NAKED ILLUSIONS

When I saw the great artwork on the front of this box and saw that Naked Illusions was directed by Randy Spears, written by Cash Markman, and starred Carmen Hart, Katie Morgan, and Eric Masterson, I was sure this was going to be a great movie. Well, I was half right!

Brad Armstrong plays a magician who has written a bestseller exposing the secrets of magic. He is performing at a club with his assistants Devon Michaels and Carmen Hart. Eric Masterson is his agent and is having an affair with Brad's wife, Katie Morgan. While Brad is performing his act on stage, Katie and Eric have sex backstage and I have to say that this was the most uninspired sex scene I have ever seen Katie perform. During part of his disappearing act on stage, Brad sneaks backstage and kills Katie while Eric is in the shower. Although, I'm somewhat a fan of Katie's, I wasn't disappointed to find she wouldn't be in the rest of the movie, since not only her sex scene was bad but her acting was also leaving something to be desired. Brad thinks he has an ironclad alibi and he plans to pin the murder on Eric.

Devon Michaels, Brad's number one assistant, has been having an affair with Brad and once the duo arrive back at Brad's, they of course celebrate by having sex. Brad next goes to see Eric's wife, August Night, and hypnotizes her by having her look in a glass of wine. If that sounds stupid, then watch the movie, because it is STUPID. While he has her under his spell he convinces her that her husband, Eric, really did kill Katie. Brad decides to have sex with August and has her imagine someone from her past that she has always been hot for. We then get a sex scene between August and Seth Dickens.

Up to this point in Naked Illusions I was pretty disappointed in the movie. The plot was just so-so and Brad Armstrong, never the best actor in XXX to begin with, was really weak in his role. I think Brad was trying to appear super egotistical, which would have fit with his character; instead he came off as just overacting. Whatever the problem, he was really pulling the movie down. I kept thinking, why didn't Randy cast himself in this role, he would have been perfect for it.

I was determined to continue watching what I was starting to consider a really poor choice in my rental selection, when the movie turned itself around. What caused this sudden switch, I can only think it was the result of one person - Carmen Hart.

Brad sends his assistant Carmen off with Van Damage as some extra compensation for Van Damage signing Brad to a Vegas contract. Van Damage remarks that he doesn't know how this happened and thinks Brad may have hypnotized him. Since Carmen tells Van Damage that Brad always gets what he wants, we have to assume he's been hypnotizing lots of people. This probably also includes us viewers, since the magic tricks Brad performs are juvenile level tricks that really aren't very convincing for the great magician he's supposed to be. Carmen brings some heat to her sex scene, which is good, since all the previous ones in Naked Illusions had just been your standard "by the numbers" scenes.

Carmen's up again in the next scene as she confronts Brad and tells him that she knows how he killed his wife. We then see a flashback explaining how he did it. She promises not to turn him in IF she can go back to being his number one assistant, get a raise, and they can be "bad" together. HEY! It looks like she's pretty easy to please! So Brad goes along with her. This results in another sex scene which is almost, but not quite as good as Carmen's other scene.

Brad decides to double cross Carmen and he's going to kill her onstage during a "sword through the box trick", but the detective who has been on the case from the start and has always doubted Brad, catches on in the nick of time and arrests him. In a funny moment (probably the only "intentionally" humorous moment in the film), Carmen is inside the box yelling "I'll tell everything" and "let me out". No one lets her out and the last we see of her are her eyes peeking out a slit in the box and she's still yelling over and over for somebody to please get her out.

Brad is in jail, but the very end of the movie leaves some doubt in the viewers mind that he may escape the clutches of the law, OR they were setting up for a sequel, which thank goodness never occurred.

Carmen Hart brought a "double whammy" of being a good actress in her role and a good performer in her sex scenes, both together really helped save this movie from turning into a real clunker. I have yet to see any movie where she has not been excellent in both her acting and performing, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that that trend continues.

Naked Illusions was touted as being Randy Spears first direction job for Wicked and was made a year before his excellent Off The Air. I will give Randy credit for having huge chunks of plot between the sex scenes, a nice touch. Plus, the sex scenes while long, for the most part, weren't mind numbingly long, another nice touch. In my opinion, this was the worst scripted Cash Markman movie I've ever seen. The main reason for this, I believe, is that Cash is better at writing comedy than he is at writing drama. As they say in The Big Lebowski (the real one, not that travesty of a porn parody) - " You're Out of Your Element, Donnie (Cash)"

Rating: first half: D ..... Second half: B ..... Average: C

Naked Illusions starring Van Damage, Devon Michaels, Carmen Hart, Katie Morgan, Seth Dickens, August Night, Eric Masterson, Brad Armstrong and directed by Randy Spears

2040

WARNING! THERE WILL BE SPOILERS IN THIS REVIEW. There is no way I can talk about this movie without giving away some of the plot points.

I've had this one for a while and when I saw the length(167 minutes, and that's not counting the 2 bonus discs that I didn't rent), I put it aside. When I finally got around to watching it, I wished I had done so sooner, since it is one of the better plotted modern porn movies I have seen in a while. Of course some of the length of the movie is due to the sex scenes being too long, but when they start to bore me, well, that's when the FF button is handy.

2040 opens with a voice over telling how a bad disease has caused people to stop having sex with each other. People have turned to virtual sex, however there are still a few people making porn movies.

The movie starts with the son of Randy Spears (Randy Spears) being directed by the son of Barrett Blade (of course played by Barrett Blade),shooting a movie using a green screen with a futuristic looking camera. The female in the scene is Alexis Texas and she looked stoned and out of it. This reminded me of some of those Golden Age porn movies where sometimes you ran across an actress who was actually stoned and out of it. We find out that Alexis isn't a real person, she's a sexdroid, and just needs some time to warm up. Alexis did a pretty decent job of appearing to be non-human, although she did slip and blink her eyes a couple of times. I'm actually going to blame that on the director and/or editor since these slips could have been re-shot or edited better.


Alexis breaks down and there's a fairly humorous bit about getting the sex scene finished. Since a new female/humanoid will be needed in order to continue shooting, they call in Marcus London and his sex doll, Alektra Blue (photo above). Marcus London has made a sexdroid who is super life like, her body even reacts to stimuli. News of this new sex doll spreads to the competition: Real Dolls, which is run by Brad Armstrong. It seems Marcus used to work for Brad and Brad considers Marcus's new doll stolen work that belongs to Real Dolls. Brad calls in Kaylani Lei to take care of Marcus. To my surprise Kaylani Lei arrived in a real helicopter, that I assume was rented especially for the movie.

2040 shifts the focus back to Marcus' company, where we find they have also made a male sex doll (Eric Masterson) and Kirsten Price is putting the finishing touches on him (which of course leads to a sex scene). Kaylani arrives at the lab looking for Marcus. When she finds that he's not there she uses a shock weapon on Kirsten and then trashes the lab.

A Brief Interruption: I typed the above after watching the first part of 2040. Later, when watching the second part of 2040, a funny thing occurred, I found the second half to be a lot weaker that the first half. Is it because I lost the momentum of the movie by not watching it straight through or is the second half just not as good? Sorry for the interruption, now back to the plot.

2040 shifts back to Real Dolls as Jessica Drake shows Kaylani around. We learn that the company did a lot of work in making artificial limbs for the military and that this research helped them in making body parts used for sex more realistic. We also get told how much money Real Dolls is set to make if Marcus doesn't interfere. Somehow everyone gets "hot" touring the factory and this results in the next sex scene. I found this to be the first weak spot, since it seemed the sex scene had been forced into the plot. Next, we are taken directly back to the lab where Mikayla Mendez tests out some of the new creations at Real Dolls. I think this is the spot where I really starting losing interest and it could have been packing (no pun intended) these two sex scenes so close together.

Jessica goes to see Marcus and tries to talk him into making a deal with Brad, leading to yet another sex scene forced into the plot. When Jessica gets back to Real Dolls she has a talk with Mikayla about whether the Dolls have any consciousness, but Jessica explains that's the type of thing that got Marcus the boot to start with and the topic is best left alone. It seems that's the major conflict between the two - Marcus wants to make dolls that actually have human feelings and Brad wants to make a pure sex product.

Back to Marcus' lab and we find that he has upgraded Alektra and she is becoming more human. There's also a funny sequence here with Alektra teaching Kirsten how to dance. This is probably the best scene in part two of 2040.


Next we are taken to The 55th AEE Expo and this is probably the worst scene in 2040. It's poorly shot and the only reason for it to be in the movie is to enable an orgy scene. We do find out here that Alektra has feelings for Randy and vice versa, resulting in another sex scene. After Randy and Alectra's sex scene, he takes her to the beach, they find a dead crab and he teaches her about death. Randy and Alektra next attend a play and Alektra finds it so beautiful that she is moved to tears (well a tear). 2040 was starting to get really boring to me by this time.

Brad goes to see Marcus and after a struggle Marcus is shot. Brad now has possession of Alektra (sex scene follows). This is then followed by a lot of plot that I translate as: "let's wind this fucking (pun intended) movie up". I won't give the ending away, but will just say it includes a death, a rescue, and a happily ever after with Randy and Alektra walking down the beach. This ending reminded me of a saying we had as kids: "Gag me with a maggot".

I still think the first part of 2040 was above my expectations and that the second part had too many sex scenes that didn't flow with the movie and too many cliches in the plot. As you know I'm only interested in plots here at "XXX Marks The Plot", for a deeper look into 2040 I encourage you to check out Gore Gore Girl's review: CLICK HERE. I'm grading this one an A- for the first half and a C+ for the second half, which averages out to a B

2040 starring Marco Banderas, Alexis Texas, Alektra Blue, Jessica Drake, Tory Lane, Kaylani Lei, Rocco Reed, Kirsten Price, Janet Mason, Marcus London, Bill Bailey, TJ Cummings, Kayla Carrera, Mikayla Mendez, Jayden Jaymes, Mick Blue, Tommy Gunn, Randy Spears, Brad Armstrong, Eric Masterson and directed by Brad Armstrong

MOBSTER'S BALL

This movie was listed as a feature and Mobster's Ball was described as: "Mob Hits. Bank Robbers. The Cotton Club. These are just a few of the things that say 1930's. Award winning director Brad Armstrong gives us a tantalizing, sensual and erotic glimpse of this time gone by.

Mobster's Ball turned out to be just a series of scenes, all tied together using the 1930's gangsters theme. So there's no plot to discuss, but if you're in the mood for something without all of them pesky words, then Mobster's Ball may be for you; since the costumes were great, the background music fit the scenes and everything was filmed good.

Mobster's Ball starring Jessica Drake, Marco Banderas, Cherokee, Jada Fire, Tory Lane, Jenaveve Jolie, Mia Smiles, Brooke Haven, Jasmine Byrne, Carmen Hart, Angel Cassidy, Ginger Rocs, Tommy Gunn, Randy Spears, Chris Cannon, Herschel Savage, Brad Armstrong, Eric Masterson, Brian Pumper and directed by Brad Armstrong.

FALLEN or 1/2 of A Review for 1/2 of A MOVIE

Since Fallen was has a running time of nearly 3 hours, I decided to split it into 2 viewings of 1 ½ hours. The movie starts with Jenna Haze and Brad Armstrong in a sex scene. Jenna leaves and takes the elevator, which crashes. Jessica Drake was the angel assigned to watch her but when she arrives at the apartment house she finds the door is locked and she can't get in to prevent Jenna from being killed in the elevator crash. This does seem like awful sloppy angel work and, if I understand the plot correctly, Jessica is stripped of her wings and has to live among the mortals for her error.

This leads us to Jessica sometime in the future and she is living a carnal life and going to an orgy....I think we are supposed to believe she wants to feel something in her existence. The only thing I felt was I was watching an overly long unnecessary scene that really had nothing to do with the movie....Thank Goodness for the FF button.

The next day Brad Armstrong "bumps" into Jessica, but she fails to recognize him. This is just setting the plot for a future meeting. Next up is a sex scene where Jessica meets a couple of cops and has sex with Randy Spears on the hood of the cop car. The next day she meets Brad again and they make a date. At the end of the date, they have sex and the next morning Jessica finally figures out that Brad was Jenna's boyfriend. After this, an upset Jessica convinces Herschel Savage to let her ride around on the top of his cab (maybe it makes her feel like a flying angel) in exchange for sex.

As far as I remember this was about the half way mark and as I'm typing this, I realize how weak the plot is in this movie, even though it didn't seem that bad when I was watching it. On the plus side for the movie: there was some outstanding camera work, some of the best I've ever seen in a porno. And Jessica Drake really did a good acting job in the movie.

So, a little time elapsed and I started watching the rest of the movie and I was BORED, BORED, BORED.....maybe I thought the first part of the movie was better since I had just finished watching Cry Wolf and was glad to see something....anything else. What happens in the second part? I did so much FF that I can only tell you there is some tattooing, motorcycling, and camping, some more camping, and of course sex scenes. I have read that there is a surprise ending, but I couldn't even make it that far...if anyone wants to add the ending in the comments box, please feel free to do so.


Fallen - directed by Brad Armstrong and starring: Jenna Haze, Jessica Drake, Shyla Stylez, Jada Fire, Alektra Blue, Jenaveve Jolie, Gianna Lynn, Jennifer Dark, Lana Croft, Ryder Skye, Derrick Pierce, Angie Savage, Niko, Marcus London, Hunter Bryce, Barry Scott, Michelle Mc Claren, Tommy Gunn, Randy Spears, Herschel Savage, Brad Armstrong, Eric Masterson, Barrett Blade.

FLUFF and FOLD or GOING TO THE LAUNDROMAT CAN BE FUN!

Fluff and Fold has been classified as a romantic comedy porno and I have no argument with that classification. Most of the romance is between the two main actors with Randy Spears providing most of the comedic moments.

The plot centers around Christine (Jessica Drake) and Scott (Brad Armstrong, who also directed the movie). Christine has kicked out her cheating boyfriend and meets Scott at the Laundromat. She isn't really ready for another relationship, but Scott eventually wins Christine over and they begin an affair.

Later, when Christine thinks that Scott is cheating on her, she dumps him on the spot, since she doesn't want another cheating boyfriend. The movie has a funny fantasy spot here as Christine imagines dumping Scott's head repeatedly in the washer. After Christine dumps him, Scott spends days in the laundromat waiting for her to show up again. So instead of the typical porno plot of the man just hooking up with the next available female, we actually see some human emotions in the male. I thought this was pretty unique for a porno.

Randy Spears plays the part of the Russian laundromat owner and provides most of the comedy in the movie. Randy is probably the best actor in porno today. He always commits to his character. There are a lot of comedy bits with Randy and some of the other characters, but you'll just have to watch the movie, since they are too numerous to mention.

One more thing that I would like to mention is the g/g scene. The scene is presented as a character is having a "fantasy" about two women he sees in the laundromat. Since g/g scenes in straight porno are enacted for male fantasies in the first place, this makes the scene really work.

The only wasted scene in the movie involves Evan Stone. This scene adds very little to the movie and appears it may have been added just to include Evan and Aria and a squirting scene.


Stars: Jessica Drake, Cherokee, Lezley Zen, Aria, Shay Sights, Dolorian, Tommy Gunn, Evan Stone, Randy Spears, Chris Cannon, Brad Armstrong and directed by Brad Armstrong.

PORNO PLOT SO SERIOUS IT'S FUNNY

IMPROPER CONDUCT: When the talented cellist is offered a prime spot in the pit, she leaps at the chance. But can she overlook the leader's controlling ways? As the frustrated conductor waves his baton harder and harder to make his point, can her love break through the block on his heart? Will they ultimately join to make incredible music together?

The acting is way above par for a porno. However, the story is so terrible and so deadly serious, that not too far into the movie, it just became funny to me. I don't think that I have ever seen a porno that tried to take itself this serious. Just think of some serious romantic cable TV movie....now add sex scenes.....now you have IMPROPER CONDUCT.

Stars: Devinn Lane, Asia Carrera, Jessica Drake, Aria, Bridgette Kerkove, Steven St. Croix, Scott Styles, Evan Stone and directed by Brad Armstrong