By Mike McPadden
"See You in September"--it's not just an oldies radio-station favorite anymore; when it comes to a (high) class of sexy actresses in new DVD releases, "See You in September" is a rallying cry for fans of cinematic skin. Read on for a round up of what the rest of September has in store for devotees of nudity on disc.
SEPTEMBER 19, 2006
10TH & WOLF (2006)
STUDIO: Thinkfilm
NUDE: Anonymous actresses
THE SKINNY: What do tough-guy mobsters in a tough-guy movie like 10th Wolf do for kicks? Steal, murder, plot to steal and murder some more, and, at the thirty-eight-minute mark, they also enjoy ogling a phalanx of topless dancers at a nudie club. You will too. You'll also enjoy mouth-wateringly mature thespian Lesley Ann Warren (Picture: 1) in her undies several times, proving that age is just a number--36D, to be precise.
BRAIN DAMAGE: UNRATED UNCUT (1988)
STUDIO: Mackinac Media
NUDE: Jennifer Lowry (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: Horror maven Frank Henenlotter's follow-up to his 1982 splatter classic Basket Case concerns yet another New York City youth with a murderous mutant sidekick. In Brain Damage, Brian (Rick Hearst) plays unwilling host to Aylmer, a wormy parasite with a taste for human fluids and an eloquent speaking voice. The gore flies, as do the lovely lung balloons of Jennifer Lowry, so be prepared for Brain Damage to wreak a bit of havoc with your lower head.
ELVIRA'S MOVIE MACABRE: COUNT DRACULA'S GREAT LOVE (1972)
STUDIO: Shout Factory
NUDES: Hayd?Politoff, Rosanna Yanni (Picture: 1), Loli Tovar, Ingrid Garbo (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: Shout Factory is heroically reissuing the campy, vampy 1980s Elvira's Movie Macabre video series on DVD. The huge cassette boxes may be gone, but the glamour ghoul's hugeness where it counts looms more massively than ever in these new pristine digital presentations. First up in the line is Count Dracula's Great Love, a Spanish-made skin-flick twist on the bloodsucker legend that will have you counting all sorts of stunningly naked Euro babes (with your one free hand), as the Transylvanian terror talks them out of their clothes and under his spell. Rounding out the romp, of course, are the asides--and that front--of horror hottie hostess Elvira herself.
ELVIRA'S MOVIE MACABRE: DR. FRANKENSTEIN'S CASTLE OF FREAKS (1974)
STUDIO: Shout Factory
NUDES: Simonetta Vitelli (Picture: 1), Christiane R?r (Picture: 1), Annamaria Tornello
THE SKINNY: The second Elvira's Movie Macabre entry, Dr. Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks, sports a title almost as provocative as the Italian eyefuls who populate the sinister scientist's laboratory lair throughout the movie. Stacked stunner Simonetta Vitelli plays Maria Frankenstein, lady of the (mad) house, and she receives ample support when it comes to handling her home's horrific inhabitants (which include an evil dwarf and a nasty Neanderthal) from Christiane R?r and Annamaria Tornello, whose character name is especially intriguing: Jenny Hansen. Freaks, indeed.
ELVIRA'S MOVIE MACABRE: THE DEVIL'S WEDDING NIGHT (1973)
STUDIO: Shout Factory
NUDE: Rosalba Neri (Picture: )
THE SKINNY: Some might say that matrimony itself is a hellish idea, but The Devil's Wedding Night takes the concept a step further--and hotter. Italian skin-screen legend Rosalba Neri portrays La Contessa Dracula, a scorching female incarnation of vampiric evil, and a bisexual one, to boot. As Lady Drac slinks about in search of hemoglobin to guzzle, she nuzzles men and women alike, and almost always while in the nude. Rosalba's lesbo licks thirty-five minutes in make a perfect accompaniment for wisecracking Elvira's awesome bald mountains.
*
SEPTEMBER 26, 2006
ANGEL GUTS: RED PORNO (1981)
STUDIO: Arts Magic
NUDES: Kyoko Ito, Jun Izumi, uncredited actresses
THE SKINNY: With a dainty name like Angel Guts, any reasonable viewer would expect this Japanese exploitation series to be powered by creative agony and uncomfortable human interactions. Add Red Porno to the title, and you can figure that there will be a smut element on hand as well. Well, Angel Guts: Red Porno certainly does not disappoint. Jun Izumi stars as a prim department-store clerk who accepts an offer to pose for a nudie photographer and thus ignites her descent into all-out carnal depravity and unusual carnal uses for furniture. This Angel installment will turn you Red--and not in the Guts, either.
ANOTHER WAY (1982)
STUDIO: Facets Video
NUDES: Grazyna Szapolowska (Picture: 1), Jadwiga Jankowska-Ciesla (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: The alternate title of the downbeat Hungarian drama Another Way is Egym?a n?e but it chronicles the romance between two sexy women, so there's no need to interpret the reason why you should check it out. The movie's protagonist, Eva (Jadwiga Jankowska-Ciesla), is a radical young journalist who falls for Livia (Grazyna Szapolowska) in a time and place where such love is forbidden. Fortunately we get full access to their (s)expressions of taboo affection, most spectacularly during a bedroom hole-bumping at the one-hour-nineteen-minute mark.
BLISS (2002)
STUDIO: MTI
NUDES: Lynda Boyd (Picture: 1), Lauren Evans, Thea Gill (Picture: 1), Rachel Hayward, Shannon Lawson (Picture: 1), Jennifer Podemski (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: From our (ca)nookie-happy neighbors to the north comes Bliss, a deliriously flesh-packed TV series made by and starring an astonishing array of titanically talented women. The Canadian show's central topic is sex and its point-of-view is decidedly female, but don't take that to imply that each episode's carnal content leans toward the skingy side. In fact, just the opposite is true as Bliss busts out the most glorious gaggle of gorgeous actresses this side of The L Word (and some of their behavior even qualifies them for The L Word too). What's in a name? When it comes to this DVD, Bliss is all you need to know.
COLD AROUND THE HEART (1998)
STUDIO: Anchor Bay
NUDE: Kelly Lynch (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: Cold Around the Heart is a two-fisted, double-barreled revenge flick featuring TV toughs David Caruso, Chris Noth, and John Spencer, along with salt-and-pepper spice from Kelly Lynch and Clueless cutie Stacey Dash. The movie opens with Kelly pushing her jewel-heist partner Caruso from a speeding car and thereafter concerns the kicked-out crook's plans to get even. Fortunately, at the five minute mark, Kelly also ejects her right breast and butt from her clothing, which will make you warm around the lap.
DUST DEVIL: LIMITED COLLECTOR'S EDITION (1992)
STUDIO: SubversiveCinema.com
NUDE: Chelsea Field (Picture: 1), Terri Norton (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: South Africa's all-time horror classic Dust Devil spins a genuinely chilling tale of a supernatural shape-shifter roaming the Capetown area in the form of a particularly vicious serial murderer (played by Robert John Burke). With police in pursuit of the phantom slayer, the bodies pile up in this atmospheric freak-out-inducer and Chelsea Field peels down most pleasingly.
LADY VENGEANCE (2005)
STUDIO: Tartan Video
NUDE: Mi-Ran Ra (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: Asian sensation Yeong-ae Lee takes on the title role of Lady Vengeance with a violence matched only by her hyper-potent sex appeal. After a botched kidnapping, Geum-ja Lee (Lee) serves thirteen years in prison, all the while plotting her revenge on the partner who made her take the fall. The film's raucous action breaks deliciously at the twenty-three-minute mark for a close-up of Mi-Ran Ra's bare rump as she kneels underwater and Sapphically sucks on the slit of a lovely lounger poolside. Mmm . . . raw like sushi!
LOVERBOY (2005)
STUDIO: Screen Media Films
NUDE: Kyra Sedgwick (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3), Marisa Tomei (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: In the arthouse drama Loverboy, Kyra Sedgwick plays a questionably qualified mother whose initial desperation to get pregnant is followed by a desperate closeness with her young song to the point of . . . well, some call it "creepiness." Mr. Skin doesn't judge, unless it's to give a big three thumbs up to Kyra's knockout nude scenes, which include flashes of full-frontal fluff, as well as a fleeting peak at Marisa Tomei's rarely seen teat. Loverboy was directed by Kyra's real-life husband, Kevin Bacon, and it's awfully generous of him to share her Bacon Bits with the rest of us.
THE NOTORIOUS BETTIE PAGE (2005)
STUDIO: Warner Home Video
NUDES: Gretchen Mol (Picture: 1 - 2), uncredited actresses
THE SKINNY: A dazzling biopic of the ultimate pin-up dame, The Notorious Bettie Page showcases utterly gorgeous Gretchen Mol in the lead role--and out of her sexy 1950s get-ups repeatedly. Playing the model whose ink-black coif launched a million hipster-chick hair-dos to come and whose volcanic sexuality prompted the Eisenhower generation to collectively explode into mass puberty, Gretchen brilliantly embodies her subject. She's naturally stacked, she's unforgettably sexy, and she's nude all over. Notorious? More like glorious!
RUSSIAN DOLLS (2005)
STUDIO: IFC Films
NUDES: Aissa Maiga (Picture: 1), Anne Steffens (Picture: 1), Irene Montal?a (Picture: ), Isabelle Joly (Picture: 1), Kelly Reilly (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: Multiculturalism seldom runs hotter than it does in the skinternational production Russian Dolls. A group of college friends reunites in Barcelona five years after spending a summer together. They've been scattered all over the world in the ensuing period, but once they come together again, their chemistry is recharged. The men live it up while the ladies take it off. Russian Dolls, like the toy from which it gets its title, works best when there are females revealing what they've got hidden underneath. And, on that front, this movie works plenty.
SHOUJYO (2001)
STUDIO: Indican
NUDES: Mari Natsuki (Picture: 1), Mayu Ozawa (Picture: 1 - 2), Noriko Hamada (Picture: 1)
THE SKINNY: Eiji Okuda plays Tomokawa, a cop, in the Japanese thriller Shoujyo. He gets drawn into the web of a teenage runaway (Mayu Ozawa), first when she offers him sex (and he refuses) and later when she gets a huge back tattoo in honor of the one adorning Tomokawa himself. The policeman sets out to save this fallen innocent, and we get to see lots of kinky footage of her naked descent along the way.
