Archive for 2024

REAL SCIENCE FICTION DISASTER:  Marooned.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT, SHE PACKED THAT HIGH SCHOOL GYM:

I LOVE SONNY’S: Sonny’s BBQ celebrates founder’s birthday. When I was a law clerk in Nashville, I lived across Murfreesboro Rd. from a Sonny’s, and when I was feeling down I’d go over there on all-you-can-eat chicken night and eat an entire barbecued chicken. We used to have a couple in Knoxville but they closed, I suppose unable to fight the competition from the local Buddy’s chain, which is also good but different. I’ve bought some bottled Sonny’s sauce but it’s not the same — sweeter and without the touch of mustard that I remember.

Plus, a special Sonny’s memory.

OPEN THREAD: Hang on baby, Friday’s coming.

“AN IRRESISTIBLE MIX OF ART AND GENITALS:” How a classy, A-list historical film turned into a $17 million hardcore porno.

“Caligula,” one of cinema’s oddest and most tawdry experiments, was produced by Penthouse magazine founder Bob Guccione, the massively wealthy publisher who poured his own money into the project about the infamously depraved ancient Roman emperor.

Opposed to the serious drama that director Tinto Brass and screenwriter Gore Vidal desired to make, Guccione commandeered the production in post and added graphic scenes of hardcore sex to spice things up.

* * * * * * * *

A lot of sex. Multiple, unsimulated orgy scenes leave nothing to the imagination — and go well beyond what most imaginations can whip up. For instance, at Emperor Tiberius’ (O’Toole) home on the island of Capri, a completely nude woman wields a live eel.

Penthouse even published a special collectors edition in January 1981 called “Girls of Caligula,” the same of which could not be said of “Cleopatra” or “Spartacus.”

Critics were appalled at the gratuitous filth. Roger Ebert, generally open-minded, called it “sickening, utterly worthless, shameful trash.”

But starting Friday, a new version of that trash called “The Ultimate Cut” will begin playing select theaters.

Malcolm McDowell and Helen Mirren must be so proud this week.