 |
Important note
Still going around in the Google circles. In case you are still having trouble with Firefox, you should be able to fix it
in tools/options/security by unchecking "block reported attack sites" when you
surf our sites. You can always switch the settings back later. (Or use MSIE,
which is immune from this glitch.)
As of this writing, they have cleared scoopy.net for takeoff again, and once
again they removed the warnings without my having made any changes. That is not
really good news. Indeed, it means they could also also restore the warning
without my making any changes, since it demonstrates that the site's content is
entirely unrelated to the presence or absence of warnings.
Some of the other sites in our catalogue are still marked malicious.
Sorry about all this. I'm doing everything I can do.
Endless Bummer
2009
Endless Bummer is a coming-of-age tale about a young surfer's last summer before
college. Given the fact that the lead character is named J.D. and the author is
named John 'J.D.' Drury, it's probably a safe assumption that the film is based
on reality or at least an embellished version thereof. I don't suppose that this
was developed as a National Lampoon property, but for one reason or another it
now bears the dreaded "National Lampoon presents ..." before the title.
It's 1984, and J.D. has finally saved up enough money to buy a custom surfboard
for his last big summer with his friends in Ventura. He's so excited with his
new possession that he goes out surfing alone immediately after taking the board
from the shaper. This does not prove to be a wise decision because a fall
separates him from the board, and he can't locate it. He and his friends deduce
that it has been stolen, and soon determine the culprit. The remainder of the
film is a road trip to retrieve it from an unfamiliar part of Southern
California.
The story has its moments, but the author apparently had to face many choices
between accurate recollections and entertaining ones. He chose the former too
often, so this pleasant enough straight-to-vid sometimes suffers a bit from a
tendency to take itself more seriously than merited by the subject matter.
That's my way of saying that the film would play well as a comedy, except that
it's not really funny. It's really too short on humor and raunch to get many
rentals as a straight-to-DVD youthploitation comedy.
I am guessing that the National Lampoon people noticed the same thing, because
they added some additional footage in a clumsy attempt to punch up the humor and
nudity. Although they have have accurately identified a problem with the film,
they provided a disastrous attempt at a solution. The inserted footage seems
entirely out of place, and contains completely different actors and characters
who appear nowhere else in the film. In order to establish a connection to the
main story line, these additional characters are pictured having a party back on
the home beach and talking about the progress of the main characters, who are
off on their road trip.
There's some interesting gimmick casting. Joan Jett plays a dotty beach rat who
may or may not have witnessed the theft. Vanessa Angel has a small part as the
mother of one member of the surfing crowd. (Vanessa Angel as a mom? Boy, that'll
make you feel old, if you don't already.) James Remar turns in a serious,
methodical performance as the father of the thief. To be honest, it was it was a
realistic and credible performance, but it seemed out of place. Remar seemed to
be acting in the Broadway revival of Long Day's Journey while the other
performers were more like stoners acting out their favorite lines from a Bill
and Ted movie.
Nudity:
Most of the nudity was provided by Red Bikini Girl, a character with no lines.
IMDB incorrectly identifies Red Bikini Girl as Shayne Lamas, daughter of
Lorenzo, but you can clearly see from these credits that the part was actually
played by an actress named Stacey Leigh Dearman.
Anyway, here's Red Bikini
Girl's topless scene.
And here's some of the
crappy topless
footage insinuated into the story by the Lampoonistas. The two women in the
scene are Brittany McGraw and Cara Provenvano. Only one of them is topless, and
I'm not sure which is which. If I had to take a guess, I'd say that the topless
strawberry blonde is more likely to have an Irish name like McGraw, and the
dark-haired chick with the lines is more likely to have an Italian name like
Provenvano, but these ethnic stereotypes don't always work, do they?
|
|
|
|
OTHER CRAP:
Catch the deluxe
version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles,
here.
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| |
Loverboy
2005
Kyra Sedgwick film clip
caps below
Scoop's notes (total spoilers):
The good news: it's one of Shakespeare's greatest
works.
The bad news: it's HANNAH Shakespeare.
Loverboy was Kevin Bacon's second full-length directorial effort,
following many years after the other, a 1996 Showtime film called Losing
Chase. It is, at least in theory, a melodrama about a psychotically
possessive mother. I added the stipulation because it also includes some
moments of bizarre and perhaps inappropriate comedy.
The mother in question was raised by parents who were so wound up in
one another that they barely noticed her. She resolves to be the
opposite kind of parent, and succeeds perfectly. After a circuitous
process, she manages to conceive a child and instantly makes her
offspring into her full-time job. (Her parents left her financially
independent.) All of this seems beautiful while the child is an infant
because the mother is loving, doting and totally attentive. But ominous
signs appear whenever the boy starts to develop curiosity about the
outside world. His mother insists that he keep his focus entirely on
her. She reacts in increasingly extreme ways whenever she has any type
of competition for her son's attention, so that her mental state is
gradually revealed to be not attentive, but smothering.
This film really struggles to find an appropriate tone. The mother's
own childhood is recalled in flashbacks, and since the past is seen not
as objective history but through her own disturbed memories, her
parents (played by Bacon and Marisa Tomei) are seen as grotesque
caricatures of thoughtless, self-absorbed 70s-era hipsters. Bacon does
his best impersonation of Dr. Hunter Thompson, as filtered through
Eugene Levy's own 1970s character, comedian Bobby Bittman, clad in tacky
leisure suits and constantly misfiring rapid-fire remarks which are
designed to be funny. There's nothing wrong with the Tomei-Bacon scenes.
They are pretty funny when considered on their own. And there's nothing
wrong with the fact that the characters are so one-dimensional, because
they exist only in the mother's tormented memories. It's just that,
well, the zany comedy seems to be in a different movie from the tragic
story which unfolds in the present. The inconsistency of the tone runs
through the film's other flashbacks as well. Momma's attempts at
conception, for example, play out as a sex farce.
I think the ending of the film is supposed to be a surprise, but I
only know that because some other people have mentioned it. I saw the
very first scene and immediately concluded that the mother was
committing suicide and taking her son with her. I mean, they are in the
car, the kid is behind the wheel, the ignition is clearly on, they've
packed enough for a day trip, and the car is in park. What else could it
be? Maybe I would have enjoyed the film more if I had been aware that
there was supposed to be a secret. I can't say.
While we're on the subject of that ending, the film didn't even have
the courage of its convictions. The boy survives the carbon monoxide
poisoning. After the suicide has been revealed (along with the similarly
grotesque fate of Bacon and Tomei in the flashbacks), it tacks on a
strangely sentimental epilogue in which the boy is revealed to have
grown to young adulthood, and is remembering his mother's tenderness
with sad fondness. The film got a bit muddled there, perhaps because
Bacon made some changes to the original story and those changes required
other elements to be reinterpreted. In the book, both the mother and the
son survived the suicide. Bacon decided that he wanted the mother to
die, but that change required other changes, especially the disastrous
epilogue. Is this a film about an eccentric, loving woman who was a bit
misguided? It seems to be that at first. Then it seems to be a satire
with a pitch-black sense of humor. Then it seems to be a melodrama about
a deranged psychopath. Then the epilogue returns it to "lovable but
troubled eccentric" mode.
My final problem with the film is its repetitiousness. It makes the
point that the mother overreacts to competition for her son's attention.
Then it makes the point again, and again, and ...
It played at Sundance in 2005, but distributors knew that the film
was totally unmarketable, so it was never in more than ten theaters, and
even that perfunctory release occurred more than a year after its
festival premiere. Because of the Sundance exposure, it did pick up some
reviews, almost universally negative. (18% positive, per RT.)
Kevin Bacon has some talent as a director. I really believe that. And
he certainly has the ability to attract talented people to his projects.
This micro budget film is chock-full of name actors. Don't close your
eyes, or you may miss Blair Brown, Oliver Platt and Matt Dillon. Bacon
also has the ability to draw on the considerable acting talents of his
wife (who played the lead here) and himself. Given all those elements,
I'll bet he has a good movie or two in him, but if he's ever going to
make the transition from acting, he needs to acquire some subtlety.
Above all he needs a better script.
|
|
|
 |
|
| |
|
 |
Satisfaction
season 1, 2007
"Set in a high class brothel this new series
creates a hyper reality whereby we are privy to the private lives and
emotions of five beautiful young women."
|
|
| |
|
 |
The Crew
2008
This 2008 British crime drama provides an interesting look at
Liverpool's underworld, and proves you can't trust anybody, even
criminals.
The respected and connected boss of a gang of truck hijackers is looking
for one more big score. His little brother wants to branch out to the drug
business, but big bro isn't interested. He likes only "clean" crime, and
to him, thinking of his wife and young son, drugs are dirty.
Little brother isn't about to pass on a big score, so he goes behind his
brother's back to other crime figures for financing, and he's willing to
do anything to get it, including betray his brother.
This is a fast moving and exciting crime flick, with very interesting
characters. The caps are from the Blu-ray version.
 |
 |
| Cordelia Bugeia |
various |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
 |
|
