PERFECT MATCH

Much like The One, Perfect Match is another example of how a good movie can be made on a small budget IF you have a good director, good writing, and a good cast.

Perfect Match begins at a bar where Katie Morgan and Monica Mayhem are discussing the dating world. Also in the bar are Eric Masterson and Barrett Blade discussing the world of dating. Eric and Barrett have some of the truest sounding male to male peer dialogue I have heard since the first season of Entourage. Their dialogue may have been improvised, but IF it was written, Bravo! to the writer.

We get a flashback with Eric Masterson meeting Hillary Scott at the same bar and this results in the first sex scene, which is set in a bathroom stall. I'm still trying to get a handle on why so many sex scenes in feature XXX movies are set in bathrooms. Is it a fetish, is it easy to shoot, or is it what??? This scene is followed by Katie relating to Monica a bad encounter that she had with a pickup date. The sex scene that follows features Katie and Evan Stone, with Evan being hilarious as someone obsessed with himself (something I secretly think is probably true in real-life). The movie then moves into a confessional set-up style with the actors relating their experiences to the camera for the rest of the movie. All of these confessionals include a lot of humorous lines.

The best of the confessional scenes is when Barrett hooks up with Andreza Valentino and realizes it was a huge mistake. It seems Andreza not only wants "clean" sex talk, but she considers Barrett to be "The One" and is hopelessly in love with him. This was my first encounter with Andreza and even though everyone in the movie was great, she was so perfect in her role that I hope to see her again soon.

Perfect Match has a good flow from start to finish and since it's all about different "dating" partners the sex scenes fit into the plot. The only flaw is, like most modern XXX features, the sex scenes are too long but when (or IF) they become boring to you, just use your FF button. I rate this one an A-

Perfect Match starring Katie Morgan, Hillary Scott, Derrick Pierce, Monica Mayhem, Andreza Valentino, Evan Stone, Eric Masterson, Barrett Blade and directed by Michael Raven

WHITE RABBIT

I've seen movies like White Rabbit before, whether due to lack of funds OR overreaching their own talent, the director produces a movie that is cheap looking and shamefully dull. White Rabbit fits this criteria for me and I think it's probably due to a combination of the two. There's no doubt that there was very little money put into the production, evident by the cheap costuming and even cheaper set decorations. Michael Raven directed White Rabbit early in his career, and I think he just hadn't developed all the skills yet which would eventually allow him to make such modern greats as Love For The First Time, Perfect Match, and The Visitors and some lesser works like Black Widow and Watchers.

Allison (Sunset Thomas) is bored at her birthday party. When she blows out the candles on her cake and makes a wish, she is suddenly in another world with Eric Price who takes her to The Looking Glass Motel. At the motel, Allison eats some marmalade that causes her to hallucinate and Scotty Schwartz (Flick from The Christmas Story....YES, THAT FLICK!!, the one who got his tongue stuck to the light pole....THANKFULLY, his tongue doesn't get stuck to anything in this movie!!!) leads Allison around to what is basically a succession of different sex scenes. The worst scene being The Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum pair of women who are very sloppily painted red and blue. The marmalade eventually wears off and Alice...excuse me..Allison has one final sex scene with Eric Price who originally brought her to the motel.

Everything about this movie was B-A-D: the story, the costumes, the music, the sex scenes and the sets were all below average. I'm not sure who would like this movie...Golden Age fans would be disappointed in the storyline and lack of discernible parody, Modern Age fans would be disappointed in the lack of production and the sex scenes. Since I'm a fan of both categories, I used the FF button continuously throughout this movie, so I'm grading this one a D

White Rabbit starring Nina Hartley, Jill Kelly, Inari Vachs, Mia Smiles, Gina Ryder, Nikki Tyler, Julie Meadows, Sunset Thomas, Teri Starr, George Kaplan, T.T. Boy, Ian Daniels, Brian Surewood, Eric Price, Alec Metro and directed by Michael Raven

LOVE FOR THE FIRST TIME

The first Michael Raven movie I ever saw was "The Visitors" and it was great, but then I watched two more Michael Raven movies: "Black Widow" and "Watchers" and neither one impressed me very much. Since Love For The First Time was directed and written by Michael Raven, I was a little bit skeptical about renting it; but, I thought I would take a chance, since it starred two of my favorite adult actors: Carmen Hart and Randy Spears. To my surprise I found that Love For The First Time (LFFT) was one of the better XXX features I have viewed in quite a while.

The movie is loosely based on The 40 Year Old Virgin. LFFT opens with Randy Spears waking up alone in his bed and riding his bike to work. We know Randy is a nerd because he has repaired his glasses with tape (ok that's a really a cliched short hand way to identify a nerd). At work, we meet Randy's co-workers: chronic masturbator Mr Marcus and "wigger" Barrett Blade. Randy's two co-workers "out" him as a virgin and decide they will do some charity work by getting Randy laid. We also get the feeling that even though Mr Marcus and Barrett talk a good game of sex, a lot of it is just talk and they may not be as experienced as they want everyone to think.


LFFT cuts to Carmen Hart who is alone in her bed having a sex dream. It was refreshing that the movie had opened with plot and comedy instead of rushing right into a sex scene. This first sex scene is shot with a hazy look and only runs around 12 minutes (which most of the sex scenes do). What a relief to have sex scenes that didn't run into mind-numbing length. I would like to mention, without getting too "Sex In The City" on you, that Carmen wears a pair of spiked heeled boots in this scene and, I swear, I saw these same boots or similar ones on other performers throughout the movie.


The boys take Randy to a bar where Barrett, still trying to do good deeds, finds that you can't buy a man a drink or he'll think you're gay. This also sets the stage for us seeing Carmen Hart at work as the bartender. Barrett returns to the table and barmaid Ryder Skye comes over for their order. Mr Marcus is gobsmacked by her and can't say a word....and we see the sexual fantasy he is having about her.


The guys take Randy to a strip club where his path crosses once again with Carmen. Lindsey Meadows, Carmen's roommate, has also taken Carmen to the strip club with her. It's amateur night and Lindsey is going to show Carmen how to loosen up in hopes of getting Carmen laid.....it seems Carmen is also a Virgin! It should be noted that Lindsey plays a very understated role as the best friend/roommate and she's so good that you might not even notice that fact.

After a sex scene in the movie where the boys buy Randy a VIP lap dance that turns into a bj, the guys head out for a party and of course Carmen and Lindsey are at the same party. To Barrett's surprise, Lindsey is actually agreeable to having sex with him. He's stunned but tells her he'll have to stop by his place first to get his hair products. A sex scene then follows.


At the party, Randy follows the guys advice: make the girl feel uncomfortable, then he will be able to feel comfortable in any situation. This isn't working on Carmen and whens she tells Randy that he's making her uncomfortable, he apologizes and becomes himself. This leads to the duo dating for six months and Carmen finally having to tell Randy that she's ready to have sex. Carmen asks Randy if he has any protection and he pulls out a LARGE handful of condoms. As she goes off to get ready, there's a funny bit where Randy experiments with the rubbers. Carmen returns and we have a 20 minute sex scene, but since this is what the movie has been building up to, it seems logical to let this scene run on a little longer.

LFFT had great writing from start to finish, the plot made logical sense and the sex scenes fit into the flow of the movie and, as mentioned previously, weren't mind numbingly long. All the actors were way more than good in their roles and Barrett Blade provided the movie with a lots of comic moments. There's even a cameo by Ron Jeremy in a non-sex role, and while unnecessary for the movie, I seem to never tire of seeing The Legend. The only very slight problem I had with the movie was some of the music used an organ (no pun intended) that sounded like Ray Manzarek of The Doors was let loose to jam (which would never be a good idea), but even with that minor quibble I'm still rating this one a solid A

Love For The First Time, written and directed by Michael Raven and starring Mr Marcus, Carmen Hart, Ryder Skye, Lindsey Meadows, TJ Cummings, Abbey Brooks, Randy Spears, Barrett Blade

WATCHERS

Even though I had only seen one good Michael Raven movie in the past (The Visitors), when I saw that Watchers had won 2001 AVN Awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Editing and Best Supporting Actor (Randy Spears), I guessed that this must be one hell of a movie. Well guess again, Bucko!

Watchers turned out to be a grainy film with Randy Spears in one his worst acting jobs ever. Randy was over dramatic in delivering his lines from the badly written script. As far as the editing award, I can only guess it was awarded for the quick in and out cuts of little bits of the storyline into some of the sex scenes.

The movie begins with Mike Horner, not the greatest actor in porn but usually not too bad, managing to achieve a career high in bad acting. After the titles, Watchers moves fairly quickly to the first sex scene. After this first sex scene, we get maybe two lines of dialogue before the next sex scene. I was starting to think that there wasn't going to be much of a plot; however, Watchers actually got plot heavier for the rest of the movie. I'm assuming Michael Raven wanted to get the viewer hooked in with the sex scenes, before trying to get them hooked into the story. This almost worked backwards on me, since I was about to give up, thinking there wasn't any plot at all.

The plot of Watchers is about the forces of good and evil battling over one woman's soul and once the plot finally kicked in, Watchers gave me lots of laughs. The unfortunate part is that Watchers is a drama! My first big laugh came when Syndee Steele goes to the police because she thinks the bad dreams she has been having are connected to some cult killings that are happening. When she's in the police station, Randy Spears (who no one is suppose to be able to see) is crouching (yes crouching) on a file cabinet in the background. That was my first laugh out loud moment, with many more to follow. Now that I think about it, Randy crouches several more times in the movie, heck maybe it was in the direction he was given. There's also a lot of slow walking and creeping about in Watchers, so I can see where crouching could also be a directorial decision.

Next up, Syndee is in the tub and considering suicide and we see Randy (sort of crouching on the couch) in the background. Randy talks Syndee out of killing herself. Amazingly, Syndee shows little concern that someone is inside her locked apartment, although she does ask him about it later.

The next scene we find Mike Horner walking back and forth in front of a prostitute, who turns out to be a demon. Why was Mike just walking back and forth in front of this one hooker... oh, I'd call that bad direction. Anyway the demon tries to attract him sexually but Mike resists and the demon responds in "demon talk" and we get subtitles for a translation (yes, subtitles, why not throw in another bad element).

A couple of cops have been put on the cult case killings, Julie Meadows and Dillon Day, although they don't get a lot to do. Julie is the best actor in Watchers and she also has the only really good line in the movie: "I can't believe they shot a girl". They do participate in a big shootout with Julie and Dillon and Mike against the demons. You did read that correctly, for some reason the demons or maybe they're just minions all have weapons and can be killed with bullets.

Mr Marcus is the head demon and he escapes with Syndee, but Randy shows up to fight Mr. Marcus for her. Oh yeah, Randy is wearing a "puffy shirt" (yes, a puffy shirt) when he arrives. After he sends Mr Marcus back to hell, Syndee asks him to explain things but he tells her it is better left a mystery (I translated this to "we wrote it and we don't have a good explanation").

I cannot believe how over the top bad this movie was and the fact that it won so many awards in 2001. I can't count the times that I laughed out loud at some of the self-important overwrought dialogue in the movie. I know Ed Wood is often held up as one of the worst directors of all times (a fact I disagree with), but believe me Ed Wood doesn't have anything over Michael Raven's Watchers. Either porn movies have gotten better in the last 10 years or someone got paid off for those awards. Watchers deserves a D but since it did provide me with a lot of unintentional laughs and a lot of fun yelling WTF at the TV, I'm going kick it up to a D+

Watchers starring: Sydnee Steele, Katja Kean, Randy Spears, Mr. Marcus, Chennin Blanc, Julie Meadows, Shay Sweet, George Kaplan, Tavalia Griffin, Tracks Am7, Danny Wallace, Greg Wayne, Evan Stone, Mike Horner, Chris Cannon, Eric Masterson, Pat Myne, Dillion Day, Jim Enright and directed by Michael Raven