The Door in the Floor (2004) was reviewed by Scoopy, who basically talks about how it is a very well made adaptation of a John Irving novel, or, more properly the first third of the novel. I frankly do not understand the film. I understand what happens, but often not why it happens, and the ending is a total mystery to me. The acting was top notch, especially from Kim Basinger, Jeff Bridges, and Elle Fanning. The trick was to present basically despicable people as sympathetic characters, and at that, they somewhat succeeded.

Bridges is an alcoholic author of children's books and womanizer, and Basinger, as his wife, is nearly catatonic. After the tragic death of their two sons in an auto accident, the marriage pretty much died as well, but they moved to the Hamptons and had a daughter, the intent being to start over. Basinger has found that she really doesn't want to properly mother the daughter, and, although Bridges tries to be a good father, he kind of sucks at it. When Bridges loses his drivers license, he hits upon the idea of hiring a helper for the summer who wants to be a writer, looks much like one of his dead sons, and drives. There is also some hint that he expects the kid (played by Jon Foster) to end up in bed with Basinger. Bridges also either plans on dumping her and keeping custody of the daughter, or not -- hard to tell, based on the ending.

I thought Foster was way too weak to play against the other performers, although his motives were the most understandable of the entire bunch. I was hoping the feature length commentary would help, but they spent the entire film patting themselves on the back for technical points of the production. Irving, in an interview, thought it was an excellent adaptation of his novel. Basinger is naked, but in a medium-long shot. We see her left breast, and her buns from the side. Bridges runs around bare-assed frequently. Mimi Rogers, as Bridges latest conquest, does full frontal and full rear nudity in good light.

IMDb currently has this at 7.1 of 10. It had a limited Art House distribution. Unlike Scoopy, I did not much enjoy this. It looked good, for the most part, which is always a plus for me, and I was able to relate somewhat to Basinger's character, but could not really accept Bridges' character, which probably prevented me from enjoying the film. It is not one I will rewatch, but those who like this sort of film will feel differently. This is a C+.

Updates:

• There are 1102 new pictures added to the Encyclopedia in volumes P, Q, R, S, T, U, now placing the body count at 62,000 pictures.

The Door in the Floor (2004)

I really like this movie, but I am damned sick of talking about it. This will be the last time. These captures are from the Region 1 DVD, which is finally ready to street. There are basically four features: a "making of a scene" featurette, an interview with the director, an interview with author John Irving, and a full-length commentary from the director and his key staff. The commentary was pretty unenlightening, but the other features together formed an interesting revelation of how Irving's novel, which took place over several decades, became a movie about one summer in the lives of the characters.

Irving's interview is outstanding. He exhibits a complete understanding of the differences between a film and a novel, and he sizes up the film perfectly. And of course he's a highly articulate guy, so the interview is like listening to a prepared lecture from a lively professor. He was pleased with the film, finding it faithful to his characters even when it tampered with his chronology and his dialogue, even when it added new scenes. I agree with him completely, and am impressed to see how generously he was able to share his creation. It is also interesting to hear Irving discuss his characters. I don't think I disagreed with one thing he said in the entire interview, and gained many insights in the process.

It is, however, a depressing movie with a perplexing and unnecessarily abstract ending. As some wise man has undoubtedly pointed out, and if not let me be the first, symbolism only works when the symbolic action ALSO makes sense on the surface. When a symbol exists apart from reality, just for the sake of having a symbol, it becomes pretension. That's what happened at the end of this movie. Jeff Bridges walked into a door in the floor of his racquetball court, recreating a moment in one of his children's books, and echoing the name of the movie.

Very dramatic. Makes for a very stirring image as the film ends with his hand disappearing and the door falling, as if he were a troll living beneath the house.

Only one thing wrong with it. It ONLY works on the symbolic level. In the surface story, it makes no sense at all. Why would a guy play some racquetball, then crawl through a door in the floor of the court? It would make sense if he had a shower or something down there, but the location of the shower is already established elsewhere, and no purpose is established for the area under the court. So he's just doing something symbolic, descending into a personal hell or something. That is just plain artifice, and draws away significantly from the sincerity of the story.

The film did absolutely nothing at the box office. If you're an Irving fan, you'll appreciate it. If you don't like his work, you should look at the nude scenes and stay away from the film.

• Here's my full review.

• Here's Kim (1, 2, 3)

• Here's Mimi (1, 2, 3, 4)

Paparazzi

Just a couple of items making the rounds on the web

• Goldie Hawn caught topless by the paparazzi

• Juliette Lewis with a nipple exposed in a photo op

Other Crap:

• BRITNEY Spears caused a real stink when her smelly FEET gassed a plane full of people. "Passengers complained when the pungent pop star shed her shoes on a flight. The nasty niff was so bad that a stewardess asked Britney to put them back on. One passenger fumed: 'The smell was unbelievable.'"
• Nostalgia puts 'Sonny & Cher' on DVD
• Here's that PG-13 nude that Lindsay Lohan did for the cover of EW
• Here's the first teaser trailer for Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Wonka re-make starring Johnny Depp.
• Eva Longoria & Nicolette Sheridan at Oceans 12 Premiere. Nicolette does not look good in close-up. Eva looks great from any angle.
• FORMER JEOPARDY CHAMP LOSES ARGUMENT WITH WIFE. Had Won Previous 74 Spats
• For your homework, compare and contrast this obviously altered but nontheless official picture of Britney to the REAL picture below.
• The Weekend Update site has now added the zipped film clip from the Luke Wilson show.
• Uncle Melon explains How to Use a Vagina
• Is it Britney Spears or Hulk Hogan?
• Mel Gibson buys the Island of Mago. I think he thought Mago was the singular of Magi.
• Remember that 1954 Home Computer Prediction that never really appeared in Popular Mechanics? Well, it's now in Popular Mechanics.
• First picture of the Fantastic Four together.
• Four fey and pretentious clips from The Phantom of the Opera.
• Jon Stewart interviews former Secretary of the Treasury, Paul O'Neill.
• The Daily Show looks at the American intelligence community re-organization.
• What is the deal on the American Express Black Card?
• What could be a better combo than vintage porn and mesh trucker caps?Hussy Vintage Trucker Hats.
• Who has the momentum for a best-actress nomination? Annette Bening seems to have the inside track, but it's a wide-open field at this point.
• The Smokling Gun: According to a Scottsdale Police Department report, after departing the Pussycat Lounge at 12:45 AM, an inebriated Mike Tyson jumped on the hood of a stranger's car, causing about $1500 in damage.
• I'm not sure why anyone believed them in the first place, but in case you hadn't already figured it out by the fact that her name was typed wrong, here's the latest scoop on this crucial world news. The Lindsay Lohan driver's license and Amex floating around the web are fakes.
• The Simpsons' most obscure jokes.
• San Francisco in Ruins - aerial photographs taken after the 1906 earthquake. The photographer devised an ingenious system using kites to make the photographs.
• "Billboard" Awards Usher in Victory. The chart-busting singer just about swept the major awards.
• Teenagers and young men should keep their laptops off their laps because they could damage fertility.
• A visit to the set of Aeon Flux.
• The trailer for The New World, Terence Malick's new film about that whole wacky Pocahontas/John Smith thing. It stars Christian Bale and Colin Farrell as Johns Rolfe and Smith respectively. This is only Malick's third film in the past thirty years, so he's not exactly on factory-level production here.
• Monkeys finally create perfect copy of Romeo and Juliet. "One time they got to the fourth act of Macbeth, before making a mistake. The monkeys also recently typed out a Thomas Pynchon novel, but that doesn't count."
• Here's the trailer from XXX: State of the Union. Ice Cube takes over the Vin Diesel responsibilities.

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 from the Ghost...Robin Wright aka Mrs. Sean Penn aka Princess Buttercup aka Jenny from "Forrest Gump".

Here she is topless in scenes from the 1996 movie "Moll Flanders".

• Robin Wright (1, 2)

• Robin Wright zipped .wmvs (1, 2, 3)

Sccops,

It's a short trip today in the old time machine back to 1994. To we visit a "Damsel in "Distress" in scenes from the Fred Olen Ray/Jim Wynorski movie, "Dinosaur Island".

B-Movie veteran Becky Lebeau is topless and tied up while waiting for the dinosauar to claim his victim. Believe me this truly is a B-Movie.

• Becky LeBeau (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Scoops,

Here are some caps of Alessandra Ramos in the movie "Carlito's Angels". I don't think I even need to take to time to say "this movie stinks", but I will say that the girls look good.

I only capped Alessandra because she was the only one who did nudity, however, you can see the other 2 girls in some of the caps. Their names are Evly Pacheco and Jeni Garcia. Enjoy :)

• Alessandra Ramos, sexy outfits and cleavage in links 1-12. Topless in links 13-16, rear nudity in #17 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)

"Endangered Species"
In this 2002 plot rip-off of 1987's The Hidden, a detective is investigating a series of slayings at health spas. The killer shoots 20-25 people in the eye, then takes 6-8 bodies with him, only the most perfect specimens.

What starts out as a crime thriller becomes a Sci-Fi when it turns out that a mysterious stranger who is also stalking the killer is a game warden, and the killer is in fact a poacher. Think about it.

Decent enough storyline, but it's also a B-movie all the way, with some pretty lame acting, but some OK nudity. In addition, they have some good action sequences including a pretty decent car chase. Sci-Fi lovers will probably like it. I did.

• Egle Zakarevieiute
• Sarah Kaite Coughlan
• Viktorija Soldatenko

PC NEWS: FASTER PORN
Comes Fast - According to a survey of more than 5,000 people with broadband Internet in the UK, almost one in four admit that they got it to download porn faster. A third got it to download music. Only 5 percent got it to share files with friends and family.