Sunday, February 12, 2012

SPIDER-MAN XXX: A PARODY

Spider-Man XXX: A Parody starring Xander Corvus, Sarah Shevon, Tyler Knight, Tara Lynn Foxx, Dick Delaware, Capri Anderson, Ash Hollywood, Seth Dickens, Brooklyn Lee
Non-sex roles: Lily LaBeau, Blyth Hess, Rob Black, Peter O’Tool, James Bartholet, William Bibbiani (of Geekscape), Michael Vegas, Shylar Cobi and directed by Axel Braun

The Plot: Spider-Man vs. Electro

: I really liked Xander Corvus as the titular character in Spider-Man XXX . I thought he made a better Spider-Man than Tobey McGuire. More great casting in Spider-Man XXX was Capri Anderson as Mary Jane, Rob Black as Jonah Jameson and Peter O'Tool as The Kingpin. Casting correctly always helps a film, but the cast also has to be able to act and there's not a weak actor in the bunch (although Peter O'Tool did falter briefly in one of his scenes). Kudos to Xander Corvus who did an outstanding job of acting, not only as Peter Parker, but also when costumed as Spider-Man.


I found it interesting Spider-Man XXX seemed to be picking up the story line between the first and second Spider-Man movies, since Peter Parker attends the funeral of Norman Osborn (The Green Goblin) and Doctor Octavious (Doc Ock) shows up at the very end of this film (a nod to Spider-Man 2). This allowed Axel Braun to create his own arc in the world of the Marvel Universe. Braun appears he may have his eye on creating more smash-ups of porn/Marvel, since the movie makes note of The Avengers, Black Widow (Hawk-eye's girlfriend) and Captain America.


There were a few minor problems with Spider-Man XXX: The special effects are pretty good in the movie with the exception of Spider-Man flying from building to building - which looked like something taken from an older video game; Tyler Knight was fine in his role, but unfortunately someone decided to spray a light top layer of gray on his hair and it just made him look odd; and several scenes in the movie had background music which overpowered the dialogue. The main flaw with Spider-Man XXX was the LONG sex scenes breaking up the flow of the narrative. The movie runs approximately 100 minutes with 80 minutes given over to sex scenes and 20 minutes to the plot. Even a 50/50 split between sex and story would have elevated Spider-Man XXX to a classic XXX parody. With the few minor flaws mentioned above, I'm still grading Spider-Man XXX an A- and it deserves that grade, if for nothing else, the porn version of the famous upside down kiss between Spidey and Mary Jane....which of course plays out a little different in Spider-Man XXX.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

BLIND DATE



Blind Date starring Kaylani Lei, Kris Slater, Randy Spears, Alektra Blue, Stormy Daniels, Barrett Blade, Briana Blair, Brynn Tyler, Brendon Miller, Alexa Nicole and directed by Stormy Daniels (who also makes a non-sex cameo in the movie).

The Plot:
To insure a promotion at work Kris Slater agrees to a blind date with the boss's daughter, Kaylani Lei. Neither Kris or Kaylani are very excited about the date, since they both have just ended bad relationships. They really hit it off and things are going great...until their exes show up to make the blind date turn into one disaster after another.

: Stormy has become a pretty reliable director/writer with her romantic comedies like Sleeping Around and her action comedies like Operation: Tropical Stormy. Blind Date continues in that vein and has a good opening sequence to hook you in to the storyline: Kaylani is dancing on top of a car while an apartment burns in the background, Blind Date then flashes back 36 hours to see how things got to this point.


Of course it doesn't hurt to have a great cast. The leads, Kaylani Lei and Kris Slater, both do an excellent job of carrying the movie. But it's the supporting cast who really shine in Blind Date. Barrett Blade, who has become adept at comedy is pretty darn good in the film, but comes in second to Brendon Miller, Kaylani's ex. Brendon gets some of the best lines in Blind Date and really goes all out with his character. If you don't have some laugh out loud moments with Brendon in this movie, better check for your sense of humor because you have definitely lost it. I should mention that I never could buy Randy Spears as a "redneck". It was so out of character for him I could only think I was just seeing Randy Spears trying (and failing) to act like a redneck during his scenes (and let me tell you...I know redneck....being as I am one!).


The main drawback to Blind Date is something I have found with all of Stormy's directed films....the sex scenes never generate any on-screen heat between the performers. This falls to one of two reasons I can think of....either Stormy doesn't know how to direct a sex scene (highly doubtful considering the amount of sex scenes she has appeared in over her career) OR my guess is she has been in so many sex scenes that her interest lies more in the storyline than the sex scenes. Even though here at XXX Marks The Plot I am more interested in the storyline than the sex scenes, I still want to have decent sex scenes in the films I'm watching....after all, we are talking porn here! I'm rating Blind Date a solid B.