<![CDATA[Fleshbot: straight, avn contenders]]> http://tags.fleshbot.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/fleshbot.com.png <![CDATA[Fleshbot: straight, avn contenders]]> http://fleshbot.com/tag/straight/avncontenders http://fleshbot.com/tag/straight/avncontenders <![CDATA["Pure" Screwing Satisfaction]]> It starts innocently enough. Sada (the beautiful Asa Akira) begins an innocuous flirtation with her castrating boss's husband, Kichi (Keni Styles). What knew Sada would get a taste for it herself?

"Pure"

Studio: Evil Angel
Director: David Aaron Clark
Cast: Asa Akira, Keni Styles, Jessica Bangkok, Lana Violet, Destiny, Mr. Marcus, Jake Malone, Valentino

Review by: Gram Ponante

David Aaron Clark's first movie for Evil Angel is an exquisite piece of pornography. Based on the true story of Sada Abe, "Pure" updates the subject matter of 1976's "In the Realm of the Senses" to contemporary Los Angeles where, instead of working as a maid in a 1930's Tokyo hotel, Sada is the receptionist at Asian-run BDSM dungeon Realm.

Sada and Kichi soon grow fond of one another and have the sort of sex-filled honeymoon one might want performers in a porn movie to have. But Sada is a little obsessive and Kichi is a little fickle; there is potential poverty involved if he doesn't go back to his wife, and Sada believes her and Kichi's relationship is finite.

Back at the Realm we meet the dommes, played by Lana Violet, Jessica Bangkok, and Destiny. Each to her credit has her own thing going on, and we are able to view them as separate characters. Still, they seem to have Mr. Marcus caged 24/7, playing a rapper who is guilty about his success.

Styles is an up and coming British Asian porn star, which is doubly rare. Added to this exclusivity is the fact that he is an excellent actor. His presence—despite what happens—might make "Pure" Clark's first ever couples'-friendly movie.

But Clark never bogarts the creeps. In "Pure" there are two old-tymey porn staples in the persons of the reptilian businessman Pasquale (Valentino) and Sada's former professor, played by Jake Malone. Malone, in exchange for Sada's services, provides a cash infusion so that Sada and Kicki can continue playing house.

"Pure" is a very slow burn, and seems to get more compelling, sexy, and visually beautiful toward the end, with earlier scenes seeming ponderous. That said, in addition to just about everything in the movie being a niche or a fetish (leather nuns, asphyxiation, interracial sex, blowjobs while smoking, British Asian guys), "Pure" is the rare porn movie that makes us empathize with the characters.

Equal billing in "Pure" should go to the city of Los Angeles, particularly the corridor from downtown and Chinatown to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. There is not a pool or palm tree in sight in this movie, as if the city got its junk cut off, too.

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<![CDATA["2040": Alektra Blue Is A Real Doll]]> It is 2040 and sex with humans just isn't safe. Three decades ago (holy shit that's next year !!!) a perfect storm of diseases converged to produce "a worldwide pandemic of epic proportions." What will this do to Love?

Studio: Wicked
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: Alektra Blue, Randy Spears, jessica drake, Kaylani Lei, Mikayla Mendez, Kirsten Price, Marcus London, Brad Armstrong, Jayden Jaymes, Kayla Carrera, Barrett Blade, Tommy Gunn, Eric Masterson, Alexis Texas, Rocco Reed, Tory Lane, Janet Mason, Mick Blue, Jerry, TJ Cummings, Bill Bailey

Review by: Gram Ponante

The screenwriter goes uncredited, but the story of "2040" has bits of everything from "Pinocchio" to "The Velveteen Rabbit" to "Blade Runner": Love something enough and it can become human.

We meet Ryan Spears (Randy Spears), who is a porn performer, just like his dad, the porn actor Randy Spears. Ryan's job is similar to his father's, but he must perform it clandestinely because of (as the voiceover tells us) the porn tax of 2015, the porn police, and because porn companies are now "corporate entities traded on the open market."

(Like in the original "Blade Runner," we can do without the voiceover.)

Not only that, but Spears must also fuck robots.

Spears and company deliver a lot of inside references and product placement to the benefit of the Real Doll company, Wicked Pictures, and AVN, whose 55th annual awards show is presented complete with bad band and fucking in the bathrooms.

The first scene, as carried off by Spears and the faulty robot Alexis Texas, is very funny and more than reminiscent of certain porn sets I've attended.

The Alexis Texas robot blows a fuse, you see, and the crew and Spears have to wrestle her to a squatting position so that Spears can aim a load into her R.O.C., or removable oral cavity. The sight of Texas kneeling there, mouth open, eyes glazed over, and bolt-ons perpendicular, is both chilling and familiar (Texas is acting, of course, like she just came off a Max Hardcore shoot).

With the Texas "doll" or "mecha" out of commission, the production enlists a robot that looks just like Alektra Blue. Her name is Mira.

But Spears is dismissive.

"She's a toaster," says Spears. "You fuck one mecha, you've fucked them all. And they all taste like toast."

But Mira is not your ordinary frakking Cylon. She sweats! Her skin reddens with whipping! And her vagina is adjustable!

Spears is amazed. Could he be falling for a toaster? And, since he is Mira's "first," she imprints his data in her "memory banks."

What follows is a lot of exposition, some corporate intrigue and skulduggery, sex for no reason (but we're happy it happened, don't get us wrong), the conspicuous absence of Stormy Daniels and, sprinkled throughout, some poignant moments in which Mira comes to terms with her blossoming personhood.

The problem with "2040" is that, in trying to be Wicked's epic for the year, a movie that would have worked better small became instead top-heavy. There were plotlines and actors who didn't need to be there, like a community theatre production in which everyone who auditioned got a part. At the heart of the bloat that is "2040" is a really good porn movie that no one believed in enough to let stand on its own.

That said, the people the movie is about, Spears and Blue, are fantastic. While he can ham it up with the best of today's porn dudes, Spears also has a gravitas that no one in the porn world can touch. And Alektra Blue does great work as a living doll; I wish she'd been allowed to do more. (If RealDoll.com has an Alektra Blue model, I bet it's awesome.)

"2040" has a happy ending and I bet you can guess what it is. There is an uplifting message for couples that almost sounds like Stay Monogamous. (The underlying message, though, is that Mira has the intellect of a child but a vagina like a 320-hp engine, therefore it's easy to stay monogamous...the outlook is dire for human women.)

People must be buying these feel-good, trying-too-hard slogs, because Wicked keeps making them.

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<![CDATA["The Sex Files" Helps Us Believe Again]]> Porn doesn't fly off the shelves anymore (unless it's HAUNTED), so parodies must stand on their own (if you can be expected to). We wanted to believe Kimberly Kane and Anthony Rosano in "The Sex Files," and we did.

The Sex Files

Studio: New Sensations
Director: Sam Hain
Cast: Kimberly Kane, Anthony Rosano, Ashlynn Brooke, Audrey Bitoni, Rod Fontana, Tyler Knight, Aurora Snow, Gracie Glam, Jackie Daniels, Tory Lane, Taylor Vixen, Angelica Raven, Evan Stone

Review by: Gram Ponante

Writer/director Sam Hain had a grand vision for this "dark" parody (which was, thankfully, not as dark as most Wicked movies).

"I wanted it to fit into a plot hole in 'The X Files' that lots of fans were talking about," he said. "We see Scully (played in the original show by dour, buttoned-down saucypants Gillian Anderson) leaving a room as she's adjusting her clothes, and inside we see Mulder ('The Rapture''s David Duchovny) on the bed."

Well, a season later, Scully was pregnant and the show that coincided with the birth of chatroom culture had a cliffhanger every bit as potent as "Who Shot J.R.?"

So Hain wrote this movie as a bit of geekery, plugging the plot hole as neatly as reams of fan fiction had Mulder and Scully plugging each other in space, in Navajo boxcars, ghost ships, and under the watchful eye of the Chupacabra.

"But I tried to make it organic to the original show," Hain said.

All right, Mr. Hain. We are convinced of your earnestness. But is there room in today's crowded marketplace for earnest porn?

"The Sex Files" (New Sensations received a cease and desist letter from Fox, breaking the porn studio's graceful string of parody titles unburdened by either "Not the" or "This Ain't") cold-opens with sultry pixie Ashlynn Brooke astride a grateful but nervous older man (Guy DaSilva, who is also getting some work as porn's "Barrack Obama"). She reassures him that he was just fine, but now she wants to try something kinky. The camera tactfully pans away as she rips him to shreds with her mouth.

Next we meet Mulder and Scully (Kimberly Kane and Anthony Rosano), two FBI agents inhabiting a dimly lit D.C. basement. They are sent to Los Angeles to investigate some grisly serial killings, but Mulder balks. It has little to do with his job description, working on cases that deal in the kooky and paranormal.

If you've seen "The X Files," you are already satisfied that Kane and Rosano are expertly cast, clothed, and coiffed, and Rod Fontana as their boss, Skinner, is also an apt substitute for Mitch Pileggi. In fact, Fontana/Skinner gets to do what Pileggi/Skinner didn't: fuck his secretary, Aurora Snow.

"It's getting hot in here," she says, removing some layers.

"Federal buildings' air conditioning," Fontana syas.

The triumph of this pornification of "The X Files" is that Hain gets the silence right as well as many of the details. Much of how long-term partners Scully and Mulder communicate is non-verbal. But the occasional flareups of wordy exposition, also characteristic of the original show, is handled just about deftly by the actors, who obviously had much more of a dialogue workout on this film than any other in their careers.

But the time this movie takes to reveal what other porn flicks feel behooved to get out of the way ASAP makes Kane's first nude scene (the lonely Mulder catches her coming out of the shower) electric.

"Sorry," stammers Mulder, averting his eyes. "Good night, Scully."

It turns out that Ashlynn Brooke is Lilith, an apocryphal Hebrew succubus summoned back to life (and Pasadena) by creepy sex magick practitioner Andrew Barsons (Ralph Long). As Mulder and Scully track Barsons' movements, Lilith devours leather-clad swingers Evan Stone and Audrey Bitoni.

She even eats Stone's balls.

You should boycott "The Sex Files" on principle if it did not feature a sex scene between Mulder and Scully, so luckily for everyone it does. And their climactic tryst doesn't arrive by some device like a dream sequence. We actually sense their longing for each other throughout the movie. It's, well, earnest.

Another selling point of this movie is how good it looks. Shot on the red digital camera, "The Sex Files" looks rich. And the color palette provided by a series of lush brunettes and the languid Kane give the movie a real beauty. Furthermore, Stone and Rosano provide plenty of eye candy for female and gay audiences, and the gore is all off-camera.

Kane and Rosano carry this movie, which was very carefully directed by Hain to allow for beats and stillness. Director of Photography Eddie Powell throws in a special effect that has never before been seen in porn, and we are left in the end with a real feeling of hope that bad shit will never again befall Mulder and Scully.

I wish for everyone involved that this movie could have been sold on those alt.xfiles BBS pages of yore and made ten times its budget back, but this movie is going up against some heavy hitters as we move into AVN nomination season.

Still, if you Trust No One other than me, you really should see "The Sex Files." You'll believe - in your pants!!!!

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<![CDATA["Pure": Your Bloody Asian Valentine]]> "It was a fabulous tabloid scandal in 1930's Tokyo, forcing the repressed society to confront sex and death in explicit terms," said David Aaron Clark of the true story behind his upcoming "Pure," a movie I'm very excited to see.

"'Pure' is based on a real-life incident that has fascinated me for many years," Clark, who rarely works outside his beloved Asian palette, said. "Sada Abe (played by Asa Akira), an ex-hooker and failed geisha takes a maid's position at a tea house owned by a husband and wife. She starts an affair with Kichi, the husband (Keni Styles), known to be something of a rogue. They run away together and carry on a mad affair, drinking and fucking and experimenting with progressively more kinky sex. The affair starts to go sour as they run out of money."

"I hope you pay me for the rights to my life story," I said.

"One night, Sada takes the strangling game she has initiated with Kichi too far," Clark said. "A large kitchen knife becomes involved, post-mortem."

If this story sounds familiar, you might be thinking of one of at least four movies (including "In the Realm of the Senses") made about this sensational story.

Evil Angel hired Clark to write and direct his version, which features a subtle switch to L.A. fetish dungeons from the original setting of pre-World War II teahouses. Not only that, but Fleshbot favorites Asa Akira, Keni Styles, Jessica Bangkok, and Lana Violet lead a cast of dozens for this movie aimed straight at AVN awards consideration.

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<![CDATA[Kayden Kross Beyond Thunderdome]]> Following the world-altering "Big Burn," a number of things are scarce: potable water, animals, and, oh yes, Kayden Kross's clothes. At least we've got that to look forward to.

The 8th Day

Studio: Adam & Eve
Director: Ren Savant
Cast: Kayden Kross, Amber Rayne, Bree Olson, Aaron Wilcoxxx, Kylie Ireland, Jandi Lin, Poppy Morgan, Tori Black, Violet Marcell, Krissy Leigh, Tommy Gunn, Evan Stone, Tyler Knight, Trinity Post, Darryl Hanah, Ameatabh Bachan, Derrick Pierce

Review by: Gram Ponante

Samantha (the exquisitely nude Kayden Kross) wakes up from future sleep in a future chamber, a recorded message from her late father (director Ren Savant) playing on the future video screen.

"Possibly I died of natural causes," he is saying, Jor El-like, waxing on about the zero-point generator he invented that he is confident will have saved the world by now. "I am very envious of my little girl."

Envious or not, Dad, at least wait until she's got some clothes on.

Thus begins "The 8th Day," Adam & Eve's massive 4-disc (two for the feature, two for extras) epic of sex in a post-apocalyptic world, part "2001," part "The Road Warrior," part "Contact," and, what the hell, still weirded out by a father being creepy with his daughter, even posthumously, part "Blame It on Rio."

Of course, the world Sam wakes up to isn't quite fixed. In fact, it looks a lot like many greater Los Angeles communities south of the 10 freeway; places where bodies are meat, technology has betrayed Man, and where "In a lawless new world, sex is the only salvation."

"My God," Sam says. "What happened?"

Life happened, Sam. We follow her through the ruined, overgrown landscape. We evaluate Sam's choices as if she were making her way through Quake, and we're waiting for her MMPORGasm.

In fact, "The 8th Day" is unlike many contemporary movies in that it takes its time, and this is an unexpected pleasure. Well, perhaps not to fans of porn's pay-per-minute model, but whatever.

By the time Sam meets Mel (Amber Rayne), lots of information has slowly unfolded, much like Krissy Leigh's impressive labia in a desert shanty scene with Tyler Knight.

It turns out, Mel tells Sam in porn's first recorded ten-minute dialogue scene, that long ago all the electricity went out, the animals died, women had trouble reproducing, and mutants with different attributes emerged. Sam, for example, has sex with some slimy Morlocks. Then we watch a three-way between some blue, caterwauling Gila girls. I'd add "Good Times" here, but I'm not a douchebag.

Mel takes Sam to the Elysium Fields, a desert enclave ruled by the charismatic Amir, who preaches against technology and presides over tent orgies. We learn that Amir led the angry mob that killed Sam's father when the latter's science didn't turn out as expected. We learn, also, that Mel can take a double-penetration like a goddamn champ.

My only complaints about the movie are logical ones, which I admit don't hold up against the copious flesh on display, but here goes: It is not altogether clear why Sam's dad put her into deep sleep, unless he just did so to see his adult daughter naked. And Amir doesn't seem all that charming, despite the fawning.

But the risks "The 8th Day" takes are admirable for porn. There are stretches without either music or nudity and where the plot advances by scenery alone. The special effects are parceled out with maturity, there are references to Shakespeare and the Beatles, and the movie trusts you to allow it to end without a cumshot.

There is also more creepy stuff with Dad, crucifixion, peeing on asbestos, a "West Wing" cameo, Bree Olson's Blue period, the unsinkable Darryl Hanah, the always-dependable Trinity Post, a delightful performance by Amber Rayne, and the jaw-dropping Kayden Kross, who meets a bad end (but so does everybody).

"The 8th Day" is a great movie; how bad can the end of the world be if it's got Kayden Kross in it?





















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<![CDATA["Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge" Or, If You Believe the Hype, The Second Coming]]> Men coming on each other; Jesse Jane pulling a Belladonna on Belladonna; Wholesale Chinese and Armenian stereotypes; David Aaron Clark eating a turkey leg; Slavery; The delightful squishiness of Shay Jordan (not to be confused with this); About as many sex scenes as there were men on the Edmund Fitzgerald; And "The Biggest Adult Production In History."

Read our review of "Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge" after the gap.

Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge

Here's how much money went into "Pirates 2." When I opened the 4-disc box, three crisp hundred-dollar bills slid out. There was a code on Disc 1 that allowed me half off a 2008 Saturn Vue at the Porn Valley Galpins. There were free helicopter rides to the Van Nuys airport, and either Stoya or Riley Steele is contractually obligated to deliver your "Pirates 2" personally, wearing nothing but your family coat of arms or company logo bodypainted across her eager frame.

But I only speak from personal experience. Your mileage may vary.

A movie of excesses, "Pirates 2" is also an earnest attempt to be a family comedy – much like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies were, except with rimjobs in it. There are portions of the script devoted to loyalty, believing in oneself, and sticking up for friends that would not be out of place on "Hannah Montana." That these elements appear discretely between scenes of guys coming on each other (just from a porn angle, "Pirates 2" is dirtier and riskier than your average mainstream adult movie) was an uncomfortable marriage of childish themes with very adult ones, as if Digital Playground were trying to let the Sarah Palin demographic know that fisting was "super."

The first joke told by anyone who writes about porn (and a joke he is under the mistaken impression of thinking he has invented) is the one about the sequels. It goes like this: "Whoriental Sex Academy 4 addresses the vital questions left unanswered by Whoriental Sex Academies 1 through 3."

"Pirates 2," on the other hand, really does pick up where its predecessor left off, cannily depending on familiarity with (and perhaps ownership of) 2005's "Pirates" to figure out who "Serena" was and why Captain Evan Stone and First Mate Jesse Jane are searching the Caribbean for her. (Just so you know, Serena is Janine Lindemulder's character from the original. She doesn't appear, Jo-rel or Ben Kenobi-like, in "Pirates 2," however).

An adventure that leads from Jamaica to the (Armenian owned and operated) slave markets to the high seas to the netherworld, where Katsuni's magical Blue Pearl reanimates Tommy Gunn's Stagnetti, "Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge" really is all over the place, and anyone who expects the story to make sense is, I guess, expecting too much. Ditto for the CGI. The pirate hunters' animated ship moves through animated water, leaving no shadow and displacing none of it. The massive worm slain by Belladonna is about as realistic as Jesse Jane's boobs.

But if the big effects are not even to the standards of late-night Sci Fi Channel fare, the sex and the scope of "Pirates 2" are far beyond what you expect and deserve as average porn consumers. You expect an awful porn script? Here you get one that actually expected something of the actors. You expect scenery chewing from the men? Evan Stone and Steven St. Croix ably comply. You want Jesse Jane and Belladonna to fuck the living daylights out of each other? Check.

Not only that, but the strenuous sex scenes we saw in the theatrical (yes, "Pirates 2," like its predecessor, debuted in a theatre) release are extended in the DVD set. So the thrill you got to see added footage of Minas Tirith when the "Return of the King" Extended Edition came out you can now feel when you see even more of Belladonna's colon.

But in other areas the sheer quantifiables of the movie are distractions. The Stagnetti of the title is, despite Tommy Gunn's performance, useless. He appears toward the end and, as it turns out, anticlimactically. Katsuni's incoherent black widow character was both evil and had boobs. Stagnetti wasn't necessary. The same goes for Sasha Grey. Sure it makes sense for Sasha Grey to be in the biggest porn movie of the year, but her presence and character are as tacked on as when everybody in class has to be in the school play, so suddenly Snow White has 40 dwarves.

And why was Shay Jordan not listed on the box? Her performance was wonderful. And why was Stoya only in a group scene? Both are criminal acts. Further inexplicability is achieved in non-speaking, non-fucking roles for Ange Venus and Adrianna Nicole ("I fell asleep on set," Nicole said.)

Regardless, we persevere. We remember that "Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge" is a porn movie – and an excellent porn movie - with all the usual limitations even if, as shouted from the boxcover, it is "The Biggest Adult Production in History." We still have four DVDs worth of delightful, turgid nudity.

Studio: Digital Playground
Director: Ali Joone
Cast: Jesse Jane, Shay Jordan, Evan Stone, Jenna Haze, Katsuni, Steven St.Croix, Tommy Gunn, Belladonna, Stoya, Riley Steele, Ben English, James Deen, Sasha Grey, Gabriella Fox, David Aaron Clark, your mom, Shyla Stylez, Shawna Lenee, Abbey Brooks, Brianna Love, Brea Lynn, Rhylee Richards, Charles Dera, Mick Blue, Manuel Ferrara, Marco Banderas

Review by: Gram Ponante

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<![CDATA[Wicked's "The Wicked"]]> You wonder why Wicked has waited so many years to release an eponymous title, but you also wonder why Kaylani Lei hasn't been delivered to you personally as part of the bailout package. Read on to discover why vampires seem to be devouring condom-only performers in the California Desert.

The Wicked

A couple fucks in a day-for-night desert as Wicked's vampire movie, The Wicked, opens. After putting on her clothes, she realizes she is alone. "Where are you?" she panics in the emptiness. "This isn't funny anymore!"

Well, who said it was ever funny? She is soon dispatched with, a 28 Days Later-style burst of screams, blood, growls, and an out of control camera. Wicked vampires!

As the opening credits roll past the unfortunate woman, we meet a Volkswagen Bus full of adventurers. Among them is Kaylani Lei, off to the desert for a weekend concert after finding her boyfriend in bed with a hooker (Jenny Hendrix). I don't know why she got so mad - doesn't she know that Jenny Hendrix is Good Times personified and no threat to Real Love?

Then we meet Baby and Otis (Stormy Daniels and Derrick Pierce), shifty types who've suffered a breakdown in the desert. Luckily our heroes happen by to pick them up, though only the driver (Barrett Blade) seems to think it's a good idea. Another passenger is Voodoo, a conspiracy buff cautious about weirdness in the desert. He is not taken seriously. In fact, the drive is so fraught with manufactured tension that we wonder why any of these people are friends.

Everyone is so nice to look at, though, that I guess it doesn't matter if they like each other.

The porn talent pool is so small, and the contract star system so limiting, that chemistry is hard to find, even in a population that has interfucked so often. One thing going for The Wicked is Blade's and Voodoo's chemistry with Lei, Tori Black, Scarlett Fay, and the other females in the cast. And, when they're allowed, Daniels and Pierce find room for "character" work.

Chemistry or no, the gang is edgy after a long drive, and strange things are happening in the middle of nowhere. Worse still, only Daniels' and Pierce's sex scene is filmed in natural light; everything else shows up in cold blue or red. This can only detract from excellent scenes between Voodoo and Fay and Blade and Lei.

In her motel bed, Kaylani dreams of being ravished by vampires in the desert (including Sophia Santi). Then she goes to a strip club with her pals and lets loose. Oddly enough, some of the characters from her dream show up as strippers! You wouldn't expect to find such high quality strippers in such a remote location, either.

There's other odd things going on in Desert City. Regardless, Kaylani and Barrett get over their friction and learn to love each other. Napping in the car, however, Kaylani again dreams of the vampires. Voodoo gets more agitated and, once the crew arrives at the concert, the stage is set for a bloodbath, as the vampires show up en masse for their solstice feast.

But it isn't scary. Shouldn't it be? Maybe the market suggests otherwise.

Since Wicked makes so many gauzily competent movies that seem to avoid actual inspiration, I wonder if sales figures indicate that being too good or too edgy or - in the case of a vampire movie - too scary might hurt business.

The Wicked's twist ending attests to the fact that a movie with great production values and a competent yet derivative script is Wicked's way of suggesting mainstream movies without actually ripping them off, a la Pirates. But what's the matter with an outright porn ripoff if it's good? The Wicked is a good porn movie but the vehicle of its story - the horror! - falls flat. I think it's the condom policy.

Review by: Gram Ponante

Studio: Wicked
Director: Michael Raven
Cast: Kaylani Lei, Stormy Daniels, Mikayla Mendez, Annabelle Lee, Jenny Hendrix, Roxy Deville, Scarlett Fay, Sophia Santi, Tori Black, Aaron Wilcoxxx, Barrett Blade, Barry Scott, Derrick Pierce, Evan Stone, Johnny Castle, Rocco Reed, Voodoo

· Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
· Buy "The Wicked" (gamelink.com)

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<![CDATA[Love Is A Battlefield: Wicked's "Coming Home"]]> If treated thoughtfully, even the weightiest and unsexiest subjects can be plots for porn movies. Why? Because people are thinking about having sex all the time. The trouble is that most porn movies can't handle weighty, and just end up looking dumb. We're sorry to begin our review of the excellent "Coming Home" with "We're surprised it didn't suck", but jeez; we've been burned so many times before.

Read the review after the gap.

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Coming Home

Studio: Wicked
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: Kirsten Price, Shyla Styles, Barrett Blade, Scott Lyons, Vanessa Lane, Savannah Stern, Gianna Lynn, Chris Cannon, Christian, Tyler Knight, Brooke Banner, Jada Firte, Kayla Carrera, Mikayla, Derrick Pierce, Marcus London

Review by Gram Ponante

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Poor Brian Parsons (Brad Armstrong) is called to serve his country in Iraq, lamenting the U.S. Army's lack of 18-year-olds. Luckily, porn has 18-year-olds in spades, so Brian's girlfriend (Kirsten Price) makes his last week stateside one to remember.

Brian asks his buddy Jimmy (Barrett Blade) to take care of his girl while he's away. I feared the worst.

"If that was me," Jimmy's girlfriend says, "I'd keep you to myself for a week."

The two couples get together at the same bar from Porn Valley. There are a thousand stories there.

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As his departure grows nearer, Brian receives a creepy farewell from Charlie, his boss at the garage. "I always felt you were the son I never had," Charlie says. This has to be in the top ten, at least, of Quotes Inappropriate for a Porn Movie.

I wondered how the movie would squeeze sex into the boot camp and Iraq scenes, but with the help of dream sequences and the presence of female soldiers (like Hawkeye and Lt. Dish), that problem was taken care of easily.

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Unfortunately, Brian doesn't make it. His small town thinks the worst of Jimmy drying the widow's tears. Brian's brother accuses Blade and Price of not mourning long enough when he finds them at a drive-in together.

"Stop stirring the pot, you little shit!" Jimmy cries.

For the hundredth time I wondered if Wicked's Real Movies But With Sex m.o. was an effective strategy, but the drive-in scene was pretty cool.

Meanwhile, Brooke is getting suspicious of Jimmy and Kirsten. And for good reason!

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Brooke retaliates. She calls Jimmy a "fucking dummy" in a monologue that I think prospective porn talent should memorize for auditions.

"Coming Home" is a movie that drops its cliches as it goes, so by the end it really forgets it's a porn film and becomes something else, something heartfelt. Could that be good? I don't know. It is difficult for a porn movie to sell tragedy, though plenty of them attempt it. This is a porn movie that ends sadly, and there is logic in the sadness. But "Coming Home" is not the movie to watch if one is already guilty about jerking off to porn.

Director/writer/star Brad Armstrong has improved on "Flashpoint", the reissue version of which I reviewed here recently. "Coming Home" features only strong performances (save for the garage manager) and the story is much tighter. It also makes a play for some of the biggest consumers of porn, the U.S. military, and doesn't do soldiers a disservice, even on a porn budget.

· Wicked (wicked.com)
· Buy "Coming Home" (gamelink.com)

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Previously: Porn Reviews Archive

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