THE OH IN OHIO (2006):

This is basically like an episode of Sex and the City with a new character. Parker Posey plays a successful suburbanite who has conquered every field but one: her own orgasms. She hasn't ever had one. She doesn't even masturbate. Since she has been married to the same man (Paul Rudd) for ten years, she has just shut herself off from sexual feelings to concentrate on the rest of her life. Her husband, on the other hand, is crushed by his failure to please her, and is experiencing a profound depression. After much hand-wringing and a separation, she finally resolves to try to understand her problem. In the course of her newfound single life, she goes to a demented masturbation coach (Liza Minnelli), buys sex toys, sleeps with a lot of men, has her lesbian moment (with Heather Graham!), has many frank girl-talks with her friend, and finally finds her tantric center in the person of an ugly little old runt of a pool guy (Brad Pitt) who can make her laugh ... and come.

Just kidding about Pitt. I'm pretty sure you can guess who actually plays the old pool guy.

Her husband, meanwhile, is a high school teacher and gets his mojo back by having an affair with one of his honor students (Mischa Barton). The film completely backs off any moral judgment about that relationship, treating the affair exactly the same as if she were a 21-year-old college student from a different school.

It seems like a cable project but somehow managed a tiny theatrical run (20 screens). I'm not sure why. Perhaps the distributors thought that audiences might show up to see the recognizable names in the cast. Despite a lot of frank talk, the sex and nudity are minimal, and the jokes are edgeless. The cast is fine, but the film just let them down. It has all the superficial character development, general pointlessness and glib attitude of a comedy without any of that pesky "humor. "

 

Mischa Barton. She is an attractive young woman, and she has two pseudo-nude scenes (a topless sex scene and a nude skinny-dip), but they are both "cheats" in which we can't see a damned thing.)

THIRD PARTY VIDEOS:

Here is the zipped .avi video of Edie Falco in The Quiet (OK image quality, but the sound is out of synch.) One movie reviewer called this the most embarrassing nude scene in film history, but  ... well, I don't agree. I think she looks OK. She's not a goddess, or even a beauty, but she's trim, has a firm butt and a flat stomach. Personally, I'd rather look at an average real woman, even one in her forties, than one of those plastic-boob chicks, and I don't think I'm the only guy in that category. Sample captures below.

 

Here's a zipped .avi of one of my favorite nude scenes. Coming to America. "The royal penis is clean, your highness!"

OTHER CRAP:

The Other Crap site has simply become too big and detailed to fit into my Fun House column. It contains far too much info, too many graphics, too many news feeds, and too many embedded videos to include here. Plus the scoopy.net version was always a day out of synch.  You fans please catch the deluxe version of Other Crap in real time, with all the bells and whistles, here.

MOVIE REVIEWS:

Yellow asterisk: funny (maybe). White asterisk: expanded format. Blue asterisk: not mine. No asterisk: it probably sucks.

Chained Heat II (1993)

Chained Heat II (1993) is a by-the-numbers WIP film with only one distinguishing factor: it marks the origin of Czechsploitation films. It was the first film made by writer/director Lloyd Simandl in his native Czechoslovakia. While no memorable films have come out of his efforts there, this was the start of a long run of grade-B films, many of which shared locations, and had pretty much the same plot.

An innocent young woman (Kimberly Kates) is thrown in a prison run by sadistic lesbians (Brigitte Nielsen and Kari Whitman). She is befriended by a fellow prisoner (Lucie Benes). After being forced to participate in the warden's racket with includes prostitution, porno films and worse, her sister finally helps her to escape and bring down the prison regime. In the only departure from the genre guidelines, the part of the doctor this time is played by a cross-dressing dressmaker kept around to clothe the inmates for hostess duties.

IMDb readers have this at 2.9, which is misleading. It ignores the fact that the production quality is excellent, the nudity copious, and the photography better than most B-movies, all of which is just barely enough to earn it a C- on our scale.

 

Lucie Benes

Kimberly Kates

Petra Susser

Unknowns

The curse of the sequel lives on in 2006's National Lampoon's Dorm Daze 2, a comedy not nearly as funny (or even as coherent) as the original. On the plus side, it has more nudity.

In this one, most of the original group are on a cruise ship for the university's Semester at Sea program, which is supposed to be a floating classroom. Naturally, most of the students are intent on making it a floating bordello.

One aspect of the cruise involves a competition among various student groups to stage the best play. Aside from that turning into a giant disaster, there is a search for a missing diamond that happens to look exactly like a fake diamond used in one of the productions.

Throw in a few more sub-plots like every male student trying to nail the captain's wife (Jasmin St. Claire), and student Violet (Vida Guerra) first trying to keep, then trying to lose, her virginity, and you've got the makings of a funny slap-stick comedy.

Unfortunately, it didn't come together all that well and while there are some funny spots, it mostly comes off as just being dumb. Watch it with your thumb on the fast-forward button.

Vida Guerra	Jasmin St Claire	Julian Wells and others	various