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Chasey Reloaded
 Studio: Red Light District/Forbidden Cinema
Director: James Avalon
Cast: Chasey Lain, Daisy, Tory Lane, Isabella Sky, Christiana Aguchi, Savannah Stern, John West, Eric Masterson, Franko Del Toro, Reno
While Reloaded, celebrating Chasey Lain's first non-condom work in years, and her "return", as it were, to performing after a recent history of trainwreck behavior, was not over-hyped (and kudos to anyone involved in that decision-making process for the uncharacteristic restraint), Lain herself doesn't seem to be the star of her own movie.
While recent events in the porn community suggest that bottom-scraping marketers will use anything to get their shitty movie noticed, I think Chasey: Reloaded might have benefited a little from addressing Lain's recent absence from the business. Instead, she seems to play a background part in a stylized and smoking series of vignettes directed by James Avalon.
The movie is a slow burn. The first half of the project's six scenes don't really set the mood. Reloaded opens with a scene called "The Schoolgirl" between Lain and Lindsey Meadows. That Meadows is initially tied up and might be wearing a schoolgirl outfit is the only thing that justifies the title, because within moments she is delivering a strap-on to Lain. The setting was a little too dark for me; it would be good to have seen more of Lain; she's a little older and the results of a decadent lifestyle look good on her. A little more light would have been nice to show the contrast between the two women, and the vignette title was a head-scratcher.
Christiana Aguchi and Eric Masterson star in the next scene, "Asian Invasion". This, too, is an odd title, because Aguchi's domme hat in the first few seconds of the scene suggests that she'll be doing the invading. But it quickly turns into a standard sex scene, well-shot though it was.
"A Glass of Wine" comes next, with Savannah Stern getting double-teamed by Franko Del Toro and Reno just for spilling a little wine on her boobs. So far, the movie is murkily-lit couples' porn, but doesn't really catch fire.
Then comes "Girls in Bikinis", shot on a hill in Malibu and featuring Daisy, Isabella Sky, and Lain. This is the first really fun scene of the movie, and Daisy steals it. While Lain herself hovers out of the shot (or she might have been halfway down the hill by this point), a scene that started as a threesome becomes a duet between Daisy and Sky, culminating in Daisy squirting as a result of Sky's deft dildo skills.
My favorite episode came next. The movie's only untitled vignette, it featured Tory Lane and John West fucking on a courtyard fountain. This is the sort of scene that should be put in a time capsule as an example of fantasy porn style that doesn't skimp on substance. We open on a shot taken through Lane's legs, standing in a classic hooker pose, as she regards West reading a paper (an article about lonelygirl15, as a matter of fact) on the rim of a fountain at the end of a columned path. She rips the paper out of his hand and takes over. The scene should have been called "Tory Lane Against Literacy".
Say what you will about the useless architectural fripperies of SoCal mansions, but they're great for shoooting porn movies.
Laine, as the producer of the movie, might have in fact picked the cast. If that is the case, she chose mostly muscly guys reminiscent of Dick Tracy villains, particularly West and Reno, but also Christian, whose scene with Lain ends the movie. That Chasey (Lain) and Tory (Lane) are both solid girls (for porn, anyway - meeting them in person, one is still amazed at how tiny they seem, so imagine how comparably tiny people like Lindsey Meadows and Christiana Aguchi are) working with big guys, the viewer has the sense that something is actually happening. That is refreshing.
The last scene was shot at night, most likely at the end of a long day of filming. Lain herself stands in a courtyard (probably the same one as before), and encounters Christian. It is yet another too-dark scene, but Laine has put together a great crew as a producer, particularly Avalon and porn veteran Sharon Kane, who art-directed superbly.
It was a shame to not see more of Lain, both in the scenes she was in and the scenes she wasn't in, if that makes sense, in her own movie. I hope she makes more movies, and schedules her own scenes for the morning, and outside.
 Labels: "james avalon", "red light district", directors, wgl
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Trouble x 2
 Studio: Slave Labor Productions
Director: Paige White
Cast: Lorelei Lee, Bella, Paige White, Hunter Rhodes
I used to watch a lot of BDSM videos as part of my job and, once I didn't have to review them, I stopped. My problem with them was less production value (fetish videos tend to have an air of San Francisco about them, and one expects a homeless guy to show up and pass out at any minute, which is great the first few times, and certainly a welcome departure, but a worn-out novelty very quickly) than attitude; people seemed to be playing at being dommes and subs rather than just taking care of business.
Porn is about theatre, of course, but I don't like it when the theatricality overwhelms the action without bothering at least to compensate with production values and a real sense of purpose.
Trouble x 2 is very simple, and this was a relief. Lorelei Lee and Bella are in a heap of trouble. The movie starts with them naked (and no high heels) against a brick wall in a warehouse. Paige White, a petite and no-nonsense domme with an accent out of the Great Plains, leads each by a nipple to adjoining tables. Trouble x 2 is about these two women being put through the paces by a pair of cool and collected pros (White is joined by her partner, Hunter Rhodes, later in the session).
About the women: Lee and Bella speak very little. They really are expected to be objects, but there is nothing that makes the viewer feel what is happening is non-consensual. Further, White is not cruel. She isn't delighting in the action for the sake of the camera. Instead, the ritual is reduced to its essence without any fanfare. Each woman is collared, gagged, tied, clamped, and repeatedly tweaked (also snapped with rubber bands). There is no commentary other than that of White and Rhodes and the inevitable yelping of the subjects.
Each mark shows up on the pale skin of Lee and Bella in frank detail. Lee spends the first part of the movie with her left leg bent back; she and Bella are roped and trussed together, sometimes by their pinky toes. They are stood up, knelt down, spanked, flogged, braided, and sharply counseled not to laugh - because sometimes we laugh - and they look great.
 This movie plays like a taciturn chef's cooking show with very hot ingredients. It is by the numbers and empirical. As one can only make an omelette after breaking eggs (unless it's a vegan banana omelette), it is understood that only by tying the women can you then hope to snap them with office elastics.
It seems counterintuitive, based only on what passes for fetish porn, that a dude doesn't show up to come on their faces, just to satisfy convention. But Paige White is the real deal, and the viewer must be content with the fantasy that the two subjects are now primed to come over his house later.
 The final scene involves Bella, wandering around in a blindfold, finally being given permission to come via a strap-on tethered to the mouth of Lee. Then they are placed back in their cage, and the lights go out. I hope the cleaning staff didn't freak out when they came by later.
Labels: bdsm, dvd, fetish, reviews, wgl
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The Bi Apple
 Studio: Adam & Eve
Director: Audacia Ray
Cast: Simone Valentino, Mariah Ritani, Tyler Marciano, Tasty Trixie, Tucker Lee, Antonio Rodickuez, ReVay, Josh
Simone is a lithe, lovely, and earnest young sex researcher in New York City, dispatched to a brownstone called "The Fuckhouse", a solid building with liquid orientation, to study the inhabitants thereof.
Where this movie immediately appealed to me was in the fact that Simone was given a Prime Directive: "Keep your pants on."
Part of the appeal, also, was in that the cast wasn't cut from the same Porn Valley material. Whereas someone in the Chatsworth area code might write a script and cast from the available talent pool, hoping for the best, writer/director Audacia Ray appears to have cast her ready and willing friends. In some cases, this is actually true.
Simone pops in on various couples at the Fuckhouse; Audacia Ray starts us off traditionally with a standard boy/girl scene, as if to satisfy a requirement. Simone takes notes. What sort of notes could she be taking? I mean, I take plenty of notes when I watch people having sex. Some of them include "OMG nice rack" and "squeezy", but those notes are hardly scientific. Simone is in trouble.
Simone then heads down the hall where she finds Tucker and Trixie. Those two are all about the fluid sexuality.
"I am trying to teach him Breath of Life orgasms," Trixie says, "but he just wants to fuck."
"Mind if I take notes?" Simone asks.
They agree, but it was at this moment I remembered a long-suppressed fear I have: what must fucking people think when someone walks in the room and starts taking notes (or pictures) of them fucking? I am that Someone often. Do they think I'm judging them? Searching for something to fulfill a quota? Getting off? At least one of those variables is always present.
We are not sure at what point Simone decides to abandon her objectivity and join the action, but we know from the cover photo that it is inevitable. After Trixie pegs Tucker, the latter asks Simone if she will join him in the shower. She agrees, with no interior monologue about Why this might be the wrong thing to do. Would she turn Science on its head?
Luckily, Tucker is distracted by another fellow in the bathroom, Antonio Rodickuez, and the two men paw each other while Simone masturbates, her scholarly facade shattered.
In the Behind the Scenes featurette, Ray talks about "the world of the movie". As in, "While this scene might be shot on a different day from the previous (or later) scene, 'in the world of the movie' it happens right after." In the world of the movie, Simone's break with her scientific regimen is abrupt.
Simone herself is delightful. She doesn't get boring. But the movie becomes very specific and, I think, exclusionary. Cameos by Lux Nightmare and Rachel Kramer Bussel seem like inside jokes, and this reviewer felt left out. Joe Gallant's cameo as a pizza delivery man was inspired, and was the only scene in the movie that felt just the right length, but if the laudable departures from standard porn movie fare were present in the couplings and triplings depicted, and were themselves evidence of an inclusive, groovy worldview, the cameos amounted to out of context shoutouts for the benefit of a limited audience.
Simone is eventually led down the garden path, as we know she should be. The movie ends with a three-way with Rodickuez, Josh, and Simone that is a little lackluster. While bisexuality, "fluid" sexuality, pegging, etc. are all given time in this movie, we don't get the sense that there is a heightened reality to their characterizations. There isn't really much excitement in what should be the climactic scene. Shouldn't the "straight" couple as well as Tucker and Trixie have been present and joined in? That's what I would expect of a place calling itself a Fuckhouse.
Simone should have been sent back to her fancy-shmancy school with her hair disheveled and dressed in nothing but baby wipes. Instead, we get the impression that she threw away her scholar's objectivity for a half-hearted encounter.
The argument might be made that "this is how real people who practice fluid sexuality are", but if that is the case, The Bi Apple isn't a great recruiting tool for the lifestyle.
If Simone Valentino is the star of the movie (and I hope we get to see her again), then Tasty Trixie is the star of the BTS. Like everyone in the cast, she is hot in an accessible way (Bussel and Nightmare shouldn't have been such teases), but also dispenses folksy porn set wisdom that reveals a basic adherence to conventions even among trippy pan-sexuals.
Discussing a cross-dressing man whom she and her girlfriend pegged in Boston, Trixie was a little shocked at his lack of shame when, as a result of the anal interloping, he pooped on her friend's bedspread.
"If you're going to dress like a girl," she said, "at least be mortified like a girl."
Labels: "adam and eve", "audacia ray", dvd, reviews, wgl
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Kim Kardashian, Superstar featuring Hip Hop Star Ray J
 Studio: Vivid
Director: Ray J.
Cast: Kim Kardashian, Ray J.
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
The only reason I watched this movie was because I personally like full-figured Armenian women under 30. Everything else, which means the marketing and Kim Kardashian, Superstar featuring Hip Hop Star Ray J itself, are a waste of time.
As porn movies go, Kardashian fails on two levels. In that both Kim and Ray J acknowledge the audience (Kim: "No aerial shots, please"), it is a gonzo movie. But even the worst gonzo directors don't feature the camera strap more than the star. Vivid recently released the "news" that Ray J was offered a directing contract. Should Eon McKai, Paul Thomas, and Laurent Sky start throwing in boom shadows to keep time with the company's new direction?
It also fails as a sex movie, because we don't see nearly enough of the purported star. Kardashian is camera-shy, never fully nude, and always in bed. The tease never arrives at a payoff and, by the time the movie is over, we don't care.
As a porn performer, if not a director, Ray J has a future. He's got a big dick and he brings Kim off with his mouth. At the very least, we have an idea that she's not faking it. The couple also have good chemistry, though not good enough for Kim to take her bra off or for Ray J not to sell the tape.
The viewer is left with very valid comparisons: At least Tommy and Pam were in the sunlight on a boat. At least Paris got filmed by the Mossad. At least Tom Sizemore can rap.
We don't yet know the real story behind how the Kardashian tape got into Vivid's hands. We'll get the data eventually. But even that curiosity is not enough to make this movie worth its hype.
Compare this to another high-profile Vivid project, the World of Wonder/Showtime series Debbie Does Dallas...Again. While blatantly contrived with real people playing stock reality show characters, the series is very engaging, satisfying and titillating. And the movie it is marketing will undoubtedly do well and hit all the marks a feature porn needs to.
If Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato did a documentary on how the Kim Kardashian video ended up in the hands of a soon-to-be-disappointed public, that bit of supplementary material might make up for the lack of boobs in the video.
Now Lisa Lisa And Cult Jam with Full Force ... that would be a good sex tape.
Labels: "kim kardashian", dvd, hype, non-event, reviews, vivid
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InTERActive
 Studio: Hustler, Teravision
Director: Quinn Roberts
Cast: Tera Patrick, Spyder Jonez, Jessica Jaymes, Hillary Scott, "Sammy"
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
It's not too early to call the best interactive title of 2007; it has to be InTERActive.
With just enough humor, special guests, and plot to help out, Tera Patrick's DVD makes the interactive genre appealing as both a standalone movie (Disc 2) and as a fully functional "choose your own adventure" porn.
This movie took about two years to make. Most of it was filmed in 2004, and then a pickup scene was shot in 2006, with no noticeable difference in look or feel (or Tera).
Directed with ease by Quinn Roberts, InTERActive features Patrick as (again) the wife of an unloving criminal, in this case a scenery-chewing (but hilarious) DeNiro impersonator called Sammy. On Tera's birthday, no less, Sammy decides to spend the day at the office, so she is stuck at home to fend for herself.
You come in at several key episodes ("You", by the way, are Evan Seinfeld, aka Spyder Jonez). You help Tera with her hose issues, you help her choose a bikini, you rub - or don't rub - suntan lotion on. Then Tera runs out of lotion.
"Oh, I know where I can get some lotion," she says. "A girl's gotta keep her skin nice and moist."
You can imagine what happens next.
Later in the day, Jessica Jaymes happens by. What are You going to do - kick her out?
Then Hillary Scott comes over (this segment was shot last summer) and she has a problem with condiments.
We do see Sammy again - and he is not pleased - but what is very pleasing about this DVD is that not only is the sex fun but so is the acting (well, Jessica Jaymes is kind of a weak link here, but it is Tera's show through and through).
Cross-promoting to the gaming demographic, InTERActive can be "won" after repeated viewings with new choices. The DVD then grants the viewer a code that can be plugged in for bonus scenes and other Easter Eggs.
It's fun to see Tera in charming and sexy mode, but why does she keep hooking up with these dudes who don't appreciate her?
Labels: "tera patrick", dvd, hustler, reviews, teravision
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Tru Lies
 Studio: Sinsation
Director: Dee
Cast: Brooke Banner, Marcus London, Chrs Cannon, Mika Tan, Sledge Hammer, Jeanie Marie Sullivan, Presley Maddox, Jeremy Holmes, Nikki Hilton
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
Trudy and Mark seem to have a loveless marriage. He is bored at his job, and she wonders if he is bored with her, too (already this strains credibility, considering what she wears to pour coffee). Regardless, off he goes to work, and then the deceptions begin.
For Trudy is actually a secret agent who - believe it or not - uses sex as her calling card. Donning a black wig, she plants something on john Chris Cannon's night table, and then proceeds to fuck him (for the government). While I think she could have just left when he went into the bathroom to clean up before their coupling, she went all the way, like an American.
Meanwhile, Brothel Boss Tanaka (Mika Tan, all crinkly in leather goods), demands extra service of her manservant.
"Stop being such a lazy fuck!" she demands.
Crime Boss Palermo, a loan shark, not only demands a 50 percent interest rate on loans, but also "a piece of your tight little ass". In this case, the piece comes from Presley Maddox.
As if the rate of exchange wasn't already a little confusing, Mark's officemate needs to borrow his room for some (as his date calls it) "sweet lovin'". The date, like Trudy before her, is also a spy. Taking advantage of his freshening up, she steals a CD from Mark's desk, but then proceeds to have sex with his officemate.
"I got exackly what I needed," the second spy says at the end, come on her face.
The viewer by this point might be forgiven for wondering how these scenes are connected, other than the fact that the characters seem to be spies or criminals.
I might be going out on a limb here, but at no time does sex really need to happen in this movie. (Though I'm glad it does.)
The deception can't last forever, and by the end of the day Mark is at Boss Tanaka's bordello. She blindfolds him, saying she has a surprise, and in walks Trudy in yet another wig. Somehow the three get through most of a throwdown before Trudy realizes Mark is her husband. She doesn't even cock her head like Scooby when she figures it out.
For a movie to have a plot, it must have a budget for one. The budget of this movie was big enough so that there was no excuse for the plot holes, often dismal lighting, and sometimes lackluster acting. My argument is that if money has been paid for a script, then the execution and proofreading of that script shouldn't be an afterthought.
Otherwise, Tru Lies is chock full of leggy and juicy eye candy, and Tan, seemingly directing herself, delivers a fun performance.
Labels: dvd, reviews, sinsation
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Nowhere Angels
 Studio: Metro/Cal Vista
Director: DCypher
Cast: Riley Mason, Justine Joli, Leah Luv, Veronica Jett, Charlotte Stokely, Cassie Courtland, Barrett Blade, Eric Masterson
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
Rachel (Justine Joli) asks us to forgive another tale of post-adolescent angst as she narrates from her diary. Well, OK. As long as it's you who's asking...
Rachel wastes her time in a nowhere town with her nowhere boyfriend, Tommy, who orders burgers while she eats fish sticks. The relationship is doomed. She reads Anais Nin at Tommy's band practice and his buddies call her Yoko. Get out of there!
Rachel loves Lauren (Riley Mason), but Lauren is fucking Tommy.
Their days are spent on parties and getting prepared for parties.
"They were just diversions from the realization that our lives were going nowhere," Rachel says.
I would like to say that Joli's world changes when she refuses to be someone's coke whore and Leah Luv agrees to it instead, but that's not the way it is in that dusty town.
She wishes Tommy would be content to fuck all her friends and not waste his time trying to fuck her (her love belongs to another). She longs to get out, but will she suddenly miss everything that she has left behind?
Sympathetic lead Damien (Eric Masterson) meanwhile has similar lofty dreams. Will he be published as a writer? He quotes Kerouac and hangs around near walls with "Pynchon" spraypainted on them. He is stuck in a marriage and a mortgage. His wife (Veronica Jett) is a crankhead who hooks on the side to make up for what his shitty bookstore job doesn't earn him.
"I know now how foolish and fragile and intoxicating hope can be for a young soul in a corporate-owned world," Damien says.
DCypher is going to pay bigtime for stealing my life story.
Veronica Jett thinks her husband is a big pussy, reading his books and weeping into the night.
"We are the angels of nowhere; the candle's last pretty flicker before the candle goes dark," she says. Zing!
Maybe those Nowhere Angels have lost their souls in their dusty high-desert debauches, but at least they have each other, and their music. Despite their lousy attitudes, too, their girlfriends are pretty hot. I don't know why everyone is so goddamn whiny.
Labels: dcypher, directors, dvd, reviews
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Studio: Red Light District/Forbidden Cinema
