The Vampire's Seduction (1998) was Seduction Cinema's 3rd film, and first real money maker. The success of this film actually determined the direction the company would go in -- lesbian soft core -- and gave them the capital to become a real company. It wasn't a clever strategy on their part. The offhand suggestion was, "let's make some lesbian vampire film." It was made for about $3K, and the outdoor shots were shot in the back yard of a home. Sexy Adventures of Van Helsing was a remake of this film.

In this original version, the Van Helsing is a lame guy. Dracoola tasks him with bringing her lesbians. He spends a lot of time looking through windows, then poisons Dracoola with garlic. Dracoola was played by Tina Krause, who was in line to be the main star at Seduction Cinema. When she decided to stop doing T & A, Misty Mundae had turned 18, and stepped up to fill the position. When this was filmed, Misty was only 17, and could not appear in it. Her older sister, Chelsea, does appear in the oddest of the three peeping scenes. Chelsea is the authority figure at a slumber party with two girls credited as Jenna and Janie, and manages to turn it into a lesbian three way. We also see Kiki Michaels undress, shower, and rub lotion all over herself, and Paige Turner as a shrink and Dawn Monacco as her insecure patient doing a little nude touching therapy together, then with a pizza delivery guy.

All of the women show breasts and buns. The production quality is not at all good, Lighting was often dismal. Other than the nudity and the historical value, the best part is the commentary from producer Michael Rasso, who is also the president of EI Independent Cinema, the parent company of Seduction Cinema. He gave a very candid view of the film, and a real incite into making and distributing independent films. The film is a C-, and only if you award bad movie points, but the DVD package is one of the better releases to date, as this is on the same disk with Sexy Adventures of Van Helsing.

Birth (2004):

(Complete Spoilers)

Birth has been a controversial film since its festival premiere. The plot revolves around a young boy who seems to be the reincarnation of a woman's dead husband. The lad is so convincing in this claim that the woman starts to relate to him as if he really were the husband. The controversy whirls around the pseudo-erotic scenes between the woman (Nicole Kidman) and a 10 year old boy, including a kiss and a shared bath.

To my way of thinking, there should be no controversy at all. All of those people who booed Kidman at the premiere seem to be acting out of complete ignorance. I can't imagine that they actually watched the film. There is one occasion when Kidman and the boy are shown in the bathtub together, but there is no nudity in that scene except Kidman's rail-thin bare back. Birth is certainly not an exploitation film, and there is no element of sensationalism. Every scene with Kidman and the boy is handled tastefully, and the entire movie is virtually a highbrow exercise in style. It plays out like a European art film. At one point, there is an unbroken close-up of Kidman's face for two or three minutes! It is a film with glacial pacing, dripping with atmosphere, punctuated by classical music, heavy on the reverberating drums in the background. It will remind you a bit of Kubrick's approach, except it is much more sincere, taking itself completely seriously and completely lacking Kubrick's normal level of detached irony.

Do you think any of those protestors sat through such a film? These are the type of people who would complain about Shakespeare because Romeo's Juliet is only 13 years old.

Enough of the protestors. Back to the film itself

There are some indications that the film is a supernatural mystery of some kind but, to tell you the truth, the director tends to use that merely as a backdrop for an eerie, atmospheric examination of grief and regret. The plot twists are not really very interesting, not very well thought out, nor very fully developed, and there is no big moment where the curtain is drawn back, as you might expect in a supernatural thriller like a Shyamalan movie. After the movie was over I still was not completely sure, for example, whether the kid had part of her dead husband within him, or was a total imposter. In theory he must have been an imposter who gained information about Kidman from some letters he found, and this theory could be confirmed by the fact that he did not know about some things that the husband would surely have known (the existence of a mistress, for example). On the other hand, the film strung us along. It showed the kid being born just as the husband died. The film demonstrated Kidman was completely convinced of the boy's identity after kissing him. The latter could merely have demonstrated how deeply Kidman wanted to believe, I suppose, but there were other things as well. As one IMDb reader wrote:

If the kid learns everything about Anna from the letters, how could he possibly recognize the face of the woman who told her there was no Santa Claus but not know her name? Was there a picture of her in a love letter with writing on the back saying "This is the woman who told me there was no Santa Claus"? Was it a picture of the woman telling her?

The author wanted to have it both ways, and to leave an element of mystery. In context, this was excessively arty and completely artificial. In real life, somebody would have been pragmatic enough to confront the kid with some hard questions, and this would have happened about ten minutes after he showed up. You might argue that Kidman would not have done so because she really wanted to believe his story, but she was not the only one who had had private conversations with the late husband. Yet nobody in the film did an especially good job of interrogating the kid. If anyone had been logical, it would have been easy to ascertain immediately and assuredly whether he was whom he claimed to be (as the mistress later did).

That's what real people would have done, but the author could not show that process and also retain the movie he wanted.

Although I found it disappointing in general, the film did have one powerful element. There is a sub-plot in which the little boy finds out that Kidman's husband did not really love her as much as Kidman fantasizes. In fact, it turns out that the dead husband had a lover whom he cherished more than his wife. When the boy finds this out, he retreats to the park to think, and finally decides to tell Kidman only that he is not really the reincarnated husband, nothing more. He knows he must do this, but he cannot tell her how he has come to this decision, because it would break Kidman's heart to find out about the mistress. The boy could simply have said nothing and continued stringing her along, or he could have told her the complete truth, but he did neither, because those solutions would have hurt her far more deeply. By telling her he was an imposter, and by simultaneously protecting her feelings, the boy not only proves that he really loves Kidman, but he demonstrates extraordinary maturity for a ten year old. Or maybe the reincarnated husband really is in the boy's body somehow and really loves Kidman this time around. Or whatever. Damned if I know, but it was a gut-wrenching scene when the boy told Kidman he had been lying, because at that point Kidman had become so convinced by the boy's original story that she was making plans for the two of them to run away together.

The real problem with the film was not what happened along the way, but the unsatisfying ending.

Imagine you had written the film I just described. How would you end it? That's a poser, eh? You're probably stumped.

Well, the real author didn't do any better than you did.

• Even though you now know it isn't sexy, you are probably still curious, as I was. Here is the scene with Nicole Kidman and the boy in the bathtub.

  According to the IMDb, the scene was shot using trick photography. Kidman and the kid were never actually in the tub together.

NOTE: there is another scene (involving adults) in which other observers have reported seeing Kidman's breasts. The scene was too dark for me to see anything. Sorry.

Other Crap:

• GEORGIA SCHOOLS TO STOP TEACHING LAW OF GRAVITY. Murphy's Law Could Be Next, District Warns
• Meet the new national security advisor: Stephen Hadley, a longtime foreign policy aide to Republican presidents.
• ABC is bringing back the Jennifer Love Hewitt comedy project it originally developed last season. The untitled project centers on a sports producer who unwillingly becomes an on-camera reporter on a sports TV show.
• Limbaugh gets favorable ruling, sends privacy case to state Supreme Court
• The latest micro-minis from our heroes at Wicked Weasel Bikinis 
• New Trojan Hijacks Browser, Sends User To Porn Site.
• Mary Kate & Ashley Olsen miraculously appear on their own grilled cheese
• Some funny nastiness from the New York Post: "Star Jones has become so incredibly annoying and overbearing with her endless wedding whine that she's making 'The View' harder to sit through a Mandy Patinkin tribute to Josh Groban"
• The trailer form the "drama/mystery/thriller" Fabled. Joseph just broke up with his girlfriend and is not taking it very well. He thinks she is plotting against him with their mutual psychiatrist. On top of that, his dog is missing and he suspects the people at work might be behind it. Then there is the unshakable guilt over his past. It just might all be bearable, somehow possible to live through, if it weren't for those damned 'monsters' that keep trying to kill him. Through an allegorical 'fable' that is told in parallel with Joseph's struggle, we are left to decide for ourselves in the end, who is the crow and who is the wolf. Is someone “out to get” Joseph or is it all in his head?
• The trailer for Kontroll:
  • This is the first film made in which every single person associated with the picture is named Laszlo.
  • OK, that was a dumb "Hungarian Joke" - here's the real scoop on the picture: "Who has not felt at a given moment during his or her long or a short life that he or she should simply step out of his or her usual surroundings? To hide from the world? To flee from the past, from himself or herself and from the present? To disappear from the face of the earth? This moment has just occurred. The question, however, is whether there is a way back."
• The Daily Show: "Condoleeza Rice will be giving up her main duty: sitting behind Bush giving people the stinkeye."
• The Daily Show's Rob Corddry turns an investigative eye on dueling crappy South Jersey magazines. Talk about a specialty report.
• Movie Quotes to Get Their Own TV Award Show
• TiVo Will No Longer Skip Past Advertisers  
• People says, "Hey, Jude - you're the sexiest man alive." Our perennial favorites, Pete Postlethwaite and Abe Vigoda, finished out of the running yet again.
• Academy Announces Documentary Films in Competition for 77th Academy Awards. This is the short list for nominees. The five nominees will come from this list of twelve films
• Blue State Blues as Coastal Parents Battle Invasion of Dollywood Values. "I'm not sure where we went wrong," says Ellen McCormack, nervously fondling the recycled paper cup holding her organic Kona soy latte. "It seems like only yesterday Rain was a carefree little boy at the Montessori school, playing non-competitive musical chairs with the other children and his care facilitators. But now..." she pauses, staring out the window of her postmodern Palo Alto home. The words are hesitant, measured, bearing a tale of family heartbreak almost too painful for her to recount. "But now, Rain insists that I call him Bobby Ray."
• A new clip from Blade: Trinity. (entitled This is Awkward).
• Many ill-at-ease over T.O. commercial - is it racial? How can you not love an article that draws upon Mandingo for spiritual comfort.
• Kevin Spacey has officially been approached to star in Superman. He didn't mention the role, but the common spec is that he will play Luthor.
• Catherine Zeta Jones to appear in 'The Ivy Chronicles,' a comedy-drama based on an upcoming novel by Karen Quinn.
• Statement by President Bush Naming Dr. Condoleezza Rice as Heir to the Position of "Colored Secretary of State No One Pays Attention To". (WHITEHOUSE.ORG)
• A new trailer form Clean. "Emily Wang (Maggie Cheung) is a woman who wrestles with her dream of becoming a singer, her fitness as a mother, and daily life without her partner Lee (James Johnston). Her past is riddled with drugs and regrets, the result of which left Lee dead in a desolate motel room in Hamilton, Ontario, and landed Emily with a six-month jail sentence. The only thing that she desires for the future is a loving relationship with her son Jay, who is being cared for by Lee's parents, Albrecht (Nick Nolte) and Rosemary (Martha Henry). While Rosemary blames Emily for the death of Lee, Albrecht recognizes the importance of the bond between a mother and her son, and his faith sets the standard for the faith Emily must find in herself. Clean follows Emily to Hamilton, Paris, London and San Francisco and in three languages (English, French and Cantonese), as she battles for a place in a world reluctant to forget the woman she has been and unwilling to accept her as the woman she longs to be."
• Two more clips from the remake of Flight of the Phoenix  
• Several more clips from 2046: "He was a writer. He thought he wrote about the future but it really was the past. In his novel, a mysterious train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention -to recapture their lost memories. It was said that in 2046, nothing ever changed. Nobody knew for sure if it was true, because nobody who went there had ever come back - except for one. He was there. He chose to leave. He wanted to change."
• Three clips from Hotel Rwanda. There is some Oscar buzz regarding Don Cheadle's performance in this film.
• GOP may change rule to aid DeLay. "House Republicans proposed changing their rules Tuesday night to allow members indicted by state grand juries to remain in a leadership post". Why stop there? Even if he is convicted and jailed, I don't see why DeLay can't run the House from the Big House.
• Toy safety watchdog picks the ten worst toys.
• The X-Pac and Chyna sex tape has officially been sold to the distributor of the 'One Night In Paris' tape. It will be entitled 'One Night In China'. This is one celebrity sex tape I can easily skip without regrets.
• Here is the pre-football Desperate Wives ad that ABC apologized for.
• "Over the last few days I've spoken to four cinephile types at different times who've seen Alexander, and they've all agreed that one undisputed highlight is the appearance of Rosario Dawson's world-class breasts, as captured by Rodrigo Prieto's widescreen camera during an acrobatic lovemaking scene with star Colin Farrell. Dawson should get some kind of special award, one suggested. "She should have topless scenes in every film she's in for the next ten years," said another."
• Can you solve the 13 Enigmas?
• What's new in the theaters this week? Basically three things: (1) Nic Cage in National Treasure (2) Sponge Bob (3) Bridget Jones expanding to wide release. Finding Neverland and Kinsey remain in extremely limited release. Bad Education and You I Love get mini-trials in New York
• This week's movies (sort of): Bad Education - 83% positive reviews. Almodovar's new film has already generated 29 reviews at RT, but is opening in only three theaters in NYC.
• This week's movies: The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie - only three reviews so far.
• Expanded to wide release this week: Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason - 27% positive reviews
• This week's movies: National Treasure - 40% good reviews (based on only five reviews).
• Film Industry Files First Wave Of Anti-Piracy Lawsuits
• Attention stock shoppers. Sears, KMart to Merge in $11 Billion Deal.
• Sad loss for baby boomers. Phineas T. Bluster, mayor of Doodyville, has passed away at 85.
• Back on e-bay: "half of a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich that (she says) has an image of the Virgin Mary on it." Presumably it is made with Baby Swiss cheese. We assume this because (1)she is the Mother of Baby Cheeses; (2) We all know Swiss cheese is holey.
• Heres' the e-bay listing for the Holy Sandwich.
• Bookies believe Sophie Anderton will be the first contestant to quit the I'm A Celebrity jungle
• In all my years, I've learned one good rule in life. Don't ever fuck with a Scandinavian rent-a-cop.
• At least one person was stabbed in a scuffle that broke out during the second annual Vibe Awards in Santa Monica, California. The Vibe Awards are sorta like what the Emmys woudl be if they were produced by Vince McMahon.
• In a simulation of the Mudd's Robots Paradox, "Cher continues to schedule more shows as she closes in on the end of her touring career"
• BUSH OUTSOURCES STATE DEPARTMENT. World Diplomacy Rerouted to Calling Center in Bangalore.
• Jennifer Garner had to change the name of her production company, after discovering it shared its name with a hardcore porn manufacturer.
• An apple a day does keep the doctor away, especially a very large apple thrown accurately.
• It seems that the pop star formerly associated with Gary Sheffield's wife is R. Kelly, but Kelly has nothing to do with the threat to make the tapes public. In fact, the article implies that the tapes may not even exist at all. "The FBI affidavit does not say whether the videotapes actually existed or whether Mosley's alleged remarks might have been part of a bluff." (Mosley is the alleged extortionist.)
• Vanessa Redgrave founds her own political party.
• Four short sample vids from SPICE UNCENSORED! - the videos barred from Spice TV.
• The Playmate Gallery slides back a generation with Kym Malin - May 1982 Staplewoman - Courtesy of PlayboyPlus.com!
• The Daily Show talks about whether the Democrats should try to win on immorality, anti-family and Satan worship.
• "Gadsby: A Story of Over 50,000 Words Without Using the Letter E"
• Here, at last, is something useful: The Single Man's Guide to Frozen Dinners

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.

Today the Ghost takes a look at the 1973 drive-in flick "Invasion of the Bee Girls".

• Anitra Ford topless and baring her bum as she does a little strip tease then rolls around in a slow moving love scene. Ford has the honor of being one of the original models on "The Price Is Right". (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Anitra Ford zipped .wmvs (1, 2, 3)

• Anna Aries, also baring breasts and bum. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12)
• Anna Aries zipped .wmvs (1, 2, 3, 4)

• 70's porn and softcore star Rene Bond opens up her lab coat and plays with her breasts. (1, 2, 3, 4)
• Rene Bond zipped .wmv

• Sharon Kelly, wearing nothing except white boots.
• Sharon Kelly zipped .wmv

• Susan Player (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Susan Player zipped .wmv

• Victoria Vetri aka Angela Dorian the former Heffer (Sept '67, for the year '68) showing off her beautiful breasts. In #3 we also see rear nudity. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Victoria Vetri zipped .wmvs. In clip #1 she gets seriously groped in a near-rape scene. (1, 2)

• Unknown #1 opens her lab coat and grabs a boob. (1, 2)
• Unknown #1 zipped .wmv

• Unknown #2 strips down to her undies and shows off her big'uns. (1, 2)
• Unknown #2 zipped .wmv

Oscar winner Harden takes off her top but teases us by keeping the goods off camera.

Rhodes is less shy and gives up a full dorsal view.

Boti Bliss

Paige Moss
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Samantha Ferris
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11)

Scoops,

I recently to see a screening of "Closer", and I'm sorry to report that the rumored Natalie Portman topless scene isn't there.

In the main strip club scene, she's first seen in a bikini; then the movie cuts to a private room where she's shot from behind as she puts her bra back on. She spends a lot of time slinking around in her bra and thong, with plenty of bun shots but nothing else. Funny that after Portman said of Mike Nichols, "He wants to see my bare ass much less than my father would," her (almost) bare ass is the only thing Nichols does show!

Subject: Vibe Awards

Scoops,
I'm sure someone is already working on 'caps of this, but when Ashanti performed at the Vibe Awards, it looked like she was showing some nipple in the closeup views!

FCC RACKING UP TV COMPLAINTS
Unreality Show - Jeff Jarvis, a blogger who writes the BuzzMachine.com weblog, filed a Freedom of Information Act request to see the 159 complaints that prompted the FCC to slap Fox TV with a record $1.2 million fine for the sexual content of the reality show, "Married by America." He found there were really only 90 letters, almost all were sent by just 23 people, and all but two were identical photocopies of a form letter. So the $1.2 million fine was sparked by just three complaint letters.