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 Studio: Shane's World
Director:
Cast: Casey Parker, Devon, Paulina James, Aubrey Addams, Reena Sky
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
Casey Parker's Golden State travelogue California Dreamin' follows the plucky Shane's World star up and down the coast where she finds love and learns a little about the state that allows if not condones her way of life.
The first stop is Catalina Island with a pre-pregnancy Paulina James and a pre-arrest Jack Venice. Reeking of alcohol, they are denied a bike rental. Somehow they are allowed golf carts. They make their way to the west side of the island and engage in some clifftop action against the overcast Pacific sky.
Back in L.A., Casey picks up Devon for a beachside romp. They race like blonde gazelles across the sand, if that's what gazelles do, and if gazelles can be blonde. Then they retreat to a bedroom where they compare tattoos.
"You have such a spankable ass, dude," declares Devon.
Next, it's off to wine country. Parker explains how raisins are made, then declares that she hates raisins.
 The blonder the partner, the better the scene. Parker meets Aubrey Addams in Napa and they repair to a hotel room (the initial promise of the outdoor scene with Paulina James fades as each vignette starts outside but ducks for cover pretty quickly; still, the effort is appreciated).
In San Francisco, Parker poses for pictures on a trolley. That she is so adorable and the guys she picks up are so lunky by comparison must appeal to the college audiences Shane's World caters to in the same way that Ron Jeremy is often helfd up as the hero of the average American male.
 Finally home (Parker did not get laid in San Francisco, she says, though Reena Sky did), Parker hooks up with Charles Dera for a scene with real chemistry.
Shane's World tries hard to maintain a reality-based road trip atmosphere in its movies, and the very personable and engaging Parker is able to pull this off where others might not be able to carry the movie. We like that she finally gets what she wants in the end.
 Labels: casey parker, charles dera, devon, Jack Venice, Paulina James, shane's world
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 Studio: Vivid
Director: B. Skow
Cast: Savanna Samson, April Blossom, Kimberly Kane, Maria Bellucci, James Deen, Brian Surewood, Evan Stone, Steven St. Croix
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
Smoky backwoods Marianne (Savanna Samson) has a girlfriend, Lucy (April Blossom), that no one knows about. Not even her husband, benighted hick Darrell (Steven St. Croix). When Darrell comes home unexpectedly, he catches his wife in the brunette's Sapphic embrace and goes, as you'd expect, apeshit. To his credit, though, Darrell works through his rage by fucking his wife. We get the idea this is something they do to keep their marriage exciting.
 This is news to Lucy, however. After watching for a while she takes action. And in the aftermath, Marianne and Lucy must flee the scene of a murder.
They don't make it far. They are pulled over by an unnecessarily harsh police officer (Evan Stone) whose wife (Kimberly Kane) works at the police station. As it happens, Kane likes having sex in front of prisoners, as does her husband. We get the idea this is something they do to keep their marriage exciting.
 We see a pattern here. Marriages are the same the world over. What also remains unchanged is the time at the police station; it remains ten seconds to midnight throughout the scene.
 Things get bad. It's starting to look like Stone isn't a police officer at all. Why is there a mattress in the detention room? Why does Kimberly Kane get to smoke? Things become clear the next morning at breakfast with the dysfunctional family, as the culprits are chained to a dining room table and served eggs by Constance (James Deen), a halfwit in flowered underpants.
Marianne laments her life. "First I was living in sin," she says. "Now I'm living in Hell!"
 But Lucy is clever. She knows that one thing that halfwits like (other than french fries) is big hugs. She tells him that the girls will give him a big hug if he unshackles them.
But after he has his way with them, a way that is similar to the way all porn threeways are conducted (leading this observer to wonder if this movie is saying that halfwits are just like porn stars), Constance has the last laugh: he locks the girls away, too.
 But they manage to escape to the safety of a rural porn studio where Brian Surewood is fiddling with Maria Bellucci. Marianne and Lucy hide just in time for Stone to arrive. It appears that Stone is like a maniacal feudal lord, inspiring fear in all who walk his grounds. There really is a lot going on in this movie.
But I won't give away the end, save for the fact that comeuppance isn't equally distributed.
 Miles from Needles is a great porn movie. Like Rob Rotten's Texas Vibrator Massacre (also released this year), the movie takes place in a rural setting and lets the cast engage is some redneckery.
Kimberly Kane is especially good in white trash roles, because she is not traditionally porn star sexy, but sexy in a way that says "I would like to see her unhinged."
Newcomer April Blossom is a smoky-voiced vixen who does a great job with her first leading role. Paired with Samson, Blossom (whose name doesn't fit her - she should be called Smoky Sassypants or something) describes her partner in the excellent Behind the Scenes featurette as someone she just wants to grab and bite into. This is true of herself.
But Samson is the star, and rightfully so. A lot of higher-budget movies featuring contract girls reveal limitations, because some might be great to look at but aren't equal to the small demands of the script. Samson looks wonderful and she even uses a slight accent, and not as a distracting caricature.
"We shot the movie over two days (in July 2007), and we had the best time," said director B. Skow. "I've worked with most of those performers before, and they really made it look good."
Labels: April Blossom, B. Skow, Brian Surewood, evan stone, James Deen, kimberly kane, Maria Bellucci, savanna samson, Steven St. Croix, vivid
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 Studio: Digital Sin
Director: Visual Blurr
Cast: Bobbi Starr, Lorelei Lee, Adrianna Nicole, Madison Young, Leighlani Red, Steve Holmes, Dirty Harry, Alex Gonz, Christian, Jon Jon
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
Bobbi Starr is a schoolteacher with a secret in director Visual Blurr's Very Important Porn Movie, The Whore Within Me. From the moment we hear Starr's voiceover, about how all her life she did the right thing and if anyone could ever guess what goes on in her mind, we know that the digital crackling of the film, "Ringu"-esque buzzings and jumps, and the sepia filter will combine to give us one hell of a porn think piece.
"Would they believe their schoolteacher likes getting punished for the bad things she's done?" she asks. "God, I'm such a whore."
And yes, I guess she is. With freshly-painted face, Starr goes to a warehouse to be spanked and violated by Christian, who treats her most harshly. Conversely, could he have ever dreamt she was a schoolteacher??
The movie unfolds with several scenes of women telling the camera, the director, or themselves how and why they are promiscuous (with examples), and to the extent that we believe them they are more or less compelling. Shot over the span of a year by Blurr, The Whore Within Me seems to be a labor of love that now and then loses its focus. This does not mean that it is not immediately better than many porn movies; it just breaks some of the rules it sets up for itself, and that is a little distracting.
Meanwhile, Leighlani Red, a Natasha Lyonne-looking student in Starr's class, wonders how she can possibly write an essay about a life-changing event when she, herself, is a whore?
"Do I write about getting banged by the dumpsters?" she asks. Not if the essay is about "David Copperfield," but if the dumpster-banging really changed you, well, sure.
The sex scenes mean something, and they are masterfully shot by Blurr, who in the credits admits he was once studio New Sensations' warehouse guy. But Blurr throws a lot extra at what are already very good sex scenes; it does seem like they would be just as effective if they weren't so affected with editing tricks.
Lorelei Lee's scene is wonderful. In her Why I Am a Whore segment, she describes sucking off a friend when she was interrupted by a Very Special Guest, and how she chose to deal with it. Whether or not the story is true, it's an intriguing story, and we want to see what Lee does next.
"Nobody understands why we do the things we do," says Lee. "I like it when people treat me like a slutty piece of meat."
Blurr shoots his performers warts and all. Each is pale and easily bruised; there is no one in the movie a viewer would accuse of phoning in her scene.
Adrianna Nicole's suburban housewife deadpan is very credible, even though she is far from the suburban housewife ideal in real life. That is why she is an Actor.
"How do you tell your husband of eight years that you're a whore?" asks Nicole, cashing in on her double-team fantasy. "I guess that's why I'm telling you."
Finally, Madison Young plays the Ultimate Whore, crusing the streets of the northeast San Fernando Valley looking for the Aged to fuck her in the ass. She finds Dirty Harry.
"My body is a tool," reports Young. "And I love guys using it to get off. Sex is all I think about. It's an addiction."
While The Whore Within Me is not a feel-good porn movie, it is also not so earnest with itself that a viewer could forget why he or she is there. It paints a picture of these performers, who identify themselves by name, as along for the ride on their uncontrollable urges. because of the narrative setup, the viewer is asked to believe the story, and some performers have a better story than others.
One thing is certain: you expect Sasha Grey to show up in every scene, whispering "Yes, but I'm also a whore."
Labels: adrianna nicole, Bobbi Starr, Leighlani Red, lorelei lee, madison young, Visual Blurr
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 Studio: Julie Simone Productions
Director: Julie Simone
Cast: Smokin' Mary Jane, Nadia Nyce, Gia Paloma, Julie Simone
The following could very well be a generalization but it's my goddamn website: as long as your fetish porn caters to the single object of a fetishist's fantasy, everything else can go to Hell. Thus so much fetish porn gets away with looking, sounding, and smelling awful, because a true fetishist's attention can be diverted from bad production value.
That is why Julie Simone's Smoking Interviews 3 is so much fun. While I am more likely than not to think women who smoke give good blowjobs, the idea of watching (admittedly) tasty women smoking for 80 minutes didn't appeal to me.
But I was fascinated from the beginning.
Smokin' Mary Jane is the smoking fetishist's darling. A marijuana legalization activist (in that strangely passive and chill way pot activists have), Smokin' Mary Jane is also a pinup siren. She affects a Coquette from Another Planet voice in her videos, and as she slowly disrobes and makes smoke rings, she tells us that she likes the way smoke disappears behind women's sexy painted lips.
Smokin' Mary Jane doesn't exist in reality - at least not that character, thank God - but paired with the props, the whole ambience she creates is great fun and an excellent way to start a movie that just gets weirder.
Next up is Gia Paloma, who dons nurses' garb to fuck an invalid (or maybe a mummy), a la The World According to Garp, and then fucks a bunny. If she weren't currently in a family way, I think the natural progression would be to fuck Abraham Lincoln. Naturally, all of these activities are conducted with a cigarette dangling from her lips.
If Mary Jane and Paloma satisfied a weird factor, then Nadia Nyce fulfills the quota for slutty, smoking bad girl. This is the stereotype I'm most familiar with, though I admit I have never seen anyone double penetrated while she has a cigarette in her mouth. For most Americans, the cigarette goes away before the sex happens, and reappears later. Maybe it's different in France.
"I first smoked when I was nine," Nyce says in her interview. "It made me look older. And cool."
Since this is the only smoking porn video I have ever seen, its effectiveness determines whether I will ever watch another one. Smoking Interviews 3 was so much fun that I recommend every household have a copy (though you should keep it away from your nine-year-olds).
Labels: fetish, gia paloma, julie simone, Nadia Nyce, Smokin' Mary Jane, smoking
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 Studio: Punx Productions/Metro
Director: Rob Rotten
Cast: Roxy Deville, Daisy Tanks, Ruby Knox, Bella Lynn, Jaime Elle, Rob Rotten, Herschel Savage, Seth Dickens
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
Rob Rotten's "Texas Vibrator Massacre" is as good, if not better, than any American International Pictures release or Roger Corman movie, both low-budget drive-in fare to be consumed like popcorn, filled with summer scenes in natural lighting and lots and lots of skin. But "Massacre" is better, simply because it has more skin.
Fans of Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" already know the plot (and the twist ending) of this movie, and can probably guess what the application of the vibrator will be. If so or if not, a fan of one makes a fan of the other.
A gang of bickering California slackers gets lost on a Texas back road. We don't know why Roxy Deville and Seth Dickens are a couple, because they sure act like an old married one as she nags and belittles him for getting lost. Meanwhile, two of their passengers have sex in the back of the truck.
They pick up a sketchy hitchhiker, who proceeds to stab the first sex-having couple, thus linking "Massacre" with every great slasher picture in that it makes sex punishable by death.
Deville escapes. She is wearing short shorts and no bra. Good. She makes it to a rustic cabin festooned with bleached cattle skulls, where she is immediately captured by a Leatherface-looking dude. Here her very credible wails and lamentations do her no good but, again, unlike this movie's non-porn inspirations, the audience gets a better view of the heroine.
Dickens and the van's other female survivor, Bella Lynn, make it to the cabin where they are greeted by Dasy Tanks and Jamie Elle, who are excellent as inbred tweaker sisters. Elle hypnotizes Dickens with her lollipop, and creepy Rob Rotten emerges to double team Lynn with Tanks.
Not all of the cast is up to the job, though, and when one performer phons in her lines, a la any other porn movie, it takes the viewer out of the scene. And so it is with Lynn. But she still looks good.
And she also pays the ultimate price; after her tryst with Rotten and Tanks, Leatherface grabs her and justifies the title. She is fucked to death.
At this point I thought about how much of this movie would have made it onto DVD if Rotten had brought the raw footage to Adam & Eve and its council of psychiatrists.
Meanwhile, Deville and Leatherface are heading into their endgame, but for one of them it goes horribly wrong. Deville is a great scream queen; America will love her because she is not afraid to get dirty.
The movie loses focus toward the end. Herschel Savage appears as a detective who debriefs a hospitalized Deville. We go through the whole movie again before Savage is revealed to not be on the right side of the law, again similar to the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
"Despite the circumstances you found yourself in," says the detective, "you still found pleasure in this vibrating machine?"
"Yes," Deville says.
"So some good came of it."
Aside from a spotty performance or two and the unnecessary wrap-up, "Texas Vibrator Massacre" is a really good B-movie. The title indicates something a little less substantial than the movie actually is and, unlike much of its competition gunning for mainstream respectability - whatever that is - Rotten's movie wouldn't be laughed down at, say, a horror festival.
Labels: Bella Lynn, Daisy Tanks, herschel savage, Jaime Elle, rob rotten, Roxy Deville, Ruby Knox, Seth Dickens
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Studio: Shane's World
