise of Mr. Trump. That would be "The Donald is Dead". Nobody knows him well enough to call him "The Don".

The Don is Dead is actually a mob family story which came out in between the two Godfather movies, and shares some elements with The Godfather. For example, our main man, Abe Vigoda, is in this film as well as in The Godfather, and both films feature a single day of orchestrated and synchronized revenge, although there is no accompanying baptism this time.

The Godfather was directed by a 33 year old man who was creating a new Hollywood system. The Don is Dead was directed by a 57 year old man in his 30th year in the industry. Richard Fleischer directed his first film when Coppola was five, and he was truly a product of the old studio system. Most if not all of the urban street scenes in The Don is Dead were filmed on the back lot at Universal Studios, on the same familiar intersections that have appeared in God knows how many other movies. Unlike the beautiful original symphonic compositions in the score for The Godfather, The Don is Dead film has your typical flowery Broadway type of music that one might find in nearly every mainstream Hollywood movie from the studio system era.

And then there's this:

The Godfather: Al Pacino and Marlon Brando.

The Don is Dead: Robert Forster and Zorba the Crook.

In other words, it's the quickie Grade B knockoff version of The Godfather.

The plot of the film can be deduced entirely from the title. A Don dies, a power struggle ensues. Two of the three warring parties make peace, but the Machiavellian consigliere of the third family tricks the leaders of the other two factions into sleeping with the same woman, then finding out about it, so the war resumes until a new permanent order can be determined.

• Angel Tompkins. (1, 2) She showed almost nothing here, but she did do some screen nudity between 1972 and 1975. There is a new volume dedicated to her in the Encyclopedia. Check it out

QUOTE of the DAY: (David Letterman)

“ROY (OF SEIGFRIED & ROY) IS SUCH AN ANIMAL LOVER THAT, EVEN THOUGH HE’D BEEN ATTACKED, HE BEGGED THE STAGEHANDS NOT TO KILL THE TIGER. SO THEY USED TRANQUILIZER DARTS TO BRING THE ANIMAL DOWN, THEN A BUNCH OF GUYS HAULED HIM OFFSTAGE. IT’S THE SAME METHOD THEY USE TO TAKE ARNOLD OFF MOVIE SETS”…

UPDATES:

1. New Angel Tompkins volume

2. Charlie's French Cinema Nudity site is updated.

MAILBOX:

Hey Scoopy. A little while ago, while surfing through channels, I went past VH1 and they were showing a video that caught my attention. The odd part is, I don't remember what the video was called, or even who did it, but I do remember the premise behind the song. It tells of a young boy who is dating a young girl for the sole purpose of being closer to the girl's mom. Now the reason this video is stuck in my head is because, I'm not 100% sure about it, I believe the women playing the girl's mother and the desire of the boy is none other then Rachel Hunter. In the video while obviously there's no nudity, there are a lot of scenes with Rachel in a bikini. Could you check and see if anyone else is aware of this video that I'm talking about and whether or not it is Rachel Hunter in the video, because all I can say is if it is, she's looking very fine these days and would be worth capping.

                ====

Concerning the other crap of 10-09-2003 with the article about Sen. Orrin Hatch wanting to make an amendment to allow Arnold run for President:

Something ran through my head, that I had heard this before, and then I remembered, wasn't that a joke in the 1993 Stallone film Demolition Man?

OTHER CRAP:

• IFILM - Miller Lite Pillow Fight Commercial with Pamela Anderson

• Esquire's article on our fav mouseketeer. Use the Browse button for additional pictures.

• BRITISH sex drug Levitra is giving US rival Viagra a hard time, its makers said yesterday, even helping people who were subject to Viagra Falls. Viagra spokeswoman Emily Bone (that's her real name) said that they were up to the stiff challenge.

• Romania hard at work on Draculaland theme park. There is a temptation to make some biting remarks, but I decided that was a little batty.

• Elle out of rehab, looking good.

• Uma Thurman gets the Oscar for the weirdest nipples

• Every cover of Playboy, from Playboy!

• Carrie-Anne Moss couldn't wait for those Matrix movies to stop filming, so she could start eating. I barely recognized her.

• The latest charges against Courtney Love

• nekkid Dutch sports chicks

• Space and Sex Don't Mix

• "Husbands need sex, and it's a wife's job to provide it - as much as he wants, whenever he wants it. So contends Laura Schlessinger

• Comedy Central's official juggie site

• "The Man Show" Juggies

• The Ten Dorkiest Hobbies. All recommended as birth control methods, because guaranteed to prevent sexual intercourse. For some reason, model railroading wasn't mentioned.

• viewers rate every episode of The Simpsons

• Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning

• tales of a narcoleptic Dachshund

• The 100 Greatest Movie Sequences of all Time

• Princeton Student Sued Over Paper on CD Copying . He is being sued for, among other things, telling people that they can defeat copy protection software by pressing the shift key.

• Gray Davis, who lost his job to Arnold Schwarzenegger in a landslide on Tuesday, will appear on the 'Late Show with David Letterman' this Friday to present the show's regular Top Ten List. "

• Detective Describes Alleged Rape by Kobe Bryant

• More on the Kobe hearing

• The Arnold recall election already receiving funding. Ya gotta love California. Even people in Italy must find California politics bewildering.

• Total Recall Aftermath: Mary Carey will make a porn movie called Mary Carey for Governor, costarring Ron Jeremy as fellow failed gubernatorial candidate Cruz Bustamante. I don't rent many porn movies, about one every 30 years, but I may take a look at that one.

• Arnold WINS! Political cartoons featuring the Governator.

• food and snack related Halloween costumes

• The humor of the legendary Bill Hicks.

• Classic Videogame Ads. Fascinating stuff

• Scary Sound Effects for Halloween

• Daryl Hannah says she'll sue Playboy.

• Bookies taking bets on Nobel Peace Prize Dubya is a 200-1 long shot. The Pope is 5-2.

• The country of Norway owns a monopoly on televised porn. My kind of politicians.

• Weekly World News: old people endangering lives playing wheelchair chicken

• 'Ghettopoly' game causes outrage: "Black leaders are outraged over a new board game called 'Ghettopoly' that has 'playas' acting like pimps and game cards reading, 'You got yo whole neighborhood addicted to crack. Collect $50.' "

• This year's "Hot Dozen" toy list for Christmas

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

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.

Stir Crazy (1980) is not exactly my cup of tea, mainly because my sense of humor excludes anything done by Gene Wilder. Even The Producers, sad to say. Always felt as though Mr. Wilder was trying so hard to make us laugh that he might as well as just point a gun at a puppy dog and threaten to shoot it if we didn't offer up a chuckle or two. But I was looking at some VHS caps by Oz of Stir Crazy and it sure did look like JoBeth Williams unintentionally showed one of her mini-hooties in that movie.

Lo and behold, Oz was right. And on DVD you can see some stuff, even though JoBeth was one of the least exuberantly endowed female stars of stage and screen. Here's a collage of the exposure. If'n you're interested in seeing it in live-action, the scene comes about 2/3rds the way through the movie, right after the strip club scene.

• JoBeth Williams

Speaking of which, here are three uncredited strippers from the club scene. First one is very nicely built and the other two are pretty appealing.

• Stripper #1
• Stripper #2
• Stripper #3

Now, I was wondering about something. I've visited a strip club or two in maybe a dozen states, the District of Columbia, Canada, a few European countries and Australia. Part of a sociological study of how men act at these places, mind you. And in none of them, except for a kick-ass place in Melbourne, Australia, have I seen guys who were whooping it up or women in the audience who were enjoying themselves.

Yet every damn strip club I've ever seen in a movie has guys a-hollerin' and acting all worked up, and gals who were smilin' and havin' a right good time. So, I was wondering, do you think anyone who has ever made a stripper movie has ever been to a strip club?

Jr's Note...Brain, any time you want to see guys a-hollerin' and more importantly gals having fun at a strip club, come see us down here in Texas :-)

Okay, then I have a batch of paparazzi things, including a new collage of Mariah Carey in another dress that just manages to keep the twins in.

• Beatriz Rico, the Spanish actress topless at the beach.

• Gabrielle Union, wearing a very lo-cut dress

• Holly Valance, the Aussie actress in an "interesting" outfit.

• Kate Hudson, no skin, but is there a more photogenic face?

• Majandra Delfino, the co-star of the TV series "Roswell" showing some leg and wearing a very lo-cut dress.

• Marieh Delfino, Majandra's older sister and co-star of the recent semi-hit "Jeepers Creepers II" showing a partial breast view.

• Maria Menounos, the Entertainment Tonight correspondent having trouble keeping the goodies in her dress.

• Mariah Carey, the usual cleavage.

"Boat Trip"
An occasionally funny 2002 comedy which could have been really funny, but wasn't.

Two straight guys are booked on a gay cruise by a ticked-off travel agent. They're going on the cruise to find single women; boy are they on the wrong cruise. Things get more interesting when the Swedish Suntanning Team gets picked up on a life raft. Then one of our heros falls for the female dance instructor, who of course thinks he's "safe" because he's gay.

See, all the elements are there for a funny comedy, but somewhere along the line, they missed the boat (trip).

Even with all this, seeing the tanning team do jumping jacks is probably worth the price of admission. Some nice see-through outfits on Roselyn Sanchez, and some great bikini and bra/panty scenes by Victoria Silvstedt made it more worthwhile.

• Victoria Silvstedt
• Roselyn Sanchez
• Assorted Swedish Bikini Team members

ARNOLD FREEZES MOVIE CAREER BUT STAYS IN L.A.
Like Steven Seagal? - Immediately after being elected governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger gave up his movie career, at least temporarily. He said, "There won't be any time for movies and other things" because he has "much work" and "work and moviemaking don't mix."