Change Your Image
lor_
Served as Chairman, New York Film Critics Circle: 1993/94.
Favorite interviews were with: Michael Douglas, Sophia Loren, DeForest Kelley, Joan Chen, Joe Henderson, Ismail Merchant, Klaus Kinski, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Spike Lee, Malcolm McDowell, Zoe Lund, Melvin Van Peebles, Ultra Violet, Wolfgang Petersen, Claudia Cardinale, Serge Silberman, Margarethe von Trotta, Alec Guinness, Leonard Nimoy, Susan George, Joseph Losey, Gale Anne Hurd, Dennis Hopper, Peter Greenaway, Katt Shea, Ken Russell, Maggie Greenwald, Jim Jarmusch, Peter Brook, Jurgen Prochnow, Andy Warhol, Judy Davis, Chuck Vincent, Fred Zinnemann, Wim Wenders, Max Von Sydow, Michael Moore, Terry Gilliam, Rita Jenrette, Karen Lynn Gorney, Bruce Beresford, Jack Thompson, Russ Meyer, Sam Raimi, Abel Ferrara, John Sayles, William Greaves, Nino Manfredi, Lee Van Cleef, Michael Cuscuna, Bille August, Jewel Shepard, Andy Sidaris, Michel Deville, Claude Sautet, Claude Lelouch, Alfonso Arau, Alan Parker, Reinhard Hauff, Traci Lords, Jim Jarmusch, Martha Coolidge, Candida Royalle, Giuseppe Tornatore, Edward James Olmos, Paul Hogan, John Mackenzie, Peter Hyams, Jennifer Beals,, Adrian Lyne, Samuel Fuller, Dario Argento, James Toback, Lasse Hallstrom, Fred Williamson, Gabriel Axel, Joe Bastianich, Aaron Sanchez, Danny Meyer, Steve Hanson, Matthew Kenney, Douglas Rodriguez, Simon Oren, Stanley Donen, Lindsay Anderson, Helena Bonham Carter, Edward Pressman, Harold Becker, Larry Cohen, James Ivory, Jack O'Connell, Michael Phillips, Kevin McClory, Jackie Mason, Joan O'Brien, Stanley Donen, Joseph B. Vasquez, Don Bluth, William Lustig, Al Goldstein, Simon Wincer, Valeria Cavalli, Dave Fishelson, Lizzie Borden, Roberta Findlay, Rob Cohen, Doris Wishman, Robert Tapert, Bruce Campbell, Bill Cosby, Pasquale Squitieri, Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus, Tim Kincaid, Joel M. Reed, Gregory Dark, T.L. Lankford, Fred Olen Ray, Victoria Paige Meyerink, Lawrence D. Foldes, Rick Marx & Ted V. Mikels
Reviews
Backdoor Brides 4 (1993)
Anal fixation
Anal sex is the subject matter, though there's a marriage subplot to go with the series title here.
Patti Rhodes' story and dialogue offer minimal connective tissue between the sex scenes. Ona Zee tells bride to be Tracey West how she had anal sex with her hubby Marc Wallice on their honeymoon. Then we get see Marc & Ona doin' it again.
Randy West is cast as Tracey's mean uncle -he gets anal sex with his lady Nicole Mitchell. Tracey's supposed groom Joey Silvera gets the cold shoulder, but is cheered up by being seduced by Celeste (her natural pre-surgeries look intact). Big surprise is Tracey's real marriage being a lesbian one, with Skye Blue after Skye delights her with a strap-on dildo.
Thrown in for the fun of it is a bachelor party that doesn't come off, but busty stripper Courtney is kind enough to let guests Cal Jammer and Marc Wallice have double penetration. Patti's script doesn't address the infidelity of Marc re: Ona here -the whole story is a dumb, who care? Bunch of nonsense.
Anal sex is the subject matter, though there's a marriage subplot to go with the series title here.
Patti Rhodes' story and dialogue offer minimal connective tissue between the sex scenes. Ona Zee tells bride to be Tracey West how she had anal sex with her hubby Marc Wallice on their honeymoon. Then we get see Marc & Ona doin' it again.
Randy West is cast as Tracey's mean uncle -he gets anal sex with his lady Nicole Mitchell. Tracey's supposed groom Joey Silvera gets the cold shoulder, but is cheered up by being seduced by Celeste (her natural pre-surgeries look intact). Big surprise is Tracey's real marriage being a lesbian one, with Skye Blue after Skye delights her with a strap-on dildo.
Thrown in for the fun of it is a bachelor party that doesn't come off, but busty stripper Courtney is kind enough to let guests Cal Jammer and Marc Wallice have double penetration. Patti's script doesn't address the infidelity of Marc re: Ona here -the whole story is a dumb, who cares? Bunch of nonsense.
1-800-TIME (1991)
Who?
Trust Ron Jeremy to make the crummiest time-travel movie ever (and that includes future productions -we're talking time-travel here). With an asinine script by Bill Eagle/Milling, he insults the viewer no end.
Joel Lawrence stars, using a pseudonym "Max Stryde" as an overage high school student watching porn and falling asleep (so as to let us know that the rest of the movie is likely a dream, the usual copout).
He's visited by classmate Renee Foxxe who like Joel is worried about the upcoming final exam in their sex ed class. Joel claims if he flunks it he won't get into Harvard, and would have to settle for crappy Princeton. Oh how these pornographers mock everything, funny or not.
Wayne Summers pops up in a puff of smoke and the show turns into a lame Dr. Who spoof -he's traveling through time in an American-style telephone booth, hence the lousy video title.
He materializes their teacher, Sharon Mitchell and she has sex with Summers while the students watch, warning them they better study hard for the final. The final straw to make this crap unwatchable - Wayne plays the movie wearing a ridiculous Elvis impersonator wig and silver outfit saluting the King.
Wayne crams Joel and Renee into the phone booth with him (difficult since Renee is one of the tallest porn actresses available) and the time travel quite randomly to see famous people f*ck. It's even dumber than one would expect.
How about casting Madison as Cleopatra (nice eye makeup) about to commit suicide, but Wayne saves her by materializiing Socrates (huh??) in the form of Don Fernando, for a threesome with her sexy handmaiden Robin Lee. Awfully pointless.
Worse than that is a visit to fictional characters Romeo (T. T Boy) and (Heather Lere); then Hans Mueller as Freud with Cara Lott as a patient.
At the final exams, Sharon Mitchell holds them on stage for the class to watch, and it's just a live sex show by Joel & Renee and the transported "historical" folk. Like Joel, I tended to fall asleep during the endless XXX filler to follow.
Dr. Who has gone through so many reboots over the years, even a current Disney one, but I was saddened to watch the likes of Ron Jeremy mess with it. Ugh!
Blow Job, Baby (1993)
Goofing around
Patti Rhodes and Fred Lincoln are merely horsing around with this VHS feature, which is crudely made and nonsensical, almost on purpose. It's hardly worth analyzing, and not very entertaining.
Opening has Sunset Thomas catching some rays outside her home when a bunch of escaped convicts attack: Fred stages this like kids making a backyard home video.
Randy West is the chief escaped con, who had received a letter from Sunset while in stir and decides to hide out at her house. The story falls apart from there, not the expected "The Desperate Hours" format but instead some random sex scenes.
Sunset Thomas is protective of her younger sister Kelli Thomas (a similar looking blonde, just using the Thomas name here but no related), but Ron Jeremy gets a blow job from Kelli out by the pool and is banished by Randy as a result. I breathed a sigh of relief that Fred & Patti had sent him away early in the show.
Another con, Marc Wallice, calls up his girlfriend to indicate he's escaped and invites her over for a fast f*ck. The female con in the bunch, Chelsea Lynx, is seduced by Kelli and later has a threesome with Sunset and Marc.
West leaves and later returns to quickly give a verbal recap of incidents that weren't filmed, lamenting that Sunset is gone, but that doesn't prevent him from asking Kelli: "How about a blow-job, baby?". Hence the dumb title with its relevant comma, and a fitting ending to a lousy feature.
Butties (1992)
Loop da loop
A truly crummy loop carrier, this VHS stinker has a cryptic element better suited to a psychologist rather than a film historian to analyze. The five vignettes are hosted by Trixie Tyler, who saves her own sex segment for last, and she delivers her introductions of the talent with the camera set for low-angle shots, as if she is talking down to the audience. Which, of course, she is.
The scenes play like loops of twenty years earlier, the main distinction that all but one feature sound. Big-bust Persia stars in the silent sex loop, humped by an unknown actor whose name starts with Dave but unfortunately Trixie mumbles his last name -could be Broome but I couldn't hear it clearly. None of the male actors get a screen credit.
Title is self-explanatory, with plenty of doggystyle action. P. J. Sparxx gets an extra X in her name, and her partner Tom Byron dons a rubber when it comes time for P. J. to go anal. This is basic porn by the pound filmmaking at its crudest: actors as sex workers.
Camp Fire Tramps (1995)
Outdoor hanky-panky
Perhaps a testament to the now obvious concept that "anyone can make a porno movie", this VHS feature by a pornographer named Lotus is just a string of sex scenes in which some actors reappear or mention someone in a previous scene to give it a semblance of continuity.
Central scene has three of the players gossiping at night over a campfire, leading to a 3-way in which ultra-busty Anna Amore is spotlighted. Guy DiSilva is the guy and Natalie Tizara the other woman -she appears most frequently during the movie.
Star Kimberly Kummings is the most famous of the players, given to being nasty to the other cast members. Interracial sex is the main theme, not signalled by the video's title.
Double Detail (1992)
A goose egg
Fred Lincoln decides to go all-sex with the negligible feature "Double Detail". I foolishly expected a story of sorts to emerge, but boy, was I gullible!
Instead, Tiffany Mynx hosts, exuding self-confidence and talking nonsense to the camera which adds nothing to the movie's content.
The sex scenes are desultory and rather asinine. T. T. Boy f*cks Melanie Moore inside a jail-cell, more than pointless given no set-up as to why they're in a cell or who they are, and he asks her after his money shot if she's interested in performing double-penetration, like he saw it in porno movies.
Melanie tells him she knows a blonde with really big tits who would be just right, and since I watched the opening credits I, in lightning fashion, deduced it would be Chessie Moore. Sure enough a scene comes up with T. T. Boy worshiping Chessie's breasts, and while they're humping, Marc Wallice sneaks in and delivers the d.p.
After more filler, TIff strips and gets very horny, masturbating, and then lets Jonathan Morgan lay her. After his "no hands" money shot, she declares her love for him and he ends the movie by mocking her.
It's that kind of a stinker.
Air (2023)
The formula still works
Hollywood formulas refuse to die, and the root, root, root for the underdog story line lives on in (almost mandatory in relation to sports). With Matt Damon spot-on casting as an everyman one can identify with, we got ourselves a popcorn movie.
The nostalgia factor is maximized, right from the music of 1984, a montage of the stars and culture of 1984 and the various archaic materials (like car phones) from that period. Director Ben Affleck as antagonist running the Nike company is mandatory casting opposite Matt -all that's missing is Jimmy Kimmel.
So I enjoyed the anything but suspenseful ride, and even was won over by content all about such dreaded (almost hateful?) subjects as advertising and marketing becoming the center of reality.. Or since this is a movie, of fantasy. And a Hollywood movie where "the pitch" is the central element -what could be more appropriate?
The conceit of making a myth-oriented movie dedicated 100% to Michael Jordan without Michael Jordan sort of makes sense, in a perverse way. Or is it the converse of straight-line logic? (insert yuk, yuk here).
The Accidental Hooker (2008)
Solid Brad feature with knockout surprise ending
"The Accidental Hooker" is one of Brad Armstrong's best features.
Its format departs from porn conventions, in that star Leilani Lei is in nearly every scene as she pours out her life story as a prostitute to British documentary filmmaker Marcus London, for his project about the profession in different countries.
The excellent, insightful screenplay by "Jon Bitton" (unidentified pseudonym) has a key role for Brad, a guy she met over the internet and dated, except that from the beginning he left her $500 in an envelope at the end of each date. Later, he sends her a ticket to Los Angeles, but Deep Threat shows up in his place in the limo, and Lei becomes a full-fledged prostitute after servicing him.
The film consists of a series of sexual flashbacks as she relates her work to London. The best episode has Brad pulling out the stops as art director, staging an impressive opera (replete with striking costumes and sets) scene as she fulfills Chris Cannons' life wish of climaxing a hand job just at the crescendo of an aria. Less exciting is her satisfying Barrett Blade's desire to get a blow-job while his car travels through a car wash.
I was floored by the conclusion of the interview and the movie -carefully set up with several clues and quite satisfying.
Brad has put together a real movie, not just porn footage, and Lei is terrific in the lead role.
The Creasemaster (1992)
Way, way overrated
It's a matter of taste (bad taste), but this post-Dark Brothers movie was considered one of the all-time greats, and got Jonathan Morgan an industry Best Actor award for his usual smarmy overacting. Thirty years later it's hard to watch and seems utterly trivial and annoying. (Disinterest in this movie is underscored by the fact that in 30 years no one added the obvious beaty/bondage queen Tori Sinclair to the cast list for her early cameo role until I did, just now.)
As the title character, also called Slamdog, he plays an insurance agent married to Tiffany Million who becomes pervesely obsessed with pussies. The viewer is treated to endless closeups and even montages of naked pussies, more boring than titillating. The same goes for the frequent sex scenes, which all revolve around voyeurism and especially the latter-day fetish of hotwifing.
Director Gregory Dark uses the gimmick of either Morgan or Million talking to the camera, overexplaining what their character is thinking. I sense that had Dark not succeeded as a pornographer, he might have aspired to be a documentary filmmaker, perhaps studying the inhabitants of Papua New Guinea or some other far-off place. I once interviewed him (by phone) when he was named Alexander Hippolyte and directing some fine Shannon Whirry softcore movies and he seemed reasonable enough, but his porn outpit is annoyingly condescending. Poetic justice had him end up making a living shooting music videos (ouch!).
And condescending fits Morgan's character, just a creep. His fetichism reaches a peak in one scene where the climax is his money shot onto Million's feet. But that's not the movie's climax; we still have to sit through a completely extraneous final sex threesome interrupted by Million handing him a summons announcing their impending divorce.
Heatwaves (1994)
Somewhat ingratiating
For a VHS porn feature with so little story, "Heat Wave" (that's the correct title spelling on screen) has a low-key, rather refreshing quality to it. Director Tango Cool manages to set a mood (a heat wave, natch), with the characters underplaying their acting roles.
Nikki Sinn stars as the waitress at a small bar where Sean RIder is the bartender. She has sex in the bathroom there with Jon Dough in an interesting scene that appears to be forced sex (at gunpoint, yet) but turns out to be role-playing between two acquaintances.
Other sex scenes include blonde Vixxxen making love to pal Kristi Lynn, and then in a threesome with boyfriend Nick East; while cop Steve Drake dallies with a prostitute Sally Layd -he's off-duty and has no interest in arresting her. Sally returns on a visit to the bar where she services bartender Sean as well as Jon Dough.
Movie culminates with Nikki's erotic dream of romance (and sex, of course) with cop Drake, followed by a coda back in the bar of "life goes on", another hot day on the way. The matter-of-fact nature of the show puts the porn content into perspective -just part of everyday life.
Swoosh (2003)
Briana fantasizing
Paul Thomas, using pseudonym "Bo Edwards" directed this adventurous misfire - a shot-on-film Vivid vehicle for contract superstar Briana Banks that seems to have been a big deal, but turned out to be a big dud when released. It was missing from IMDb for over two decades till I added it today.
There's a striking opening scene geared to showcase BB's wild screen persona (only Bridgette Kerkove among her contemporaries appearing more uninhibited in her roles), as she masturbates on a stairway while husband Eric Price talks dirty to her, egging her on with verbal imagery of her enjoying a gang-bang.
But soon the movie loses its way, perhaps through post-production tinkering or just a faulty concept. There is very poor continuity as we're presented almost non-stop sex enacted by a large cast of performers, beginning with simultaneous sex scenes outdoors by the pool.
Semblance of a story has Briana hopping into her car for a night drive, resulting in a car crash and her wandering injured, turning into a voyeuse watching from outside their picture window a couple (Nick Manning and future superstar Savanna Samson) making love narcissistically in front of bedroom mirrors.
From then on, the narrative falls apart, with each succeeding scene written off as merely a figment of Briana's oversexed imagination. I suppose that excuses many obvious continuity errors, but the net result is reducing the show to all-sex gonzo content.
Underscoring this fast slide into nonsense is the emphasis throughout on Briana's affection for a large strap-on dildo, which looks silly in scene after scene as she wears it almost as a badge of pride.
In the supporting cast, Lezley Zen is reliably sexy as a cop, though her role is largely fantasy, and an obscure actress named Shauna Faith Banks impresses as Zen's attorney friend, by virtue of her magnificent rack, yet quite un-porno appearance (at least when clothed).
Night Vision (1995)
Fine romantic melodrama
Bud Lee does a stylish job directing Ariel Hart's suspenseful script in this unsettling drama for Vivid Video.
It's an Ashlyn Gere vehicle in which she's plagued by erotic nightmares, sometimes featuring her in bondage, unwillingly watching others make love. In her waking life she's no longer able to have an orgasm.
Her lover Colt Steele wants to marry her, but Gere is unwilling to commit to a permanent relationship. Her best friend, since school together, Rayveness encourages her to marry and Colt the stud seems to be the perfect guy. But some trauma in Gere's past is holding her back -a deep psychological problem.
Lee uses artful editing and a mix of color/black and white visuals to stylize the nightmares, and Gere's femme supporting cast, including Ray, Tera Heart and Alex Jordan provide plenty of eroticism.
Route 66: Aren't You Surprised to See Me? (1962)
A pretentious failure
Stirling Silliphant tackles terrorism in the unlikely person of mild-mannered (looking) David Wayne, portraying a messianic religious nut who is a wanted serial killer. He kidnaps Maharis and spews his nonsensical philosophy in what amounts to a shaggy-dog story, ending with anticlimax and a whimper.
For me, there were so many defects in Silliphant's conception here that I couldn't enjoy even the modicum of suspense generated by location shooting in Dallas, nearly two years before the JFK assassination but not relevant to that earth-shaking event at all. It isn't till the midway point of the show that Wayne reveals to Murdoch (and the audience) his purpose. He's traveling city to city, most recently from Cleveland, killing guys and taking their identities one by one on his deadly mission.
He makes the same ultimatum in each city: its inhabitants have to live up to the 10 Commandments for 24 hours, or else he'll kill his prisoner, with an incredibly deadly poison he possesses.
Wayne's search for some sort of rebirth of morality and personal responsibility (of course for everyone else, not himself) is nonsensical, and the only quality point in the script is when late in the show Maharis gets to deliver a spirited speech bravely telling Wayne off -how full of bull his philosophy is.
The episode devolves into an extremely dull police procedural that goes nowhere. It has no thrills, just plodding along as lowkey as Wayne's cast against type performance. Lack of guest stars or an interesting supporting cast is noticeable, as is the departure from the series' basic format - the Corvette is irrelevant and we never get to see the people or subculture of Dallas, just a madman threatening our hero George's life.
Big Town (1950)
A fond but distant memory
As an 8-year-old child living in Cleveland, Ohio, I owned a copy of this TV series' board game, about reporting for a big-city newspaper. I enjoyed playing it for several years in the late 1950s, and watched the half-hour show along with other series of the day like "Sea Hunt", "Highway Patrol", "Yancy Derringer", "Dotto" and especially "My Little Margie".
The enjoyment of these simple pleasures apparently had unexpected effects on my life, not obvious at the time, but reflecting on this well-made, simple drama show nearly 70 years later, I was surprised at the impact.
For one, I became a fan of Mark Stevens, and often over the years have considered him near the top of Film Noir heroes, hardly a popular opinion (what with Bogie, Mitchum and so many other icons granted that status). It must have been those formative years' exposure to his work that set me in motion.
But more surprisingly, 25 years after watching this relatively obscure show, yet reinforced by its board game play, I wrote a fan letter to the owner of Variety Newspaper, was invited to meet him in New York City, and was hired as a film reporter -changing my career at the time, where I had been the Internal Auditor of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. I relocated to NYC and the rest is, as we say, history.
I had contributed to a local underground newspaper back home but had no professional experience as a reporter -my avocation as a movie buff (attending 300 to 500 films a year) was what appealed to my new boss, Syd Silverman. I worked there from 1980 through 1993 as reporter, film critic and editor of the motion picture department.
So belatedly, thank you "BIg Town" for planting a seed in my subconsciousness, the power of television.
Principles of Lust (1999)
One more time
Loaded with style and embracing a tone of decadence, Michael Raven's "Principles of Lust" offers a meaty role for Sydnee Steele, coming during the director's most successful period of work, with durable hits produced for Sin City. It's not to be confused with Michael Ninn's movie with the same name starring Taylor Wane (more of an all-sex exercise), released 7 years earlier.
Sydnee and Eric Masterson are on assignment to write an expose about an underground sex club run by Donovan (played by director Raven in a fine performance). They see blonde beauty Lisa Belle having sex on stage in their first visit.
Much of the story and plot is voiced over by Sydnee as Raven immerses the viewer in the club's atmosphere. There is one scene of regular plot, with Sydnee catching her boyfriend Eric Price humping hot Wendy Divine. She throws him out of the house, with his lame excuse (true, but so what?) that she was merely a birthday present from a friend, sent over to service him. No dice, is Syd's reaction.
A setpiece has the club's real purpose revealed, trafficking in white slavery. Two brand-new actresses at the time, Allysin Chaynes and Meagan Riley are featured, with a slave auction won by customer Herschel Savage to get a virgin for $50,000 and deflower her in front of the crowd, while Evan Stone in the audience is enjoying a three way with the other young girl plus busty Renee LaRue.
Renee returns in the decadent climax, getting blow jobs from three breasty women: Syndee, Renee and Anita Cannibal before humping Sydnee.
Raven takes the story into film noir territory by being quite dominant with Sydnee, with a strong night scene outdoors where he orders her to strip, humiliating her, but she chooses the dark side (as he predicted) when it comes to a decision whether to hand in the expose and close down the club forever, or give in to her lust and join the debauchery.
Did You Hear the One About the Farmers Daughter? (1990)
Light and friendly porn comedy
"With malice towards none" sums up this fluffy little video, one of the better quickies made by Michael Craig. Even the script by Mark Weiss is much better than normal, making for pleasant escapism in that so-often derided genre of the "Couples Film".
Shot at the familiar Dry Gulch Ranch porn location, it's about a traveling salesman (Randy Spears, on his best behavior) and traveling saleslady Lauren Brice (that tall drink of water who livened up many porn features without much lasting notice in a brief 3-year career). Both of their cars break down, and they seek refuge at Victoria Paris's ranch home.
Paris's daddy Eric Price is introduced cleaning his rifle, and he makes it clear he'll use it if traveling salesman Randy messes around with his daughter. No mention about Brice. His wife is played by Alex Storm and she's almost as horny as Victoria.
The movie consists of the sexual antics they all get up to over roughly a 24-hour period. It's a lot of fun and the droll humor is easy to take. The casting conceit of same-age folks as parents and daughter is glossed over, and the incest angle of mother/daughter in a threesome doesn't change the mood at all, though it would be censored nowadays.
For the record, mom Storm was 29, dad Price was 26, and their daughter Paris was 29 when this was shot -yes the farmer father figure is the youngest of the three!
Reality & Fantasy (1994)
Fine cast in clever Hollywood tale
Writer/producer/director Jerry Ross does a creditable job in examining mainstream versus porn Hollywood issues in this unusual version of success in La La Land. As reflected in the movie's title, he has fun mirroring reality with fiction.
Jon Dough is the central character, quite a cad as demonstrated in the openng "morning after" scenes where he tells the woman (Kaitlyn Ashley) that he slept with some bad news. He can't remember anything about their night together as he was drunk, and his promise to help the aspiring starlet with her movie career was just b.s.
Ross fleshes out an interesting set of characters, at first seeming to be cliche figures, but brought to life by talent like Ashley, Kylie Ireland and Summer Knight. Summer is an aspiring screenwriter, and in the movie's central conceit (which I greatly enjoyed), she is simultaneously writing a porn script that seems to be about the same characters she is interacting with and that we're watching have sex and various problems. By film's end, the issue of what's real and what is merely Summer's invention is quite tantalizing to ponder.
Dough's problems include a severe gambling habit (right out of writer James Toback's oeuvre, especially his great James Caan movie "The Gambler"), while Kaitlyn becomes torn between her real, jealous boyfriend T. T. Boy, and the new lover Dough who can help her career. Dough's movie partner Steve Drake has a problem finding a suitable replacement leading lady for their film project, and it's clear from the outset that Kaitlyn is fated to fill that bill, just in time for a fairly happy ending for everyone concerned. Another key role has scene stealer Kylie Ireland as Summer's lesbian roommate, who manages to seduce her on cue.
The best irony here, showing Ross's true talent, is that at one point Summer's porn screenplay titled "Fantasy & Reality" causes her to lose a coveted mainstream rewriting job when Kylie mistakenly submits it as a sample of Summer's work to mainstream executives, whose angry reaction is "we don't hire porn people". Yet that same script gets Jon Dough's attention on the rebound and he's so impressed that he hires Summer to rewrite it, leaving out the porn scenes, as the vehicle that will make Kaitlyn a (mainstream) star! And we, the porn audience, have just, perhaps, watched her unexpurgated script brought to life in this porn video titled "Fantasy and Reality".
Transfixed: A Long Day's Work (2024)
A lousy 'bonus'
Bree Mills' "Transfixed" website still boasts of its mission to deliver trans lesbian porn, yet here's another exception, a vignette issued between the weekly diet of what's been promoted. She has veteran kink director Jim Powers deliver a standard, Stud porn actor humping a trans-female scene, with the supposed plot switch that she's the family breadwinner and he's a stay-at-home dad.
Nikki North recites her lines so poorly in the 2-minute dialogue setup scene that it kills the show entirely. And she does the same for a tacked-on ending, with saccharine romantic music playing.
In between, it's just Andre as top, Nikki as bottom, the type of popular TS porn that producer Bree Mills supposedly set out to depart from in her lesbian-oriented label. Whether site subscribers bite the bullet and sit through this material (begrudgingly?) while waiting for their minimum weekly requirement of the promised trans-female/cis-female romances, or just skip it, is an open question.
All for Women (2024)
'Women's World' meets 'Grinders'
Chunks from two Adult Time features are scavenged to produce this VOD, another bloated trailer for the pair of films. Why not watch the entire features rather than lengthy but incomplete excerpts? That's my obvious question, not being a fan of porn's endless flow of compilations.
There is story material here, though not enough to represent each movie adequately -for that you have to watch the movie itself, each one still readily available. The point instead is to watch sex scenes: from "Grinders" there is Vicki Chase humped by Tommy Pistol. He has an old man special makeup to wear, rendering him almost bald. The stars of "Grinders" make brief appearances: Lucky Fate and Maya Woulfe as part of the story..
From "Women's World" comes two sex scenes: Casey Calvert and Marica Hase making love on the couch, plus Victoria Voxxx and Alex Coal going at it in their kitchen. It's quality XXX content featuring four popular brunettes. A bit of story is illuminated by Candice Dare and Christy Love in a brief excerpt of their roles.
Film Buff (1994)
Well-executed movie tribute vignettes
Jim Enright and his screenwriter Raven Touchstone do justice to old movies in this X-rated version, using the premise that Chasey Lain likes to use her imagination to see what the characters might do, erotically, after the movie fades to black at the end.
Consistently, upbeat, the five vignettes show: Chasey as the girl on a ledge in a Silent Film starring Joey Silvera in the Harold Lloyd role. Interesting camerawork including a dolly shot around the building set into the side of a room shows them humping rather than jumping.
A horror movie setup has down-to-earth Tera Heart seducing Peter North's Dracula (his Eastern European accent is quite poor), followed by a teen movie in which superstars Chasey, Julie Ashon and TIffany Mynx have daisy-chain sex together after their Elvis-hip idol Tom Byron turns out to be gay and effeminate.
Lain thinks older movies are more romantic than new ones, and imagines Norma Jeane making love to Bogie-styled Jonathan Morgan after a brief, lousy Brando impression (from "Streetcar")_ by T. T. Boy. Final segment has Chasey return for a gang-bang, as she's a female guard in a prison for men.
Enright off-camera is the interviewer asking Chasey all about the movies, and the only letdown here is the absence of an ending: the final interview (after showing the jail-cell foursome) just ends.
The Price of an Education (1998)
Completely cynical porn feature
An unknown director (Simon Goldstar) and a femme cast of less famous talent gives this Adult movie promise, but its unrelenting cynicism and matter of fact lack of drama makes jack a dull boy.
Entire story is dished out in the first couple of minutes as tearful co-ed Nikki Lynn tells her classmate Christgen Wolf that she needs $3,000 to continue at college, and without batting an eyelash Wolf solves the problem: join her friend Vince Vouyer's escort service and earn that much fast.
Instead of developing this situation and presenting further roadblocks in heroine Nikki's path, producer-director Goldstar merely shows how easy it is for Nikki and Vince's other call girls to put out for rich clients, and there's plenty of moolah to go around as he charges $1,000 a pop (plus big tips).
First sex scene is the only variatin on this basic sex-for-pay format: Vince humps Euro import Dru Berrymore in the bathroom of a bar, and afterwards, when he asks her to join his prostitution game, she slaps his face. But his other girls are perfectly happy with the scheme and the movie listlessly goes from one sex scene to another without further digression.
Other than Berrymore, I wasn't familiar with the other beauties in the cast, and biggest surprise as they pop up one by one is that all five of them are blondes. Christgen wins breast in show, and the weak script kind of loses sight of heroine Nikki until she pops up again at the end for a celebration of the joys of hooking. If prostitution needed PSAs to promote it as a wonderful career choice, movies like this one would qualify -no cops, no abusive clients, and no stigma attached ever make the scene.
Stupid Cupid (2000)
Cupid wears a rubber...
..and so does the rest of the male cast, in Jim Enright's silly fantasy comedy.
Jupiter sends Cupid (Kyle Stone) to Earth just before St. Valentine's Day and we get pratfalls and other slapstick as Cupid shoots his arrows to stir up romance among humans.
George Kaplan's screenplay is one of his laziest, just an excuse for many sex scenes by the increasingly horny cast. Stacy Valentine stars as Dillion Day's secretary, and has the most sex in the movie, which overdoes the Cupid gimmick. The nonsense finally ends with Jupier causing Cupid to become visible to humans, and he is lucky enough to hump Stacy. Keisha brightens up things along the way.
Wild Attraction (1992)
Frustrating
This Italian porn film has elements that might have worked but is something of a disaster. It's pretentious, dull and strictly a tease, not entertainment.
Shot in Italy with some big-name imported porn talent, it stars Raven and departs from porn structure in having Raven in every sex scene -no variety. She looks beautiful and is glamorously dressed and coiffed, but like the rest of the cast she has her English dialogue post-synced with a neutral voice (in the dubbing studio), matching lip movements but rendering her performance as remote.
Kinky story gimmick involves what later was named hotwifing. Raven's husband Jesse Eastern is a famous orchestra conductor, and he's rehearsing for a concert. Meanwhile, he's hired artist Rocco Siffredi to paint an elaborate wall fresco in his home, and takes note of the immediate attraction between Rocco and his wife.
Plot twist is that Eastern has a fetish and wants her to make love to the artist and then report back to him what went on between them -that's a real turn-on for Jesse.
The movie really drags on, with sex scene after sex scene with Raven, and the version I watched was strictly softcore with camera angles and framing leaving out hardcore. In fact, Rocco's moneymaker, his cock, is not even visible. Full version features XXX sex including anal for Raven.
Included is a nothing scene of the adulterous couple going to a porn theater and sitting next to a young guy as they make out, more frustration.
False ending is very corny and poorly done, playing as if hack director Alessandro Perrella shot two alternate endings (will she or won't she?) to Raven's story, and just showed them back to back.
Best Birthday Ever (2024)
Who needs gaming?
Jimmy Michaels is a low self-esteem stepson in this MissaX offering, aimlessly gaming on-line with no friends. When his mom tries to cheer him up on his birthday, he quickly retreats back into his shell, so extreme measures are required.
I greatly enjoyed the seduction here, a simple scene, but marvelous to watch thanks to the natural performance by MILF Sadie Summers. The immediate reaction of Missa's website subscribers is interesting: a nearly 50/50 split between those demanding more story of a resistance before sex is consummated, clashing with those fans who just want to get on with it. Even on a feedback board for a site devoted to storytelling and characters there remains the seemingly never-ending battle between Gonzo versus involving, romantic porn.
Private Tropical 11: Dream Girls in St. Martin (2004)
Vacation hedonism
I enjoy watching the Private Media movies shot in faraway places with hedonism as the theme. This time Alessandro Del Mar takes us to the island of Saint Martin in the Caribbean, and his all-sex movie plays like a XXX edition of something from the local tourist board.
It consists mainly of George Uhl (looking muscual and with an unusually long harido) and Francesco Malcom photographing five beauties posing in bikinis and nude, something akin to a Sports Illustrated bathing suit shoot. The sex, especially in threesomes, is basic anal sex and cumswapping action, but always gleefully perforemed.
Sandy Style and Ellen Saint stand out in the femme cast, both frequently seen in competitor Dorcel's releases too. Among the locations is a striking waterfall backdrop for George humping Sandy and Jessica May. The girls are all-natural, with no pubic hair or tattoos marring the visuals.
It makes for mindless escapism, Private's version of a screen saver..