Sonny (2002)-- A reader wrote that both Scoopy and I missed a butt shot of Josie Davis in the movie Sonny. He mentioned that it was at the end of the "cough syrup" scene, as she was being helped to her feet. We always aim to please, so here are the requested butt close-ups. I also included a couple of frames as she was shoved to the floor that I rejected as too out of focus my first time through.

In America (2003)

We continue my Philistinism on this year's prestige pictures. I didn't much care for this one, either. I didn't much care for anything that the critics liked, although I'm certain I'll agree with them on The Return of the King.

Break out your insulin for this one.

In America is a sentimental tale of an Irish family moving to America in the early 80s, and is about halfway between a fairy tale and one of those "miracle of life through a child's eyes" films like To Kill a Mockingbird.

It really wants to tell the story of how newcomers to the United States struggle, not at the turn of the century, but in recent decades. The problem is that it can't bear to tell the truth. In reality, a typical family of recent immigrants would be very unlikely to try to live in Manhattan, so their lives would be much better than this. But, and this is the key point here, if they did try to live in Manhattan their lives would be much worse than this. The film tries to show the hardship of life, not in a realistic and truthful way, but to show a level of hardship that any of us could consider facing and overcoming, as we imagine our grandparents and great-grandparents once did. It is all calculated to let us feel the enduring nature of the human spirit - thus of our own spirit.

Jim Sheridan, the Irish director, did actually move his family to New York in 1982, and his own two daughters co-wrote this script with him. Unfortunately, they didn't really tell their own story, but simply harvested elements from it to create a fictional family far more impoverished and isolated than the Sheridans were, but who came to New York at the same time.

The family of four, including the requisite adorable daughters, and the mandatory specter of a son lost to a tragic accident, land in a tenement in Hell's Kitchen. Here are some of the things that happen:

(1) Their run-down tenement house has no rats or cockroaches.

(2) Although they barely have enough money to pay the rent on their pathetic flat, they can afford to send their children to private schools.

(3) Unlike most immigrants, they have absolutely no support group in the United States. They have no family, no friends, and no ethnic or religious community to lean on for support. I might understand that if they were Uzbeks raised in the atheistic Soviet Union, but they are Irish, fer chrissakes! After the 1980 census the American Sociological Review had an article called "How 4.5 Million Irish Immigrants Became 40 Million Irish Americans". Forty million. In New York City alone, there were 600,000-700,000 people who identified themselves as Irish in 1980. You'd think this family might run into at least one or two, especially since their kids are in Catholic schools! But, no-o-o-o-o. They are isolated.

(4) In all the time they live in squalor, amid prostitutes and junkies, neither the parents not the children really face any serious danger. Everyone in the neighborhood seems to live lives of colorful but resigned poverty that would make Francis of Assisi seem as bitterly materialistic as Donald Trump.

(5) The mother and father, in order to have some lovemaking privacy, allow their two daughters, aged about 11 and 4, to go down by themselves to the Ice Cream parlor on their block. In NYC. In Hell's kitchen. Nobody kidnaps them, molests them, robs them, or shoots them full of heroin. They are not inadvertently caught in any gunplay or knife fights.

(6) The father gets shilled into a carnival con-game, gets to the point where he has almost lost every penny, then miraculously pulls off a winning shot to get all his money back and win his little girl an E.T. doll. This was actually a very good scene up until the point where he won. I was feeling his shame and his obsession, and I had to turn away my eyes in embarrassment for him at having been conned out of their meager earnings. It would have been a brilliant scene if he had lost, which in real life, he would have. But the opportunity to show how the hard types of the world prey upon the naive and innocent was lost when he won everything, and my instinctive reaction was to do a Delta Cough. {cough} blowjob {cough} bullshit {cough}.

(7) The howling, crazy man on the floor beneath them turns out to be ... well, it turns out to be Djimon Hounsou playing the same role he always plays - the forbidding, buff black man who glares imposingly, and who seems to present the threat of violence and intense sexuality, but is actually the possessor of great mystical wisdom, resigned martyrdom, the gentle forgotten secrets of older cultures, and an inner nobility and compassion that guides white people on their path to spiritual enlightenment. If you need that guy in your film, call Djimon's agent, because the big man has that role nailed. Oh, did I mention that he's dying courageously of AIDS? So he can handle that role for you, too, if Kevin Kline is busy.

(8) An adorable little girl in a cowboy hat sings the entire song "Desperado" over a montage, while a nun plays a piano accompaniment.

I haven't even hit all the major points, but you get the idea.

This film is meant to tug at your heartstrings. You witness the bravery of the mother through an impossible pregnancy, and of Djimon in the face of pain and imminent death. You experience the innocent acceptance of the kids as they adapt to their new surroundings. You watch the father's dead heart learn to love again. You meditate on the loss of a child, for those of you who missed the dead children in 21 Grams and The Station Agent, or for those of you who just can't get enough tragically dead kids. Can we declare a moratorium on using dead children for emotional manipulation?

Some of the unlikely events mentioned above are explained by three miracles generated by the three magic wishes of the elder daughter, who narrates the story. The dad wins the unbeatable con-game because the daughter uses one of those wishes, which have been granted through the authority invested in dead and mourned sons by the powers beyond the grave.

You know, the usual tear-jerking bullshit magical realism stuff pre-pubescent girl stuff.

Yes, the film does work from time to time. Jim Sheridan knows how to make a film, even if he has nothing to say. The story doesn't always feel false because some of the incidents came from his own family's experiences, and even when scenes do feel manipulative, the director knows how to milk the tears from your eyes, even against your will. He works like those magicians that tell you how they're doing the trick, but fool you anyway. The two kids are terrific at behaving wise and adorable in the typical precocious Disneychild manner. I'll admit the film got me misting over a couple of times and, let's be honest, just about everyone but me loved this movie. Check out the scores at scoopy.com.

So maybe I'm just jaded and cynical.

I suppose I am, but cynical or not, I found it heart-warming, but false, like those cartoon movies with the adorable immigrant mice named Mousekewitz. Hey, didn't Fievel sing in that movie as well? At least it wasn't an Eagles song.

Did we really need a remake of An American Tail with live actors?

As I see it, the director (Jim Sheridan) and his two daughters should have dug deep inside and written about the way it really was for them when Jim moved them all to New York in 1982 to take the job as director of the New York Irish Arts Center. That would have been a story about a real family. That would have been the truth, and would probably have been a great movie.

Instead, they chose to tell half-truths, to imagine what it must have been like for people in more difficult circumstances. Unfortunately, they simply didn't know that story, so they filled it out with inaccurate imaginings of Manhattan poverty, details from their own life that didn't apply to these people (private schools!), "miracles", and imaginary tragedies (the dead son).

The ordinary truth - it would have been so simple.

Based on this description, this is a C. I would have said C+, but I had to knock off a half grade for the adorable little kid in a cowboy hat singing "Desperado" from start to finish.

• Samantha Morton- (1, 2) she's topless for a long, long, time, but the movie is rated PG-13, so you never get a clear look at anything. To make matters worse, the screener quality is crap.

OTHER BABES:

• This is a nipple slipple from Paris Hiltons' sister, Nicky

OTHER CRAP:

• Dame Helen Mirren discusses knockers.
• California prosecutors plan to file charges against Michael Jackson in his molestation case Thursday or Friday.
• Hunter S. Thompson Breaks Leg in bathroom. He says he was running away from a large, melting dragon at the time.
• Heidi Klum Expecting a Baby
• The tentative position of Universal is that The Bourne Supremacy will be released in July of next year.
• The trailer is now online for Vin Diesel's The Chronicles of Riddick. This is the sequel to Pitch Black.
• Penn & Teller: Bullshit! Renewed for another season.
• Transcript: President Bush Interview with Diane Sawyer: SAWYER: What would it take to convince you he didn't have weapons of mass destruction? BUSH: Saddam Hussein was a threat and the fact that he is gone means America is a safer country. (That was his answer to thatr specific question.)
• Viggo says, "It's good to be 'King'"
• Nullsoft announces Winamp 5.0. They say it's "more fun than a fresh pair of Wonder Woman Underoos".
• John Cleese may run for mayor of Santa Barbara, hinging on whether he gets a replacement polly from the local pet shop.
• Madonna enters the political world by endorsing Wesley Clark. Why? "He's interested in spirituality". Works for me. I endorse the Dalai Lama - interested in spirituality, and a big hitter, to boot.
• This is fuckin' hilarious - the dildo song, sung to the tune of "Slinky". They did a great job on this faux commercial.
• The Anne Heche watch: This week: chicks. Stay tuned.
• U.S. Appeals Court OKs Some Medical Pot: The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday that a federal law outlawing marijuana does not apply to sick people who are allowed to smoke pot with a doctor's recommendation. Or to surfers.
• Yulia Nova may have the largest natural breasts since Chesty Morgan. (Video- wmv format)
• FDA Panel backs over-the-counter 'morning-after' pill. "The makers of Plan B contraception say that when it is taken within 72 hours of unprotected sex, it can reduce the risk of pregnancy by about 89 percent."
• Current NFL power rankings Eagles and Rams appear to be NFC's only hope.
• Disney adds motion sickness bags to Mission: Space ride
• Hollywood actor Ben Affleck insisted that he was still with pop star-actress Jennifer Lopez, but said they had gone through ups and downs since they called off their wedding. Y'know, in the words of Senator Kerry, this guy should just shut the fuck up.
• Here's the complete list of nominees for the Ninth Annual Broadcast Critics' Choice Awards.
• Robbie Williams' fans complain about his fake penis
• style.org > What IS the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow.
• Mystery surrounds an Internet auction site which claims to have proof that THE BEATLES reunited in 1976 for a recording session in LOS ANGELES.
• A WOMAN with multiple personalities is to become a saint or saints. The Church will canonize three of her ten identities. (Weekly World News)
• Saddam Hussein Released From Custody - Ruthless Dictator Not Read His Rights, Say Activists
• Kerry Vows to Be Strong Leader. Drawing on his experience in combat and foreign policy, as well as his colorful vocabulary, Sen. John Kerry says America needs a president who will not be such a 'bad ass motherfucker".
• Heidi Fleiss, the Hollywood madam, opens a boutique. She offers a discount if you are willing to try on clothes in front of a live webcam!
• Films Selected to Film Registry: "The 25 films selected in 2003 to the Library of Congress' National Film Registry and the year in which they premiered." I'm sorry that I missed the immortal classic: "Princess Nicotine; or The Smoke Fairy"
• What do you get when you cross a talking dictionary and karaoke? Why the singing dictionary, of course.
• PoopReport.com, your source for poop, presents Crappy Gifts for 2004.
• Enter the nicotini: Smoking ban leads to tobacco-infused drink
• Stereotypes of the World Dolls
• .:: Gyroball ::.
• Vagina Dentata
• Discovery Channel :: Dinosaur Viewer Interactive. Tres cool!
• BecauseYouAreACunt.com. Pretty cool - generates insults and sends insults by anonymous email! Custom or random.
• Baghdad Jim McDermott in hot water again for latest Saddam quip.
• Most New Yorkers say Saddam should die. Oh, wait a minute, they thought we were asking about Darryl Strawberry.
• 6,000 years of sex at Chinese museum. That covers nearly the entire second half of Joan Collins's life.
• Hooters holds Sunrise Bikini Contest
• The Boston Red Sox Nation site says Done Deal - the Red Sox have obtained A-Rod for Manny.
• The strangest internet scam yet. It's like the Nigerian thing - except they really give you the money.

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.

• Christina Ricci topless in Euro-DVD 'caps from "Prozac Nation"! (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

"Board Heads"
Hey, it's a beach flick, and that's just what it is. Plenty of cliches, goofy characters, not much plot, and beautiful women in bikinis or less.

Come to think of it, that's not really so bad.

• Gabrielle Anwar, the only thing covering her breasts are some flowers.
• Portia Dawson, partial breast views and a brief nip slip.
• Assorted bikini clad and topless babes...including a tall blonde Swedish babe you'll recognize right away.

BILLY BOB OFFERS TO PEE ON HIMSELF
Method Actor! - Billy Bob Thornton said he wanted authenticity for the scene in "Bad Santa" where he wets himself, so he went to the director and said, "I'll be happy to drink a couple beers before we start, and I'll just pee myself." The director okayed it, but Thornton said the special effects people told him it wouldn't show up on his clothes as well as their glycerine solution, "so they wouldn't let me do it...but next time!"