'Caps and comments by Tuna

A week and a half ago, they performed a cardioversion, and zapped me into normal rhythm. I can now walk without getting winded, and have surprised my cardiologist by staying in normal rhythm so far. I still have a fatigue problem, probably caused by the medication I am still on, but am well enough to get on with my life. Thank you to everyone who sent well-wishes -- they really helped. As a good friend recently said, getting old is not for sissies.

You I love (Ya lyublu tebya) (2004)

This is a Russian film billed as "One of the hottest gay movies you will see this year." That is a rather safe statement, as I do not watch many gay movies. Fortunately, this film is about a menage a trois among two men and a woman. Moscow newscaster Lyubov Tolkalina comes home to discover her boyfriend, ad exec Evgeny Koryakovsky, in bed with a young Kalmyk day worker, played by Damir Badmaev. The film contrasts the exotic, simple and poor worker, with the modern Moscow sophisticates.

 IMDb readers have this at 7.9 of 10. It received an award from The New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival as best foreign film, and even the Village Voice liked it. The love story holds its own, but the glimpse of the new capitalist Russia and the racial subtext are at least as fascinating, although there were cultural overtones that I am sure I missed. It is in Russian with rather good subtitles. As it is shown outside of Russia mostly to gay audiences, we will agree that the genre is gay films, earning it a B. Even if you dislike most films with a gay theme, you might well enjoy this one.

Highlights include the sex scenes and a rather bizarre make-over for Tolkalina that involves electric shock. Tolkalina shows all three Bs, and is very easy to look at.

Modern Problems (1981)

Modern Problems is, in many ways, a typical Chevy Chase effort, minus Beverly D'Angelo. Chevy plays Max, a harried air traffic controller who is insanely jealous of everyone and everything, which lost him his first wife, and has driven his current love interest Patty D'Arbanville to move out. Toxic waste gives him telekinetic powers to use against the likes of  Dabney Coleman as an egotistical author, and  Mitch Kreindel as a producer who is spending time with Patty. The film reaches critical mass at the home of  Brian Doyle-Murray, an old High School friend who is now in a wheel chair and is seeing Max's ex wife, Mary Kay Place.

While there are a few scattered laughs, the humorous highlight is Nell Carter as a Port-O-Prince voodoo priestess and housekeeper to Brian Doyle-Murray. The nudity is a single nipple from D'Arbanville while Max is giving her multiple orgasms without touching her, using his powers.

Many of the characters are likeable, and Coleman is brilliant as the resident asshole, but this is not enough to elevate this film above the C- level. IMDb readers have it at 4.6. While fans of Chase will want to see it, most will think of it as a waste of time, even at a short 89 minutes.

Welcome back to Tuna, the Sultan of Stills, the Viscount of Vidcaps, the King of Kollages.

Write Tuna here, if you like.

Domino (2005)

If you believe the critics, this Tony Scott film is wretched, all rock video sizzle, no steak.

Be that as it may, Keira Knightley has a brief topless scene, so its got that goin' for it.. At this point there are no captures better than these. We'll keep an eye open for a screener, but don't hold your breath. This time of year they press screeners so the academy members can see all the Oscar hopefuls. They really don't make any comparable effort to win Razzies!

Evil Ambitions (1996)

This film is also knows as Satanic Yuppies.

How many times have you watched an overblown, overproduced studio production like Coppola's "Dracula" and thought to yourself "I could make a better movie than that in my basement with my friends"? Well, the makers of this film thought the same thing. These are the same people that made that enduring salute to The Bard, "Live Nude Shakespeare", and the deeply touching "Chickboxin' Underground." In this case, they took a few grand and made a homemade video which is basically an r-rated version of an old Night Stalker episode. (The reporter character is even named McGavin).

That was a solid concept, and believe it or not, they started with decent script. Beneath the shabby production values and amateurish execution, the plot is coherent, some of the characters are interesting, and there are some very funny lines.

High priestess: "Do you take Satan to be your lawful spouse, in richer and even richer ..... etc"

Bound and gagged victim: (makes fearful struggling noises)

High priestess: "I'll take that as a yes"

The Kolchak-like reporter has some pretty good wisecracks of his own, and Satan himself is funny, not classically menacing, but the ultimate achievement-oriented corporate guy, kind of similar to the Christian Bale role in American Psycho. Real movie companies, with real budgets, have filmed worse scripts than this. Much worse.

The film had a second strength. Eight reasonably attractive women were willing to remove their tops for the camera.

So it was a good guilty pleasure movie, right?

Sadly not. The film's two potential strengths were cancelled out by poor execution

• The script is OK for a few laughs, but that is spoiled by a succession of cheap gimmicks which padded an hour's worth of material to 90 minutes. (Like showing an entire wordless modeling session and some satanic rituals in near-actual time, to no point.) As a 60 minute film, this script would be tight. At its existing length, it drags. The script is also ruined by amateur actors who can't sell the humor. How bad is the acting? Let's just say this is the one movie to go to if you really love the acting style in porno films, but don't actually like porn. Most of the characters deliver their lines either with exaggerated high school histrionics or in the same flat monotone that you'd expect from local furniture store owners reading their own TV commercials off cue cards. Of course, furniture store dudes usually manage to deliver the lines without any inexplicable pauses. These actors pause at completely inappropriate times, as if waiting for the cue card guy to flip to the next page. For example, the pause in "We still have tonight's ... (pause) ... activities to arrange" was delivered with no sense of irony or menace, but simply as if she couldn't remember the next word. (NOTE: the guy who plays Satan is an exception. He was awesome! Very slick, and very funny.)

• The women remove their tops, but that is also spoiled by poor execution. The lighting is funky and too dark. The colors all blend into one another. The focus is often blurred. The audio and video quality of this DVD are not just bad by DVD standards. They would be bad by VHS standards. It is not even at the audio and video quality of good home movies. In fact, the full-screen DVD looks like one of those direct VHS-to-DVD transfers you can make at home to preserve your old video tapes.

With the film's two strengths negated by other elements, its weaknesses stand out in stark relief. The fight scenes involve people falling off-camera. The special effects consist of people leaning backward. The camera movement consists of tilting the camera at an angle, ala 1960's Bat-cam. The vivid realism of the make-up/wardrobe department features an Ohio gubernatorial candidate with a pony tail.

As you will soon see, the film quality really wasn't suitable for making collages. The thumbnails look OK, but the full sized captures are pigs. In the following stills note that there is also a stark naked woman providing full frontal nudity behind Glori-Anne Gilbert in the first still. I don't know who she is.

Amy Ballard
Glori-Anne Gilbert
Lucy Frasure
Kindra Laub
Dakota Summers
Katie Wilke
Unknown

Here I am again with 4 clips of Belgian beauty Natacha Amal. (1, 2, 3, 4)  I promised you that she would get much hotter, and so happens in the Italian movie "Gialloparma" (1999). The film itself is supposed to deal with Natacha's character coming back to her home town of Parma to take revenge on the city's dignitaries who sexually abused her during her youth. Director Alberto Bevilacqua, who also wrote the book this film is based upon, made a complete mess out of this one. Nothing in this film seems to make any sense.

This flick is rated 3.6/10 based on 7 votes in the IMDb which is in fact generous, considering the fact that 4 out of those 7 people only awarded it 1. There is only one review of this film in the IMDb as well, and it couldn't reflect my opinion any better: "Parma ham is far better."

My clips come from an Italian TV-version that runs for 117 minutes. In France there is a DVD available of Gialloparma, with a topless Natacha on the cover, that runs only 89 minutes and with the very French sounding title "Scandalous Crimes" or should that be Skahndaloose Cream? I'd say avoid this film at all cost and just enjoy these film clips with a triple B performance by a sometimes noisy Mrs. Amal, for they are the only point of interest in this failure.

Last Man Standing is an Aussie serial drama, self-described as follows:  "Last Man Standing follows the odyssey of Adam, Cameron and Bruno; their quest to get inside the head of the modern woman, find out where they went wrong in previous relationships and what they're going to do right next time."

Well, isn't that special!

At any rate. Here are three women who have given it up for the team.

Susan Godfrey
Peta Sargent
Miriama Smith

Yesterday we finished up "The Godson" so today we take a look at the second movie on that Something Weird DVD "Below the Belt"

What better way to kick it off than with Rene Bond who has become a legend of this"Skin Flick" era. This is Rene before her boob job, sexy as always as she gives it all up in a kind off rough sex scene with her boy friend. You can play the "Spot the Tool" game in this set.

Then we have Mira Madnadraszky who goes full frontal.

Is there more ?. You bet, see you tomorrow.

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Here are the latest movie reviews available at scoopy.com.

MIRACLE BROADCAST ON "TODAY SHOW"
Ernie Kovacs Lives - Friday, a classic blooper occurred on NBC's "Today Show," when Michelle Kosinski reporting live from a New Jersey flood, sitting in a canoe.  Two men walked in front of her, revealing that the water was only about four inches deep.  Anchor Matt Lauer struggled to keep a straight face, asking, "Are these holy men, perhaps, walking on top of the water?"  Ironically, it aired just before a story accusing the White House of staging President Bush's telechat with soldiers in Iraq.

*  It accused them of trying it make it seem like Bush walks on water.
*  The White House shouldn't stage news events!  That should be left to professional journalists!
*  Count on TV to provide you with shallow reporting.
*  It's New Jersey...Those guys were just stepping on the floating bodies of dead mobsters.



SCHOOL BANS CHARLIE DANIELS SONG
The Devil You Say! - The marching band at Hylton High School in Woodbridge, Virginia, was told they can't play "The Devil Went Down To Georgia" anymore after the school got one letter from the parents of some home-schooled students, complaining it violated the separation of church and state.

*  If I could find a church where they sang "The Devil Went Down To Georgia," I'd convert.
*  They think it's a Satanist hymn.
*  Besides, when the school marching band played it, it sounded like Hell.
*  Instead, they suggested "When the Saints Go Marchin' In."
*  They're just jealous because their two home-schooled kids have a lousy marching band.



JESUS POKER CHIPS
Don't Gamble With Your Soul - An Arkansas Christian gift company called Kerusso is cashing in on the poker craze by marketing "Faith Chips," gaming chips with Bible quotes on them.  They include "Jesus went all-in for you," "Ante up and give your heart to Him" and "Accept Jesus before you cash in your chips."  Company founder Vic Kennett denies that they encourage gambling, saying the chips are just a personal way to evangelize.  For instance, you might leave one at a restaurant with the tip.

*  Or leave one that says, "The love of money is the root of all evil" instead of a tip.
*  You can also leave one at the Pearly Gates when St. Peter sends you to Hell.
*  How about one that reads, "What would Jesus do?  Hold 'em or fold 'em?"
*  Jesus fed the multitudes on just one loaf of bread and two fish, so He also inspired the 99-cent Las Vegas buffet.



MORE TIME AT SEX THAN AT CHURCH  (CAREFUL! NOTE SUBJECT!)
Does Screwing The French Count? - A study by Geo Wissen magazine found that on average, Germans spend six weeks of their lives having sex, including 16 hours having orgasms.  But they spend six months in traffic jams, nine months doing laundry and ironing, and 24 years, 4 months sleeping.  But they do spend just two weeks on religious activities, one third the time they spend on sex.

*  They're praying for more sex.
*  They never get beyond "Be fruitful and multiply."
*  When they get to the gates of Heaven, they'll try to claim the 16 hours of orgasms as a religious experience.
*  Germans are so efficient, you'd think they'd be having sex during the traffic jams.
*  How did they categorize priests who were having sex at church?



DISCUSSING ART RELIEVES CONSTIPATION
Art Equals Crap - A researcher at Ersta Skoendal University College in Stockholm had 20 women around 80 years old gather once a week for four months to look at various works of art and discuss them.  She said their attitudes and creativity improved, their blood pressure went down, and oddly, they needed fewer laxatives and suffered less constipation.

*  They soiled their pants at the very sight of what passes for art these days.
*  Maybe they just felt more creative because they were less constipated.
*  And all it took was discussing art over a gigantic fruit plate.



"NANCY AND TONYA: THE OPERA"
Soap Opera - Next spring, Tufts University will debut a new musical work, "Nancy and Tonya: The Opera."  Librettist Elizabeth Searle wrote it using actual quotes from the scandal surrounding Olympic skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding, and called it "the classic envy story."  Searle said, "Girls in America are either raised to be Tonyas or Nancys.  I think any girl can relate to these two women and what they went through."

*  She's right: you're either the beautiful, popular girl, or the girl who wants to break her kneecaps.
*  Theater critics will be crying, "Why?! Why?! Why?!"
*  Didn't the Tonya Harding story already get told in that "Jerry Springer" opera?
*  It's like "Aida," with the emphasis on "Aaaaiiiiieeee!!!!"



BARBIE FASHIONS FOR GROWN-UPS
Fashion Models Can Wear Actual Barbie Clothes - Mattel is expanding the Barbie line to include designer clothes and accessories for adult women. They've signed deals with top designers such as Anna Sui and Anya Hindmarch to create lines of high-end Barbie-inspired clothes, such as $176 jeans with pink stitching, for "fasionista" women aged teen through 30s.  Mattel said the adult Barbie fashions are "aspirational": when little girls see a teen or twenty-something carrying an Anya Hindmarch Barbie bag, it will reinforce Barbie as cool and relevant.

*  Relevant to who, Melania Trump?
*  At least until they see a fortysomething woman carrying it.
*  Nobody will tell her, but the thirtysomething Barbie looks fat in thosejeans.
*  It's for women who don't think about the price because "math is hard."
*  It will teach little girls to aspire to wearing overpriced clothes and having big plastic boobs.



WOMEN KNIFE-FIGHT OVER MICROWAVE SOUP
Campbell's Kids - In Tamarac, Florida, two young female Walgreen's drug store employees got into an argument over which one got to use the break room microwave to heat her soup first, and one grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the other in the abdomen.  They wrestled over the knife, each getting cut, until the manager broke it up.  Both were treated, and the stabber was arrested.  A sheriff's spokesman said, "They didn't get along to begin with."

*  They were always cutting each other down.
*  Most retail store employees just stab each other in the back.
*  At least now, nobody is fighting over who gets to use the kitchen knife.



OVERSEXED STATUES SELL BIG  (CAREFUL! NOTE SUBJECT!)
Wealthy Gay Russians - German artist Jonathan Meese is getting rich by charging over $600,000 (US) to create bronze statues of wealthy Russian businessmen with huge penises and six testicles.  He hit on the idea as a way of expressing virility and has already sold three of them.  Meese said the first wealthy Russian who asked for one to decorate his country house didn't flinch at the price.  He added, "Russians have learnt to appreciate the arts."

*  Well, they don't know much about art, but they know what they like.
*  It would take bronze testicles to display a statue like that.
*  Any man who gets rich in Russia probably DOES have six testicles.
*  This is what Russian men think they look like, after drinking enough vodka.
*  Bill Clinton ordered one with 12 testicles and six penises.



NEW VIDEO GAME SPARKS CONTROVERSY
Just Like Being There! - A controversial new video football game called "Blitz: The League" debuts today.  It lets players attack and maim
opponents, take drugs to keep playing while injured and send virtual hookers to their opponents' hotels to tire them out.  It is not approved by the NFL.

*  Well, the video game isn't...
*  This is an entirely fictional league where the players behave better.
*  It's true: video games just keep getting more and more realistic.



CRAIG IS NEW 007
The Man With The Golden Tapshoes - Friday, the James Bond movie producers confirmed that blond actor Daniel Craig will be the new 007.  A leaked memo from the producers revealed that he was picked because Ewan McGregor was "too short," Eric Bana "not handsome enough," Colin Farrell "too sleazy,"  and Hugh Jackman "too fey."

*  They considered starring Hugh in "Bond: The Musical."
*  Any one of them could play a Bond villain, though.
*  And Adam Sandler "too Jewish"...And Pierce Brosnan "too greedy."


BEATLES ARE MOST INFLUENTIAL ENTERTAINERS
Marilyn Monroe Influenced Marilyn Manson - Variety ranked The Beatles as the most influential entertainers of the past 100 years, beating out such icons as Elvis, Charlie Chaplin and Mickey Mouse.  The top 100 list also included Sinatra, James Dean, Bogart, Marilyn Monroe and even Lassie.

*  Lassie inspired the Beatles' hairdos...Lassie was also a male passing as a female, making her the first of many Hollywood transvestites.
*  If the Beatles were so influential, how come all the music today sucks?
*  Too bad Chaplin wasn't more influential; maybe actors would stop talking.



ALBA WANTS TO INSPIRE FAT CHICKS
By Hollywood Standards, She's A Cow! - Jessica Alba said she wants to be a role model for curvy women, and that girls "who aren't the skinniest things in the world" will be more comfortable seeing her in a movie because it will make them feel better about their own body image.

*  Yeah, nothing makes a fat girl feel better about herself than seeing Jessica Alba in a bikini.



*  A Simmons Market Research study of 19,000 gay and lesbian adults found that "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" is the most popular show with gay viewers, but #2 is "South Park"

... They got hooked because Episode #1 was called "Cartman Gets An Anal Probe"

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