Julie Christie in "Don't Look Now"

Sorry to say that Tomcat didn't have much luck with the TV reception on this one. By the way, there is supposed to be an unrated version of this scene which shows Sutherland going down on Christie. I have seen scans of the scene, but have never encountered the actual print, nor seen vidcaps. This version is not especially revealing, and the quality is pretty much unsatisfactory, but naked Julie Christie, however dark and fuzzy, is better than lack thereof.

Anyway, here's the collage

If These Walls Could Talk 2 (1999)

Three eras, same house, always populated by women of the ... um ... sisterhood. If only these walls could talk.

Yeah, the premise sounds pretty lame, doesn't it? The film, actually three short films, is pretty good.

Do you remember those educational films they showed you in school. Instead of talking about the Battle of Hastings, they showed you a historicallyt accurate story and you were able to swallow the bitter pill of education in convenient chewable baby aspirin form. This movie is the same kind of deal. None of the three stories taken alone will challenge the memory of O. Henry, and I don't think future generations will find them anthologized, like "A Rose for Emily", but they are not without merit, and they contain plenty of illumination, and some fine performances..

I guess I never thought of these issues. When lesbians live together for fifty years, and one of them dies, the other has no rights to access the possessions of the deceased. The things they shared together for all those years probably become the property of the relatives of the deceased, and will be stripped of their emotional meaning.

When one partner goes to the hospital, the nurses say to the other "sorry, you can't see her, family only". And so forth.

I think we tend to view lesbians as some kind of homogeneous group, but they are all unique, and within their community they have as many internecine squabbles as we have in the heterosexual community. They have spent their lives as pariahs because they are different, yet if one of their own is different from them, they shun and ridicule her just as cruelly as society ridicules them.

This is not something that is unique to lesbians, but is a sad indictment of the human race in general, isn't it? Our own resentment and pain from the prejudice directed against us rarely seems to make us any more tolerant, and we in turn mete out resentment and pain when we have the floor.

A movie like this has to engage your mind this way, and not just your heart. If they just show that lesbians are sympathetic and human characters, that doesn't touch us. After all, we are aware that it's all fiction, and they can make all the characters as sympathetic or unsympathetic as they want them to be. But when they show the real issues applied in real situations, there is no turning away from them. They aren't made up. We can see that's the way it really would be.

Anyway, I was forced to swallow the medicine of issues that I wouldn't normally think about, and I got to do it in the convenient pill form of stories and bare breasts, so I have no complaints. It's an OK rental.

The third story, with Degeneres and Stone is a very weak story with little to engage your mind or heart, and is held together solely by the charm and energy of the performers, mostly Sharon (Anne Heche directed this segment, by the way). The first story, with Vanessa Redgrave, has no nudity but in my opinion is the most literate, the most touching, the best acted, and the most thought-provoking.

I also learned one more thing from this movie. I also learned that Chloe Sevigny and James Spader are the same person.

Four women showed some bare breasts: Michelle Williams, Chloe Sevigny, Sharon Stone, Ellen Degeneres. I concentrated more on Stone and Degeneres because so many top guys have already done Williams and Sevigny in great depth. To see much, much more of everything, search for Tuna's column a few days ago in the back issues.

IMDB summary: 7.1 out of 10.

DVD info from Amazon.

Scoop's comments: I don't know if Brazil has the best looking women in the world, but I've been in most corners of the world, and Brazil would have to rank in my personal top five. In this hemisphere, the only legitimate competitor I can think of would be Venezuela, but Venezuela is a small country and there are just so many beautiful Brazilians to see. Unfortunately, don't get your hopes up too high, because the country is also filled with handsome, tanned, buff young men, so the competition is fierce.

If you are a young man on the prowl, a better bet is Eastern Europe, where the women are gorgeous and the men look like members of ZZTop.

(Responding to Scoops' comments from yesterday) I certainly wouldn't overrate the significance of the "International Flanders Film Festival". It's not an insignificant minor event - otherwise foreign stars wouldn't attend it -, but it's not a major event either. This year the festival opened with the film "Titus" and we have Molly Ringwald on the jury and Morgan Freeman as one of the guests. In the past we already had Karl Malden and Melanie Griffith to name only a few. A nomination only, no prize, in such an event doesn't mean much IMHO. The aim of the festival is more to help "the more difficult" ( read non-commercial film ) to get a release in theatres. The most important part of the festival is the Joseph Plateau prize for best Belgian production, director etc... What puzzles me more is "The Golden Spur". To be honest I never heard of it and I can't find anything about it on the festival's official website ( found through the link in the IMDb ), not in Dutch, not in English ! Maybe this is an unofficial name that is used abroad because I don't remember a prize in the media over here being called golden spur ( Gulden Sporen ). I'll be very attentive next week when the prizes will be announced.

Golden Spur would refer to the battle of the golden spurs which took place on July 11, 1302 when some 600 Flemish peasants made about 4000 French knights on horses bite the dust, or rather the mud, killing most of them and taking their golden spurs. This day is now the semi-official public holiday of Flanders and somewhat a symbol of the ongoing battle that the people in Flanders always had to wage in order to defend their region and language against the dominance of the French and the French language.

Just a few thoughts. Titus is only released now in Europe, in the US it's already available on DVD, luckily still without Warner's Region Code Enhancement. Who knows if there's ever going to be a region 2 edition. Those region codes suck and create some kind of cultural discrimination. No-one sees any harm in ordering books or CD's in another country if you can't find them in your own country, but when films are concerned the big companies suddenly see it as some kind of criminal behavior. Why is there no government that takes action against those big production companies ? I'm talking about "The Patriot" of course, which is also available on VHS. Most VCR's in Europe can play NTSC on PAL tv's, so it's alright to see The Patriot on VHS but not on DVD. I can't see the logic in all this. Time to end this message, I think I've ranted enough now ;-)

I hope to bring a new contribution somewhere next week. My archives are finally sorted out and filed properly again. It took me much longer than I expected.

Regards, ICMS

You have to love any festival in which the main screening theater is called the DecaSCOOP - "10 Scoop's", if my Flemish is up to speed. Flanders may be a smaller place than the United States, but we only have two Scoopy's here, and must bow to your ten. Actually 11, because there is also a "Studio Skoop" theater, named after me, I suppose. I assume they are paying me back for my fine contribution to the cause of Flemish film nudity. I must say I am honored. I hope they will screen "Roadhouse" and "For Your Height Only", in my honor. (Dubbed into Flemish, of course). Tell them I will come to Ghent personally to discuss these movies in "Studio Skoop", as Tarantino does in Austin with his favorite films.

Actually, all joking aside, the festival covers nearly two weeks and screens about every movie ever made. I looked at the calendar for today alone, and they were screening about ten new films and about thirty from film history - 10 from Denmark alone.

Sadly, the tiny Baltic Republic of Estonia was again ignored. Perhaps on one of the other days .....