Friday

Contact junior by writing junior@scoopy.com. Contact Scoopy by writing unclescoopy@msn.com. Contact Tuna by writing tuna@scoopy.com Send submissions to scoopy@scoopy.net

To see and use all the Funhouse features, you need Netscape 6.+ or MSIE 5.+.

• Netscape 7.0 is available free for download or on CD.
• MSIE 6.0 is available free.

Crash (1996) is a dreadful David Cronenberg thriller about an alternate society, not too different from our own, except that the relationship between sex and cars is even stronger than in the US. Further, there is a sub-culture fascinated by car crashes and mutilation. If this sounds rather unpleasant to you, you are right. Audiences stayed away in droves, it is rated 5.6 of 10 at IMDB, and only grossed $3.17M on a $10M budget. The plot centers on a couple with an open marriage, who delight in telling each other the details of their extra-marital affairs. He is involved in a serious accident, and they are drawn in to the world of crash fanatics. Crashes are their religion and their aphrodisiac. They watch safety films and crash tests on video, and, for real fun, reenact historical fatal crashes.

It is beautifully filmed, and a cold steel foreboding atmosphere is held for the entire film. The nudity is the highlight, and includes exposure from five actresses.

Holly Hunter shows breasts.
Debra Unger shows everything multiple times.
Rosanna Arquette shows breasts
Alice Poon shows breasts and partial buns.
Yolande Julian shows breasts and buns.

I found, in looking through my archives, that I had only capped an R rated VHS version of this film, and had not watched the NC-17 version on DVD. The additional nudity and sex, and the high quality transfer made it a somewhat better viewing experience this time through. It won a jury award at Cannes, and 6 Genies out of 8 nominations. Ebert said 3 1/2 stars, while Berardinelli awarded only 2. It received 55% overall at Rotten Tomatoes, and 33% from top critics. So who is right? Both sides. It is a very well made and consistent film about a totally depressing and repulsive subject. You will love it or hate it, but you have to admire the achievement. The proper score is C+.

One Hour Photo is one of three films this year in which Robin Williams has played a psychotic. He's good at it. The critics generally raved about the creepy atmosphere, but theater-goers were lukewarm, and the film finished about $30 million at the box.

• Erin Daniels (1, 2)

I've pointed before  that if you are a young filmmaker, you should make a film about something you actually know and understand. Above all, don't try to make a vampire film.

Francis Ford Coppola is arguably the greatest director in history. The first two Godfather films and Apocalypse Now form as strong a 1-2-3 punch as any director has ever assembled. If he couldn't make a good vampire film, what are your odds? If you've forgotten, this is the film where Gary Oldman played Dracula as a drag queen. Not sure if he was more butch than Tim Curry as Dr. Frankenfurter.

Keanu Reeves was on hand to provide about the most complete underacting in screen history, but he was more than balanced off by Tom Waits, who went for the opposite trophy. It is, of course, pretty difficult to out-ham Gary Oldman unless your last name is Shatner, but Waits did his darndest. And wait until you hear Keanu's 19th century British accent!  Unfortunately, the film is not supposed to be a comedy.

• Italian mega-babe Monica Bellucci, 'way back in 1992.
• Sadie Frost - this was her screen debut
• Winona Ryder (no nudity)

Other crap:

• Courtney Love's dog eats her breast implant and dies. Maybe that tells you something more about Cobain's passing.
• Woman goes for naked stroll to prove love for husband
• Christina shows almost everything to Rolling Stone. Surprisingly revealing!
• Fascinating - maybe you've heard of the famous debate between William Buckley and Gore Vidal, in which Buckley called Vidal "a queer" and Vidal called Buckley "a proto-crypto Nazi". This site has the details including a clip.
• Beltway Sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad was "very irrational" and regularly threatened to "destroy" his wife, who secured restraining orders against her estranged husband, a man she feared, in part, because "he was a demolition expert in the military." After Mildred Muhammad filed this petition in March 2000, a Tacoma, Washington Superior Court judge issued an order of protection barring John Muhammad from contacting his wife and the couple's three children.
• Winona trial starts
• from Pat Reeder, "Tom Jones is upset at women throwing panties at him that they haven't worn yet because it doesn't come from the heart. Guess he really likes being able to sniff women's hearts...
• actual quotes overheard at a STD clinic
• an article making fun of baseball's "top 10 moments" list

For the record, my quick list of choices, off the top of my head:

• The Babe calls his shot. Real or not, it is baseball's most famous and best story

• Berra watches helplessly as Mazeroski's homer clears the fence, ends the 1960 series

• The Miracle at Coogan's Bluff, The Shot Heard Round the World. Russ Hodges screams: "The Giants win the pennant. The Giants win the pennant." The Flying Scot homers to cap incredible Giants comeback year in 1951 NL championship game.

• a dying Gehrig declares himself the luckiest man in the world at home plate in Yankee Stadium.

• Berra jumps into Larsen's arms after last pitch of 1956 Series perfect game

• Gibson hits his pinch-hit, one-handed, limping homer to decide game one of 1988 series - in his one and only at bat of the series.

• Routine third out ball rolls through Buckner's legs, shatters Red Sox dreams in game six of 1986 series.

• Aaron hits number 715

• Jackie R takes the field in 1947

• Mays makes the most famous catch in history in the 1954 series.

Honorable mention:

• Fans toss disco records on the field, causing forfeited game on Disco Sucks Night

• midget Eddie Gaedel steps up to bat

• Vandermeer gets the final out of his second straight no-hitter

• Hartnett hits the "homer in the gloamin'"

• Maris hits number 61

• Fisk watches homer curve toward the foul pole in 1975 series.

• Rose takes Fosse out in the All-Star game

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.

• Valérie Kaprisky, topless, rear views and full frontal exposure in scenes from "Breathless" (1983).

Be sure to pay Graphic Response a visit at his website. www.graphic-barry.com.

A fellow Funhouse reader reminded me a couple of weeks ago that Candy Clark gave up some serious goodies in The Man Who Fell to Earth and I didn't cap that scene. Went back and did so last night and discovered that whereas it is most decidedly Candy in some frames, the real explicit ones with boobs and bum and bush starred a body double. I suspected as much whilst grabbing the frames, but it was real clear when I started to work with them. Candy Clark may not have been the most breath-takingly gorgeous woman in Hollywood, but she had a kickass body, as firm and well-proportioned as that of any starlet. Not the body double. No sireee. The difference made sense in the context of the movie since years were supposed to have passed since Candy's character and David Bowie's first met. And then in a couple of frames, which I used in the body double's header, you can see her face, and she looks nothing like Candy. Brave woman, though, showing off a 40's body as completely as any model on the web.

So far as Candy's part in all this, you get to see boobs when she is supposed to be middle-aged and, in a flash-back, when she is supposed to be in her 20's. The last of these is my favorite.

By the way, this is strangest scene in a very strange movie. Lots of gunplay and nekkidness. I'm guessing Andy Sidaris was the second unit director.

• Candy Clark (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Clark's body double (1, 2)

Joy Tanner is the bleach bottle blonde having a pseudo-lesbian scene with Star Trek DS9's Nicole DeBoer in Prom Night IV. Later her body double fills in for a nude love scene.

• Joy Tanner
• Joy Tanner body double

"Lola's Game" (1998) is a the type of movie MTV would air if they could show softcore movies with lots and lots of sex and strippers. Elise Muller plays the femme fatale rock singer who helps Doug Jeffery solve the murder of his girlfriend Lola (Kristen Winnicki).

• Kristen Winnicki from the Sabrina tv series shows her 36 caliber robo-hooters.
• Elise Muller topless in a love scene.
• Strippers ahoy! Mostly topless but the last shows all three Bs. (1, 2)

Loene Carmen not nude but very sexy in the Noah Taylor film "The Year My Voice Broke" (1987). Underwear, bikini, pokies, and upskirt.

• Loene Carmen

And now for some historical nudity.

The original nasty girl Leni Riefenstahl is without a doubt the film industry's most controversial figure living today. She started out as a regular dancer/actress and caught Adolf Hitler's eye in the 1930s. She made Nazi propaganda films for him, the most notorious being "Triumph of the Will". Up until this week the German authorities were still pursuing her on war crimes but figured at 100 years old she's too old to prosecute.

She also did the documentary for the 1936 Berlin Olympics. At the prologue (or beginning) she's one of the nude dancers. It's probably her in the first picture set but she may be in the second. The 'caps are from "The Olympiad Vol. 1: The Festival of the People". US Olympic sprinter Jesse Owens is also featured. Still available for sale on VHS but the DVD is only available in Germany strangely enough.

• Leni Riefenstahl (1, 2)

• Kristi Angus...Jason cops a feel as she exposes her tummy. (1, 2, 3)

• Lexa Doig, no nudity, but she sure is cute. (1, 2, 3)

• Lisa Ryder, toplessness, but it's prosthetic and/or computer generated. (1, 2)

• Unknown topless babes (1, 2, 3, 4)

Michelle Moffett
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Have you seen the new Leann Rimes video? She seems too have turned into the country version of Christina Aguilera. Some killer pokies and butt shots in the video...anyone have any 'caps?