DVD Review: “Barbed Wire Kiss”

Alt auteur Benny Profane profanes porn convention in "Barbed Wire Kiss", a story of Benny's life thus far, typeset in a pornish font. People conditioned to porn scenes looking a certain way will be confused by this movie, as will people not accustomed to burial plots or heroin use appearing in their stroke flicks.

But Caroline Pierce, Adrianna Nicole, and Veronica Jett figure prominently in this history, and viewers are encouraged to sample this Life Less Compliant.

Read our review of "Barbed Wire Kiss" after the gap.
- G. Ponante

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Barbed Wire Kiss

Studio: VCA
Director: Benny Profane (guest director: Yours Truly)
Cast: Caroline Pierce, Veronica Jett, Zak Sabbath, Adrianna Nicole, Amber Rayne, Domenica Leoni, Benny Profane, Tee Real

Review by G. Ponante

Benny Profane's "Barbed Wire Kiss" is the only movie to intersperse points-of-view shots from the grave of an infant with images of therapeutic sex with Caroline Pierce. Profane is played by several people in this pornbiography, including himself as narrator, as he recounts his life to his Tarot card reader (Pierce).

Pierce pops up in this movie like a zaftig, sassy fairy, and she should be given her own talk show. But it is Profane doing most of the talking in this film, and the talkiness, self-revelation, and determination to get a point across hearkens to older pornos, shot on film, vulnerable to shadows, and prone, in retrospect, to charges of oversharing that seem too on the nose in a document in which people take it up the ass.

Freewheelin' Punk Benny, played by Zak Sabbath (nee Smith) in his first and second mass-market porn scenes ever (outside of fleshpot NYU films), is married to Veronica Jett. They fuck on a car (CA license: BDSM). Their marriage goes south, Profane tells Pierce in voiceover, when their two-week-old child dies and Profane's mother dies soon after.

Heady stuff for a title that will be sold next to "Ghetto Booty" and "Ass Fukt 3".

Later Bennys include Marcos Leon as Suave Porn Benny, whose heart is broken by a porn star (Amber Rayne, herself filling in for an Unidentified Alt Starlet), and Tee Real as Black Benny, whose scene with Adrianna Nicole I directed.

Let's talk about that scene. Adrianna Nicole is a saucy, brassy vixen whose like was once painted on airplane noses. I wanted to paint her on my airplane nose, let me tell you. Instead, that job fell to Tee Real.

Their scene, shot outside of various porn conventions (time in one position, time focused on torso, breasts, genitals, etc.) was emblematic of each scene in the movie. People interested in production value will not call "Barbed Wire Kiss" a well-made film. There are shadows of cameras on the performers, general interest shadows in other places. The sound is spotty. I heard my own voice in the scene I directed.

But is the sex good? Tee Real and Adrianna Nicole smoked a hole in the bed. Sabbath and Jett looked like they had a whole glorious life in front of them. Marcos Leon and the boy-sized Amber Rayne made a delightful drag couple. Caroline Pierce should host her talk show on the nose of my plane.

Ron Royster, who produced this film and "Atomic Vixens", scoured MySpace for bands to provide the music for the movies. The soundtrack to BWK is particularly impressive, as is the lighting which, when it is not changing in the middle of the scene, made Jett, Nicole, and Rayne jump off the screen.

Profane himself, as a performer, appears awkward delivering his own lines, which are themselves funny and packed with information. LFP should hire him to be their $100k-a-year publicist, but he shouldn't be a greeter at the casino.

What Profane has made with BWK is a larger-budget version of his DYI "Psychocandy" movies, which make consumers feel like they are masturbating to Benny's friends. Which, in a sense, they are.

Will LFP/VCA allow Benny to make more movies that are like masturbating to his diary? We'll see how this one sells.

· "Barbed Wire Kiss" (official film site @ barbedwirekiss.com)
· Profane Pirate (profanepirate.com)
· VCA (vcapix.com)
· Order: "Barbed Wire Kiss" (Adult DVD Empire)

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Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch Archive