The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) is a western based on a real person. Josephine Monaghan got knocked up by the family photographer, and was thrown out in the streets by her father. She headed West, but soon found that young, female and unattached was not a good idea on the frontier, so donned mens clothing, and became Jo. She eventually became a sheep rancher, and lived with a Chinese railroad worker, who became her lover. Her sex was a secret from all but him until the undertaker.

Writer/Director Maggie Greenwald did a fine job here, with wonderful Western panoramas, authentic sets, a very believable look to the old west, and some fascinating characters. Jo was played rather stoically by Suzy Amis, but the understated performance mad her few emotional responses all the more dramatic. She shows breasts clearly in a sex scene late in the film, and is also naked, but with very odd effects early in the film. Olinda Turturro, as a wondering hooker, shows breasts through a white dress.

IMDb readers have this at 6.6 of 10. Critics, including Berardinelli, have it at three stars. Without the stunning photography and lighting, the story would not have been enough to keep me involved. Indeed, the story was mostly predictable after the first few minutes. However, the scenics, a pleasing score, the realistic portrayal of the West, and an ok story was enough to hold my attention. C.

Other Crap:

• Great resource. ABC News: Elections 2004 Coverage - state rollover map in real time!
• Buffy - the new box office queen.
• The good news: Audience member replaces heart attack-stricken opera lead. The bad news: it was Bill Shatner.
• Bin Laden vows to make USA go bankrupt. So he DOES have something in common with American politicians.
• Controversial Dutch film maker and newspaper columnist Theo van Gogh, who made a film about violence against women in Islamic societies, was shot dead in Amsterdam on Tuesday morning. A suspect, a 26-year-old man with dual Dutch-Moroccan nationality, was arrested after a shootout with officers that left him wounded, police said.
• "Ashlee should NOT have blamed her band for what happened. Honestly, she should've blamed me, her drummer. It sucks to say, but it's true."
• Presidential Election 2004: Channel Surfer. Very handy - the Washington Post keeps track of what all the major media outlets are doing in the various races - who they called the state for, and what time they did it.
• The Daily Show's This Week in God
• Disney 2005 Preview from Empire Movies
• As we do every year, we are starting to look for Christmas gifts for the hard-to-please person on your list. Please consider the Barry Manilow Copacabana Bobblehead from the OFFICIAL Manilow Merchandise Store. Thank god it's official and not one of the many Manilow bobblehead knock-offs that are flooding our shores from Asia.
• This week's movie: The Incredibles - 89% positive reviews. Probably the most warmly received film since Shrek 2.
  • "From first frame to last the effects are flawlessly detailed and the design fabulously executed."
  • " ... story is so full of heart and soul that you can actually feel it becoming a classic while you're watching it."
  • "As imaginative and astute as any general audience entertainment has been for a long while."
  • Even better than the good reviews is a bad review from The Village Voice - "announces the studio's arrival in the vast yet overcrowded Hollywood lot of eardrum-bashing, metal-crunching action sludge." A bad review from The Voice is as close to a sure bet as anything in this crazy, uncertain world. Their critic's comments, translated from Voicespeak into English, was "not nearly arty and pretentious and politically correct enough, and I caught several audience members not wearing their turtlenecks."
• Box Office Predictions for the upcoming weekend. The weekend warrior is predicting a knockout weekend for The Incredibles, but is lukewarm about Alfie.
• Colin's Movie Monologue Page.
• Sarah Michelle Gellar was left confused when she met the director of The Grudge, because the only English he could speak was taken from Star Wars. His first words to her: "My lady, your destination is approaching."
• Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston are buying The Naked Chef's house in London.
• Amanda Holden says: "I wouldn't say no to Kylie!"
• The Electras would like to do a reunion tour, but their bass guitar player may or may not be available.
• The Daily Show discusses the latest Halloween film footage of three scary modern ogres: Osama bin Laden, Chelsea Clinton, and Dick Cheney.
• The philosophy of Weekly World News: Rich people can't read because they have servants to do it for them.
• Four free short vids from Playboy Big Breast Babes!
• Playmate Gallery - Holly Joan Hart, April 1998 - Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• Predictions for the year 2000, as made in 1900.
• Olive oil may reduce chances of coronary heart disease, meaning that Italians will live for hundreds of years, and Popeye will live forever.

Other Crap archives. May also include newer material than the links above, since it's sorta in real time.

Click here to submit a URL for Other Crap

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Words from Scoop.

.avi's from Shiloh.

.wmv files made by Scoop from Shiloh's .avi's.

NOTE: because of a unique combination of circumstances with the Windows media player and some substantial bandwidth theft, we will have to do all of our movie files in zip format. Left click on the files as you normally would to view a picture. When you get a choice, click on "save", and put it on your hard drive in the directory of your choice. UnZIP and play from there.

I know this is not especially convenient, but it allows the film clips to continue. I can protect .zip files from hot-linking in the same way I can protect still images. For some reason, if I protect .avis and .wmvs from hot-linking, they will not play in the Windows media player, and I can't get a satisfactory work-around. Perhaps I will find a better solution, but for now this new policy allows you to continue getting the movie clips you want to see, which is much preferable to my abandoning the clips altogether.

Perhaps these tips will help if you have trouble with the codecs for these movies:

Shiloh says:

FYI when I hypercam vids to make the file size smaller I use DivX MPEG-4 Fast-Motion for the video compressor, then I use virtualdub to compress the audio. The properties for the vids says the video codec:  DivX Decoder Filter & audio codec:  Morgan Stream Switcher which I'm not familiar with. When I compress the audio with virtualdub I use MPEG Layer-3.  A friend of mine told me about compressing the audio about (6) mos. ago. Like I said previously, only been capping for a year & a half & I'm no expert. Hopefully this info will help members with the proper codecs for my vids.

 

When I cap big brother's I use hypercam mostly & sdp & asfrecorder if the set up allows me. I stopped using camtasia cause the file sizes were always too big, could never figure out the process, over my head lol, plus it cost too much to buy in my opinion.

A reader says:

You mentioned that some users were having trouble with the videos on your site. There is a tool designed to determine what codec is needed for a video. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/ Hope this is useful to you or your users.

Scoop says:

I made the .wmv versions of each video. The codecs for these: Windows Video V8, Windows Audio 9. The upside of these is that you know the codecs, and they'll play in the Windows Media Player. The downside is that they are slightly larger, and slightly lower quality.

• Kelly Lynch showing brief breast and bum views in scenes from "Homegrown" (1998).

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

Today from the Ghost...some assorted video clips. Zipped .wmv's as usual.

• French Canadian actress Guylaine St-Onge bares breasts and bum while she rides a dude in a scene from the direct-to-vid flick, "One Way Out" (2002), starring Jim Belushi, Jason Bateman and Angela Featherstone.

• Judith Hoag, topless in an after sex scene from the made for HBO series "Carnivāle".

• Melora Walters showing off her silly-cones in scenes from "Desert Saints" (2002). Partial side/rear views in #1, full topless views during a love scene with Kiefer in #2. (1, 2)

BRITNEY FEUDING WITH CHUCKY
Slit Me, Baby, One More Time - Britney Spears is feuding with Chucky. She wouldn't let "Hit Me, Baby, One More Time" be used in a sex scene between two demonic dolls in "Seed of Chucky." The makers retaliated with a trailer showing Chucky running a Britney lookalike's car off the road and cackling, "Oops, I did it again!" After another legal threat, the trailer now includes the disclaimer, "Britney Spears does not appear in this film."