SLEEPING AROUND

Stormy proves once again that she's a triple threat as she writes, directs and stars in the XXX romantic comedy Sleeping Around. This is a tale of two sisters: Stormy, a high powered business woman who's more interested in sex than love; and her sister Eva Angelina, a shy coffee shop employee who's more interested in love than sex.

Eva has a date with Randy Spears (in full slime ball mode) who with some smooth lines and light persistence talks Eva into bed. The next day Eva tells Stormy all about Randy and how she thinks he's the "one". Eva can't wait for him to call her again....needless to say, Randy ain't calling...as far as he was concerned, it was a one night stand. At the coffee shop, another waiter, Eric Masterson (in full geek mode) sees how despondent Eva is and jokingly offers to have Randy killed. It's pretty obvious that Eric has a big crush on Eva, but just like in any mainstream version of this type movie....she can't see it.

Stormy decides to take Eva out to a club to get her mind off Randy. At the club Van Damage offers to buy them drinks, but Stormy rudely brushes him off. In the meantime Eva has seen Randy leave the club with two other women, Haley Paige and Sammie Rhodes. Eva rushes out and follows him in her car. Stormy leaves the club to follow her sister, but finds she has a flat tire. Van offers to change it for her and we also find out that he's a doctor. While this seems to be an unimportant detail at the time, it plays into the plot later. Stormy agrees to give Van a ride home since she feels bad about how she treated him inside the club.

Back at Randy's, we find him using the same lines on his two new conquests that he used on Eva. Randy has talked Haley and Sammie into making out with each other, but the action is interrupted when he hears a knock at the door. It's Eva who has come to tell him off, but Randy just slams the door in her face. She winds up trying to drive home, but is so upset she just parks on the side of the road where she is found by Stormy and Van.

Sleeping Around skips ahead a month and we find Stormy and Van Damage in a relationship. He asks her to meet him at a restaurant where unbeknown to Stormy he is going to introduce her to his parents. Van Damage gets beeped for an emergency (see I told you, him being a doctor would come back into play), and while he's gone Stormy is hit on....by none other than....you guessed it....Randy Spears. She let's him take her back to her place, where Stormy uses the same moves Randy used on her sister. This makes Randy suspicious and he tries to get away from Stormy, but she forces him into her bedroom and handcuffs him to her bed. Stormy is dissatisfied with Randy's sexual performance and let's him know about it. Stormy leaves the bedroom and re-enters wearing a strap-on. Cut to next morning and Randy, laying on his stomach, is professing his love for Stormy, but she leaves him cold as revenge for her sister.

Stormy gets to tell Eva about exacting revenge for her and this helps Eva move on with her life. Eva finally recognized that Eric is the one for her and the final sex scene finds the two of them in his sci-fi bedroom with Eva showing up in costume to further Eric's sci-fi fantasies. Eric has a funny line here with "Houston, we have liftoff! This is just one of many funny lines throughout the movie showing Stormy's deft touch at writing light comedy.

Sleeping Around didn't break a lot of new ground for a romantic comedy, but Stormy was successfully able to use the same mainstream conventions within a XXX setting. Unlike most mainstream movies, there was a twist with Stormy's own life not working out with a "happy ever after" ending, When Van found out she had had sex with someone else, he dumped her, thus ruining her own relationship. Stormy's movies give a perspective not always seen in XXX features, that women are as powerful as men. It just so happened that the power that Stormy possessed wound up resulting in her own unhappiness. I rate this one a B+

Sleeping Around starring Eva Angelina, Stormy Daniels, Sammie Rhodes, Van Damage, Marcus London, Holly Wellin, Haley Paige, Randy Spears, Eric Masterson, Scott Styles and directed/written by Stormy Daniels

NAKED ILLUSIONS

When I saw the great artwork on the front of this box and saw that Naked Illusions was directed by Randy Spears, written by Cash Markman, and starred Carmen Hart, Katie Morgan, and Eric Masterson, I was sure this was going to be a great movie. Well, I was half right!

Brad Armstrong plays a magician who has written a bestseller exposing the secrets of magic. He is performing at a club with his assistants Devon Michaels and Carmen Hart. Eric Masterson is his agent and is having an affair with Brad's wife, Katie Morgan. While Brad is performing his act on stage, Katie and Eric have sex backstage and I have to say that this was the most uninspired sex scene I have ever seen Katie perform. During part of his disappearing act on stage, Brad sneaks backstage and kills Katie while Eric is in the shower. Although, I'm somewhat a fan of Katie's, I wasn't disappointed to find she wouldn't be in the rest of the movie, since not only her sex scene was bad but her acting was also leaving something to be desired. Brad thinks he has an ironclad alibi and he plans to pin the murder on Eric.

Devon Michaels, Brad's number one assistant, has been having an affair with Brad and once the duo arrive back at Brad's, they of course celebrate by having sex. Brad next goes to see Eric's wife, August Night, and hypnotizes her by having her look in a glass of wine. If that sounds stupid, then watch the movie, because it is STUPID. While he has her under his spell he convinces her that her husband, Eric, really did kill Katie. Brad decides to have sex with August and has her imagine someone from her past that she has always been hot for. We then get a sex scene between August and Seth Dickens.

Up to this point in Naked Illusions I was pretty disappointed in the movie. The plot was just so-so and Brad Armstrong, never the best actor in XXX to begin with, was really weak in his role. I think Brad was trying to appear super egotistical, which would have fit with his character; instead he came off as just overacting. Whatever the problem, he was really pulling the movie down. I kept thinking, why didn't Randy cast himself in this role, he would have been perfect for it.

I was determined to continue watching what I was starting to consider a really poor choice in my rental selection, when the movie turned itself around. What caused this sudden switch, I can only think it was the result of one person - Carmen Hart.

Brad sends his assistant Carmen off with Van Damage as some extra compensation for Van Damage signing Brad to a Vegas contract. Van Damage remarks that he doesn't know how this happened and thinks Brad may have hypnotized him. Since Carmen tells Van Damage that Brad always gets what he wants, we have to assume he's been hypnotizing lots of people. This probably also includes us viewers, since the magic tricks Brad performs are juvenile level tricks that really aren't very convincing for the great magician he's supposed to be. Carmen brings some heat to her sex scene, which is good, since all the previous ones in Naked Illusions had just been your standard "by the numbers" scenes.

Carmen's up again in the next scene as she confronts Brad and tells him that she knows how he killed his wife. We then see a flashback explaining how he did it. She promises not to turn him in IF she can go back to being his number one assistant, get a raise, and they can be "bad" together. HEY! It looks like she's pretty easy to please! So Brad goes along with her. This results in another sex scene which is almost, but not quite as good as Carmen's other scene.

Brad decides to double cross Carmen and he's going to kill her onstage during a "sword through the box trick", but the detective who has been on the case from the start and has always doubted Brad, catches on in the nick of time and arrests him. In a funny moment (probably the only "intentionally" humorous moment in the film), Carmen is inside the box yelling "I'll tell everything" and "let me out". No one lets her out and the last we see of her are her eyes peeking out a slit in the box and she's still yelling over and over for somebody to please get her out.

Brad is in jail, but the very end of the movie leaves some doubt in the viewers mind that he may escape the clutches of the law, OR they were setting up for a sequel, which thank goodness never occurred.

Carmen Hart brought a "double whammy" of being a good actress in her role and a good performer in her sex scenes, both together really helped save this movie from turning into a real clunker. I have yet to see any movie where she has not been excellent in both her acting and performing, so I am keeping my fingers crossed that that trend continues.

Naked Illusions was touted as being Randy Spears first direction job for Wicked and was made a year before his excellent Off The Air. I will give Randy credit for having huge chunks of plot between the sex scenes, a nice touch. Plus, the sex scenes while long, for the most part, weren't mind numbingly long, another nice touch. In my opinion, this was the worst scripted Cash Markman movie I've ever seen. The main reason for this, I believe, is that Cash is better at writing comedy than he is at writing drama. As they say in The Big Lebowski (the real one, not that travesty of a porn parody) - " You're Out of Your Element, Donnie (Cash)"

Rating: first half: D ..... Second half: B ..... Average: C

Naked Illusions starring Van Damage, Devon Michaels, Carmen Hart, Katie Morgan, Seth Dickens, August Night, Eric Masterson, Brad Armstrong and directed by Randy Spears

LAND of The AMAZONS

Here's the plot: Four hikers encounter a tribe of Amazons. While the storyline was cute and fairly humorous, the main problem was that there was very little storyline.

The sex scenes all fall mainly into the uninspired sex scenes that you can see in most pornos. Everyone gets the job done, just no passion to speak of.

There's one scene in Land of The Amazons with a performer known as Yvette. She's definitely a body builder with a super hard muscular body, so depending on your personal likes/dislikes you might find her attractive. Personally, I didn't like it and she sort of creeped me out...but hey, each to his own.

Since Land of The Amazons did have a plot (even if it wasn't much of one) and did include some well written comedic lines, I going to grade this one a C-

LAND of THE AMAZONS Starring Van Damage, Naomi Russell, Jezebelle Bond, Trent Soluri, Mikayla Mendez, Joey Valentine, Yvette, Evan Stone and directed by Daniel Dakota

NOT THREE'S COMPANY XXX

The plot: Jack loses his job as a chef, so Chrissy gets a night job to help out. Because of things overheard, the rest of the cast assume that Chrissy has become a prostitute. Just like a real Three's Company plot: Something is said...and that something is misconstrued as something else and hilarity ensues.

This is an excellent porn parody. There are several factors that all combine to make it stand out among some of the other recently released porn parodies.

I find two things to always be necessary for a good movie (porn or otherwise): Good casting and good writing and Not Three's Company has both.

The best bit of casting without a doubt is Penny Flame as Janet. With a wig, not only does she look the part but her acting will make you think she is the real Janet. Penny Flame even stays in character during her sex scene (listen to her dialog during her scene). Next best casting: Nina Hartley makes a great Mrs. Roper. Van Damage is not too bad as Jack and the same can be said for Brynn Tyler as Christie. And a special note for the outstanding non-sex role by James Bartholet as The Doctor.

An odd bit of casting is Ron Jeremy as the bartender at The Regal Beaver. This is a non-sex role and I see no particular reasoning for him being cast in this movie, except for the name recognition on the box.

An interesting tidbit about the casting: Tommy Gunn was forced to shave his mustache for the role of Larry. I say forced, since the word was that they would kill him off in the Pirates series if he didn't. So after going to all the trouble of having him shave his mustache, they give him one more super bad fake wig.

Besides the casting, the writing is so good that it made me think that it was just a long lost Three's Company script.

A few other factors add to Not Three's Company to make it such an excellent sitcum:

The sets are colorful and reminiscent of the real show.

The audience “oohs” and “aahs” and applause spots are included in the right spots and the laugh track is reminiscent of the real TV show.

The movie ends just like a Three's Co. would end: with a little break to a blackout where a commercial would normally be and returning with a bumper spot.

And to top everything off, the theme song to Not Three's Company sounds like the real theme song only with different lyrics (check it out below in the trailer)

Not Three's Company definitely grades an A.

Not Three's Company XXX starring Nina Hartley, Penny Flame, Jenny Hendrix, Roxy Jezel, Sienna West, Van Damage, Madison Scott, Allyssa Hall, Brynn Tyler, Eric Swiss, James Bartholet, Dino Bravo, Tommy Gunn, Ron Jeremy, Scott Lyons and directed by Will Ryder