The 17th Annual NightMoves Adult Entertainment Awards Show was in town, so Alektra Blue, Alexis Ford, Christy Wild, Derrick Pierce, Evelyn Rose, Jessica Drake, Kayden Kross, Kaylani Lei, Kylie Ireland, Mariah Milano, Trina Michaels, and Zoe Britton were all there. And some of them judged a Bikini-less Bikini Contest! Best of all, there are pictures. Give yourself ten minutes, grab a Sex On The Beach, and pretend you were there (that's what we're doing).

· The Alektra Blue picture, plus many more at Porn star pool party at Caliente (creativeloafing.com)

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.

Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "2040" (gamelink.com)

· Buy "Chock Full of Asians #3" (gamelink.com)

A nihilistic shiver blossoms inside of us, like initial rush after snorting hillbilly heroin, as these angelic ingenues disrobe, both their lascivious costumes as well as any residual inhibition, and transform into uncomplicated engines of desire, ready to provide unspeakable pleasures to anyone bold enough to cross paths with these possessed dolls.

In our minds, the lyrics to a timeless Gun's n' Roses song morph once again into a familiar refrain. You know where you are? You're in a porno, baby. You're gonna fuck—hard.

Whales take chances in high stakes poker games for the rush, the thrill of losing. Mobsters grow addicted to the sound of the gun busting. They grow to need the edge of danger like a hit of adrenaline on the tip of their tongues to feel real and alive. The women that risk their lives and hearts loving these outlaws live for the thrill too. Armstrong exploits these fantasies in a gangsta party turned porno paradise, with each scene topographically reflecting different aspects of known gangster iconography.

Smoky casinos, retro-gothic police stations, and shadowy crime scenes pay homage to the romanticized Hollywood image of the uncompromising gun toting ghosts of legend and the molls that spun fear and chaos into the forbidden meat of a decadent reality even the hardest pornographer will in all likelihood never know.

"Mobster's Ball 2" releases this month from Brad Armstrong and Wicked Pictures. Check out the exclusive gallery we snatched for you.

Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
Buy "Mobster's Ball #2" (gamelink.com)
Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)

House of Wicked

Studio: Wicked
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: jessica drake, Stormy Daniels, Alektra Blue, Mikayla Mendez, Kirsten Price, Kaylani Lei, Johnny Castle, Tommy Gunn, Barrett Blade, Marcus London, Danny Mountain, Derrick Pierce, Rocco Reed, Kris Slater, Alan Stafford, Deep Threat, Brad Armstrong

Review by: Gram Ponante

What's more, each of the vignettes features the performer in what we are led to assume is her own element - therefore no naughty nurses, babysitters, cheerleaders, or - God forbid - pirates. Instead director Brad Armstrong puts Wicked's moneymakers in a much more European setting befitting the company's porn chicks with gravitas image (except for Stormy; the darkest Wiucked performer of them all here plays a cowgirl. Go figure).

"House of Wicked" is known in porn parlance as a high-end gonzo, or wall-to-wall. That means the movie is all sex with limited setup and no dialogue. But that doesn't mean we don't get to know the stars' personalities.

Kirsten Price, for example, is a saucy student. She takes on a couple of dudes in what appears to be the classroom of her Rhodes fellowship. Then jessica drake has a foursome in a fetish den, Kaylani Lei plays to type (she takes one for the team here) as a tough Asian with a taste for motorcyclists, Alektra Blue plays a skatepunk girl, and then Mikayla Mendez shows up as a club vixen.

In each of these scenes there is no angle from which each precious Wicked performer looks less than stunning. In fact, the whole movie seems branded with Wicked iconography. Furthermore, if anyone is made to look a little like a prop in this movie it is the guys, who outnumber their female counterparts by almost two to one, and whose costumes look less believable (Tommy Gunn and Barrett Blade as sk8r dudes with sideways hats, etc., seems a little Chippendales to me).

Which makes me think that "House of Wicked" is a fantastic couples' movie. Each of the women is far more mature and glamorous than bubbleheaded and accessible, each appears to have the reins tightly in hand of who gets to take a poke at her, and that it is the girls who have the pick of the eye candy should make female fans reluctantly agree that there is twice as much for them to gawk at than their boyfriends.

The final scene features every woman (but Stormy, who was probably campaigning) in a civilized and elegant Sapphic hoedown, proving that, at the end of the day, they just wanted to be together.

· Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)
· Buy "House of Wicked" (gamelink.com)

Such is the riveting basis of the Morgan's latest Wicked offering, "Writer's Bullpen," in which total hottie Kaylani Lei, Alektra Blue, Alexis Texas, and super sexy Kagney Linn Karter act out the delicious fantasies that pint-sized, sex-crazed Asian princess Kaylani dreams up. Given the horrendous acting performances turned in by the performers themselves in the intro sequence of the trailer, this is generally where we would start bashing the show. But wait....hold on...there seems to be something happening here.

Truth is, the campy hijinx were intended, the cheese is the gimmick, and this movie is actually pretty damn funny. Top that off with stellar sex performances from all the girls—especially the two-on-one action with sexy Miss Karter—and this title just skyrockets in value.

Perhaps there's a reason why seasoned veteran director Morgan is still in the game, after all. Like a cat with nine lives, he always manages to surprise us with one more viable release just when we thought he had slipped away into obscurity.

"Writer's Bullpen" releases next week from Wicked Pictures. Check out our advanced sneak peek gallery.

· Wicked Pictures

Some people (okay, critics) think that Wicked's movies aren't that original. That's not true at all! Take, for example, this new Alektra Blue movie from Michael Raven, "The Gifted." It's in no way whatsoever like "The Craft" which featured Neve Campbell, Robin Tunney, and psycho hot Fairuza Balk. Not even close!

You see, in the Michael Raven feature Alektra Blue discovers a new group of hot young witchy girlfriends who are just like her, but then they all have lots of hot sex and no one tries to kill anyone else. Plus the Michael Raven knockoff version features spiky coiffed rocker Barrett Blade, along with Alektra Blue, Kaylani Lei, Mikayla Mendez, and Rachel Roxxx. So there. Obviously different, totally and completely and in no way inspired by the other.

Look, it's hard coming up with new material all the time, so maybe just cut the award winning Wicked Pictures director a little slack, okays? Geez.

"The Gifted" releases next week on April 8, 2009 from Wicked Pictures and Michael Raven. Check out the trailer in the link below, and enjoy our exclusive free gallery.

· "The Gifted" (wickedpictures.com)

Yes, suddenly everything is about Stormy Daniels—and it's only going to keep coming. From TPM to Politico, across Fire Dog Lake and through Daily Kos, slipping into the Drudge before wiping off and cleaning up with HuffPo, everyone is talking about her. She's literally all over the blogosphere—which is fine by us. Ubiquity becomes her, in our estimation. And for every repressed Puritan who attacks her, a plethora of fans rise up to defend the busty starlet, testifying to her genial and alluring nature, both in front of and behind the camera. Still, since her media headlines coincide with the impending release of her latest plot-driven movie, "Whack Job," we'd like to make sure that no one gets the two confused in any way.

Displaying her usual touch for poetically blending comedic timing with lusty fantasies, the award winning writer/director tells the story of a spoiled mafia princess who has just discovered her boyfriend in bed with another woman, or, in layman's terms, Roxy DeVille catching lovely Kaylani Lei fucking her man. What's the daughter of a mobster to do? Walk away with a broken heart? Fuggadaboutit! She's nobody's goumada! Roxy puts out not one, but two, hits on the testa di merda and calls it a day. Hilarity ensues. We won't spoil it for you, but you can check out the sneak peek gallery and try to guess the ending. We promise it will be far less predictable then Stormy's senate bid.

"Whack Job" comes out next week from Wicked Pictures.

· Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)

Brad Armstrong finds himself embroiled in a sadistic sexual game in the seedy underbelly of grimy Los Angeles after a wild night on the town ends with a scorching one night stand. Which sounds exactly like our idea of a great weekend, to be perfectly honest!

Wicked Pictures contract starlets Kaylani Lei, Alektra Blue, and Mikayla Mendez guide us through the myriad of twists and turns, enlisting the help of luscious seductresses Tori Black, Bridgette B, and drop dead gorgeous blond daydream Tanya James, who recently returned from a self-imposed hiatus and graduated from only doing girls to riding some of the biggest cocks the business could throw her way. (Seriously, watching her screw is like watching a wizard spin straw into gold.) Sadly, she only works with Bridgette B for Clousot, although the results are still as mesmerizing. Scrawled down the side of Miss B (who, rumor has it, took her name as an homage to Bridgette Bardot) are the words "Jalousie et Une Maladie" which loosely translates from French to English as "Jealousy is a Sickness." We're not sure whether the tattoo had anything to do with her casting, but we couldn't agree more.

"Last Call" comes out next week from Wicked Pictures.

· Wicked Pictures (wickedpictures.com)

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)

. . .

"Some say the path we take is guided by Fate or unseen forces," intones Lei in the voiceover, which is immediately reminiscent of the sort of stylish, formulaic, safe, and Skinemax -ready porn Wicked produces so well, or at least so frequently.

How does one become a hooker accidentally? Well, if you looked like Kaylani Lei and you were walking down Hollywood Boulevard dressed to enhance all your Kaylani Leitude whilst absently sucking your soft drink from a straw, it would be within reason for the common passerby to at least hope you were a hooker.

And the passerby would be right, because hooker Lei is en route to an interview about how she became a hooker accidentally. Turns out she met a dude, Marcus (Armstrong), online who wasted no time sampling the goods once they finally met.

"He didn't seem to be an axe murderer or anything," Lei recalled. Waking up alone, Lei was surprised to find $500 by her bedside.

Was she a hooker? Who knows. Marcus invites her to L.A. and at the airport she is greeted by a limousine containing not Marcus but instead a man named Deep Threat.

"Little did I know that it would change my life - " says Lei in the voiceover.

(wait for it)

" - forever."

"I realized I crossed a line," she says.

(wait for it)

" - that could never be uncrossed."

Also:

"I had changed - "

(wait for it)

" - and this was only the beginning."

Lei begins a crazy joyride of sex for money, immersing herself in "the life," in which intimacy, commerce, and hedonism coexist in an uneasy colloidal stew - forever. She fucks other women, rich swains at the opera, guys at the car wash, couples, anything that pays.

Wicked cannot solve this problem, but in the scene with Shyla Stylez and Tommy Gunn as the couple Lei beds, the movie falls victim to something that happens in porn all the time: Stylez looks more like a hooker than the person playing a hooker. It's like the Monty Python "Bicycle Repair Man" sketch, where everyone is a superhero.

But the highs become fewer and farther between.

"Every once in a while you ask yourself, 'What am I doing?'" Lei tells her interviewer.

"Why don't you just stop?" he asks.

"That's easier said than done," she says, blowing cigarette smoke. "You can't just walk away. It's in your blood. It's what you know. It's what you are. No matter how hard you try, you het sucked right back in. You're in for life. And sometimes? That feels like an eternity."

I hand it to Wicked for yet another unflinching look at the world of high-priced call girls this summer, the other being Latina Hollywood Hookers.

But just when you condemn Wicked for padding the script, you realize that all those (or most of those) sodden sentences work up to a twist ending like that Tom Cruise Isn't Gay Enough movie.

Like M. Night Shyamalan projects, the twist endings over the years have yielded diminished returns since The Sixth Sense. But this is porn, so we've got at least ten more years of them. So I'll leave it to you to decide if the twist redeems the movie.

Review by: Gram Ponante

. . .

The Accidental Hooker

Studio: Wicked
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: Kaylani Lei, Shyla Stylez, Victoria Sin, Mikayla, Devon Lee, Jennifer Dark, Brad Armstrong, Tommy Gunn, Deep Threat, Niko, Barrett Blade, Derrick Pierce, Marcus London

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

Is Kaylani Lei dead? The movie begins in a gauzy, brightly-lit room where she cavorts with a man in white underpants. According to the Porn Valley Book of the Dead, this and her four-inch white stilletos point to the Afterlife. But something is wrong; the apparition she's with appears to be Nick Manning in all that oversaturation, but it's not. Is she in Heaven or in Hell? We can't tell. Also, because the room is so white, we can't tell if a load has been dropped.

But wait. It's all a dream! Sandy (Lei) was only dreaming. It's Monday morning; she's not making love to an angel, she's a lonely working girl with a dog, and she's late for her carpool.

The car ride to the office is filled with the type of banter acting that reminds one of locally produced AM radio commercials. It's comforting. It says that, no matter how expensive the camera package and editing rig, that porn directors know the real reason people watch porn is for the sex.

It seems the office is going to undergo a round of layoffs, say the carpoolers. But, just as the movie opened with a more or less gratuitous sex scene (and I'm not saying there is anything bad about gratuitous sex in a porn movie), we now have the opportunity, through the porn-narrative techniques of exposition and flashback, to review each passenger's weekend sexcapades.

In the slow drive around the neighborhood, nerdy Jimmy recounts how he bedded a stripper in Vegas after a winning night at the blackjack table. He must've won big, because Hooker didn't make him wear a condom! Outside his casino-comped room, neon lights flash. Production design! Then the stripper's luchador husband arrives.

Then it's middle-aged Bob (Herschel Savage)'s turn. He and his wife get ready for a night of role-playing by talking about the APR on their leased vehicles. Wicked's couples'-friendly credo is this: See? Dom/sub couples are just like you.

"Next week, we're going to try something called erotic asphyxiation," Bob says.

Around this time I was waiting for the weekend adventures of the driver of the carpool, Sue. "I bet those glasses are just a beard for her sexual hellcattery," I said.

But Kaylani is the contract girl, so she gets her second sex scene first. She has a threesome with her friend and the pizza guy. The pizza guy. Never accuse Wicked of discarding history.

We finally get to Sue, who shocks our sensibilities by being a dirty little biker whore. With Brian Surewood unavailable, the role of lead biker went to an unshaven Evan Stone. While Sue's acting in the car was frankly abysmal, at the biker bar she acts with her eyes. Brilliant!

Four attractive people stuck in traffic talk about sex. Is there anything better suited to late-night cable? "Carpool" may be formulaic, but it's friendly, non-threatening, and fun. As the gang breaks up at the office parking lot there is a tidy wrap-up. With gas prices so high, I see room for a slew of inexpensive sequels.

Review by Gram Ponante

Carpool

Studio: Wicked
Director: Jonathan Morgan
Cast: Kaylani Lei, Kylie Wilde, Nicole Sheridan, Nikki Rhodes, Renae Cruz, Marcus London, Evan Stone, Alex Sanders, Dane Cross, Herschel Savage, Niko

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

See more snaps after the gap.

. . .

Andy (Randy Spears) is dead. Beckoned by the angelic Kaylani Lei through a freestanding door in the middle of the desert, he finds himself in a screening room playing some of his life's greatest hits. But unlike Hollywood fare like "Defending Your Life" or "It's A Wonderful Life," porn gets to deal with the heavenly flashback trope by letting our hero view his conception.

How different would my life be if mom was Hollie Stevens?

Then we fast-forward about 40 years (though it's only supposed to be 20) and watch a mop-topped Haight-Ashbury Andy thanking Kendall Brooks for his birthday mandolin. Unfortunately, Kendall too eagerly subscribes to that era's will to free love. Poor Andy cradles his mandolin while sitar music plays.

Does he lose her because he couldn't stand her free-spiritedness? Did he later lose his wife (Brooke Banner) because he was an insensitive lover?

"It's not a judgment," Kaylani says. "It's a review."

Well, it really was a judgment, but no one said angels weren't passive-aggressive. Andy discovers that he must learn one thing in this netherworld way station before he is sent back, and Kaylani is just the person to teach it to him.

Like last year's "Pleasure Principle", this Wicked picture is ideal for couples, if just a little preachy to the converted.

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

Of course, any pornographer going to that bestseller for plots runs the risk of seeming precious, self important. Then again, if we have learned anything in our time together, precious sometimes sells. Read our review of Wicked's "Delilah" after the gap.

- - -

Delilah

Studio: Wicked Pictures
Director: Michael Raven
Cast: jessica drake, Herschel Savage, Kaylani Lei, Sammie Rhodes, Hillary Scott, Randy Spears, Veronica Hart

Review by Gram Ponante

"Ah, sweet Christy: I needed her more than any man ever needed a woman," says Samson Nazarite (Herschel Savage), the Master of the Universe whose devotion to his career drove Christy (Hillary Scott) away. Samson's immediate regret of Christy's departure (he chose to go to a conference with Phyllis Stein & Associates rather than on a lovers' cruise) seems abrupt in light of how he treated her, but even more abrupt is the way Savage takes to Delilah (jessica drake), the frank hairdresser he takes up with soon after.

drake hardly cracks a smile the whole movie; she is a svelte dragon lady.

The graying Savage is a fine actor who, along with Randy Spears, represents porn's mature leading men. A clever trick in adult movies is channeling all the dialogue into voiceovers. These Savage delivers well, but he also has the personal gravitas required of the role.

Unfortunately the movie is lousy with gravitas. Not only do we have the unholy mixing of Old and New Testaments with "Samson" and "Nazarite" (an Old Testament term for one who has taken a vow of abstinence), but Samson has also lost "Christ"y. That and the dim blueness of the sex scenes, in which the lovely drake is seldom fully revealed, makes me think that, as a porn movie, Delilah misses the point; even if jerking off to all the movies that cross my desk is not an option, the idea behind each and every porn movie should always be that I could if I wanted to.

Delilah is not a hit with Samson's friends, Stephanie (Kaylani Lei) and Pete (Spears), nor with his mom (Veronica Hart), all of whom act their asses off in service to a film that is relentlessly depressing.

But ambitious! The story doesn't give up. It has twists and turns that the cast stays with: Delilah has a past, Spears is not the friend he seems, Christy is still in the picture. Samson prays.

A bum (but, you know, one of those supernatural bums with a wealth of wisdom), approaches Samson outside a restaurant with, "What does it profit a man to gain the world but lose his soul?" (New Testament again). Oy.

Delilah is, like it or not, an adult movie for adults. There is not a lick of fantasy in it. We believe Spears and Savage, with their high-powered resumes, would actually have icy trophy partners. We believe that men like that might search for redemption in the wrong places. I even believe that certain couples would be turned on by this movie - I just don't know any.

drake, unfortunately, plays an unlikeable character and it works. We don't want to not like jessica drake.

Delilah is the elusive "real movie that happens to have sex in it" that the big adult companies strive for. Not a lot of sex, either; the best-lit scene is with Lei and Spears, and Hillary Scott never appears in anything less than a bikini.

Though the movie ends with Samson getting a second chance - and literally praying for one - the journey there is decidedly un-porny. What does it profit a porn movie to gain a good script but lose my erection?

· Wicked Pictures (wicked.com)
· "Delilah" Trailer on YouTube (youtube.com)
· Buy "Delilah" (gamelink.com)

* * * * *

Previously: Porn Reviews Archive

We had to invent a new tag for this flick because it is, we think, the closest a corporate adult movie has come to a thesis statement of how the Porno-American community wants the world to see it. "Porn Valley" is also, we're guessing, a thinly-veiled coming of age story about how one screenwriter learned to stop worrying and love the popshot.

Read our review after the gap. - GP

- - -

Porn Valley

Studio: Wicked
Director: Michael Raven
Cast: Kaylani Lei, Barrett Blade, Evan Stone, Carmel Moore, Gianna Lynn, Monica Mayhem, Riley Evans

Review by Gram Ponante

Thinking first that Wicked Pictures had commissioned a tribute movie about one of Fleshbot's regular features, I was eager to tear the package open and find out how to get my royalties. Then the elegantly art-diirected cover, featuring a clothed Kaylani Lei, made me recognize this film for what it was: a couples' movie.

"Since I have destroyed all who have ever loved me," I reasoned, "perhaps I should watch this. You know, for tips."

The movie begins with Kaylani Lei's voiceover. "In my 26 years I had seeen maybe three pornographic movies," she says. "And I was scared of it." She talks about Brazilian waxes and carnal moans, all the trappings of the porn ouevre. The audience is deposited without explanation into a blue-tinged sex scene.

We are watching a scene from the pornography that is destroying our narrator's relationship. She watches in disgust as her boyfriend of five years drinks it in. A Wicked DVD box sits on the table.

She explains that, since moving to L.A. from Louisiana (it is hard to believe Kaylani Lei as a Louisiana girl, but harder still to believe she's from Cape Cod, which she is), her boyfriend has subscribed to a casual sex website. She confronts him. He admits he is a sex addict. The relationship is over. Way to support your partner in his time of need, Kaylani.

"Fucking sex addict," she tells her girlfriend. She wonders aloud if pornography, like the kind that possessed her mate, was like marijuana, "a gateway drug to more harsher things." Her friend advises her to date.

She does, and gets into an online relationship with a man who seems compatible, charming, and intelligent. He also directs porn movies. She meets him anyway. He explains that some people use casting couches, but not him. Then, in a flashback to a routine starlet interview, he explains yet again that there will never be another Jenna. The starlet thanks him amid a jangle of bracelets.

She probes him during dinner. It is like a softball infomercial interview. Are drugs orevalent in the porn industry? No more than in Hollywood. Do you think having sex for money is psychologically damaging? I'm all for sexual expression, not repression, baby.

The film thus far is a little dark, not in tone but in hue. It is slightly hard to see. But the movie avoids other inexplicable couples' porn tropes by not being unnecessarily serious. There are laughs and there is some wonderful acting by Barrett Blade (the pornographer) and Lei.

Director Michael Raven takes his time with the scenes, and it is worth mentioning the screenwriter, Jennifer Allison. It seems that Porn Valley can't but be the story of her own journey to Los Angeles. If not, hers was a fortuitous meeting with Wicked, because this script made it onto the screen wiithout being mangled by a hack director or porn performers unused to acting.

Now and then the movie does feel like an ad for the Porn Valley Chamber of Commerce. As Lei meets Blade's friends, she muses, "These people were witty, friendly, polite... Just normal people." She realizes that it is not porn that is the problem with relationships, it is deception. Time and again Blade proves his integrity to her.

The movie ends happily, a porn-positive flick if I've ever seen one. I was wondering, as Lei and Blade consummate their relationship, if he would pull out and come on her chest or if the movie would dare to be different. Raven compromises, but you'll have to watch it to find out how.

· Wicked Pictures (wicked.com)
· Buy "Porn Valley" (gamelink.com)

* * * * *

Previously: DVD Review: "The Visitors"