More original collages and comments (and some miscellany) from Brainscan:

There is something of a theme in some of today’s offerings. In you take IMDb’s word for it,

Ingrid Cedergren in Scorchy,


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Lisa Allison in Love Circles


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and Itonia Salchek in Blood Harvest

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each appeared in one movie before disappearing from the big screen.

All three were way up in there in the looks department and all three were generous in showing off what good genes and good nutrition gave them. And then they were gone. Well, Lisa – the most exuberantly gifted of the three – did make another appearance of note a year after Love Circles, in the pages of Penthouse; and because it was Penthouse of the 1980s, she is starkers and explicit in her posing (the original scans are not mine and they were not in the best of shape and nothing I could do improved them much, but still…).


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I suppose you could construct all sorts of scenarios that has the three women finding joy in something else, which had them give up acting, but as a reader of the Funhouse, I sure wish all had done a lot more.

In that same vein is Alaina Alfaro, also cute as the dickens and well-exposed in 2019’s Return of the Slasher Nurse, as of yet her only movie. Let us all hope she does not follow Ingrid, Lisa and Itonia into the land of obscurity.


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Last is Alicia Endemann, who appeared in movies before 2016’s Ma famille t’adore deja, but it was her last appearance and that is a crying shame. The camera loves her and so, I imagine, does more of her audience than some random imager. Do not know why she went away, but it would be nice if she were to re-appear soon and often. Twas the only thing I asked from Santa this year.

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—————–

Koo Stark is her own theme, I suppose. When Randy Andy, the second son of HRH Elizabeth II, was a much younger man, he and Koo dated for a couple of years. It was noted at the time that she was an actress and had appeared in the buff, and that, clothes on or off, she looked to be much younger than her 20 or 21 years at the time she made Justine. Really? How much younger? I’d be shocked, shocked I say to learn that Prince Andrew had anything but honorable intentions in his dealings with women younger than 20.


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The New Pope has become the primary source of nudity lately. Director Paolo Sorrentino also directed Loro, the fictionalized behind-the-scenes look at Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his associates in business and government. Like The New Pope, Loro is also a cynical nude-fest, so Signore Sorrentino is recently developing a specialty – iconoclastic views of venerable Italian institutions. As he is stripping those institutions naked, he is doing the same with his actors and actresses.

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Here is the latest:


Ludivine Sagnier, Kika Georgiou and others in episode 7

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Yulia Snigir in episode 7

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Chiara Mocci in episode 8

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Yesterday I watched the last of the nine Best Picture nominees.

I would rank them as follows, based purely on how much I admired them, not on their likelihood of winning:

1917
Parasite
JoJo Rabbit
Ford vs Ferrari
Little Women
One Upon a Time in Hollywood
The Irishman
Marriage Story
Joker

I liked some other movies better than some of the nominees, but I didn’t like any film more than 1917. It’s not just a brilliantly designed and executed movie, but also a thrill ride. I was on the edge of my seat for pretty much every minute of that flick – and I was absolutely dazzled by several of the scenes.

Parasite is also very impressive and original.

I liked Little Women very much. I liked they way it interpreted Alcott’s characters, and I also liked the changes it introduced. But … I watched it with several women who have forgotten the book, having read it long ago from their high school summer reading lists, and they could not follow it. I was constantly having to pause to answer questions. “Now how old are they here?” “Does this scene happen before or after that one where …?” The script definitely has some problems with the time shifts, because a story originally written for juvenile readers should not confuse a bunch of adult women with graduate degrees, especially when they have already read the book. Since Greta Gerwig was doubly responsible for that as both author and director, I understand fully why the Academy passed her over for the best director Oscar. For the same reason, I don’t even think she should have received the nomination for best adapted screenplay – and she’s the favorite to win that one!

(I can’t fairly judge this confusion because I do so much homework before watching a film. I didn’t actually re-read Little Women and Good Wives, but I brought myself completely up to speed by reading a full synopsis of their plots, several short bios of Alcott, and some critiques of her books. As a result, none of the time shifts bothered me, and I was able to appreciate how Gerwig approached the project. But I also hear what my friends were saying.)

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IMDb voters rank them as follows:

Joker
Parasite
1917
Ford vs Ferrari
Marriage Story
Little Women
JoJo Rabbit
The Irishman
One Upon a Time in Hollywood

The bookies see it like this:

1917
Parasite
One Upon a Time in Hollywood
Joker
The Irishman
JoJo Rabbit
Marriage Story
Little Women
Ford vs Ferrari

Note that Parasite is second on all three lists. It may turn out to be the dark horse in the race.

“Have any of you ever worn stick-on underwear? Because I did today and it fell off.”