Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 20th, 2007
If it’s 1977, this must be softcore, and so it is. Vanessa is a another lush sexual travelogue, dug up from the archives and given a rather spiffy release from Severin. Yet another product cast in the Emmanuelle mould, Vanessa has its titular heroine leave her convent home (gee, what sort of nonsense do you think we find out happened there?) after she comes into a large inheritance. Flying to Hong Kong, she finds out that this inheritance consists of a chain of high-end brothels. Cue the exotic locations and varied sexual encounters. There’s nothing hugely striking or original about any of this, but as an example its type, it’s quite handsomely mounted, makes some eyebrow-raising use of classical music, and has a couple of scenes that (almost) reach a (kind of) frenzy (all proportions maintained).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on September 4th, 2007
Sometimes when you sit down to review a dvd, you are treated to a fantasy. However, sometimes that fantasy isn't all it seems and leaves you with a blank expression and curious feelings of being unfulfilled (kinda like that marriage I had). Anyhow, I took the dubious task of reviewing Lesbian Sex & Sexuality, a television show that is on the here! network who also bring you such fine shows such as Dante's Cove. (okay; so I gave Season 2 a 2 out of 5, who's counting?) The show is very simple and has a very provocative premise. That premise is to take a mostly uncensored (I'll explain later) look at the secret and rarely explained world of lesbian sex. All kinds of subjects would be explored from fantasies to erotic dancers to the ever popular porn films. No stone and no position would be left untouched. No girl either. Men, well...anyhow the show is broken down into six half-hour episodes across two discs.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on June 2nd, 2007
I must really love this job. That's the only explanation as to why I keep reviewing for this site. Then I get across my desk a copy of Dante's Cove - The Complete Second Season. (I guessed I missed the first one). On the cover they show three quite buff men (in the background two women, hey that's Tracy Scoggins), all with pants being a little too low. Uh-oh. *flips to the back*; oh geez is that two men kissing, *sigh*, it is. From the here! network for openly gays and lesbians comes the guilty pleasure show; Dante's Cove, a soap opera that let's just say really pushes the envelope.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 19th, 2007
Cupt Epics here presents five films identified as "underground" (a fluid term at the best of times). Certainly, they are all deliberately transgressive, though not all are equally successful. Two are by Nico B. - the perviously released "Pig" and "Hollywood Babylon." The former has been reviewed here before, but briefly, its catalogue of murder and S&M horrors, working out a killer's fantasies, is rather too self-conscious about its own transgression. The latter is a 4-minute tribute to Kenneth Anger, taking in exhibits at the Museum of Death.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on March 9th, 2007
In a New York forever conscious of the shadow of 9/11, we follow the sex lives and tribulations of a group of gay and straight characters. There’s the gay couple whose relationship is hitting a rocky patch. There’s the professional dominatrix who is finding it more and more difficult to face her work. And there’s the sex therapist who’s never had an orgasm. Her quest for same brings her into contact with the other characters, and to Shortbus, an eccentric sex club.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 12th, 2006
Jewel Shepard is Christina Von Belle, "The Playgirl of the Western World," which means she takes her clothes off a lot and has plenty of sex. She jets around from one European location to another, engaging in the previously mentioned activities. Something of an adventure plot kicks in when she is kidnapped by guerilla lesbians, and is subjected to rather odd bondage games (what's with the toy cars and trucks being driven over her body?).The plot isn't enough to actually make the film interesting, though, and Shepard might be willing to take her clothes off, but isn't so willing to act. I've seen planks of wood deliver more passionate love scenes.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 12th, 2006
Nervy enough to claim to be an updating of the classic 1950 film La Ronde, this late-night-cable-fodder does borrow that film's structure as we move from one erotic anecdote to another, with a character from one story taking us into another, and so on, creating a chain of narratives involving rich people gettin' it on. I used the word "erotic" because everybody gets nekkid, but the charge the film carries is negligible. Thinks of it as a bad Robert Altman film with worse dubbing.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on December 7th, 2006
In a live action sequence, Mother Goose (Hal Smith in drag) is hauled before the court to account for herself. She proceeds to inflame the passions of those present with a series of raunchy tales. These are animated, and we find out what Jack really found up on that beanstalk, how Cinderella really impressed the Prince, and what sort of, er, encounters a not-so-Little Red Riding Hood had on her way to Grandma's house.There is some wit here (see the coda to Cinderella's story, for instance), but for the most part, the film is (surprise, surprise) crude in every sense of the word.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 28th, 2006
Four young women (including Lina Romay in her Candy Coster persona) arrive at beach resort. They plan to pick up plenty of men for sex, but if none are available, as they're in a Jess Franco film, they'll make do with each other. They see no one else around, except for the odd manager (Robert Foster) and the even more bizarre gardener. At first they think nothing of the town's deserted nature, but gradually they realize something is wrong, and it has to do with the nearby monastery, where undead Cathars vent their frustration with their cursed state by raping and killing our heroines.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 27th, 2006
Alice (Lina Romay under her blonde pseudonym "Candy Coster") is haunted by erotic nightmares involving the Princess Obongo (the Amazonian Ajita Wilson). She therefore has her misgivings when she is ordered by her boss to travel to a remote island and sell some real estate to that very person. Doubts notwithstanding, off she goes (got up in an outfit I've never seen a real estate agent wear before) to play Jonathan Harker to Obongo's Dracula. On the island, she falls under the Obongo's spell, and becomes emmeshed in a web of sex, rituals and magic.
