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

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

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