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Reviews

Star Trek: Discovery: Project Daedalus
(2019)
Episode 9, Season 2

Treachery
Quite a bit is explained in this episode, where Admiral Cornwell has Pike and his crew journey to the headquarters of Section 31 for a showdown. The viewer is made aware of treachery by one of the crew members, and by the segment's climax, Burnham must save the day with a fatal decision: the destruction of a commander crewmate versus allowing an Artificial Intelligence to obtain a massive transfer of data that could facilitate the end of all sentient life in the galaxy.

Substantial tension is built up in Michelle Paradise's script, and there's plentiful interplay between the major characters, including Spock and Burnham. Also included is a scary battle of the Discovery versus illegal land mines and a considerable raising of the stakes inherent in our intrepid crew fighting for survival.

Four Star Playhouse: The Bomb
(1954)
Episode 22, Season 2

Blake's suspenser
One of Blake Edwards' first directorial assignments, made for "Four Star Playhouse", "The Bomb" is a quite distinctive entry in the "ticking time bomb" genre. With his customary sharp dialogue, it takes a highly contrived situation and breathes fresh life into it.

Set in London in 1946, it presents a romantic triangle: Margaret Sheridan is set to marry John Dehner the next day, and her adventurer boyfriend David Niven returns and is informed of this bad news (for him). He pranks poor Dehner and somehow the trio find themselves holed up (after their car gets stuck) in a bombed-out house left from the blitz, and Niven must defuse a huge unexploded German bomb, ticking away, before it goes off.

Even at this early stage of his career, Edwards provides sophisticated entertainment, highlighted by star Niven's breezy manner, even in the midst of a dire situation. Sheridan co-starred in the classic "The Thing" and vaguely resembles Roth Roman, while it's fun to see Dehner in a suave but "weakling" role.

Blake's in-joke: Dehner's character name is Quine, repeated endlessly in the script Edwards wrote here, a reference to Richard Quine, who directed several of Blake's movie screenplays.

Route 66: Between Hello and Goodbye
(1962)
Episode 29, Season 2

Non sequiturs galore
For the second week in a row, writer Stirling Silliphant comes up with an unsuccessful gimmick episode, this time with George Maharis MIA.

Susan Oliver stars, and gets to act and overact in dual roles as sisters, both of whom are crazy. The platinum blonde one picks up Milner at Shelly's Manne-Hole jazz club, where he has a fist fight normally reserved for the missing Maharis.

Dialogue is dominated by Susan, who speaks mainly in non sequiturs, with Milner trying to match or even outdo her off-the-wall cryptic references. It gives writer Silliphant a chance to show off, but comes off as mostly silly.

The amusement park setting is full of atmosphere, and the occasional tilted camera (from director David Lowell Rich) offer some style in a story seemingly out of the Hitchcock bag (with some incest tones and "Marnie" psychology), but I was thinking more of Orson Welles, and "Lady from Shanghai".

The central gimmick about the sisters is given away crudely near the beginning via a phone call, and another phone call poorly delivers exposition on why George isn't here -he's off ailing in the hospital. Milner has two jobs, working at the amusement park and haplessly trying to sell Los Angeles homes for $150,000 a shot (a reminder of 60 years of inflation). A minor car chase of his Corvette after Susan's Caddy convertible is unexciting, and the freeze-frame flashback structure reminded me of Chris Marker's classic short film "La Jetee", but that movie was released AFTER this episode aired.

Winchester
(2018)

Helen & Snook
Fan films are a relatively new phenomenon, with many a young Tom, Dick or Harry feeling impelled to emulate "Star Wars" or whatever. On a professional level, the Spierig Brothers working with relatively modest (but decent) budgets try the same gimmick, and with boring results in "Winchester".

It's a relatively subdued (read: boring) supernatural horror film elaborating on the traditional haunted house genre, but with modern shock effects incorporated. Casting Jason Clarke as the central player, through which one watches the action, ensures a tedious result, as a more charismatic actor might have brought the movie to life.

I enjoy this genre, and was mightily impressed when I saw "What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?" in first-run in 1962, yes, over six decades ago. This Robert Aldrich classic set in motion a revival of horror movies with a camp element, usually featuring femme stars from an earlier cinema era. Here we have Helen Mirren, very convincing, but the dead-serious approach was a bad idea -there is room for not merely comic relief. But even self-deprecatory humor by Helen and the future star Sarah "Succession" Snook to inject. Heck, with Bruce Spence in the cast the potential for black humor or simply oddball shtick would have helped.

Experienced Vol. 1
(2024)

Excellent femme cast
Kayden Kross features some fabulous MILFs in this DVD of four vignettes from her MILFY label.

Natasha Nice fans will be thrilled with "Doubles", in which she seduces two horny and quite surprised workers at her athletic club, after they've been ogling her like crazy. The outdoor 3-way with strong double penetrations is quite impressive.

Some fine acting is delivered by Melissa Stratton in "Who's the Boss", directed by Ken Shiro. She plays Victor Ray's haughty boss, very glamorously styled, who is pleasantly surprised when the subservient worm turns and suddenly dominates her sexually. Reagan Foxx is quite convincing as the much older woman who seduces Dan Damage in "Take Care of You" -she's his best friend's mom who he's known since he was a youngster.

For sheer star power, it's hard to top Brandi Love & Maitland Ward in "Close to Home". They portray a couple of cougars who get it on with new neighbor stud Chocolate Rod (aka Chocolate God), as a sort of birthday present from Brandi to Maitland, while Ward's hubby is away.

Naked City: Requiem for a Sunday Afternoon
(1961)
Episode 10, Season 3

A total misfire
A sentimental episode of "Naked CIty", one of those to balance out those gritty, downbeat segments. Unfortunately, the series' story supervisor Howard Rodman wrote one of the poorest scripts imaginable.

That very familiar character actor Jay Novello stars as a shoemaker whose young, beautiful wife Marisa Pavan is cheating on him. He gets violent with the other man, and no one in his ethnic community wants to cooperate with the cops to testify what happened.

Burt Reynolds, near the beginning of his career, makes a good impression in the small role of the other man, and fiery Marisa Pavan is a commanding presence on screen - she could have been a big star (thnk Loren or more similar to her - Penelope Cruz) with a little more luck and better roles.

The police show up again in the final reel at the ludicrous climax set in Central Park, where Novello confronts his wayward wife before she can go full-porno in a 3-way with two young men she picks up on the roof (writer Rodman at his worst!).

The acting is fine, but the stereotyped characters and situations seem to be torn from some medieval play, not the realism of 1961 NYC. Among many low points for me is the role of a local priest, who instead of helping poor Novello spouts some antiquated claptrap about the sanctity of marriage.

Teachers Vol. 1
(2024)

Learning from MILFs
These four MILFY segments are quite lightweight - silly and brief set-up scenes prior to the older/younger action.

Usually Kayden Kross, head honcho for the label, provides the best content but for this DVD her segment is the weakest. Set in a laundromat, recently graduated students Blake Blossom and Apollo Banks spot their former sex ed teacher Sarah Jessie in a laundromat, who chides them on their sexual inexperience. She decides to teach them right there in front of the washing machines, a very silly excuse for a 3-way.

WC Walker's vignette is titled "An Opening", with his former high school teacher Tanya Tate finding Codey Steele shooting pool in a bar and picks him up. Next morning, he wakes up with no memory of the evening, and she informs him that he was dead drunk and that they didn't have sex. But she disrobes and has a morning quickie with the kid. Tate's cool manner and fine acting make the scene work.

The other two scenes were directed by Jay Rogue. "After School Special" features sex in a classroom, as during detention, teacher Millie Morgan decides to teach naughty student Parker Ambrose about female anatomy, after he was caught making rude gestures with a female skeleton in a science class. She's an unusual MILF, tall and slim, making the dumb scene watchable.

Jay's "Soft Power" is sort of a war of wills, as handyman Nathan Bronson visits Lexi Luna's house to install a microwave, still mad that she flunked him back in high school. They spar verbally, clearly disliking each other, but when Nathan outsmarts her (she tries to get him fired, not knowing he's his own boss), she decides to get back at him via seduction. As usual, Lexi is sexy.

Trans Intimacy
(2024)

The usual
Three Oopsie! Scenes, all of them lesbian threesomes, are featured in this VOD, nothing special. For fans, Izzy Wilde stars in two of them.

In "Eye on the Prize", what we get is a crummy set purportedly showing a video arcade with a large glass machine recreating those cheat 'em games of yesteryear in which the player tries to fetch a plush toy by manipulating a tiny crane device set to drop the toy when grabbed in its metal pincers.

The scene's set-up lasts barely a minute as Lulu Chu tries to play the game while Trans stars Izzy Wilde and big-dicked Zariah Aura horse around sexually nearby.

First tease gimmick has Zariah sticking her cock through a glory hole in the machine for Lulu to suck, but almost immediately the trio devolve into a lesbian threesome, with Izzy getting her posterior reamed by Zariah, but mainly Lulu servicing her two co-stars. In place of dialogue is some pornspeak, and the finale of Izzy cumming in Lulu's mouth while Zariah gives her a creampie is totally fake.

In "Night Classes", Izzy Wilde is "all growed up", no longer a waif wearing braces but now cast as the "older woman" teacher of a night class in Adult-Ed Economics, attended by Leana Lovings (odd casting for adult education as she still looks underage) and newcomer Little Puck, a busty lookalike for fans of Mercedes Carrera.

The set-up scene, in tried and true slient pantomime/slapstick form, gets down to business almost immediately as within a minute Izzy has delivered a couple of sight gags, not wearing any knickers under her skirt and putting a wad of confiscated bubble gum on her erect cock for Leana to suck, plus handing Puck a large strap-on dildo for Puck to immediately peg the teacher standing up.

So the full half-hour of f*cking that follows, with Izzy talking almost constantly in her familiar improv fashion, is rather dull, merely with series director Stella Smut putting the gals through their frequent "change positions" motions. Finale is not the expected (nowadays) creampie but rather a throwback to early porn: Izzy simulating on her face the throes of an orgasm, with her dick in Puck's mouth, followed by Puck dribbling lots of cum all over herself, fake as can be.

This points up a major "Oopsie!" drawback -it's not effectively comedic, unless a closeup of bubblegum on top of an erect dick is inherently a knee-slapper, while the usual porn result of an actual money shot or perhaps a convincing creampie is absent. The absence of "story" and characterizations remains a given.

Boring and repetitive best describe "Not Too Hard, Not Too Soft", poorly directed by Siouxsie Q and Michael Vegas. It's 100% gonzo filler.

Popular TS stars Ariel Demure and Emma Rose are shopping at a boutique-size store (cheap set) for beds and linens, and they try out the merchandise, with salesgirl Siri Dahl attracted to their dicks. The pair of helmers waste little time: after a minute or two the pantomime gives way to a lesbian threesome. There's no dialogue at all, just some pornspeak and grunting.

Siri is now, a decade after her naturally big-bust heyday, a big-butt star instead; in fact, her two trnas-female co-stars have bigger and better looking breasts than she has now. Both Ariel and Emma fake their ejaculations: Ariel's is a pretend creampie (no evidence shown, not even the usual fake dripping cum) and when Emma supposedly cums on Siri's face it's invisible: shown in long shot in let's pretend mode.

Single Minded: Episode Two
(2024)
Episode 2, Season 1

Poorly done
The bachelorette party femmes head to a strip club in Episode Two, a completely lame mixture of antics and XXX sex.

In a relatively large dialogue role as the club bouncer, Big Tre's acting is miserable, and we have to suffer through a fortunately brief ridiculous "simulated sex" of him and heroine Sinatra Monroe culminating in a fake cum-laden "spit take" by Ms. Monroe.

Co-stars Nicole Doshi and Baby Gemini head to a backstage dressing room in search of sex with male stripper King Noire, but end up in a 3-way with club manager John Strong instead.

Poor continuity has bouncer Tre throwing unruly Codi Vore out of the club, yet in the next scene she's still inside, and her "return" is saved till the end of the episode. Bunny Madison is wasted playing the groom's sister who is out to block the marriage due to her dislike of Sinatra.

Single Minded: Episode One
(2024)
Episode 1, Season 1

XXX girls gone wild
Hack director Marvin Love strikes again with another Digital Playground clunker, titled "Single Minded". It's an attempted rom-com (minus any successful laughs) about a bachelorette party loaded with femme actresses doing vulgar routines when not f*cking.

Sinatra Monroe stars as the bride to be, with Jason Pierce in a minor role as her prospective groom. Lengthy (almost an hour long) opening segment has the bachelorette party with two male strippers (Charles Dera and Dante Colle) showing up and having group sex with the four female stars.

Redhead Sinatra is appealing but stuck in a lousy role by the uncredited (and untalented) screenwriter. Codi Vore tries to be a scene stealer, but unfortunately her hyped recent breast reduction surgery receives a thumbs down from me: instead of her sexy, floppy mega-tits, she now has normal sized firm ones that are quite fake looking, and alarmingly her alluring large natural aureolae are gone! Watching Colle I was reminded of his being made a laughingstock recently on the CNN comedy series "Have I Got News for You", probably his introduction to mainstream viewers.

Yellowstone: Desire Is All You Need
(2024)
Episode 9, Season 5

Two in one
After a hiatus of nearly two years, "Yellowstone" resumes Season Five with this much-hyped transitional episode. It presents the various dramatics and conflicts facing the main characters, book-ended awkwardly (with one of those "Five Weeks Earlier" cards) by footage tying up the fate of the central character John Dutton and bringing up to date the resolve of daughter Beth to settle the score with the villains, notably her brother and, in a fine performance with her evil smile evident, his controller played by Dawn Olivieri.

The tone of the two sets of footage: present day versus five weeks earlier, is drastically different, as the wraparound is sombre and threatening, to prepare the audience for mayhem to come. I infer from this that a rewrite or possibly even elements of reshooting occurred after star/exec producer Kevin Costner's decision to head for the exit -likely informed by his desire to embark on his ill-fated 3-picture (and costly) Western project "Horizon" -meant a quick removal of John Dutton from the scenario. I have no doubt that had Costner been more cooperative, then Taylor Sheridan would have meticulously built up to a grand exit for the fan favorite character. Instead, he is summarily and unsatisfyingly offed off-screen.

I look forward to future installments of the show, resolving the conflicts inherent in Sheridan's saga of tradition versus change.

Happier Than Ever
(2024)

What? Again?
Adult Time waited only two weeks to reissue a pair of vignettes from Girlsway under a different VOD title, with a fresh segment added.

That newbie is titled "Happier Without You", a poorly written excuse for four young porn babes to have sex together on screen -the old quantity over quality issue.

It's transparent premise has Bella Rolland visiting ex-girlfriend Charlotte Sins at the home they used to share in order to pick up her belongings. She rather blatantly brings her new girlfriend, Alexis Tae, with her and makes a big show of PDAs with her to get back at Charlotte.

Charlotte conveniently has HER new girlfriend, alarmingly pale Hazel Moore, sitting on the couch, and soon we have each couple making out at separate ends of the couch to try and outdo each other.

It's silly, and gets dumber when the old lovers suddenly decide to patch things up, leading immediately to a daisy chain of all four of them having group sex. Lesson: have a very long couch available for just such a development.

The others were released in October 2024 on the VOD titled "Prepping Her". "Prepping Her for College". The sex makes up for a rather poor story by Penicio Del Toro in this Girlsway vignette, which features a third, NonSex, player with very little added value to the scene.

Freya Parker, after taking a gap year after high school, is college scouting, accompanied by her older sister Jay Taylor. Jay introduces her to her college girlfriend Haley Reed, and while Jay is away answering a phone call, Freya and Haley chat, with Freya dropping the fact that she's still a virgin. Haley seduces Freya in record time, and Parker doesn't bother to stay in character (as a virgin) while they hump away on the couch. Both girls look a bit sheepish when Jay returns to the living room.

At age 33, Jay Taylor has little to nothing to do in this vignette, and unfortunately she might be aging out (of starring roles) in an industry where youth plus MILFs reign supreme. She's an in-betweener.

"How to Catch a Coworker" benefits from a different structure: The show opens with delightful Charlie Forde in a solo masturbation scene, recording herself as bait for her coworker Summer Col to find on her laptop as a turn-on.

The trick works, and soon the coworkers are going at it hot and heavy on Charlie's couch. In essence, the fans get to enjoy two sex scenes for the price of one here.

I have seen Charlie in so many porn videos lately that now Jodie Comer reminds me of her rather than vice versa. I'm still waiting for talented Charlie to crossover into mainstream acting roles, which she obviously could handle if offered same.

Buddy System
(2024)

A couple of 3-ways
This Adult Time VOD is unusually light-hearted in terms of Pure Taboo content, meant to be tongue-in-cheek.

Title scene jumps off from the ongoing huge Broadway hit "The Book of Mormon". This time, MILF Dee Williams regularly cheats on her husband with Mormon boys who visit her home in pairs to spread the Gospel (and jizm).

Celtic Iron is the veteran taking newbie teen Josh Rivers along as he visits Dee, and once Josh realizes they're there for sex rather than their missionary assignment, he refuses to participate. But fan favorite Dee's charms eventually win him over for a standard threesome on her living room couch, leading to a couple of money shots.

Most Pure Taboo segments end with a mean, negative mood, while this one is strictly tongue in cheek porn. Celtic Iron's Irish accent comes and goes - he's strictly a gonzo performer.

Ricky Spanish has fun playing a sleazeball for a change in typically misogynistic Pure Taboo story "Healthy Relationships". As directed in assembly-line fashion by the Anatomik Media couple, it's phony all the way.

Set at the "Immoral Proposal" mansion (though the entrance is in the back of the building rather than its imposing front double doors), it has Chad Alva as a sex therapist treating teen couple Laney Grey and Ricky Spanish.

She is hesitant to go the next step and have sex with him, and the mean-spirited gimmick here is that Chad has been bribed by Ricky to put on an act of being professional, when he's there merely to get Ricky laid (and be paid handsomely by Ricky's dad).

Laney is convincing as the shy young lass who's being bamboozled, but as usual she steps completely out of character once the gonzo sex unfolds, and Chad joins in for a threesome. Script by hack Midnight is quite poor, lacking any suspense.

My Crazy British Academy
(2024)

Lowering standards
Disanto is a UK director who has cranked out literally thousands of porn scenes over the years, often crafting quite good films. This recent Private video is classified as a "movie", but it's merely three hours of crudely made sex footage, quite a comedown for the director.

The gimmick is showing Euro porn actresses supposedly in England to learn the king's English, but all they do is chat with British studs, with very heavy accents, and have extended sex scenes. Everyone seems to be "winging it" and in the vein of Seinfeld (I'm kidding) what results is a video about nothing.

I felt sorry for Candie Luciani, looking a bit forlorn as she is literally covered in cum by a couple of studs, and also felt the other girls were treated here as sex workers rather than actresses. I'm sure that Disanto would admit that this sort of mindless filler is about all that can be expected working with today's austerity porn budgets. Niceties like storytelling and acting have been dispensed with.

Girlsway Originals: Happier Without You
(2024)
Episode 21, Season 10

Sappy
This Girlsway opus is a poorly written excuse for four young porn babes to have sex together on screen -the old quantity over quality issue.

It's transparent premise has Bella Rolland visiting ex-girlfriend Charlotte Sins at the home they used to share in order to pick up her belongings. She rather blatantly brings her new girlfriend, Alexis Tae, with her and makes a big show of PDAs with her to get back at Charlotte.

Charlotte conveniently has HER new girlfriend, alarmingly pale Hazel Moore, sitting on the couch, and soon we have each couple making out at separate ends of the couch to try and outdo each other.

It's silly, and gets dumber when the old lovers suddenly decide to patch things up, leading immediately to a daisy chain of all four of them having group sex. Lesson: have a very long couch available for just such a development.

Oiled and Wet Mommy
(2024)

She's hot!
Vivianne DeSilva is added to the MissaX roster of beauties in this slow and sensual Stepmom sex scene. She looks really terrific covered in oil as her stepson Nick Strokes massages her.

Vignette also benefits from being shot at the "Immoral Proposal" mansion, making good use of the attractive setting. Story has Nick playing a layabout kid who doesn't look for a job or take care of himself, relying on mommy too much. When he turns over a new leaf and is more attentive, Vivianne superbly seduces him, to fill the lack of sexual fulfillment provided by his neglectful dad.

With pornography today almost entirely from the "Wham bam!" gonzo school, it's refreshing to watch a slow, meticulous 20-minute buildup before the inevitable half hour of XXX content begins.

Woman with a Plus
(2024)

Deceptive?
This Adult Time VOD consists of three "Oopsie!" scenes, but two of them were already issued this year on the Devil's Film DVD titled "Push My Buttons", also an Adult Time label. Unwary customers might find out too late that they've already paid for the earlier release.

"Alley Oopsie" is the scene not previously on DVD/VOD. Slapstick on the basketball court is the topic of this "Oopsie!" episode, okay slapstick and another chance for the fans to watch the darling of the silly-porn genre, plumper Codi Vore.

Codi seems to do double-takes in every one of her porn vignettes, a silent era comedienne for the 21st Century. Her huge floppy tits are always the center of attention, especially when surrounded here by take-your-pick tattooed ladies: tall Rocky Emerson as a referee and dick-laden Gracie Jane as the inevitable trans lady.

They horse around on the basketball court playing Horse and then head indoors for a threesome. Sexually it's rather vanilla, but there's enough enthusiasm by the trio of actresses to make up for the mindless all-sex, pornspeak-only scenario.

"Push My Buttons" (which gave Devil's Film its overall DVD title) features a high energy trio of actresses. It's in the currently overdone "Stuck" school of porn, best evidenced in many a scene from competing label Brazzers. The action gets going, in slapstick-styled pantomime, with busty Summer Hart getting stuck in the elevator doors of an office building, with TS superstar Izzy Wilde pounding her pussy from behind inside the elevator while security guard Kasey Kei fills Summer's mouth with her cock from the outside.

The trio go at it nonstop and their spirit is infectious. The two trans meet one cis female is the most popular one for an "Oopsie!" romp and though director Stella Smut is definitely stuck in a rut this cast makes it work on a gonzo level.

"Club Swinger" is extremely poor, right from the mandatory silent-movie opening pantomime in which co-director Michael Vegas himself, bearing one of his silliest hairdos yet, tries to act with the ladies, to the dull lesbian threesome action involving Gracie Jane, Zariah Aura and Kenzie Taylor. It's not erotic, just mechanical sex footage culminating in a totally fake creampie shot. Siouxsie Q co-directed.

Transfixed: Serendipity Cafe
(2024)
Episode 176, Season 1

Great chemistry, period
TS star Emma Rose and Leana Lovings demonstrate (CLICHE ALERT!) "great chemistry" in this otherwise mediocre Transfixed segment. Another alert to porn fans: no money shot, just a couple of actresses feigning an internal emission, about as dirty/censorable as Meg Ryan's comically fake orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally".

What constitutes a very brief "story" is Leana in a cafe ordering a blueberry muffin, and recognizing waitress Emma as an old college friend she hasn't seen in years. Leana lets drop that she's a lawyer now, which I took to be a dumb hint that a porn feature titled "Legally Brunette" is in her future. As Emma is closing up the establishment, Leana seduces her instantly and the XXX content begins.

Ricky Greenwood directed in his sleep, and trans lesbian porn fans got another weekly helping of sex from the Transfixed label.

Danger Man: Find and Destroy
(1961)
Episode 35, Season 1

Offbeat and silly segment
Pat goes on vacay to Rio De Janeiro in this peculiar segment, so poorly done as to suggest an attempt at comic relief.

He improvises on a non-mission when a commander from British intelligence commandeers him to blow up a lost experimental submarine that has washed ashore and could be of great value to enemy agents.

A fine movie director Charles Frend is credited with this junker, which has many things wrong with it. The cast's accents vary and do not match the Rio setting; beach scenes are shot in the studio and there's no atmosphere of Brazil at all; and Pat's acting is miserable. None of the characters' behavior is believable and the ending is especially stupid.

One very odd element is the casting of Peter Sallis as Henry Gordon, Pat's boss back in America, and Helen Horton in a sort of Miss Moneypenny role. They comfortably play in the opening scene as if they were good old series regulars on "Danger Man", but this is their only appearance, near the end of the only 30-minute length season.

Even stranger, either a coincidence or more likely an item worth researching, is the fact that leading lady Nadja Regin co-starred in a minor British movie in 1962, a year after this episode aired, titled "Number Six", based on a 1928 novel by Edgar Wallace. The title Number Six referred to a mysterious secret agent. Sounds familiar? Of course, Patrick McGoohan starred as the iconic secret agent Number Six in his classic 1967 TV series "The Prisoner". Hmm...

Lawmen: Bass Reeves: Part VIII
(2023)
Episode 8, Season 1

Wishful thinking
The finale seemed forced to me, especially given that the filmmakers had two books to work with and obviously a legend to inspire them.

The quest for Bass to have a reckoning with Mr. Sundown made for some well-staged violence at the climax. Barry Pepper did a terrific job of creating a villain filled with contradictions, and the detailing of his somewhat majestic home and even a dinosaur skull amidst his animal trophies added some exotic touches.

But the resolution of his wife's story was extremely contrived and unsatisfying, especially as so much methodical buildup showing her daughter and family in a dangerous situation during Bass's absence was not properly resolved. The finale was a hokey attempt at a happy ending which did not fit the material.

Lesbian Seductions 80
(2024)

Bland romances
There's a sameness to the four vignettes that make up the 80th edition of this popular Girlfriends series that detracts from enjoying this 3-hour VOD.

With wimpy piano or guitar music in the background, each vignette has a girl delivering voice-over narration as she lusts after another woman, often a roommate, and even masturbates as she watches her or just thinks about her. Ovecoming timidity, she tells the lady and instead of a prolonged seduction (with some resistance), it's instant sex time. As porn has reduced the "story/dialogue" component to a brief minimum, the effectiveness of a sex scene diminishes.

Three of the segments follow this format scrupulously. Sophia Burns eyes Gia Dibella sunbathing in her bikini, and then tells her of her infatuation, with friends becoming lovers. The oddly-named actress Katie Big Toys tells her new roommated Angel Windell she's going to move out, but Angel is flattered to learn of Katie's lust for her and suddenly they're making love. Busty Nickey Huntsman has been a roommate for a year with Nicole Aria, but they've been bickering in recent months. Yet Nickey is overwhelming attracted to her and when she says so, all recriminations are replaced with Sapphic sex.

Odd scene out has interior decorator Pristine Edge infatuated with her client Richelle Ryan (the fact that big-butt queen RR wears an exceedingly tight skirt helps explain this attraction), but is afraid to tell her for fear of ruining their professional relationship, but once she does, the voluptuous employer gives in immediately.

As a sort of "easy listening" type of porn, these eight beauties are certainly watchable, but the dramatic content that made this series work is absent here.

Pure Taboo: Healthy Relationships
(2024)
Episode 27, Season 8

Manipulation
Ricky Spanish has fun playing a sleazeball for a change in typically misogynistic Pure Taboo story. As directed in assembly-line fashion by the Anatomik Media couple, it's phony all the way.

Set at the "Immoral Proposal" mansion (though the entrance is in the back of the building rather than its imposing front double doors), it has Chad Alva as a sex therapist treating teen couple Laney Grey and Ricky Spanish.

She is hesitant to go the next step and have sex with him, and the mean-spirited gimmick here is that Chad has been bribed by Ricky to put on an act of being professional, when he's there merely to get Ricky laid (and be paid handsomely by Ricky's dad).

Laney is convincing as the shy young lass who's being bamboozled, but as usual she steps completely out of character once the gonzo sex unfolds, and Chad joins in for a threesome. Script by hack Midnight is quite poor, lacking any suspense.

Pure Taboo: Buddy System
(2024)
Episode 14, Season 8

The Book of Dee (heading for Broadway?)
The ongoing huge Broadway hit "The Book of Mormon" lends an unlikely starting point for this Pure Taboo bit of silly porn. This time, MILF Dee Williams regularly cheats on her husband with Mormon boys who visit her home in pairs to spread the Gospel (and jizm).

Celtic Iron is the veteran taking newbie teen Josh Rivers along as he visits Dee, and once Josh realizes they're there for sex rather than their missionary assignment, he refuses to participate. But fan favorite Dee's charms eventually win him over for a standard threesome on her living room couch, leading to a couple of money shots.

Most Pure Taboo segments end with a mean, negative mood, while this one is strictly tongue in cheek porn. Celtic Iron's Irish accent comes and goes - he's strictly a gonzo performer.

1923: Nothing Left to Lose
(2023)
Episode 8, Season 1

What a cliffhanger!
Taylor Sheridan works on a large canvas, with this finale of the first season of his epic "1923" building considerable tension as he creates intense drama in each of the disparate subplots of this "Yellowstone" prequel saga.

It reminded me of a Silent Era movie, especially D. W. Griffith's ambitious classic "Intolerance", which had a similar theme and structure, plus the now-antiquated setting up of Good versus Evil writ large. There's little nuance here as Sheridan piles on, with an emphasis of near-hopelessness, the tribulations of the good guys, all of whom have the odds stacked against them.

Of course, we know the Duttons and their vast ranch will survive, as this after all is a prequel, but what will happen to the other protagonists, especially the Native Americans, is left uncertain. In the capable cast, I was grateful for the participation of Bruce Davison, a terrific character actor whose work I have enjoyed ever since "Willard" and "Last Summer", cast here as an unsympathetic British royal.

Cheeky Girls
(2024)

Bottoms up!
I suppose "Cheeky" in the title signalling anal sex or at least some ass-worship in the VOD contents, but at any rate this trio of lesbian sex scenes is rather standard issue all-girl porn.

"Hold the Phone: Cheeky College Girls" has a rather silly set-up, in which Gizelle Blanco and Penelope Kay chat about planning a bake sale and profess to lots of goody-goody religious attitudes, in order to present themselves to perhaps nosy parents (likely to overhear them) a false impression. Instead, they head to the bedroom to have Sapphic sex. Not exactly what the nuns might approve of (unless this was a nunsploitation video, which it's not.

An anal fixation is prevalent in the next vignette, titled crudely: "Is That a Buttplug??". The actresses are almost upstaged by the modern decor of yet another new rental home where porn shoots can be held. Penny Barber plays Nicole Kitt's mischievous girlfriend, who has a penchant (stolen from frat boys rather than sorority girls) for pantsing her.

The tables turn, somewhat ridiculously in Penicio Del Toro's dumb script, when Nicole successfully debags Penny, only to discover that the older woman is not wearing any underwear and has a buttplug in her ass.

That buttplug inspires Nicole to seduce her pal on the spot, and the resulting sex scene is stronger stuff than usual, including Penny fisting herself. It all adds up to a hot XXX vignette, albeit a stupid one. It was previously released just one week earlier (!) in the VOD titled "Prepping Her".

"Maybe You Should Give Girls a Try!" is a title that gives away the corny plot upfront. Maya Woulfe is despondent as all her dates with boys lately have been disappointing, so her pals Alison Rey and Lilly Bell easily seduce her to have a lesbian threesome together, and all's right in Maya's world.

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