New releases: el zippo. Can you believe it?

One of the best weeks ever for important new releases, but not for nudity. They're all war films and family films.

Released today on DVD for the first time: Saving Private Ryan, Patton, and The Thin Red Line, probably three of the ten best war movies ever filmed, but rather lacking in nudity, as was "Big Daddy", the week's other knockout release. I'll have a few cutesy snaps from Big Daddy tomorrow, but no flesh. So it goes.

If you have not seen The Thin Red Line, well .. if I had to teach a film course, and required the students to see 100 flicks, this would be one of them. Great films draw you inside of them, and this one does that. It is about war, and I think it probably gets that about right - fear, confusion, despair, agony, politics, promotions, and strategy, and then some more confusion.

Shakespeare got that confusion thing about right, didn't he? Henry V won possibly the greatest military victory in history at Agincourt. Outnumbered 5-to-1, with his infantry facing enemy cavalry, on French soil, he sued for a truce, but was denied by his French foes and forced to stand and fight. Despite these circumstances, he slaughtered the entire French army and most of its nobility, while losing only a few men, a triumph so staggering that France married him off to their king's daughter and recognized that he would be the next king, an honor he never lived to claim. According to contemporary accounts, Henry lost 25 men that day, while slaying 10,000 Frenchmen. So you'd think it would be pretty obvious that he was kicking some butt, but the way Shakespeare tells the story, he didn't even know how the battle was going until the victory was his and they gave him the body counts. I think Big Bill probably got this about right, as he got most things. I don't know much about war, but everybody who has told me about it says war is confusion.

At any rate, I think that Thin Red Line is a great work of filmed literature because it doesn't use war simply to tell a story, but rather in order to try to understand mortality and our attempts to grasp it. What better venue to study the fraility of life than one filled with death's shadow? A long movie, not always a great entertainment, no cohesion, and no characters to become involved with. It is, notwithstanding these faults, a great and powerful movie, with a devastating emotional impact that makes you feel the characters' cycle of fear, pain, relief, confusion. Terence Malick has never been able to tell a good story. "Days of Heaven" is a masterpiece of painterly and exotic images, but much overrated as a movie because it doesn't really go anywhere and the story is actually simplistic. Some good scenes are too short, and some scenes seem to go on forever. But Malick is just incomparable at the things he is good at, and his lionized overall reputation is not without justification.

I just had a thought. If someone asked me to name the most powerful war film I have ever seen, I think it would not be any of the theatrical spectaculars, but Ken Burns' PBS Civil War documentary, which had a budget of about thirteen cents and pretty much had me wiping my eyes through the whole thing, by using the simple technique of reading the actual letters written by men before they went into battle, and then tracing what happened to them during and after that battle.

I will, however, change my vote if they ever make a war film with lots of bimbos and carwashes and nude beaches.

Members' bonuses

"James Joyce's Women". This is another tape I've been hunting down for a couple of years, and I found it by accident in the pre-viewed bargain bin at Blockbuster for $2.99. James Joyce's Ulysses is arguably the greatest work of 20th century literature, and probably the most controversial book of all time, easily eclipsing Newton's In Principia, or the various Lolita and D.H. Lawrence controversies. Molly Bloom's masturbatory reverie, written in the stream of her consciousness, is a passage often cited as the most erotic in all of mainstream literature. Fionnula Flanagan, who is both Irish and a great classical actress, wanted to bring Joyce's women to life accurately, so she wrote the screenplay and played many of the characters herself. When it came to the masturbation scene, she did not demur. This is extraordinary, because the woman playing with her privates in front of you is not a queen-B or a stripper or a porno star or a fading movie queen, but a legitimate classical actress, ala Dame Edith Evans or Meryl Streep. These came out pretty good, but wouldn't you love to see DVD images of this? They are in chronological order from her toilet function to her climax, so they get better as you keep going.

Flanagan

Members' bonuses

One Fish, Two Fish

Young Phoebe Cates in "Paradise", a "Blue Lagoon" clone. (#1 , #2 , #3 , #4).

Blinky's tour of the catwalks today features Carmen Kass (#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6), Audrey Marnay (#1 #2 #3 #4), Audrey Chekhova (#1 #2), Carol Naville (#1 #2), and There is an additional picture of some cleavage from Elsa Benitez.

Today's Page Three babe is Jodie.

Pitters has an update on the rare BBC series, "The Buddha of Suburbia". The big blond was Sarah Neville (Thanks to WhyScans, our Page 3 Guru, for the ID)

Kelster presents some explicit nudity from model/editor Julia Parton. (#1 , #2 , #3 , #4 , #5 , #6 , #7)

Lovin' Molly

A whole bunch from Crow again. 10 files from this 1974 film featuring Blythe Danner (Gwyneth Paltrow's mom, and one of the classiest and most respected actresses of her generation) and Norman Bates away from the hotel. Tony Perkins as the romantic lead, and not insane? I don't remember if he was any good, but several critics have suggested that he was miscast. It's about a woman who loves two men, who both love her back for forty years. Come to think of it, it would have been better if Perkins had played both guys, and the girl, and the whole thing took place in his head, but unfortunately, Beau Bridges worked in there somewhere. This movie was not available on tape for about 25 years (although it has recently appeared on VHS), and most of us knew of it only through cable viewings. Now we can see all the ripe flesh, thanks to Crow. (#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #6 #7 #8 #9 #10). If you don't have time for all 10, play the 5-7-9 quiniella.

Hugo has three new collages. Two of them feature Natasha Gregson Wagner is the critically-reviled "Modern Vampires" Well, the ones that bothered to review it trashed it.(#1, #2). The third one features Juliette Lewis in "Strange Days". My advice to Juliette and Natasha: fire your agents!

Our anonymous expert presents a naughty pictorial between Tammy Parks and Taylor Moore. (#1 , #2 , #3 , #4 , #5) And one of Nikki Nova using a rather unusual-shaped dildo. Man, I hope that thing isn't one of those trick lighters.

.From nmd's collection.

Jeanne Tripplehorn in "Waterworld". I have to go back and look at this movie.

I remember the butt shot is an alleged body double, but I forgot this, and there's no possibility of a body double.

Willa O'Neill in "Topless Women Talk about their Lives".

New Guy: THE ROC

What I have here are a few raw 'caps of Linnea Quigley from "Leg Show" (#1 , #2 , #3) , including the almost money shot that I know many collectors will be most interested in. One Quick scan of Crystal Bernard, not the naughty parts but just playing coy. Eventually I will do a comprehensive capture of the entire scene but this for now .....

And 2 from Days of our Lives (#1 , #2), for no other reason then she was the epitome of a barbi doll in the 80's, even though I cannot remember her name. Hey, I'm new. My first scans. The Roc (Please ask Blinky if he can find any Phillipa von Stakleburg scans for the future)

Wednesday

Members' bonuses