The Baby of Mācon (1993) is Peter Greenway's strangest and most controversial film, and that is saying a lot. Critical opinion varies from brilliant and possibly his best, through he went a little to far, and all the way to absolutely disgusting garbage. Frequently, when it has shown in theaters, a large part of the audience has left the theater. It screened a few times in the US, but was too controversial to find a distributor. It has just been released on video for the first time in Australia. Although it is PAL, it is all region, so those of you who use their computer to watch DVDs can see it.

Since most of your are unlikely to see the film, I will write a thorough plot summary. If it is something you might want to see, skip to the images now.

Major Spoilers

A troupe is presenting a play in the palace of the Medicis in the 17th century. They provided entertainment for Medici so he wouldn't leave the palace and risk foul play from the rabble outside. The play concerns a perfect baby born of a very old, ugly woman. The baby's grown sister, Julia Ormond, decides the baby is much too pretty to be from the old woman, and decides to say it is hers, and once more, that it was a virgin birth. At the time of the birth, the city of Mācon was experiencing plague, famine, and the women were barren, which made the birth all the more miraculous. Ormond decides to put on a Madonna and Child act, and trades the baby's blessings for favors. Even though this is obvious exploitation of the baby, the blessings seem to lift the curse that has been on the city.

The local bishop, however, who wants to regain the church's power, sends his son the scientist, Ralph Fiennes, to disprove her claims. His position is that she is either a liar, and not the baby's mother, or a whore, who had the baby out of wedlock. She decides to seduce Fiennes, and prove that she is a virgin. She arranges the whole seduction scene in a stable, with the baby in a manger. At this point, the baby, who realizes that his power depends on her status as a virgin, demonstrates magical power, and uses a cow to gore Fiennes to death. The bishop swears revenge on her, and declares that she is too evil to raise this miraculous child, so makes him a ward of the church.

The church exploits the child far more than Ormond ever did, auctioning his bodily excretions and secretions to the highest bidder as holy relics. Ormond strangles the child in a blanket to get even. The bishop wants her hanged, but there is a law against hanging virgins. Then Midici, who isn't really clear as to whether this is a play or real, and has joined in from time to time, suggests that they put her in the custody of his palace guards, bless them, and have them rape her, thus making her eligible for hanging. The bishop uses some convoluted logic, and figures out that she should be raped well over 200 times. It is here that audiences tend to leave the theater. We see, or rather hear, the first 16 of the rapes, which actually take place behind a curtain. Nobody told the guards that this was a play, so they actually rape her, and, at the end, she is dead. The public, now deprived of the blessings of the child, divide his clothes, then carve him up into relics to give them good luck.

End Spoilers

Greenway shows sex in a non-erotic way here, and the rape is clearly all violence and no titillation at all, even though we see lengthy full-frontal and nude rear shots from Ormond. He is satirizing any number of things, including divine intervention, the virgin birth, and 17th century politics and economics. He definitely pulled out all the stops here. IMDB readers have it at 6.8 of 10. It won two cinematography awards at International festivals, but this DVD transfer is not very good, and the film was intentionally over-saturated to begin with, using a red, blue and gold color palette, so the images probably don't reflect the way the film was meant to look. For me, by the time we got to the rape and mutilation scenes, I was emotionally numb, and was not especially affected by them. For me, it was a little hard to follow, especially since Greenaway intentionally blurred the boundaries between the play and real life, and certainly not a fun watch. It was very powerful, however, and I can always count on Greenaway to show me something very different. He is odd enough that recent Greenaway is its own genre, and this was not nearly my favorite of his films, so the proper score is probably C. Greenaway fans will want to see it, but may not enjoy it.

Here's a sound movie clip of Jennifer Aniston's sex scene in The Good Girl.

• Aniston. I don't really recommend this. I did it because people requested it. It is a 12 meg download, and the sound is virtually meaningless - some quiet sex noises and some tinkly music ala American Beauty. The previous soundless film clip was far superior in quality, had a larger picture, and was only 3 or 4 meg.

There is no nudity in the workmanlike but uninspired sequel MIB II, but Lara Flynn Boyle spends the entire film in Victoria's Secret fashions.

• Boyle (1, 2)

There is actually a lot of nudity in the obscure film A Wilderness Station, which I watched a second time on a better screener. I decided to spend more time on it, since I'm the only one who's seen it, so how the hell will you get the pics if I don't do 'em? The nudity in the sex scene is minimal, but she is naked elsewhere in the film. This is the sensitive Canadian film about a girl isolated in the 19th century wilderness with an abusive husband. I concluded, after the second time through it, that it was worth watching, if not exactly worth clearing out your schedule for. Ms. Dhavernas is unknown to international audiences (she took the part when Sarah Polley backed out) but she's talented and attractive.

• Caroline Dhavernas. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) These are from a video tape, so the quality is lower than usual, but still worth looking at.

Nudity is the entire raison d'etre for Body of Evidence, the silly Basic Instinct rip-off starring Madonna, who won the Worst Actress Razzie that year for her performance.

• Madonna Thumbnails (1, 2)
• Madonna (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
• Julianne Moore thumbnails
• Julianne Moore (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)
• Anne Archer's body double

OTHER CRAP:

• The streakers hall of fame!
• David Letterman's top 10 explanations for Lisa Marie and Nic Cage. My favorite: "Once a woman's been married to Michael Jackson, she has certain expectations"
• A Swiss scientific lab says - there is 95% certainty that the bin Laden tape is a fake. Well, let me put it this way. About a month ago, they tried floating a different scam "Osama will soon make a new video tape, but don't be surprised if he has gained a lot of weight and doesn't look the same". When the world scoffed at that one, there was an audio tape instead. So, I'm kinda leaning toward scam myself, even though the CIA said it seemed authentic. The CIA - say, aren't those the guys who wanted to kill Fidel with exploding cigars?
• Tonya Harding, professional boxer. I guess Paula Jones wasn't enough of a challenge for her on "Celebrity Boxing. She's scheduled to make her debut before the Mike Tyson-Clifford Etienne bout on Feb. 22. Finally, after 10 years...a reason to say "Gillooly"!
• It seems that in England, the country that pretty much invented sarcasm, it is now necessary to have the permission of public figures before lampooning them in a commercial. Here is the banned British TV ad for 2DTV - making fun of Dubya. Here's the story behind it.  The regulator also nixed a "2DTV" ad featuring Manchester United soccer star David Beckham and his Spice Girl wife Victoria, in which the athlete is seen making out his Christmas list, asking: "Victoria, how do you spell DVD?"  
• more Page 3 wannabees
• The Arab Film festival is over in Tehran, and the surprise winner was "Islam Is Rightful Religion". Most of the smart Vegas money had been leaning toward "Dancing at the Blue Iguana" as the favorite. There is no truth to the rumor that Adam Sandler's new animated  film finished a surprising second.

Hey, Scoop:

I have a Mac. I was finally able to play the Aniston .divx movie using MPlayer (a port of the Linux player) on my Mac. For some reason these movies won't play with any of the other Mac players (QuickTime Player, VLC, etc.) even with the DivX codecs installed. If you happen to get any questions about this from Mac readers, you can point them here to get MPlayer:

http://sourceforge.net/projects/mplayerosx/

OS X is required. I haven't yet found an OS 9 player and/or codec combination that will play the Stamos and Aniston videos. Now that I've seen them, I'll echo the other readers comments that you should do a sound version. :)

Shameless Propaganda, part 4:

Who is Pat Reeder?

Pat Reeder is a guy whose name is not familiar to you, but who touches your life almost every day. He's the guy who writes the jokes that your DJ tells every morning during your drive to work.  He's also the guy who writes those Comedy Wire things that you see on the bottom of this page from time to time. If you wonder why your DJ and the Fun House tell the same jokes, Pat's the reason. At the moment, Pat has a new book out called "Nine Hallmarks of Highly Incompetent Losers."  It's a "reverse self-help" book that helps the reader attain success by avoiding nine stupid mistakes made by failures and idiots.  He illustrates his points with over 200 hilarious-but-true stories from his syndicated radio service, "The Comedy Wire."

If you like weird news and dumb criminal stories, or if you've ever been forced to suffer through a boring business/self-help book like "Who Moved My Cheese?", you'll love "Nine Hallmarks of Highly Incompetent Losers."  It earned four stars from Wireless Flash News, and will be in bookstores nationwide next spring, but you can get the jump on the rest of America and get it now through Pat's website.  Cheaper than Amazon and every copy is personally autographed! 

Click here (http://www.comedy-wire.com/bookorderpage.html) for a book excerpt, Real Audio updates on "Losers In The News," samples of the Comedy Wire and more. 

FREEBIE ALERT!  Be the first Funhouse denizen to order a copy via credit card and win a free year's subscription to the Fun House. That's a whole year of access, completely free. If you pay $39.95 per month, that's worth more than $450! Plus the damned book costs less than thirteen bucks to begin with, including an autograph! Just mention on the order form that you saw it in Uncle Scoopy's Funhouse. (If you're not a member now, and are reading this on the free version, you'll have to prove that you're 18, or the second guy will get the prize.) This Sunday, Pat will let me know who got in first, and we'll announce the winners in next Monday or Tuesday's edition, depending on how long it takes to verify that the winner is old enough.

Excerpt from Chapter Four: Don't Communicate Clearly

...Anyone who is writing a hand-lettered sign in an unfamiliar language can make simple translation errors, but it takes a special kind of incompetence to make a really costly and embarrassing faux pas when you are part of a large group of professionals assigned the task of communicating with a foreign language market.  Yet with enough diligence, it can be done...

*  Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, posted bilingual signs to greet Spanish-speaking visitors. One sign literally read,
"Violators will be deceased."  Another said that to drink legally in Arizona, you must have "21 anuses."  This was supposed to read "You  must be 21 years old," although to be fair, some people who are just returning from Mexico feel as if they do have 21 anuses.

*   Detroit automakers love to give cars evocative names that often lose something in the translation.  One famous example is when Chevrolet had difficulty selling the Nova in South America until they finally figured out that "no va" is Spanish for "doesn't go."  A less well-known but even more embarrassing cultural clash blindsided Ford when they attempted to market the Pinto in Brazil, only to learn that "pinto" is a Brazilian slang term for "small male genitals."  But then, that's pretty much what driving a Pinto connotes in America, too...

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.

Heffermania, day 2.

• February 1994 Hefmate Julie Lynn Cialini in DVD caps from "Wolfhound" (2001). Julie gets nekkid a quite often in this movie. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• January 1982 Hefmate Kimberly McArthur and September 1983 Hefmate Barbara Edwards topless together in a shower scene in DVD 'caps from the Sidaris classic "Malibu Express". (1, 2, 3)

• May 1985 Hefmate Kathy Shower, also known as Shannon Tweed Lite, not because she isn't Shannon's match in the looks dept, but because she starred in about half the number of erotic thrillers as Shannon. Here Kathy is seen in a pair of VHS caps from "Hindsight" (1993). The caps show her sport-humpin in a car. Funny, she doesn't look like a high school student. (1, 2)

• April 2001 Hefmate Katie Lohmann in DVD caps from "The Model Solution". I sent in caps of Katie from a sport-humpin scene in this movie a while back. These are even better. Full-frontal images of Katie posing for photos (1-4) and in behind-the-scenes filming (5 and 6). Boobs in all but #3 and a lingering look at Katie's bush in 1 and 3. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• Feb 1976 Hefmate, Laura Lyons in the worst movie ever made, "Tintorera". These caps suck. Trust me. Laura was drop dead gorgeous and she was built! In the movie she gets all nekkid and stuff but the VHS tape I bought (BOUGHT!!!) was awful and her exposure is fleeting. Boobs and bum, when you do get a look. (1, 2, 3)

• Feb 1975 Hefmate Laura Misch (Owens) in "French Quarter" (1978). She deserved much better treatment than I was able to give these second-generation VHS caps. Beautiful face and a bod to die for. (1, 2, 3)

• October 1997 Hefmate, Layla Harvest Roberts in DVD caps of "Beowulf". Painfully beautiful woman in a painfully awful movie. Sure, I know Beowulf wasn't the brightest of epic heroes, much more a man of action than of thought, but he wasn't a monosyllabic delta semi-moron. So why the frog would you cast Christopher Lambert in the title role? Sheesh. Layla shows off her boobs in 3 collages of extreme see-thru action (the first 3) and in one of a direct, extremely peak (last collage). (1, 2, 3, 4)

• Feb 1979 Hefmate Lee Ann Michelle topless in the Sidaris movie "Seven" (1979). Caps turned out okay. Lee Ann went by the name of Carol Needham whilst posing as a page 3 girl back in the old country. She was not credited for this brilliant performance.

• August 1975 Hefmate, Lillian Muller in "Sex On the Run" (1979). She plays a nun, who gets nekkid with a couple of other nuns... all of whom are gorgeous. Just like the elementary school I attended.

• February 1995 Hefmate Lisa Marie Scott in DVD caps of "The Glass Cage". Terrific bum in 1, perfect boobs in 2 and 3, angelic face throughout. The best of the modern Hefmates. (1, 2, 3)

• April 1981 Hefmate Lorraine Michaels in the Sidaris masterpiece, "Malibu Express". This is a quirky movie, sometimes pretty funny, with a bit of mystery and acres of boobs. Tuna capped this DVD and sent me something like 300 frames. He sent in individual frames to the Funhouse a while back. Those and a whole bunch of others are in these collages. It's a boobs-only performance by Lorraine, even though she's sport-humpin in the shower. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

• July 1982 Hefmate, Lynda Wiesmeier, in three movies. First up are DVD caps that Tuna grabbed from "Malibu Express". Lynda is topless in a dressing room (the name of her character is June Khnockers, if you were wondering about the sign in back of her) and in a car. You don't want to know what she is doing. (1, 2, 3, 4)

• The second batch of Lynda's 'caps are topless VHS caps from "Preppies" (1984). Lynda was busy as (dare I say it?) a beaver in 1984, appearing topless or nude in "Malibu Express", RSVP, Wheels of Fire and Preppies. (1, 2, 3)

• And the third batch features a triple-B performance in VHS caps of "Private School" (1983). Full frontal stuff in the famous girls' shower scene in the first one, a nice view of her bum in the second, boobs in the last three. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

• VHS caps of Madeline Collinson (Hefmate for Oct 1970) in "Twins of Evil", showing off her hooties. This is double-beware movie: evil twins AND vampires.

• July 1973 Hefmate, Martha Smith in "Blood Link" (1983). I sent in a bunch of collages from this movie a couple weeks ago, but I saved the best of them for this batch. (1, 2, 3, 4)

Today we go back to 1990 for "The Hot Spot", which starred Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen and a fun house favorite Jennifer Connelly at a very young age.Now we all love nudity but today's caps have none to offer, but both of these ladies just ooze sex appeal whether naked or dressed, both just have that look in their eyes. Next time we will show you even more of these fantastic women.

• Jennifer Connelly (1, 2)
• Virginia Madsen (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Today's movie..."Red Meat"

The title of this movie does NOT refer to the women in it, but it might as well have, because the men in the movie treat the women like meat. For those who care, the title refers to a group of men that meet monthly, tell stories of their conquests, and eat Red Meat - get it?

It kinda sucks that they lit the nude scenes as poorly as they did, but I did the best I could with what I had.

• Anna Karin, cleavage and toplessness.
• Heidi Lenhart, topless and rear nudity,
• Jennifer Grey (from Dirty Dancing), pokies, undies and showing off a 6-pack!

Rebecca Romijn-Stamos
(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)

Romijn-Stamos and Rasmussen
(1, 2, 3, 4)

Here's the lo-down:

Rasmussen...nipple sighting through her snake-like top thingie, and topless in their lesbo scene.

Romijn-Stamos...Very sexy scenes of her stripping down to her undies, plus full frontal underwater.