Alien Files (1999) is a direct to Video Skinemax effort by the Click productions folks. This time, it is not based on Milo Manara, but is a spoof of X Files. Think FBI team investigating the parasexual. A space ship has returned with the entire crew infected with a sex virus. Seems the Alien life form, which started as a bit off moss, releases pollen with pheromones to sexually arouse people, then has the ability to take their form (only the women). The original can feel what the clone feels in her next sexual exploit. As you can see, this plot device functions just like the clicker. Instant sexual arousal.

The nudity summary is as follows:

Delphine Pacific, as the first infected astronaut, shows everything.

Emma Joones as an infected guard also shows everything.

Gabriella Hall, as the last infected astronaut, shows breasts and buns.

Kira Lee, as the female special agent, shows everything.

Kris Tyler, as the alien, shows everything.

Lauren Hayes, as a random woman infected during the pursuit, shows everything.

Petra Sexton, as an astronaut, shows everything.

The video quality, unfortunately is very poor, with nearly every possible problem, including grain, scratches, dirt spots, and contrast and saturation problems. They didn't even size the entire film exactly the same in this 4/3 transfer. It is a shame, as the film might look good with a decent transfer. The acting is universally bad, and the sex is more moaning and groaning then explicit. ON the other hand, it is a good premise, and lots of women get very naked. There is virtually no information at IMDB. This is a D+. With a decent transfer, I would elevate it to C, as it has the genre requirements.

MAILBOX:

Good eye! Good question!

 

Two different movies, two different directors. Looks like the same footage, re-used.

 

Fred Olen Ray and Jim Wynorski, the two directors, are buds to begin with, and Wynorski recent career is built on creating new pastiche movies by using footage and sound tracks from other films. One of Wynorski's films has the exact same sound track as an earlier Ray film, for example, so those two guys are known to share.

 

Read a discussion of this phenomenon here.

Miscellaneous chicks:

• Barbara Williams in a skin-tight nearly flesh-colored bikini in Perfect Pie (2002). (1, 2) You may remember her as the star of Thief of Hearts - way back in 1984. I suppose she must be about 45 years old, but she still looks great in that bikini.
• Cynda Williams. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) Talk about women who look great naked! It's hard to miss Cynda's jumbo jacks. Her acting career started with a splash, acting and singing in Mo' Better Blues. The legit career didn't go as well as her early promise seemed to indicate, but she surely provided some sexy moments.  It is not widely remembered, but a decade ago she was married to a then-unknown grade-B actor named Billy Bob Thornton. I was looking at Thornton's bio. His dad is named Billy Ray, and his brother is Jimmy Don.
• Brenda Blethyn naked? Sure enough. Here she is, age 57, in Between The Sheets, a TV program from the UK.  I found out from her bio that she was born with six fingers.
• Kristanna Loken, star of  T-3, with a breast out in public
• Petra Buzkova is the Czech education minister. She made the news recently when she had a breast reduction, and her colleagues ribbed her about it in public.

Lord of Illusions:

If Clive Barker is credited as the writer and director of a film based on one of his own stories, you can bet that it will exhibit some twisted and truly inventive thinking, as well as the visual imagination to support it. Lord of Illusions, along with Nightbreed and Hellraiser, is one of three such films made between 1987 and 1995. It was directed by Barker from his own screenplay, which was in turn adapted by Barker from his own short story, "The Last Illusion".

The story begins as a black magician named Nix, a man who is trying to achieve immortality and the destruction of humanity through the black arts, is defeated by several of his former students, who imprison him in a bizarre iron mask and armor, then bury him deep underground.

That was the prologue.

The real story takes place thirteen years later, when some of Nix's disciples want to resurrect him from his grave. This proves to be immediately threatening to the students who had defeated him, because they know that if the Nix-man comes back from the grave, he's going to be in one foul mood, and will exact a terrible revenge on those who placed him underground.

The leader of the plot against Nix so many years ago was his most powerful disciple, who is now working as a magician, performing at The Magic Castle and the Pantages. His audiences think he is a master illusionist and showman, ala David Copperfield, but a few close associates know that his illusions are not illusions at all. He really can levitate, for example. He can actually perform magic because he stole or acquired some of Nix's vast powers.

The twist in the story is that the disciple and his wife, who was another participant in the plot against Nix, have hired a private detective. Why would they need a regular joe kind of private dick in the battle against the forces of evil? This detective, Clive Barker's Harry D'Amour, who appeared in three of Barker's stories ("The Great Secret Show", "The Last Illusion", and "Everville"), is quite similar to Dennis Wheatley's Duke de Richleau, in that he specializes in cases that involve the black arts in some ways. Although his clients' true motives are masked in this case, the detective comes to understand that his real job is to prevent the remaining cultists from resurrecting Nix or, failing that, to help the good guys destroy Nix.

If you've seen and liked Nightbreed and Hellraiser, the odds are pretty good that you'll like Lord of Illusions as well. I like Nightbreed and Hellraiser a lot, and I didn't think that Lord of Illusions reached the same heights (or depths) of depravity and creepiness, Compared to those other two films, more of Lord of Illusions takes place in the real world, with grounded, normal characters like the detective, but I still found it fascinating and fun.

Say, that guy Nix represents the pure evil of which mankind is capable. I wonder if he is supposed to represent Nixon.

Geez, I hope nobody is trying to resurrect HIM.

• Famke Janssen (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) (Links 5-8 show her topless, but nothing is exposed. I like the other ones better, in which Famke is wearing a crepe dress.)
• Unknown (1, 2, 3, 4)

OTHER CRAP:

• What is the deal with that "ribbon candy"?

• The Gashlycrumb Tinies - by Edward Gorey

• When geeks get married, what does the cake look like?

• Former President Reagan Rarely Awake Even less than when he was president.

• Game Makers Get Star Treatment: "In Spike TV's inaugural Video Game Awards, a glitzy, red-carpet event airing Thursday, David Spade cracks wise as host, Pam Anderson and Lil' Kim make special appearances, WWE wrestlers grapple on stage, and buxom models deliver awards and pop champagne for the guests"

• Weebles, the toy craze from the 1970s, have been revived just in time for Christmas.

• Statement By Roy Black, Rush Limbaugh's Attorney -12.04.03: "'We have been informed that this afternoon the Palm Beach State Attorney's Office will announce that it has seized the medical records of four doctors who treated Rush Limbaugh for serious medical conditions and the pain resulting from them. "

• Good see-through video of the mouseketeer. Download speed is slow, but I think it is worth the wait.

• Man killed by parrot shit. This really happened. Parrot shit is filled with ammonia, and ...

• A giant condom is displayed on the roof on a building in Taipei. And it appears that there is a man trapped inside! Funny picture.

• A Salute to Game Shows

• URL says it all: RateMyImplants.com

• Japanese train reached 581 MPH. Engineers say the train can go 500 MPH in full everyday operational mode. Depending on the relative distance of the train station and airport from home, it could get commuters to their destinations faster than flying.

• Kurt Wenner - Gallery of Street Paintings

• New S/F series: the 4400: "4,400 missing people reappear back on the Earth after being abducted by aliens"

• Back to the NBA for the Nets: The Power N' Motion Dance Team

• The New York Yankees, profligate spenders as always, acquired potential superstar Javier Vazquez from Les Expos. Another helluva pick up for the evil empire. He's had ups and downs, but Vazquez could be a #1 starter for almost any team in the majors, has started at least 32 games every year in the millennium, and is only 27 years old, despite a full six years experience in the show.

• Who is the Master Debater at the University of Maryland? Wouldja believe - Ron Jeremy?

• The most hated celebrity on the web? Osama? Saddam? Dubya? Hugh Grant? Rose O'Donnell? None of the above. The sheer size of the Mouseketeer's anti-cult makes her the most hated celebrity on the 'net.

• So just what do the guys down at the factory give the girl in the office on her birthday? Well for starters they strip her naked, grab an arm and a leg each .....

• Weekly World News: "A practical joker has stirred up trouble by publishing a Japanese-to-English phrase book with incorrect definitions for every phrase! 'For instance, when the Japanese think they're asking 'Can you direct me to the rest room?' the book actually has them saying, 'Excuse me, may I caress your buttocks?'" Hey - didn't Monty Python already do this schtick?

• Actor David Hemmings Dies on Set of New Movie. Hemmings was best known for his late 60s stardom in Blow-Up (the photographer) and Camelot (Mordred). Although his star faded over the decades to the point where his name was no longer familiar to casual fans, he continued to work steadily in "A" pictures, most recently in Gangs of New York, Gladiator, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

• Mystic River takes early lead in Oscar race. The National Board of Review picked the top 10 films for the year. Return of the King is not on the list. I wrote after Sundance that Patricia Clarkson could get some award-season hardware if anyone ever saw Pieces of April. She was chosen "best supporting actress" by the board.

• Tori Spelling refused to do a photo session with co-stars William Shatner and Gary Coleman, hissing: 'I'm not taking pictures with those HASBEENS!'

• A troubled Supreme Court considered Wednesday whether government photographs of dead bodies should be kept private, in an emotional revival of a 10-year-old debate over the death of White House lawyer Vince Foster.

• Scruples survey finds 94% of British women admit to pollsters that they lie. And the other 6% lied to the pollster.

• GMTV criticized for showing sex toys in breakfast hour programming.

• A Kid Rock Christmas. Sure to become a perennial seasonal favorite. He hopes to do to the Holidays what he has done to so many Holiday Inns in the past.

• The government of Saudi Arabia refuses entry to men wearing shorts.

• The zany San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that it is unconstitutional to punish people for providing 'training' or 'personnel' to a terror group.

• The Tennessee constitution requires one to believe in God, heaven, and hell as a prerequisite for state office: "'No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.'"

• NICOLE Kidman shouldn't count on marrying Lenny Kravitz. The super-confident rocker has confessed to pals he isn't really in love with the Oscar-winning Australian stunner, and is spending a lot of time with her partly because her fame helps raise his profile and sell records.

• "Here's more proof men are more sensitive than women think: A new survey shows that if given a choice between a bigger penis and world peace, 90 percent would choose world peace."

• "Today, at a Press Conference in Los Angeles, California, People Magazine unveiled its annual Dumbest man alive issue, naming Ashton Kutcher its Dumbest Man for 2003.' "

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

Click here to submit a URL for inclusion in Other Crap

MOVIE REVIEWS:

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 Junior or Brainscan, or somebody else besides me)
• If there is no asterisk, I wrote it, but am too ashamed to admit it.

• UK actress Charlotte Gainsbourg...great rear nudity and a brief nipple sighting in scenes from "Ma femme est une actrice" aka "My Wife Is an Actress" (2001).

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

Scoops,

I thought it was about time I gave something back capwise to the Fun House, so here it goes...

These first 'caps to the very gorgeous Wanda Mendres and her appearance in her only IMDB credit, "St Tropez Vice" aka "Police des moeurs" (1987). She takes the lot off several times, and does plenty of cavorting which is nice.

• Wanda Mendres, full frontal nudity. (1, 2, 3, 4)

The next batch are from the 1977 film "Beauty and the Beast" aka "La Bella e la bestia". Lisbeth Hummel spends large portions of the film naked, she stars in the first two segments. The other 'caps are from the third part of the movie, but I'm not sure who the actress is. Perhaps some Fun House readers can help ID her.

• Former fashion model Lisbeth Hummel going full frontal. (1, 2, 3)
• Unknown (1, 2)

I think Scoop summed it best:

It's a terrific movie. A sure sign of greatness in a work of literature, filmed or written, is the ability to master complex tone changes seamlessly - to move from comedy to tragedy, from sexy to funereal, from grim to slapstick, from fantasy to reality and back. The film does that beautifully, in such a way as to magnify each of the elements by contrasting it with the others.