Total Movie Magazine Has Naked Ambition

Total Movie magazine is only two issues old, but already it has launched a courageous crusade against the most distressing problem in contemporary American cinema: not enough nudity.

“Not long ago, if you went to a teen movie or horror flick, you could count on being treated to a gratuitous shower scene or a half-naked woman being chased by a zombie,” writes columnist Chris Gore. “Today, these simple pleasures have almost completely disappeared.”

Gore is not some Neanderthal who believes that all movies should be filled with every imaginable form of nudity. No, he simply feels that teen and horror movies should contain a reasonable amount of young female nudity. Is that too much to ask?

Apparently, it is. And this pernicious trend really outrages Gore. When he saw a teen movie called “Whatever It Takes,” he was irate.

“ ‘Whatever It Takes’ has two shower scenes--plenty of opportunities to see something--but we’re not treated to one shred of nudity,” he writes, barely able to contain his righteous indignation. “Even horror films are not immune from this puritanical scourge.”

Obviously, Total Movie is not the kind of movie mag in which cineastes prattle on about the auteur theory and the oeuvre of Jean-Luc Godard. Total Movie is the magazine you’d get if Cahiers du Cinema were taken over by the folks who put out Maxim. (And, like Maxim, Total Movie is the American version of a successful Brit mag, Total Film.) It’s a movie mag for men who like movies in which the bad guys get shot and the bad girls get naked.

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But Total Movie isn’t mindless. Sure, it loves trashy movies, but they have to be good trash. Most Chuck Norris movies, for instance, simply don’t make the grade.

For a story in the current issue, writer Dan Morris sat through 14 consecutive Norris movies and came to this hard-earned conclusion: “Except for ‘Invasion USA,’ ‘Code of Silence’ and parts of ‘An Eye for an Eye,’ Chuck Norris movies are awful, and don’t let anybody tell you otherwise.”

Morris was particularly appalled by “Top Dog,” a movie in which Norris is upstaged by his canine co-star: “The dog is a better actor than Chuck, with a much greater range of facial expression.”

Total Movie does have its scholarly side. In the current issue, there are learned lists of the 11 “Best Martial Arts Flicks Ever” and the eight “Best Mean-Spirited Christmas Movies,” which include a 1964 flick called “Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.” There is also a discerning guide to the cinematic works of Rodney Dangerfield, which includes a list of the best one-liners from each movie: “You were the inspiration for twin beds” and “During sex, she used to call out her own name.”

As a service to its male readers, each issue of Total Movie contains a “Chick Flick Cheat Sheet.” The motto of this feature is: “We watch them so you don’t have to.” A guy can read this column, then discuss these loathsomely sensitive movies with his date as if he’d actually seen them. For instance, the cheat sheet on “Autumn in New York,” the Richard Gere-Winona Ryder two-hankie weeper, offers this tip:

“Why This Movie Is Important to Your Date: It shows that a man can be changed by a woman, which is the central tenet of the Chick Flick philosophy.”

Every issue of Total Movie offers something else, too--a DVD containing new movie trailers and short films. Alas, I don’t have a DVD player, so I have no idea if these things are any good. I can only assume they contain an adequate amount of nudity.