Afterglow (1997) is a comedy/drama/romance that focuses on two couples. The first is Nick Nolte, a handyman who satisfies his housewife clients every need with the permission of wife Julie Christie, former B actress. The two are clearly bound together by love, but there relationship is no longer sexual, and some tragic event in their past was the cause. The other couple are yuppies Jonny Lee Miller and Lara Flynn Boyle. He is a highly successful businessman obsessed by having the perfect house, perfect wife, perfect music, and nothing to complicate his life. She wants a baby, and hires Nolte to remodel and create a kid's room.

Boyle and Nolte get together, and then Christie goes on a weekend business trip with Miller out of revenge. We see Boyle's breasts in an indoor pool sex scene with Nolte. IMDB readers have this at 6.2 of 10. Ebert and Berardinelli both praised it and awarded 3 stars. While I was also impressed with the performances and liked the characters, I didn't find the story either amusing or engaging. US gross was $2.44M. The Montreal locations looked great, and the transfer was top notch, but the DVD was devoid of extra features. This is a C.

Lipstick (1976):

SPOILERS:

The few people who have seen Lipstick remember it vividly, even though they probably saw it many decades ago. It's a story about the rape of a supermodel, and the trial of the rapist. Although the realism of the rape can't be compared to some more recent films like Irreversible, it was all too realistic by 1976 standards, and it triggered a debate over whether the graphic portrayal of the rape scene was necessary to create revulsion for the rapist, or was simply melodramatic exploitation designed to fulfill the dominance fantasies of male members of the audience. Was it a turn-on or a turn-off?

Women, even feminist women, were divided on the question. Many female intellectuals felt that the movie was pure cheesy exploitation, while others felt that the film accurately and importantly portrayed two ancillary aspects of the rape:

• The marketing of sex in our society that paints women like prostitutes and makes men think of women as sexual objects.
• The process by which a rape trial may humiliate the victim as much or more than the rape itself.

The supermodel was raped by her little sister's unstable music teacher. At the request of the student/sister, he had come to their apartment to play them some of his unique synthesized compositions, which were basically eerie sounds combining abstract modern music with ambient noise. The phone rang while he was playing his music for the supermodel, and she used the phone call as an excuse to get away from the cacophony. He took that departure as a grave insult, and his burning anger turned to brutality.

The woman reported the crime, went to trial, experienced all the attendant humiliation, then heard the jury say "not guilty". Back out on the streets and not satisfied to lie low after his lucky break, the rapist took the first available opportunity to rape the supermodel's 13 year old sister. When that second rape happened during a photo shoot, the supermodel, still wearing an elegant ball gown, went out to her car, got a big game rifle, and avenged her sister by gunning the rapist down like an animal in the streets of L.A. In a postscript, the audience was told that she was found "not guilty" in her own trial.

That sounds improbable and melodramatic, but probably not totally foolish, right?

Wrong.

It was totally foolish, for several reasons:

• The supermodel was played by a genuine supermodel, Margaux Hemingway, the face of Babe perfume. The critics excoriated her performance. Looking back on it now and trying to remain objective, I don't think that she did a bad acting job, certainly not by supermodel standards, but Margaux seemed worthy of ridicule because she had a hilarious cartoon voice that sounded quite a bit like quacking, and she also had a pronounced speech impediment. She did have some weak line readings, but in some other scenes she seemed quite convincing, especially in the scenes with her sister. That didn't really matter, given her voice. Imagine a brutal, realistic rape drama in which the beautiful victim talks like Donald Duck, and you'll see why the critics had a field day with Margaux. Even with the extreme gravity of the subject matter, it is not easy to suppress laughter when Margaux is speaking. Her voice, the film's melodrama, and the turgid dialogue could be viewed as ultra-high camp if it were about some subject other than rape.
• Some scenes just came out of nowhere. Before the last day of the trial, Margaux was at home asleep. She picked up her phone, and heard some of the music teacher's weird, discordant compositions. The camera then cut to the other side of the call, revealing the naked music teacher, holding the receiver to a speaker. I suppose that could have been worked into the plot somehow, but it wasn't. The scene existed in complete isolation. The next scene took place in court the next day, and nobody spoke of the phone call again.
• A big game rifle? She was "the hottest model in the world". I suppose some L.A. supermodels at that level might keep a loaded big game rifle in their car, but I'd have to figure the percentage is pretty low. Of course, they were heading to the mountains and Margaux's last name was Hemingway, so I suppose it was a family tradition.
• What could have been her legal defense when she killed the guy? I know that the scriptwriter wanted to see her get off, but the film should have ended with her standing over the body in her ball gown, still pointing her rifle. (Ending it there would have been more cinematic as well.) Her slaying of the rapist was premeditated, calculated murder, and to make it more egregious, she was firing off round after round in a parking lot and then on a major thoroughfare in downtown L.A., oblivious to passers-by. It was only by sheer chance that she didn't kill fifty people, because Mr Rapist was driving a car. After she fired the first two shots, the rapist's car went out of control into a city street and flipped over. Yes, of course the guy deserved what he got, but that's no legal defense.

I did learn something from this movie. The D.A. played a sample of the rapist's music for the jury. Everyone in the courtroom was instantly able to conclude that a man is capable of murder if he can create sounds consisting of a synthesizer and ocean noises. I hadn't thought of that before, but it's hard to disagree. The police should go to all the candle shops in America, pick up those "noises of nature" tapes, and add the authors to their database of usual suspects.

The two stars of the film were virtually destroyed by it.

• Margaux took such a critical lambasting that she was offered only two roles in the next seven years, and one of those was a minor part in a bad movie of legendary status (They Call Me Bruce?). Despondent over her failing career fortunes and two bad marriages, she suffered through a mammoth weight gain, substance abuse, and bankruptcy. She was living in a small apartment over a garage in Santa Monica, when she was found dead in 1996 at the age of 41. As reported by CNN, the L.A. Coroner ruled that she committed suicide. Suicide is another Hemingway tradition. Ernest Hemingway himself committed suicide, as did his brother, sister and father. Margaux's sister Mariel disputes the suicide conclusion in Margaux's case, arguing that Margaux seems to have suffered an epileptic seizure exacerbated by her substance abuse. Mariel's position is that Margaux was a drama queen who would have left a suicide note, and that she was found with her legs propped on a pillow and a book in her lap, a condition not indicative of suicide.
• The film's rapist, Chris Sarandon (Susan's ex), had been in only one movie before Lipstick, and had been nominated for an Oscar in that debut! By virtue of that fact, he had to have been considered one of the hottest young stars in Hollywood before this movie. The tawdry Lipstick cooled him down and he never recovered. His first film was to remain his only Oscar nomination. Lipstick was not a good choice for his follow-up project.

There was one success story in Lipstick. Margaux's real younger sister, Mariel, played her younger sister in the film as well, and did such a good job that she launched a highly successful acting career. Her very next role was a major part in one of the best films in history (Manhattan). Mariel is a remarkably normal person, or at least as normal as anyone can be, considering her family's tragic history. The suicides only scratch the surface of the pain and despondency which run through her family, and Mariel has succeeded despite enduring enough sorrow for twenty lifetimes.

• Thumbnails
• Margaux Hemingway (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15)
• There is also a new Encyclopedia volume for Margaux. She never reached the Lipstick level of nudity again, but showed some goodies in three more films. Plus she never wore a bra and fell out of her dress regularly at Studio 54 and elsewhere.

MAILBOX:

Scoop: Someone wrote you and asked about a new music video starring Rachel Hunter…  The band is named Fountains Of Wayne.  The song is called Stacy’s Mom. And it IS Rachel Hunter, looking great. The last scene is straight from the masturbation scene from Fast Times. There are also scenes paying homage to Lolita. Here is the link: http://www.s-curverecords.com/fow/video_stacysmom.htm

Thanks to the dozens of guys who answered the music video question. Thank god you guys know more about this stuff than I do.

OTHER CRAP:

• Daily Rotten: Weird News

• URL says it all: IncrediblyStrangeWrestling.com

• The awesome animation of Clutch Cargo

• Youth gets 6 months prison for having sex with camel. One hump or two?

• Aljazeera.Net - Siegfried and Roy show to go on. Al-Jazeera has a celebrity gossip page?

• Red Sox Fans Try to Exorcise Ruth Demons: "Chris Sobotka, wearing a Red Sox cap, walked up to Babe Ruth's grave and offered the Bambino - dead 55 years now - an ice cold 12-ounce bribe." Unfortunately, it was a Pabst, and the Babe extended the curse another 85 years.

• Dave Barry's take on the Marlins

• Kama Sutra sex position generator

• Texas makes heroism illegal. I can't remember the Alamo. Or the Maine, for that matter.

• Mouseketeer thinks the pictures are too naked and is really angry at Esquire

• Rush Limbaugh Admits Addiction to Painkillers, will check into rehab. He noted that his dope dealer isn't really that good, and is highly overrated because he's black.

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.

First up, here are today's paparazzi and TV thingees.

• Jessica Simpson, the pop-starlet doing what she does best...showing off her cleavage.

• Kari Wuhrer, the new, no-more-implants Kari.

• Kate Beckinsale...good lord is this woman stunning. Here she is on "Last Call".

• Kate Bosworth on Leno.

Then we have caps from two Asian Movies. Two nekkid babes. Only one of them Asian.

The non-Asian, Caucasian-type nekkid person is Sophia Crawford in Beauty Investigator. This is a movie in which three Asian honeys kick the living crap out of a bunch of folk, a movie in which everyone in Hong Kong does the kung fu fighting song, but a movie in which only Sophia gives up the goodies. If I have this right, Sophia did the stunts for the Pink Power Ranger... so when the mask is on, that's Sophia. Here she shows a muscular bum and some hooties in the shower.

The title is misleading. He who is being investigated is no beauty and so there is some reason to suspect the Investigators are not charged with investigating Beauty, itself. Instead, me thinks the title should be Beautiful Investigators. Yep, that's what me thinks.

• Sophia Crawford

A true Asian beauty is Loletta Lee.

Ever see Volunteers? Movie that Tom Hanks did with his wife and John Candy and the guy who played Long Duck Dong in Sixteen Candles or Pretty in Pink? Can never keep them straight. Anyway, there's an Asian woman named Lucille in the movie who, predictably enough, pronounces it Rucirre. Same person must have named Loletta. And sure enough, I've seen her credited as Loretta in a place or two.

In Crazy Love, Loletta plays a rebellious Hong Kong teenager who does an Emmanuelle-like tour of the island rather than jet off to Europe. You see her in a whole bunch of scenes without some clothing. You got your shower scene and your sport-humpin scenes and your clothes-changing scene. Mainly you get to see Loletta's hooters, but they work in some bum and two frames of bush. And it's all here for y'all.

I kept the captioning for the last collage because it catches the flavor of the movie so very well. Either the screenwriter (or the translator) is strung-out whacko, or he is a comic genius with a gift for understatement. My money is on possibility #1

• Loletta Lee (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16)

Re: the question about Arnold and "Demolition Man," this is from today's NY Post, Page Six column:

PUMPING IRONY
THE political career of Arnold Schwarzengger was predicted in a 1993 movie, "Demolition Man," in which Sylvester Stallone plays an ex-cop put in a 36-year deep freeze for manslaughter. Touring Los Angeles of the future with a cop played by Sandra Bullock, Sly says: "Hold it! The Schwarzenegger Library?" Sandra: "Yes, the Schwarzenegger Presidential Library. Wasn't he an actor?" Sly: "Stop! He was the president?" Sandra: "Yes. Even though he was not born in this country, his popularity at the time caused the 61st Amendment." The audience laughed in 1993, but no one's laughing now.

ARNOLD PREPARES TO TAKE OVER
Didn't California Vote For Gore? - Arnold Schwarzenegger began his first days as governor-elect by declaring that California gets only 77 cents back for every tax dollar sent to Washington, so he will call President Bush and demand federal aid. He said he looks forward to working with Bush "and asking him for a lot -- a lot -- of favors."