Carnivale (2004), the HBO series, season one, is available on DVD. I knew nothing about this series when it arrived, and I am totally hooked. I will set up the plot tonight, and give the nudity from the first three episodes. Subsequent evenings will be spoilers. If the plot set-up appeals to you and you haven't seen this, you might want to avoid reading my comments after tonight.

Depression dustbowl. A young man is burying his mother when they come to repossess his farm and bulldoze his house. A traveling carny stops to help, and the young man leaves with them. We get to know many of the carny characters, including the midget manager, Siamese twins, a bearded lady, a Tarot reader, an ex baseball player who is in charge of the roustabouts, hoochie coochie dancers, etc. For some reason, they are anxious for the young man to work for the carny full time. Meanwhile, in a separate plot line, a Methodist minister is told by God to take over a brothel, and minister to the Okies. certainly, these two plot lines will converge, but how and why is still not clear, and I have watched half of the first season already.

The series is beautifully photographed, the acting top notch, the characters interesting, and the attention to period detail amazing. Tonight, we have Adrienne Barbeau showing the side of her left breast in episode two, Any Madigan as the preacher's sister also showing breasts in episode two, Cynthia Ettinger in a skimp outfit as a hoochie coochie dancer, and mother to the other two dancers, and breasts from Carla Gallo as a hoochie coochie dancer.

So far, this is a treat for the eyes, contains an interesting mix of magic realism and realistic depression period drama, and has drawn me in to the plot.

Tomorrow, the second three episodes, and episode summaries.

Updates:

• Charlie's French cinema nudity site is updated

Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (2004):

I have written about this before. Comments here.

Production costs were a modest $9 million, but the studio threw $20 million into a substantial marketing campaign for this film. This generated enough hype that Box Office Mojo predicted a $13 million opening weekend, which implied that it would do $40-50 million overall!!

It fell far short of expectations, taking in only $5 million on 2100 screens in its first weekend, finishing with a domestic gross of only $18 million.

• Malin Ackerman (1, 2)

• Doogie's strippers (1, 2, 3, 4). I listened to all three commentary tracks, and nobody identified these girls

Wake of Death (2004):

The usual revenge picture. Jean-Claude's wife is a beautiful, sensitive social worker who takes in a 14 year old female refugee from Hong Kong. It turns out that the girl is the daughter of the number one Mr. Big of the Asian heroin syndicate, and he wants her back. His concept of winning her back is to blast away everyone around her, and he makes the rather unwise decision to blast away Van Damme's wife. JCVD then turns into a combination of Charles Bronson and Kyser Sose, and single-handledly kills more Asian guys than that tsunami.

This freakin' movie doesn't even make sense in some spots. JC takes the little girl with him to her dad's freighter for the final confrontation. When he gets out of his car, he also makes the girl get out. He then leaves her standing there on the freight docks in the middle of the night, and says "If I'm not back in 20 minutes, call the police."  OK let's analyze that. She's a 14 year old girl from China who has been in America for a day and a half. How, exactly, will she call the police?

• Why did JC make her get our of the car to do that?

• She's stuck on the docks, on foot,  in the middle of the night

• She doesn't have a cell phone.

• She doesn't have any money for a pay phone.

• There are no pay phones anywhere in site.

• If she had a cell phone, how would she know which number to dial?

• If she could figure out how to contact the police, how would she give them directions to her location?

• In the unlikely event she could find the police and figure out where she was, what could she tell them to get anybody there quickly? "Oh, some Belgian guy told me to call you if he wasn't back in 20 minutes"

• Why the hell wait 20 minutes? Why doesn't he personally just call the police now, by himself?

• Why didn't he just leave the girl in an all-night Denny's with a few bucks and some comic books, where she would have been safe and warm?

Despite the fact that JC's back-up depends on a 14 year old foreign girl to navigate the intricacies of American bureaucracy, everything turns out right. Just as he's in the last battle, about fifteen police vehicles come in, lights flashing and sirens howling, and a few zillion S.W.A.T guys come pouring onto the bad guy's boat.

That was only the last of many such bizarre episodes. At one point the baddies kidnap the girl and JC's own son. So what does our high-kickin' hero do? He follows them in a high-speed car chase through the streets and interstates, bumping his car into theirs at 100 MPH and exchanging gunfire with them - with both cars traveling at top speed and the kids in the other car.

I'll admit it would have been cool if he had blown away his own son in the process, or maybe if he had forced the baddies into a fiery crash which killed both kids. Unfortunately, this is not some kind of existentialist film about measuring the consequences of one's actions, but just a sloppy action film.

And while I'm ranting, what is the deal with screen candles. How can it be that whenever movie lovers take a bath or make love, they are surrounded by candles? JCVD comes home after a hard day of whatever the hell he does, and his wife brings home the little girl from her day of social working. They tuck in the youngster and retire to their boudoir for hot monkey love, surrounded by hundreds of candles. More candles than you'll see on Easter Day in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Who the hell lit those things? And who put them all out so they could get some sleep after making an appropriate amount of cinematic whoopie? Do rich people and film characters employ off-duty altar boys for candle duty? I'll bet they have one of those long-handled candle snuffers that you see in Catholic services. You know, the kind the altar boys use for the candles way above their reach. If I had one of those, I could snuff all my many romantic candles without getting out of bed. I gotta get me one of those! Right after I buy the candles.

Oh well.

Amazingly enough, this film, although lacking in original ideas and common sense, does have some big production values. There are plenty of  crashes and massive explosions. There is a good car chase that has some inventive touches (despite the illogic I mentioned above), and a spectacular motorcycle chase through a suburban shopping mall. The rumor is that this film had a production budget of $20 million. That might be, because it has a pretty big "look" to it, but I really want to know the names of any guys willing to invest twenty million dollars on a script like this with Van Damme starring.

I have some nice Florida property those guys might like. And some scripts that would be perfect for Steven Seagal and David Hasselhoff.

Needless to say, the investors got no theatrical release for their twenty million dollar investment, and I don't think they should count on a lot of DVD sales, given the fact that nobody ever heard of this film.

Sidebars:

• The film includes a bizarrely inventive and graphically bloody torture scene in which two mafiosi extract a confession from a dirty cop by power drilling into some very sensitive areas of his body. When they find out what they need to know, they finish him off by drilling through his eye into his brain. Good family fun!

• I don't think IMDb has the right info for Lisa King. She plays Van Damme's wife. The filmography lists this as her only film. Given that she is 35ish, very attractive, and a completely solid actress, I can't believe she has no previous experience of any kind. Something doesn't add up.

• The crooked cop being tortured is played by an actor named Danny Keogh. IMDb says he is the drummer who was once married to Lisa Marie Presley, and was therefore Elvis's son-in-law for a while. I don't think so. For one thing, that Elvis guy is Danny Keough with a "u."  For another thing, that guy was a nice looking guy, and this Danny is not a handsome man, to say the least. Let's just say in a world of people who look like Danny on average, Timothy Spall would be People's Sexiest Man of the Year.

The guy in the film might be this Danny Keogh

 http://www.icon.co.za/~bioskope/pureblood/bio-cast.htm

The guy pictured there is an African actor of Irish descent, and that might be the guy in this movie. I can't tell for sure because the picture sucks. But whoever the actor really is, I don't think the battered, wrinkled cop in Wake of Death could be the former rock star who is also the father of model Riley Keough.

 

• Lisa King (1, 2, 3)

• Joon Chang (1, 2)

• Unidentified prostitute

Other Crap:

• The Homosexual Handshake Exposed!
• Are there any men more desperate than frog rustlers? How do you prove the missing frogs are yours? It's hard to brand those little guys. (Actually the missing frog was on a totem pole.)
• The legendary bandleader Artie Shaw dies. Talk about the last of the Mohicans. I had no idea any of those Big Band guys were still alive. He must have set some kind of record by having lived in retirement for fifty years!! His wives included Lana Turner and Ava Gardner.
• The patent office - mathematical formula to determine and filter pornographic images. At last, some use for your high school math! I wonder if you can use it to identify and download porn instead of to prevent downloading it.
• Bosses become Big Brother with technology.
• Drugs replace porn in spam central's nucleus
• A series of unfortunate payrolls. Looking at the Yankees of the future. How long until they get Santana?
• Anna Nicole Smith loses $88.5 million ruling on appeal.
• Did animals' 'sixth sense' save them from tsunami?
• You lost your penis? You think penises grow on trees? ... Oh.
• The world's greatest card stacker
• "Don't do that. Do you think penises grow on trees?" " ... Well ... yeah ..."
• The trailer for next summer's big blockbuster, Head-On:
  • "A marriage of convenience in Hamburg between two troubled Turks changes both their lives in this fine, gritty, contemporary German love story. Director Fatih Akin dives deep into Turkish culture and explores the slippery slope of identity and cultural pride faced by Turks who either move to or are born in Germany. Winner of the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival."
• The trailer for The Ballad of Jack and Rose .
  • Well, it stars Daniel Day-Lewis, so you can bet it will be some light hearted fun! Probably a stoner comedy.
  • Yup, I was right. Here's the official description: "The intense relationship between a dying man (Daniel Day Lewis) and his teenage daughter is tested when a woman (Catherine Keener) and her two sons move into their home." Good times! Only one thing. Kevin Kline must have signed a contract waiver, because he has the right of first refusal on all bravely dying guys and/or nobly suffering gay guys.
  • Curiosity: the cast also includes the master thespian, Jason Lee himself. How does he fit in with the intense relationship/dying motif?
• 2004 at the Box Office: Fantasy, superheroes and Jesus.
• Ashlee Simpson says she can burp the alphabet.
  • Astoundingly, she is only the number two alphabet-burper in her family. "Jessica burps the alphabet better than me. She has better wind and she is a much louder belcher."
• PARIS HILTON VOWS TO BE MORE ANNOYING IN 2005. Takes Aim at Britney's "Most Annoying" Crown.
• Snow has fallen over the United Arab Emirates for the first time ever.
• The world's only Virgin Mary toasted sandwich maker. "It's a breakfast miracle - every day! Holy Mary, Mother of Toast for the whole family! Why buy Virgin Mary toasted sandwiches at $28,000 a pop, when you can buy this and have a guaranteed apparition on every grilled cheese sandwich. This is a real working item. The sandwiches are real, they were made tonight in my kitchen. The photos have not been enhanced."
• Sharon Osbourne is selling her LA mansion - because Simon Cowell is moving in next door.
• New Year's Superstitions
• USA Today: Pop culture lessons learned in 2004.
• Paris and Nicole talk about The Simple Life 3.
  • Paris Hilton joins Ken Jennings on the list of those with well more than 15 minutes of fame. I'm starting to form a theory that the length of fame in the 21st century is related to IQ. Your minutes of fame may be calculated by taking one third of the difference between your IQ and 100. Thus, you are entitled to more than 15 minutes if your IQ is above 145 or below 55. This is tentatively called the theory of Lisa and Jessica Simpson. The bad news for us: Anna Nicole Smith still has a LOT more minutes left.
• "... during the Middle Ages, historian Daniel Boorstin notes, maps often had east on top--whence the expression 'to orient.'"
• Is It Rolling Bob? - A Reggae Tribute To Bob Dylan
• Top 10 New Year's Sex Resolutions
• For bachelorette, wedding parties or showers: The Provocative Pinata
• Will there be a Dodgeball 2?
• Weekly World News: "FOR PEOPLE ON THE GO...MAN HAS TOILET IN HIS CAR" What's more, the man lives in Stinkmore, Indiana!
• M81 and M82 - a fascinating pair of galaxies

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:

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.

Words, pictures, and vids from ICMS

Hi Scoopy !

Not many words today, just a few clips.

A classic nude scene in the German "Tatort" crime series is Ute Christensen's scene in the 1983 episode "Peggy hat Angst" (Peggy is afraid; and quite rightfully so as she ends up murdered).

• Christensen 1 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)
• Christensen 2 (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped)

In "Super" (1984) Turkish-German actress Renan Demirkan (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped) lands on top of her lover.

German 1970's sexpot Ingrid Steeger (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped) asks herself why she somehow always ends up naked in the 1978 mini series "Zwei himmlische Töchter". Her colleague Iris Berben keeps everything under wraps this time.

To sum up my last contribution of 2004 let's take a look at French actress Marie Laforęt (.wmv zipped, .avi zipped) who shows breasts and buns at age 45 in "Joyeuses Pâques" (1984; aka. Happy Easter). Don't worry, she is in excellent shape.

That's it for this year, hopefully I'll see you all back next year with more material.

If you have your own site or blog, sign up today and earn some extra cash in 2005 by promoting the Fun House!

Today from the Ghost...scenes from the 1980, Horror/Comedy "Motel Hell". If memory serves, I first saw this gem on the excellent (and very much missed) Joe Bob Briggs show "Monstervision" on TNT, and it is campy, sleazy late 70's/early 80's, drive-in cinema at it's finest! After all, how can you dislike a movie with a dualing chainsaw fight scene and bad guys that talk about "teaching the ancient art of meat smoking"!

I think Ebert summed it up best in his review when he wrote:

"Motel Hell is a welcome change-of-pace; it's to Chainsaw Massacre as Airplane! is to Airport."

• Nina Axelrod goes topless in two scenes (zipped .wmvs). (1, 2, 3)
• An unknown baring all (zipped .wmv)

"Deep Evil" (2004)
Alien clone and Lorenzo Lamas vehicle. DVD is only available in Europe.

• Ona Grauer: slight pokies.
• Lindsay Maxwell: breasts and buns doing stip tease for Lorenzo.

First Wave: episode The Purge
The raciest episode where they demonstrate a number of husks (some sort of alien hooker) having sex. I couldn't sort which actress played which husk. They are Basia Antos (collages 1 and 2?), Carla Boudreau and Samantha Sewell. The first collage is from a behind-the-scenes documentary which showed the nudity from better angles.

• Husks: various nudity. (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Da Vinci's Inquest: Little Sister part 2 & 3
The other two parts of the pilot. Sarah-Jane Redmond who plays a hooker in these episodes returns in season two as a police sergeant and Da Vinci's boss.

• Sarah-Jane Redmond: pokies as hooker sleeping her way to the top.
• Kelly Rowan: bare back in sack with Da Vinci.
• Jewel Staite: sexy nightie as Da Vinci's duaghter.
• Katharine Isabelle: slight cleavage as runaway.
• Pamela MacDonald: cleavage as hooker.
• Unknown: sexy hooker.
• Unknown: topless autopsy in part 2.
• Unknown: bloody autopsy in part 3.

Cold Squad: season four
More hookers and strippers.

• Teryl Rothery: cleavage in episode "Common Knowledge".
• Julie Stewart: slight pokies in episode 24/7.
• Olga Tot: bra-less in 24/7.
• Fawnia Mondey: partial boob as topless stripper in 24/7.
• Danielle Dewet: partial boob as hooker resisting arrest in episode Loyalties.