Scanner : the 70s

Cloris Leachman Won't Wait For Her Entree, Wants You Now

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:44:00 GMT

Seeing The Last Picture Show on VHS at age 12 did three things for our childhood: 1) we finally understood why men salivated over Cybill Shepherd; 2) we became madly obsessed with the honky tonk music of Hank Williams and 3) we developed a crush on an actress we assumed was still a total unknown, an Oscar winner named Cloris Leachman.

In the movie, Leachman seduces (or allows herself to be seduced by) a shy high school boy, who ultimately falls in love with her and loses her in a fit of miscommunication. Leachman, who plays an aging housewife in a heartbreaking marriage, gives one of the best performances in screen history and virtually could have been her own movie.

Last year, when Leachman was on Dancing With the Stars, her career took off again and, to capitalize on it, the sexy senior is dishing dirt on her romances with famous co-stars and other Hollywood dudes, leaving out none of the racy details...

On then box-office sensation Gene Hackman:

"As we moved into the main course, it was as if a cosmic wind enveloped us. Some giant space magnet was pulling us together. We didn't finish the meal. We went upstairs, flew into bed and made love. It was epic. And the next morning, Gene went back to his film and I went back to mine. I haven't seen Gene since that night, but I remember well the feisty lad he was."

On Ed Asner, her co-star on the Mary Tyler Moore Show (yep, that's where you know her from):

"He always told me he loved me, and every once in a while, he'd grab me and whisper, 'You're God's gift to man!'

"One day we made an agreement that I would have sex with him if he lost 32 pounds. He almost did it; he lost 29 pounds. We both got so disoriented at what we were facing that his weight shot back up, and our assignation never happened."

And on singer Andy Williams, a lifelong friend:

"enduring passion" "tryst with caviar and champagne" "a cascade of photographs fell onto the floor and into my lap. All were handsome shots of his wife and his daughter.
"There was not much either of us could say. It was apparent to both of us where Andy's heart lay. . . . [It] ended not in a fiery affair but as it should have, with a light, friendly kiss."

In case 82-year-old Leachman is starting to turn you on, there's this news from yesterday:

68 percent of men between 57 and 85 reported having sex last year, as did 42 percent of women... more older women might have wanted to have sex, but there just aren't as many available older men for them to partner with. [HealthDay]

That's where you come in, dear readers...

Excerpts obtained by the NY Post.

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The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 50-41

Reason Number 379 To Hate The New York Post...

Top 10 Sexiest Album Covers of All Time

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 20:57:00 GMT

10. Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream & Other Delights. The other delights, unfortunately, are mainly covered up by the whipped cream, but this is still vintage goodness.

9. Betty Davis - They Say I'm Different. The woman once married to Miles (hence how she got the movie star-esque name) has two of the sexiest album covers ever. We can't explain why we love our #9 choice... or why we chose it over her possibly sexier "Nasty-Gal" photo...

8. The Pixies - Surfer Rosa. We've listened to this album about 300 times and we still don't know who Surfer Rosa is or why Kim Deal gets upset when Black Francis yells "you fucking die." But yeah, gotta love the field-hockey-players-and-the-coach sex scandal story. Oh, and the cover ain't bad either... and those catchy tunes... and... and...

7. Shakira - Oral Fixation. With a title like that, you'd think Shakira wants to be treated like a sex object-- but look, there's a baby! And this sluttastic photo is playfully Biblical, so you know she's a good Catholic girl. Right?

6. Blondie - Parallel Lines. For Halloween one year, we had a girl dress as Debbie Harry and we joined her in the easy-as-hell hipster uniform worn by the guys in this photo-- and damn it if we weren't sexy as all hell. The other night, we saw Debbie Harry play a fundraiser with a local high school band, doing bizarre and funky versions of "Heart of Glass" and other classics from that album. (We had a boner both nights.) Mainly, this cover is incredibly sexy thanks to the dudes with their shit-eating grins realizing how lucky they are to even be associated with a knockout like Debbie Harry, who makes this one helluva photo with that scowl contrasting their gleeful faces.

(Trivia: what future famous person picked Debbie Harry up in his car one night when she was walking home from waitressing at Max's Kansas City. Hint: he was a creep and she jumped out of the car at the next red light. Answer: Ted Bundy.)

5. The Strokes - Is This It? One could make about a dozen jokes about this album and its cover ("Heh heh... I bet they like to "Stroke" it to their own cover..." or "Is this it? Indeed, how come the album isn't as good as the cover?" for starters.) We'll just mention that whimpy Americans don't even have this picture on their 2001 records because it was deemed "too risque." So was the song New York City Cops-- but that's understandable, given 9/11 occurred just before the record's initially-planned release date.

4. Pulp - This Is Hardcore. A record with only one good song ("Like A Friend," and it isn't even the best of the two released versions)-- hey at least the cover makes for good wallpaper.

3. Ween - Chocolate and Cheese. Personally, we prefer the cover where they parody Leonard Cohen's Best of album using the Elephant Man, but these boobs are pretty sensational. Speaking of sensational, get a load of that belt! We might even wear that thing if it came our way...

2. The Cars - Candy-O. We're pretty sure this ain't no real woman, but for you anime freaks out there, this is one to get your keyboards sticky over. Ew, ew, ew-- pretend we didn't even say that. By the way, for some unimaginable reason, girls tend to get in the mood when The Cars come on the radio-- even if the song is "Let the Good Times Roll." FYI, dudes.

1. Roxy Music - Country Life. Their first US top 40 record (it went Top 5 in Britain), Roxy Music's Country Life is an obvious choice for #1 because of the near-nudity factor. (Of course, there are dozens of possible candidates for this list that have nudity in their covers, but they simply weren't as hot. Maybe for our Part Two someday...) Here's what Wikipedia has to tell us about this glorious photo:

The cover features two scantily-clad models, Constanze Karoli... and Eveline Grunwald. Bryan Ferry met them in Portugal and persuaded them to do the photo shoot as well as to help him with the words to the song "Bitter-Sweet". Although not credited for their photos they are credited on the lyric sheet for their German translation work.

The cover image was considered controversial in some countries such as the United States, Spain, and The Netherlands, where it was censored for release. As a result, a later American LP release of Country Life (available during the years 1975-80) featured a different cover shot. Instead of Karoli and Grunwald posed in front of some trees, the reissue used a photo from the album's back cover that featured only the trees.^.Author Michael Ochs has described the result as the "most complete cover-up in rock history." [Wikipedia]

Honorable Mentions: Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking; Jennifer Lopez - On the 6; and one of the Slunt records. Suggestions are welcome for a follow-up list...

Related:

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Today is the Day the Music Died

Scanner Giveaway: Signed Elton John DVDs!

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 19:52:00 GMT

We're dead serious. The man who played piano while wearing those giant sunglasses. The guy who told Lilly Allen he could snort her under the table. One of the baddest mofos of all time, or at least 1973, Elton John, has agreed to autograph copies of his new DVD documentary "Tantrums and Tiaras," which features behind-the-scenes craziness and excesses not seen since the Rolling Stones were still allowed within our borders.

Like we said-- despite all this kidding around-- we're serious. We're going to give you autographed Elton John DVDs... all you have to do is...

...answer these trivia questions. If you're resourceful, you should be able to Google the ones you don't know right off:

1. What Elton John "Greatest Hit" does not appear on the original record but appears on later CD pressings? This tracklisting for the vinyl version should give you a hint.

2. What three songs did John Lennon play with Elton when the duo played Madison Square Garden show in November, 1974?

3. What song contains the line "Stop twinkling your star like you do?" And you better get this one, as this is our favorite song of his.

4. The Elton John AIDS foundation just had its annual benefit, raising more than 2 million dollars. Who hosted that event?

5. Who did Elton marry in February of 2006?

And, if there are ties, the tiebreaker: Who did he marry in 1983?

We are expecting to receive two signed Elton John DVDs, so there should be two lucky winners out there. The movie was released on VHS in 1997 and is being released this week, finally, in the States on DVD:

The long-awaited U.S. DVD debut of Elton John: Tantrums and Tiaras (Echo Bridge Home Entertainment) has arrived today, with the 1997 documentary finally getting a domestic video release. With John's longtime companion David Furnish in the director's chair, we get a much more warts-and-all look at the music superstar than another filmmaker might have been allowed to capture. While you'll come away from the movie admiring Sir Elton's work ethic, you'll also marvel at his bratty entitlement.
Whether or not you're a fan of the Rocket Man's music, the gossipy frankness of this movie makes it impossible to look away.

Good luck! We think it might be best to e-mail us at scanner@nerve.com rather than posting your answers in the comments...

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This Week In Gayness: Rise Above The Hate

Brian Fairbanks — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 14:43:00 GMT

If someone says they're "above hating" someone else, it means they're haters.

There's nothing like harmless satire to show people that homosexuals are just as laid-back, easygoing, and as boring as everyone else.

Mike Huckabee, eternally stupid. Now he claims that gays aren't having their civil rights violated because there hasn't been enough violence against their kind.

Did you know an unusually high percentage of gay men smoke? And we don't mean after sex...

A police officer in Memphis plead not guilty in the beating of a transgender person he was supposed to have simply locked up.

A rundown of the gay marriage struggle since 1970.

And Dr. Phil did a show about gay marriage. As you can imagine, it was a completely lackluster piece of crap.

UPDATE: This just in.. a Florida court has ruled the state's ban on gay aboption is unconsitituional.

Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Cindy Lederman Tuesday declared Florida's 50-year-old ban on gay adoptions unconstitutional -- a ruling state lawyers immediately said they would challenge.

The ruling sets the stage for Frank Gill, a gay man from North Miami, to adopt two foster children he has raised since 2004.

In a 53-page ruling, Judge Lederman said, "It is clear that sexual orientation is not a predictor of a person's ability to parent." [Miami Herald]

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Borat's Brother: Sorta Hot and "Investigating a Lot of Gay Things"

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All Time: 40-31

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The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 10-6

Brian Fairbanks — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 21:26:00 GMT

We know we've bombarded you with sex scenes today, but it's Friday, and you deserve some relief.

And so we continue our list of The Sexiest Movies of All-Time with the first half of the Top 10...

10. 9 1/2 Weeks. The older guys in the neighborhood bragged about having seen this movie five times in one week. Obviously, they kept going back to the local one-screen movie house because of this film's naughty sex scenes. [NSFW clip.]

9. Y Tu Mama Tambien. This is one of the few films we've ever seen willing to admit that sex is almost always disappointing for straight women. Sorry, it's just the facts (which state that 60% of women are dissatisfied with sex, while 60% of men think they are great lovers.) Strangely enough, this also made it a great date movie-- the movie sets such a low bar for your post-DVD adventures that you're bound to have a memorable roll in the hay later on. Ana López Mercado and Gael García Bernal? The most underrated couple of the century so far. [NSFW clip.]

8. The Graduate. "Mrs. Robinson, are you trying to seduce me?" They tried, they really tried, to make Anne Bancroft appear old, haggard, and Cleopatra-looking. They failed-- but not without success of a different kind-- she's still just as appealing as ever, when she was busy playing a seductress in forgotten Marilyn Monroe movies and other TCM staples. You may have forgotten how hot movies could be when they just allowed the actors to dance around each other in late-night awkwardness...

7. Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down. How the hell do you make a rape fantasy movie this believable while keeping it sexy? You have Pedro Almodovar at the helm... and put together an incredibly desirable Spanish cast and try to keep things from become too absurd. Did it work? You be the judge.

6. The Summer of '42. It seems obvious now that Hollywood studios would line up to finance a cheap and tasteful coming of age sex drama, complete with a teenage boy's deflowering at the hands of the neighborhood goddess, but you have to remember that in 1971, there was no Porky's, Meatballs, or even-- gasp-- American Pie 2. The film, of course, was one of the most successful of the decade and went on to be imitated to near death. Near death.

SUMMER OF 42

Previously:

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 20-11

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 30-21

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All Time: 40-31

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 50-41

Top 5 Lesbian Sex Scenes - the Sequel

Now Sweden Has Its Very Own Orgasm Church

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 20-11

Brian Fairbanks — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 19:25:00 GMT

We continue our list with the Top 20 sexiest films ever made.

If you need a refresher, here are 30-21, 31-40, and 50-41.

20. Boogie Nights. Come on, you don't actually need an explanation for why this is here, do you? This film is about the 70s porn explosion and it involves Julianne Moore and Heather Graham, not to mention Burt Reynolds. For God's sake!

19. Do The Right Thing. It seems like a century has passed since Spike Lee's monumental classic Do The Right Thing landed like a meteorite and sent the nation reeling. Do you remember the time when Spike used to star in his own movies? As seen here, he was actually a decent actor and, more importantly, Rosie Perez wasn't intolerable.

18. A History of Violence. You wouldn't think a guy who made a movie about people putting VHS tapes in their vaginas would ever be able to make a movie as sexy as a History of Violence, but David Cronenberg pulls it off-- in this case, thanks entirely to the sex scene that starts 7:00 into this clip.

17. Some Like It Hot. The greatest line, the greatest ending, the funniest scene, and one of the best onscreen couples ever (Tony Curtis and Marilyn Monroe... although Jack Lemmon and Joe E. Brown are a pretty hot duo.) What more could you ask for? Scene after scene of some of the sexiest comic moments in film history would be too much, wouldn't it? But Some Like It Hot delivers, in a way that no movie has been able to since. Check out Marilyn and her, um, "Bosom Companions," in this vintage trailer.

16. Gone with the Wind. Is this movie still sexy? We saw it for the first time only a few years ago and wondered what the big deal was... right up until the concluding scene, when (SPOILERS!) Rhett doesn't give a good goddamn what you think, Scarlett. Ever since, we've tried to figure out how the hell Clark Gable got so suave and how we could even hold a candle to it. You'd do right by watching this nine-minute clip, with which the epic film concludes.

15. Unfaithful. We don't get it-- you're married to Richard Gere and you're seduced by Oliver Martinez? Is it because Gere wears glasses? That seems to be the only explanation for Diane Lane's falling for Kylie Minogue's real life beau in this surprise success from Fatal Attraction director Adrian Lyne. Either way, we don't mind this one-- especially after a twist that could have served as a much better ending for Fatal Attraction itself.

14. The Hunger. No list of sex and movies is complete with a hot vampire movie. No list of sex and movies is complete with this hot vampire movie, starring the sumptuous trio of Catherine Denueve, David Bowie, and Susan Sarandon. Succulent.

13. Out of Sight. The best part of Out of Sight wasn't the famous trunk scene (pictured above), or the scintillating presence of then-budding-star (and then-tolerable) Jennifer Lopez, or even George Clooney's breakthrough performance. Rather, it was Steven Soderberg's deft balance of action, comedy, and romance to turn a preposterous love story in a very sexy near-classic. By keeping Lopez and Clooney away from each other for most of the film, while simultaneously allowing their characters to toy with each other throughout, made for a huge breath of fresh air in 1997.

12. The More the Merrier. Jean Arthur is engaged to a real schmuck, a guy who's engaged to her but sees no need to get married. A lodger in Arthur's apartment (long story) falls in love with her and, knowing the lady is being strung along, decides to make his move. Although this scene is often named as the sexiest in movie history (the kiss itself is singled out for praise by most film critics), The More The Merrier was overshadowed by another 1943 film on our list (can you guess which one?) and has fallen into near-obscurity. Wanna help raise it from oblivion?

11. The Postman Always Rings Twice. "The whole reason for that movie is sex, and that's why I wanted to do it." - Jack Nicholson. Usually, updating a sexy classic just ends in vulgarity (Psycho, starring Vince Vaughn, anyone?) and while the almost-rape scene in David Mamet's 1982 version of the Postman Always Rings Twice could make the whole movie a turnoff for some, the steamy Depression-Era atmosphere and continuous lust-filled overtones add up to one hot flick. Here's the movie's most memorable moment:

Related:

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 50-41

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All Time: 40-31

The 50 Sexiest Movies of All-Time: 30-21

Richard Wright Went To That Great Gig In The Sky (sorry for the obligatory obituary title)

Brian Fairbanks — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 20:14:00 GMT

(What about: Richard Wright: Wish You Were Here... or Richard Wright Is Dead, Here Come The Wor-- no, too offensive.)

Richard Wright, who made his final on stage appearance with the reunited, core Pink Floyd at Live 8 three years ago, and who wrote Us And Them and The Great Gig In The Sky for Dark Side of The Moon, succumbed to cancer today. Here he is playing Comfortably Numb and leaving the stage with the other members for the final time. (He did, however, play with fellow member David Gilmour on Gilmour's solo tour two years ago.)

He seemed like such a nice guy, and in most accounts we've read about the Pink Floyd meltdown, circa The Wall recording sessions, he remained above the fray, like Ringo to their Beatles. During his time with the Floyd, which he helped found in the mid-sixties, he wrote and played on some of rock's greatest tunes. Here he is on our all-time favorite Pink Floyd tune, Us And Them:

Haaaaaaappy Birthdaaay Michael Jaaaaaaackson! Happy Birthday To You.

Nicole Pasulka — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:58:00 GMT

Oh Michael you made it to another birthday and not just any birthday, but the big 50! Congrats, buddy. You are Thriller, you are Bad, and you've had some crappy plastic surgery and a few unpleasant legal battles, but here you are today...50. Wow. It seems like just yesterday you were a little boy just rocking that microphone.

UPDATE: Today, fans around the world celebrated the half century of MJ by naming "Thriller" his greatest song. Disagree?