Jack & Jill (2001)

As an avowed devotee of Brad Armstrong's smaller films, as opposed to his self-agrgandizing "blockbusters", I was torn about this decades-old comedy for Wicked that has elements of both. It's a modest, 3-day shoot on cheap interiors so lacks the big-budget look, but has five superstar femmes (four of them Wicked contract girls) that instantly pegged it as a big deal.

Not so big is Armstrong's screenplay, for which he takes credit, even though in recent years he has often refrained from listing a writing credit at all on his movies. So much emphasis is placed on the sex scenes, that the dialog set-ups and characterizations remain stillborn. Contrast that with Chuck Vincent's Golden Age pair of "Jack 'n Jill" rom- coms, delightful movies (35mm) balancing humor with interesting sex antics.

So Joel Lawrence as Jack is one dull boy, hanging around as Jill's roommate and pretty much more onlooker than protagonist as he watches beautiful Serenity's free loving with such one-night stands as Ian Daniels and Dillon Day. Meanwhile, he beats off to a portrait of his estranged girl friend, leading to an erotic dream of humping her, as played by the ultra-sexy Nikita Denise, delivering anal sex as is required of virtually any Euro import girl. Even here, Brad stumbles, as he gives Nikita zero dialog, leaving her inimitable Boris & Natasha sexy accent to the "All Access" making of short subject on the DVD only.

Centerpiece of the show is a 4-girl Lesbian daisy-chain orgy teaming Serenity with even bigger stars: Stephanie Swift, Sydnee Steele and Devinn Lane, not to mention a few dildos. Of course the title couple eventually get it on at the end, in true cornball rom-com fashion.

Brad oddly spends quite a bit of time and energy on a canine co-star, Jake played by D.O.G., a typically cute scene stealer. This is mediocre filmmaking - I immediately popped DVD of Vincent's 1984 "Jack 'n Jill 2" into my player after finishing it and was rewarded with a perfect example of how this sort of material should be done.