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Served as Chairman, New York Film Critics Circle: 1993/94.
Favorite interviews were with: Michael Douglas, Sophia Loren, DeForest Kelley, Joan Chen, Joe Henderson, Ismail Merchant, Klaus Kinski, Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Spike Lee, Malcolm McDowell, Zoe Lund, Melvin Van Peebles, Ultra Violet, Wolfgang Petersen, Claudia Cardinale, Serge Silberman, Margarethe von Trotta, Alec Guinness, Leonard Nimoy, Susan George, Joseph Losey, Gale Anne Hurd, Dennis Hopper, Peter Greenaway, Katt Shea, Ken Russell, Maggie Greenwald, Jim Jarmusch, Peter Brook, Jurgen Prochnow, Andy Warhol, Judy Davis, Chuck Vincent, Fred Zinnemann, Wim Wenders, Max Von Sydow, Michael Moore, Terry Gilliam, Rita Jenrette, Karen Lynn Gorney, Bruce Beresford, Jack Thompson, Russ Meyer, Sam Raimi, Abel Ferrara, John Sayles, William Greaves, Nino Manfredi, Lee Van Cleef, Michael Cuscuna, Bille August, Jewel Shepard, Andy Sidaris, Michel Deville, Claude Sautet, Claude Lelouch, Alfonso Arau, Alan Parker, Reinhard Hauff, Traci Lords, Jim Jarmusch, Martha Coolidge, Candida Royalle, Giuseppe Tornatore, Edward James Olmos, Paul Hogan, John Mackenzie, Peter Hyams, Jennifer Beals,, Adrian Lyne, Samuel Fuller, Dario Argento, James Toback, Lasse Hallstrom, Fred Williamson, Gabriel Axel, Joe Bastianich, Aaron Sanchez, Danny Meyer, Steve Hanson, Matthew Kenney, Douglas Rodriguez, Simon Oren, Stanley Donen, Lindsay Anderson, Helena Bonham Carter, Edward Pressman, Harold Becker, Larry Cohen, James Ivory, Jack O'Connell, Michael Phillips, Kevin McClory, Jackie Mason, Joan O'Brien, Stanley Donen, Joseph B. Vasquez, Don Bluth, William Lustig, Al Goldstein, Simon Wincer, Valeria Cavalli, Dave Fishelson, Lizzie Borden, Roberta Findlay, Rob Cohen, Doris Wishman, Robert Tapert, Bruce Campbell, Bill Cosby, Pasquale Squitieri, Menahem Golan, Yoram Globus, Tim Kincaid, Joel M. Reed, Gregory Dark, T.L. Lankford, Fred Olen Ray, Victoria Paige Meyerink, Lawrence D. Foldes, Rick Marx & Ted V. Mikels
Reviews
Sweetening the Deal (2024)
No boys allowed
In the past year, Bree Mills has expanded her Transfixed series to feature frequent appearances by Gay Porn actors as "tops". However, for this DVD release she adheres to the original concept of "trans lesbian" content, wisely.
Title scene recalls the Girlfriends Films series "Lesbian House Hunters", porn has featured a dubious subgenre about female realtors and their customers having sex in empty buildings. Talk about a limited gimmick (to be quickly run into the ground)!
This edition of the "Transfixed" series has a screenplay credited to "Penicio Del Toro" devoid of any interest: simply hot and multi-tattooed TS actress Gracie Jane as a hapless realtor, with no takers at her current Open House, except for diminutive and horny Summer Col. They're soon humping away to pass the time, while Gracie pretends on the phone that a sale is imminent, trying to ineptly keep her job.
Even throwing in the boy/girl version of these realtor scenes, usually there's some suspense in the form of "sex in public" -will the couple get caught? Not this time, jsut all-sex porn presented with a dab of fake-story set-up.
In "Belle of the Ballroom", Gay Porn star Lance Hart, a veteran of many a transsexual porn video, returns with a whole new look (and even voice) as Lucy Heart in this impressively romantic segment, now a trans-female carefully seduced by lovely cis-female actress Maddy May, latter playing a dance instructor who crosses the line (or lines) with her student.
For fans it's interesting to see how Lucy fka Lance has changed -not immediately identifiable as the same person, she now has big boobs which look amazingly natural, no mean feat for a trans star. Playing the sub to Maddy's authoritative character is an effective touch, as Lance was often the bottom in both his Gay and Trans assignments before.
Director Stella Smut, ordinarily emphasizing comedy or farce in her work, plays this one absolutely straight, building up to a highly romantic bonding between the two actresses.
A romantic trifle, "Bride & Joy" has a married lesbian couple (TS Ariel Demure and cis-female mate Sophia Burns) consummating their marriage in a strictly pleasant, no-drama all-sex format. The actresses perform well but absence of any story content or real characters is a minus.
Ariel is carried over the threshold to bed by mate Sophia Burns, a newcomer whose porn assets include a big butt and alluring stubby nipples. The ladies pause for some foot action as they undress and soon its no frills XXX time, another minus being the removal of all clothing -goodbye to wedding dresses omits any fetish action for the fans.
I had one odd reaction: Demure sporting a different sort of hair style, including bangs, reminded me of Cher for the first time after seeing her in many movies. Hopefully, the cyncial purveyors of parody movies won't get the same resemblance.
Lawmen: Bass Reeves: Part III (2023)
Smooth
With David's self-assured, low-key performance, the series settles into a comfortable mode depicting his first adventure as lawnman after being anointed deputy marshal by the letter-perfect judge played by donald sutherland.
We're treated to a bit of the homelife of his wife, giving birth to another child, while the emphasis is on the matter-of-fact tough job of enforcing the law on the frontier of the West. Clearly, it will take all of the remarkable survival skills of Bass Reeves to fill out this series.
While watching, I recalled how I had been addicted in the '50s and '60s to dozens of TV Westerns shows like "Bat Masterson", "Wyatt Earp", Yancy Derringer" and "Rawhide". I don't think I could have imagined a minority character cast in the lead role -the closest I came was cult-of-one for X Brands playing Wolf Who Stands in Water, who I always (wrongly) assumed was played by a Native American. Thank goodness times have changed.
Route 66: Kiss the Maiden All Forlorn (1962)
Silliphant: realism?
This quite unusual story from Stirling Silliphant is a test for Route 66 viewers, dealing with issues from an unexpected point-of-view. I loved it for its daring approach.
It boils down to a father/daughter love story: Douglas Fairbanks Junior portrays an international criminal who returns to Dallas from Brazilian exile after eight years to reconnect with his now adult daughter Zina Bethune. He loves her and she still loves him, but he is an unrepentant bad guy who takes a selfish and cynical attitude toward morality, preying upon man's venality and he's unashamed because that's the way the world works.
The midsection of the episode veers into a genre dominated by the longrunning "Insight" TV series, a Catholic production relatively new when Route 66 was on, and presenting stories about moral issues. Bethune's imminent beginning instruction to become a Catholic nun is the key plot element, and over a decade before her overdue Oscar we have stage star Beatrice Straight spectacular as the head nun sparring verbally with venal Doug concerning the kid's future. Another top talent from the theatre, Michael Tolan, is subtle playing Doug's chief henchman from Brazil.
What Silliphant does is rather extraordinary: though the episode deals with an international criminal and the kidnapping not just of his daughter but Good Samaritians Maharis & Milner in the bargain, his writing and especially the casting of Fairbanks tilts the balance toward neutrality. The criminal is not whitewashed but he is quite sympathetic, to the point where even M & M give him a break. Route 66, unlike Star Trek with its famous Prime Directive not to interfere in the history of emerging cultures, had our two heroes week after week meddling (positively) in local cultures and conflicts across the nation. For this episode, M & M are strictly hands off, with Maharis, for once, not even having a fist fight with the bad guys. There is no twist ending, and no clean wrapup of the criminal facing justice: just the Dallas cops with egg on their face while Doug & company head back to Brazil scot-free.
Star Trek: Picard: Penance (2022)
Rousing time adventure
Sci-fi treatment of time-travel and paradoxes is a familiar subject, given a different approach in this "Picard" episode kicking off some desperate adventures to set things right. It's great fun watching our familiar heroes suddenly thrust into a maddening alternate timeline in which they are quite different characters, needing to adjust and escape from a totalitarian future in which they are big shots and bad guys.
That gimmick is the only one that threw me, as it doesn't seem possible that Picard and Seven of Nine could have become villains in an alternate future. However, the segment has them remaining their true selves trying to cope with their unexpected "futures" and using their resoursefulness and derrign-do to fight the real baddies.
Espieically impressive is Annie Wersching as the Borg Queen (looking very much like the original actress in the role Alice Krige) who turns out to be an unlikely ally to Seven and Picard. I was saddened to see in IMDb that Wersching died quite young only months later of cancer.
Tell Me Everything (2024)
4 oldies
Yet another Adult Time VOD bringing back Girlsway scenes previously issued several years ago on DVD.
100% directs Abigail Mac and Kissa Sins in "Obstruction of Justice" and their acting is terrible. Mac portrays a cop, gun always at the ready, responding to Kissa's distress call regarding a loud noise at home which might signal an intruder. Soon they're having sex, with Mac instantly stepping out of character. This vignette was on the 2019 DVD colorfully titled "Licke Me Till I Cum".
"Still Horny" concerns Serena Blair and Casey Calvert as two porn actresses getting hot and heavy into their Sapphic sex scene, when the off-screen director (likely Stills By Alan hisself) yells cut, tells them it's a wrap -they've got the needed half hour of porn in the can, so ladies, you can go home now. This rather brazen and skin-deep self-parody (Alan and producer Mills are pioneers in the assembly line approach to cranking out porn for the internet) is hardly as amusing as intended, and the obvious punchline is that the still-horny gals retire to a nearby bedroom to get those orgasms going.
In "Meditation Session" redhead Jayden Cole as a meditation instructor seducing willing client Veronica Rodriguez in a two-parter that is unfortunately way too repetitive. For her fans, Rodriguez does include a bit of squirting.
A big-breast spectacle, titled "Tell Me Everything" is staged at the "Immoral Proposal" mansion, porn's most popular shooting site for over 15 years now.
Angela White, looking mahvelous, sneaks home to the mansion after spending the entire night out at a Christmas office party. Wife April O'Neil, asleep in bed, wakes and is none too pleased, but a lot of that good old Angela lovin' cheers April up. Vignette was issued on the 2019 DVD "Mixed Messages".
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Ad Astra Per Aspera (2023)
Brilliantly crafted courtroom drama
Gene Roddenberry would have been very proud of this edition of "Strange New Worlds", as writer Dana Horgan takes many of the socially conscious themes of Gene's original 1960s work and extends them to ingeniously cover key issues and movements (such as Roe v. Wade, Gay Liberation and demonization of immigrants) that closely followed upon the era of his work. Guest star Yetide Badaki provides a commanding performance as the Illyrian defense attorney who clears Rebecca Romijn of serious charges and in the process reveals prejudicial deficiencies of StarFleet laws.
Valerie Weiss ably directs the ensemble cast in an episode that proves the best Star Trek work need not have space battles and SPFX to work.
Naked City: The Tragic Success of Alfred Tiloff (1961)
Cliched B-movie script
The show's story supervisor Howard Rodman contributed this crummy screenplay, turning "Naked City" into a corny B-movie. Fans in 1961 deserved better.
He didn't give star Jan Sterling much to work with, a cold-blooded platinum blonde villain busy with her first kidnapping crime, forcing failure hubby Jack Klugman to participate. Her backstory and performance have redeeming features: slim and none.
Best acting is by Ruth White as the nosy neighbor who gives terrifically detailed testimony about the kidnapping, far more interesting than the rest of the show. The police work by our series stars is strictly routine and they end up doing a very poor job of identifying or catching the kidnappers. Thanks to Rodman, the plot is resolved by sheer chance and coincidence.
My Neighbor's a Nudist?! (2024)
Lower than lowbrow
Jim Powers directed this Devil's Film video, a one-joke effort with four scenes using an identical premise.
Obviously, having a next-door neighbor who parades around in the nude is an instant ice-breaker, leading to sex. Half of the scenes involve a female nudist, the other half male, but the result is always the same.
My favorite vignette is shot at the "Immoral Proposal" mansion, a location recognizable from at least a thousand porn shoots there. As usual it serves to represent the home of both neighbors. Clarke Kent is the nudist, doing outdoor household chores in the nude, much to the amazement of young neighbor Lana Smalls. She asks him about his lifestyle and he gives the usual spiel of Naturists, who have been proselytizing on the subject since the 1920s. She quickly seduces him and proves adept at deep throat action.
Similarly, another young actress, Angel Gostosa, is thrilled to see Charles Dera gallivanting outside her aunt's home dressed only in socks and boots. His acting is very poor here, but she seduces him in a standard porn scene. Neither of these new femmes seems talented enough to move out of the gonzo porn ghetto.
The other segments feature Lilly Bell as a brunette nudist, attracted to Seth Gamble, and Adira Allure's naked form turning on realtor Danny Mountain.
Crush on Mommy (2024)
Incest from the archives
It's nice to see some familiar talent from several years back in this collection of "Mommy's Girl" segments, all previously released on DVD.
Currently one of the more successful crossovr actresses from porn to Mainstream, Chloe Cherry has fun as a girl addicted to panty-sniffing her mom's underwear. Her scene is the only non-incest action in the bunch, as she goes to bed with MILF Cherie DeVille, not with her stepmom in "Mommy's Scent", previously issued on the DVD titled "Sexy Siesta".
Perhaps the cleverest segment is titled "Peeping Mom" in which Natalia Starr as a friendly neighbor drops by to tell Carter Cruise to watch out: there's a voyeuse lurking nearby. CC has sex with her perky stepmom Alexis Fawx and the identity of the pervy lady in question is revealed at the finish. It was released on the DVD "Shared Experience".
Title scene "Crush on Mommy" stars Carter Cruise who seduces her hot stepmom Katie Morgan, previously released on the DVD "Mom Saved Me!".
Final vignette is titled "Browser History". Mona Wales and Lyra Law make for a fine couple in a scene with a dumb premise (reflecting story material here provided by porn website subscribers) where mom & daughter grab each other's laptops by mistake, and discover they're both addicted to Girlsway porn. Cheap plug for the actual source of this "Mommy's Girl" content.
Lesbian Love Stories 10 (2024)
Dreamy romanticism
One of the better Girlfriends Films releases in recent years, this B. Skow feature has a winning format and well-cast lesbian couples in dreamy, highly romantic scenes. It's recommended to fans of softer, more sensual girl/girl content.
Each vignette is preceded by a lengthy softcore intro with the actresses' voice-over narration of unrequited love affairs. Skow's camera salutes their feminine beauty, and the viewer is lulled into a mood similar to reading a romance novel, heightened by the absence of XXX content, for now.
The subsequent lovemaking is explicit but performed gently rather than the crudity of fake passion and gonzo extremism that characterizes current porn. It's a wise decision, and in each of the four scenes, women that have longed to express their crushes and true feelings for each other finally get to consummate their romances. Plus Skow has cast a surplus of beautiful redheads!
Another plus is casting seasoned performers, rather than the hit-or-miss debuting youngsters recently emphasized in Girlfriends shoots. Only Eve Bardot is an unfamiliar, fresh face here who I had never seen before. She portrays a young model whose photographer Katie Kush has fallen head over heels for, but neither revealed their feelings before now. Kush wears glasses throughout the segment and their lovemaking is staged on a couch, all other scenes set in bed.
The most compatible couple is Allison Rey and Skylar Snow, appearing in shower and bubble bath during their lengthy voice-over segments. Snow is Rey's boss, and though there have been hints, neither has expressed her desire for the other during a two-year period up till now. Their languorous sexuality in bed is highly erotic.
An element of fantasy is stressed, in voice-over and Skow's photography for redhead neighbors Erin Everheart and Summer Hart. Summer has recently bought a house in Nevada and moved in, and is mesmerized by neighbor EE, whose ethereal beauty appears ghost-like and unreal. They finally hookup, and the extreme contrast in the stars' body types adds to their scene's effectiveness.
Remaining interracial sex scene casts French star Cassie Del Isla as a yoga teacher attracted to her student Jenna Foxx, finally expressing their love for each other.
One added factor here is that not all porn stars have acting talent or are comfortable with memorized dialogue, a fact that explains over the years why so few players constantly appear over and over in Adult story films, the others not cast in talking parts. Here, the dialogue is almost exclusively voice-over, warmly recited.
What Have You Done for Me Lately? (2024)
Vault diving
Adult Time once again taps old (but still stimulating) scenes directed by Stills By Alan for the Girlsway label, rescued from the vaults for DVD reissue. He gets no thanks: his name is purposely omitted from the VOD artwork credits, since he left the Girlsway employ several years back.
Superstar Angela White is present in two vignettes: playing an overage sorority girl (opposite Carter Cruise and rare beauty Uma Jolie) in "How Wet Can You Get?", and returning in the title scene opposite Lily Rader and Charlotte Stokely. Her college girl role was already reissued in 2023 on VOD titled "Sorority Rush".
Another threesome, Aaliyah Love, Chanell Heart and Kissa Sins, appeared on the 2018 DVD "Who's the Boss", and completing the lengthy program is a Ferris Bueller spoof "Kristen Scott's Skip Day" from 2017 starring Scott, Kimmy Granger and Melissa Moore.
A chance to see some top talent of yesteryear in 3-way action, with Adult Time taking advantage of saving money by merely recycling old footage.
Mommy's Girl: Mommy's Scent (2018)
Sniff them panties!
Cherie DeVille's scene is very poorly acted and directed, simply a mess. It leads off with incorrect and misleading credits, as DeVille is listed as "The Stepmother" and Chloe Cherry as "The Stepdaughter", both untrue (apparently "Mommy's Girl" content uses boilerplate credits instead of paying attention to actual content).
Instead, Chloe plays the daughter of "Mindi", referred to only verbally but of course part of the label's troupe of MILFs: namely Mindi Mink. She does not appear in the video, but her friend Cherie is visiting and criticizing Chloe for stealing her mom's panties (a whole drawer full) and sniffing them. She proposes pretending to be CC's mommy, and we get a stupid faux incest scene of role-playing. Chloe attempting double talk and other attempts at humor fall flat.
Playing in the Pocket (2024)
Brooke the tease
Talented new MILF Brooke Barclays returns to the MissaX flock, once again paired with stepson Max Fills as her lucky victim.
His dad's away, and he wants to play with stepmom, but she's loyal to her husband. The best thing she can offer to the horny boy is a Fleshlight sex toy modeled after her own pussy. He coaxes her to use it on his cock and before you know it, she has given in and is giving the youngster a well-deserved blow-job.
MissaX fans are accustomed to this sort of incest action, and Brooke is quite adept at delivering the goods, while talking dirty -something the fans truly enjoy.
With Love, Lexi (2024)
Personal, for her fans
Bree Mills and Lexi Luna conjured up this romantic, lightweight porn video, consisting of a trio of vignettes by Lexi presenting erotic fantasies with a personal touch. It's lightweight content, presuming her fans prefer romantic instead of gonzo.
Her personal introductions ring sincere, while the ensuing scenes are uninteresting, merely sensual lovemaking. The product resembles those vignette collections from major distributors like Wicked, Playgirl or Adam & Eve a decade or so ago with titles like "Sensual Moments" or "Erotic Encounters"
Nathan Bronson participates in an exercise of foot fetishism, with Lexi showing off her tootsies, in his mouth, or surrounding his dick.
A rather hokey scene has Ukrainian porn veteran John Strong dancing with Lexi while Charlotte Stokely plays the cello, and then he humps LL in bed. I wonder what Charlotte thought when they hired here for this brief pointless assignment.
Quality lesbian action occurs in a hotwifing segment where Ken Feels has his wife Lexi make love to Reagan while he watches, after getting permission from Reagan's husband.
The Predatory Woman Volume 2 (2024)
Routine gonzo dramas
This quartet of "Deeper" segments is standard stuff - sex stories taken very seriously but paper-thin.
"Host" stars beautiful Blake Blossom as part of a married couple hosting their airbnb. She gets off by seducing the male guests in order to have the cheap thrill of cheating on her husband while he sleeps. She looks great and enjoys humping Chris Diamond's big dick in a nothing scene.
Euro star Cherry Kiss demonstrates her advanced sexual abilities (solid deep throat and double penetration in many positions) in "She Wanted to Be Punished". Seth Gamble is dour as usual playing her jealous husband who catches her having a tryst with Vince Karter, causing him to force her into a threesome. It's gonzo time and pointless, just 3 sex workers doing sex work for the camera.
A dumb scene emphasizing anal sex pairs Valentina Nappi and Jax Slayher: he's her boss and she seduces him, pretending to dominate him, but after a dull intro, he's the one getting the action.
Finale has Maitland Ward overacting as a mature actress tired of crappy roles she auditions for, and deciding to prove she's ultra-sexy and should get a role envisioned for a young starlet. It's gonzo time with 3 studs as she goes airtight and doesn't seem to realize this is insulting self-parody. I would have preferred if the mean guys holding auditions had gone for Daneille Renae, who is featured (uncredited) as a beautiful blonde MILF chatting with Maitland as they wait for their tryouts.
Rabbit Hole: The Person in Your Ear (2023)
Boring and preposterous
Half way through, this miniseries has bit the big one, presenting stupid plot twists and trendy topical/cultural references (anti-vaxxers and anarchist protests) to hide the lousy writing. Bringing in "24" director Jon Cassar doesn't help this very dull episode.
It's ugly to look at, with silly conversatins by the princpial character taking place in a drab saf ehoue, and the latest caper headed by Kiefer a series of "spy" cliches.
The supporting cast is dull, the FBI lady inept as usual, and even when Meta is integrated into the action, the whole operation seems like amateur night.
Great TV thriller series like "Person of Interest" and "Mr. Robot" clearly influenced the untalented pair who created "Rabbit/Hole", but this episode shows how difficult it is to come up with something creative in the genre. This slop is beneath contempt.
Transfixed: Hookup Mixup (2024)
A nothing burger
TS star Kasey Kei is the center of attention in this trivial Transfixed segment, a mindless gonzo exercise. After a dumb 3-minute intro, it's 35 minutes of lesbian-threesome sex, strictly filler.
Gimmick from untalented scripter Midnight is that Kasey has made a scheduling error, with two girlfriends showing up at the same time, each expecting alone-time sex with her, and shocked to see the other woman there. This is a corny situation, the subject of innemrable bedroom farces, usually with a frantic guy (or girl?) rushing back and forth trying to make each partner happy while avoiding them seeing each other on the premises.
Instead, after the two scorned women (Kenna James and Aria Valencia) have a rather timid sort of catfight, Kasey apologizes and suggests to them that a lesbian-threeway is the best solution. Both agree and then it's gonzo time, with everyone happy, giggly and sexually busy -all acrimony forgotten and the transition to sex workers cavorting for the camera complete.
Despite her lengthy career, investment in new fake breasts, and earned superstar status, Kenna gets third (last) billing for this lousy assignment.
Another Man's Poison (1951)
Bette lifts ordinary thriller
Bette Davis and hubby Gary Merrill went to England to make this routine thriller, based on a successful stage play. It builds suitable suspense, but remains quite stagey, with Bette's presence the main reason to watch.
A very fine British genre director Val Guest gets screenplay credit, while the director (Irving Rapper) was imported from Hollywood, having worked successfully with Davis previously. Bette's withering glances and always the center of attention heightened acting style command attention, while cliched plot twists are trotted out. Emlyn Williams is suitably cutesy in the best supporting role.
It's odd to see Bette in an indie British production after her triumph in "All About Eve", but apparently the chance to work again with her new husband Merrill was the reason.
Tulsa King: Center of the Universe (2022)
Getting to know you
After a terrific opener, "Tulsa King" lets us get to know a likable cast of characters in "Center of the Universe", a laid-back, extremely amusing look at our modern Rip Van Winkle adjusting to the peculiar world of Tulsa. Actors including Andrea Savage and Jay Will provide fine support.
Stallone's street smarts are irresistible as he reacts to odd people in this strange land. Sheridan exploits his amazing ability to react to offbeat dialogue and oddly real people. Along the way, the groundwork is laid for future adventures and most importantly we get to know the sad, subtle pathos hiding behind his character's natural bravado.
Transfixed: A Surprise Homecoming (2024)
Failed nostalgia
Using a colorful but tiny set purporting to represent an old-fashioned diner, waitress Ember Fiera welcomes home her soldier boy, Cliff Jensen. A minute later, they are f*cking in the diner, hoping to finish before the customers arrive.
Replete with hokey "sounds old-fashioned" library music, this Transfixed vignette is quite poor gonzo filler, just a respite between the fans-pleasing trans-lesbian scenes with an actually old-fashioned "Gay guy humps trans-girl". Ember's fake passion is annoying, and Cliff is just an unappealing guy with a big dick. Lots of famous cis-female porn stars have been shooting TS porn lately, from superstar Angela White on down, but few male stars have crossed over, leaving the casting to Cliff and other Gay Porn talent. I suspect their lack of appeal for "Transfixed" fans is that Bree Mills sold the series originally as lesbian content, not aimed at devotees of the Gay genre, where Trans porn used to be a subset.
Transfixed: No, You Take It Off! (2024)
Pretty, and pretty dumb
The opening for this mindless, gonzo Transfixed segment had Izzy Wilde in tight closeups looking quite beautiful, with a clear emphasis on her femininity, but the story is beyond weak. She and her beautiful date Cami Strella put on the same red dress and debate which one should substitute a different one.
The improv dialogue quickly turns to sex in bed, the date forgotten, and tedious, repetitive going through designated positions. TS star Izzy gets to use her dick but there's no money shot, just the scene arbitrarily ending when, one supposes, the two actresses run out of stamina.
Next up will be a gay guy having sex with a trans-girl, not what fans of this series look forward to.
1923: War and the Turquoise Tide (2023)
Don't mess with Helen!
Helen Mirren takes over the show with this "1923" episode, as seriously wounded hubby Harrison Ford is bedridden, and she must powerfully act to save the Dutton ranch and her family.
Sheridan juggles three stories: the war at home with Mirren facing down the evil sheepherder, who has enlisted corrupt villain Timothy Dalton to back his war against the Duttons. Meanwhile, Spencer and his fiancee are enjoying a picturesque idyll far from harm, only to be called in to save the day in future episodes.
And of the most impact, Sheridan goes ultraviolent with another confrontation between resourceful victim Nieves and the nun who torments her, so well-played by Jennifer Ehle.
I'm convinced that Taylor Sheridan could produce a wholesome show like "Little House on the Prairie" if he put his mind to it, but his specialty of creating amoral and violent characters continues to attract and satisfy audiences.
Mind Games: Episode 4 (2024)
Lousy ending
Plot loose ends are tied up in very corny fashion in this final segment of Digital Playground's "Mind Games". The scripting by director Casey Calvert and label's regular writer Jon Drexler is dumb.
Xander Corvus is very easily seduced by ultra-sexy Chloe Surreal, and her motives are explained in perfunctory fashion. She's a crazy woman, and both Xander and his shrink Sophia Locke are in jeopardy in a less than thrilling climax, which permits Chloe to overact -something new for her, as she generally is relegated to sexy gonzo roles - no acting required.
The storyline had potential, but ultimately Calvert put all her effort into the sex scenes, understandable in terms of what current porn fans are after, but strictly lazy filmmaking.
Mind Games (2024)
Poor thriller
Casey Calvert's psychological thriller for Digital Playground turns out to be a dull feature, not much more than four sex scenes with a token story and poorly developed characters. It's okay merely for website subscribers to jerk off by.
Sophia Locke stars as a shrink who is highly unprofessional, getting involved with her patients. Chief among them is sexaholic Xander Corvus, clearly no Michael Douglas in the role, and a bit repellent due to his ill-advised wearing of lip piercings that he had earlier in his career.
Chloe Surreal is too young to be believable as a femme fatale -her huge natural juggs are what matters in her madwoman role. Charlie Forde is wasted here as another patient delivering an extraneous sex scene.
Fans expecting some thrills (after all, it's a thriller) will be sorely disappointed.
Tulsa King: Go West, Old Man (2022)
Gravitas
Taylor Sheridan breathes fresh life into the tried and true Hollywood genre of a "Fish out of Water" with "Tulsa King", an instant hit. The sheer pleasure of watching a self-assured Sylvester Stallone calmly pushing people around is hard to beat.
There's a bit of introducing subsidiary characters (played by Andrea, Jay & Martin), but the show plays like all Stallone -on-screen constantly and making his presence felt. For a new series and a brand-new character it's amazing how comfortable and "inevitable" his Dwight Manfredi seems right from the beginning.
The confidence that Stallone exudes in the role is matched by the way Sheridan faces his scripting: taking familiar situations and imbuing the with a virile surprise factor that seems like that of a master filmmaker, rather than a relative newcomer.