Natalie McCurry in Dead-End Drive-In (1986)

Scoop, ... 1 comment.

In a dystopian future Australia, a health nut and his tag-along girlfriend become trapped in a drive-in cinema that has become a concentration camp for delinquent youths and refugees.

There’s nothing special to say about the film. It’s a low-budget Ozploitation film.

Australian film trends mirrored the USA in the 70s and 80s in that the serious new efforts at cinema art were paralleled by a burgeoning variety of low-brow entertainment flicks. If you are interested in this subject I recommend a 2008 documentary called “Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!,” which I reviewed as the most watchable documentary ever made. I mean, fuck Ken Burns. I love the guy, and his documentaries are great. They tell wonderful true stories and reach right into your heart, but they don’t match Not Quite Hollywood for sheer entertainment. Moreover, NQH delivered an amazing amount of information, thrills and laughs in just 90 minutes. Ken Burns takes that long to clear his throat.

Anyway, back to the point, there’s nothing very interesting about the film.

But Natalie McCurry? That’s another story. She was both Miss Australia and a movie/TV star.

You’re probably thinking, “What’s so interesting about that? OK, it’s impressive, but other beauty queens went into movies.”

Well, here’s what’s so interesting: the chronology. She was already a successful actress when she became Miss Australia in the Miss World pageant in 1989. By then she had appeared in four films and two TV series. And she hadn’t just appeared in them, she had shown the world her boobs! And what nice ones they were! She had done nude scenes three years before she was crowned Miss Australia.

Gotta love Australians. They truly understand the talent portion of the competition.

(Full disclosure: She had been competing in pageants since 1985, while also pursuing her acting career.)


image host image host image host image host image host

One other fascinating tidbit in her resume: she once caused bungee jumping to be banned in New South Wales. In 1990, she broke her collarbone after one of the cords broke while she was doing a promotional tandem bungee in Sydney. This resulted in a ban of the sport.

Johnny Moronic reported that she did an additional nude scene in episode 21 of Chances in 1991. Other sources say she also had a nude scene in Twisted Tales, but I was unable to find such a scene.

She went on to a full life, albeit one too short. She continued a successful TV and film career while giving birth to and raising four children, but was taken from us by cancer while she was still in her 40s.

Nasty nudity and near nudity in the first episode of Scarpetta

Scoop, ... 4 comments.

This is a new Prime series based on a series of forensic thriller novels about a chief medical examiner. I watched only the first episode, and have no intention to watch the rest unless one of you tells me there is nudity worth capturing. I found many of the characters annoying, and some of them totally unrealistic. I based my decision to quit based on The Gene Siskel rule: While the mystery is interesting, I simply don’t want to spend time with these characters.

(An exception is Bobby Cannavale, who is natural and credible, as he always is.)

Based on the following metrics, I don’t seem to be the only one unimpressed:

IMDb: 5.5
Tomato Meter: 69%
Popcorn Meter: 46%

If you want all the details about the series, including spoilers, Mashable did a great summary.

If you are curious about why fans of the by Patricia Cornwell novels are not entirely pleased with the series, Elle did a good overview.

Despite the tepid reaction, Prime has approved season two, and production is already underway.

I didn’t do any still captures because Nicole Kidman’s shower scene reveals nothing, and there’s no way to say whether the women who played the living characters also posed for the corpses. (The dead bodies are the characters played by Kassia Conway and Emma Massalone in their living avatars.) I did capture the videos, which are probably not worth your time.

Maura Tierney topless in Dead Women in Lingerie (1991)

Scoop, ... 9 comments.

A private detective is hired to catch a serial killer who makes immigrant garment workers his victims.

The was a low-budget indie affair that few people have ever seen. The director never directed another film. The star appeared in only one other full-length film, 26 years after this one, and I assume he got that role because he was also the producer. The supporting cast included June Lockhart, Lyle Waggoner, and the guy who played Eddie Haskell on Leave it to Beaver.

So I assume it is not designated for preservation by the AFI.

Jerry Orbach had a small role. I guess his career was in a lull before Law and Order, which started the following year. Even though his role is insignificant, they placed his face on the 2005 DVD cover because he had become a familiar TV star by then.

The only memorable aspect is Maura’s only youthful nude scene, which is also her only nude scene in a film.

The bad news: (1) The scene is not available in HD; (2) After this scene, Maura waited something like a quarter of a century to do another.

The good news: Once she opened the floodgates, at around age 50, she was topless regularly in a series called The Affair.


image host image host image host image host

Videos

Grace Kicaj naked in episode 3 of Le Libere Donne

Scoop, ... no comments.

By the nature of the show, which deals with the psychiatric evaluation and treatment of mental illness, there will be some repetition, as the doctors evaluate recurring thoughts, dreams, memories and fantasies. As a result, most of the nudity in episode 3 is repeated from episode 1, with a few minor tweaks.

I skipped the footage that was exactly identical to episode 1. Considering the brief footage below, the first video is material we haven’t seen before, while the second shows some additional angles and details of an incident we saw in episode one.


image host image host image host

Videos