DARK ANGELS 1

The movie opens with a vampire (Ginger Paige) going to a club, finding a man and having sex with him in the bathroom before feeding on him. What is it with porn directors and bathrooms? It seems that over the years I have seen many sex scenes shot in bathrooms, and this scene is shot in a particulary foul looking bathroom.

The Queen vampire (Sydnee Steele) finds her and is upset because of the mess Ginger has made in a public place. Sydnee Steele gets picked up by Mike Horner, who thinks that she's a hooker, and they go park in a dark spot and have sex in his car. There's some great camera work here with different angles shot inside and from outside the car.

Jewel de Nyle runs out of gas and while walking, finds Sydnee feeding on Mike. Jewel goes to the police, who doubt her story, except for one detective who appears to take her story a little more seriously and he takes her home.

At home, Jewel falls asleep and dreams that she is having sex with Sydnee and is bitten and infected. When she awakes, she finds that it wasn't a dream, but that she has actually been bitten. She calls the police, but by the time they get to her house and get her to a hospital, she is too weak and dies and her body is taken down to the hospital morgue.

In the morgue, she awakens as a vampire and the morgue attendant has sex with her. I don't know about other people, but if I worked at a morgue and a body came back to life, I don't think having sex with that body would be the first thing on my mind. The first thing on my mind would be: "Feets do your stuff".

After killing the morgue attendant and taking his clothes, Jewel goes back home. At home she is restless so she calls a taxi, forces the driver out and drives herself to the vampire's nest. I'm assuming that since she is now a vampire she can sense where the nest is located, since no explanation is given. Little does she know that she is being followed by the detective.

At the nest, the vampires try to convince her that being a vampire is great and they show her a couple of captives they are going to have sex with and feed from. But Jewel isn't buying it and kills one of the vampires by pushing her on some sharp logs. The other vampires start to attack Jewel, but she has a gun and they back off. I'm not sure why the vampires are afraid of the gun, since in most vampire lore bullets are not a deterrent to vampires.

The detective has gotten waylaid by another vampire forcing him to have sex with her (well, I don't think he really resisted that much!). This vampire tries to bite him, but he resists and the vampire runs off. The detective meets up with Jewel and they fight and kill off the other vampires......and then???????? Sorry, don't won't to spoil the ending.

My understanding is that this movie was shot in parts over a few months and I think this gave the director much more time to realize a complete story. The first few sex scenes flow as part of the story, not something just inserted into the story, this is a refreshing change from most porn movies. While this doesn't hold up through the whole movie (the scene where the detective has to stop and have sex in the alley, being a prime example) there are enough scenes like this to make Dark Angels 1 stand out from the normal crowd.

While there are some shaky parts to the movie - the morgue scene, the vampires afraid of bullets, a vampire that is killed by glass through the heart; overall this is one of the better non-comedy features that I have seen this year. While not perfect, it comes pretty damn close. I'm giving this one an B+

Dark Angels 1 starring Sydnee Steele, April, Jewel De'Nyle, McKayla, Ginger Paige, April Flowers, George Kaplan, McKayla Matthews, Voodoo Child, Phylisha Ryder, Evan Stone, Erik Everhard, Mike Horner, Mickey G., Dillion Day and directed by Nic Andrews

Layout

The basic plot of the movie revolves around a magazine called AVG (Adult Video Guide) and the movie is meant to be a take on AVN (Adult Video News). The back of the box blurb: "Hollywood, CA - A young reporter accepts a position at adult trade mag powerhouse AVG, and becomes immersed in the strange world where pornography and journalism meet. Gradually he grows from an eager cub reporter into a sophisticated writer, surviving the distractions and pitfalls one would expect in the pornalism game...like full-on bondage and non-stop, hardcore anal sex...stop the presses! Briana Banks is the lead ... Tom Byron's the sidebar ... and Paul Thomas is at the desk. Any resemblance to AVN is purely intentional."

The movie's purpose was either to rip open the world of porn journalism and show us how things work behind the scenes or have us see how kinky these people all are. While both of these themes may be of interest to those working in the world of porn journalism, it didn't do a lot for me.

The best part of the plot was Kylie Ireland, playing a retired superstar trying to make a comeback She seduces AVG reporter Marcos Leon as part of her scheme to gain favorable press coverage.

Layout includes a couple of "on the set" porn shoots. The outdoor one is horrible and shot badly. The indoor one - The Three Muskatettes with Hillary Scott, Brooke Haven, Briana Banks, and Evan Stone was much better. And of course, our man Evan, gets to play dress up.

The movie was shot on film (and I think part video). There are some parts of the film that are dark and grainy. If you're going to shoot on film and can't have good lighting, why bother.

My only other comment on the movie is "When did Tom Byron get old!"

I appreciate the fact that Paul Thomas does strive to put more content into his movies than some directors; however, I would still grade Layout as only an average modern day porn movie.

Layout starring Penny Flame, Hillary Scott, Briana Banks, Haley Scott, Kylie Ireland, Brooke Haven, Marcos Leon, Joey, Barry Scott, Evan Stone, Tom Byron, Jerry, Kurt Lockwood, Tyce Bune and directed by Paul Thomas.

ON THE COVER of THE ROLLING STONE

Ok, Sasha Grey didn't really make the cover of The Rolling Stone, actually, her name didn't even make the cover, just the title of the article "The Dirtiest Girl in Porn".

I imagine this article was published because of Sasha's upcoming roll in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience.

Anyway, I just wanted to give a "heads up" to any readers of this blog, since I thought the article would be of interest to them.


Although, you can't read The Dirtiest Girl In Porn" online, you can read The Story Behind The Story. The most interesting part of "The Story Behind The Story" are the online comments.