DVD Review: “Wonderland”

"Prisoner" director DCypher dropped off an advance copy of his latest litporn opus, "Wonderland", here at the West Coast bureau of Fleshbot Central this week. In keeping with the film's highfalutin theme(s), we dust off our Bartlett's and review it after the gap. - G. Ponante

* * * * *

Studio: Metro/Cal Vista
Director: DCypher
Cast: Katie Morgan, (The Other) Violet Blue, Charlie Laine, Trina Michaels, Stephen St. Croix, Eric Masterson, Evan Stone, Candy Summers, Kris Knight, Herschel Savage

Like J. Alfred Prufrock's life is measured out in coffee spoons, each performer's name in the opening credits of DCypher's "Wonderland" is represented in their own particular way. Harried businesssman Steven St. Croix sits behind a desk on which his name is spelled out in paper clips; stripper Trina Michaels is introduced via a series of dollar bills; and, judging from the substance Eric Masterson's name is written in, we have a pretty good guess about what his character will be like.

It is a Wes Anderson title sequence on a porn (and public domain recording of Peer Gynt) budget.

It's not that tough jamming literary themes into porn. Fucking someone on meth brings new life to the line "You have but slumbered here." The problem is fitting literary dialogue into porn movies. How to do it and still fit in five or six sex scenes and, more importantly, why to do it when there are five or six sex scenes is the dilemma faced by directors who want you to know how smart they are.

DCypher and his cast pull it off, mostly with voiceovers, starting with a fantasy "light of my life, fire of my loins" sequence between body-glittered Lolita object The Other Violet Blue and Steven St. Croix, who winds up equally besparkled. He happens upon her dancing in a porn set version of a woody glade (someone found a prop deer!) and mounts her on a PosturePedic with a leaf-patterned quilt.

St. Croix's character is married to Katie Morgan, who might be a full six months older than his fantasy subjects. While she does her best to entice him by serving eggs in nothing but an apron, she is clearly an old cow. He dreams about his step-daughter (Candy Summers), her roommate (Shakespeare-spouting Blue), and anyone who crosses his path. He believes that Morgan is cheating on him with the likes of Evan Stone. He fantasizes about it graphically.

While St. Croix's "Lolita" angle can be understood,considering his predilections, Blue's Shakespeare references don't really fit, though she delivers them admirably. They are distracting and showoff-y. Only a strip club scene with the weapons-grade Trina Michaels can erase Blue's needless "quintessence of dust".

So "Wonderland" is a little bit "Midsummer Night's Dream" by way of "Hamlet" with some "Lolita" thrown in (if there were other references, they went over my head). When DCypher gives Blue a line like "I've been sleeping with older guys ever since my father died", it underlines that he's best when he's being original.

That line is uttered in a scene with "older guy" Herschel Savage, as Blue's means of paying her way through college are being examined.

St. Croix's character ends up alone, a pool cleaner with a cable installation job on the side. Presumably he has lost the crone-like Morgan for sampling Blue's forbidden hookerfruit. DCypher presents this in a funny credits sequence.

And St. Croix, like other veteran male performers, proves why he's lasted so long (though he either flubs his last "tale told by an idiot" line or the script got it wrong). He's smart and funny where those virtues aren't distractions. He doesn't take himself too seriously. He knows that it ain't Shakespeare. DCypher almost does, too.

· Metro Pictures (metroxxx.com)

* * * * *

Previously: "Prisoner" Review