The Graduate XXX

The Graduate XXX
2011 (exact date unknown)
Cinnamon Productions
Porn, Historical, Comedy, Romance
Download
C-

Needless to say, when I reviewed the book (http://rereadingeverybookiown.blogspot.com/2012/07/graduate.html), I did not imagine  that three years later I would be giving a porn parody of it the exact same grade.  The flaws are very different, but let me first talk about what I like.  The movie is easily the funniest of the three Anthony Rosano parodies I own, much of the humor coming out of juxtaposition, whether the '60s look with a more modern sensibility, or the way that lines from the original movie appear in a hypersexual context.  (Mrs. Robinson still denies she's seducing Ben even as she gives him a blowjob!)  There's a cheesy montage of Ben and Elaine falling in love, paired with heavy-handedly suggestive visuals and no dialogue, and then later they claim to have exchanged important personal information during "the montage."  Also, the music is great, not just the instrumentals but the Simon & Garfunkel satires.  ("A Hazy Shade of Winter" somehow becomes scolding of Ben for not washing his fingers.)

The three leads are well cast, not just Rosano as nervous Benjamin Bradcock (ha ha) and India Summer as posh Mrs. Robinson (although the movie gets very lampshady when she says she's "twice his age"), but also Raven Alexis as a generally serious Elaine.  Both fathers/husbands (James Bartholet and Herschel Savage), although their hair is grayed up in a distractingly fake way, do well with their roles.  Ron Jeremy, as Mr. Braverman/ Bus Driver, has a funny bit about "plastic novelties."  Rod Fontana (Skinner of Sex Files) has a good scene as the Night Clerk playing deadpanly off of Rosano, but I could've completely done without the return of Evan Stone, here playing a creepy Bouncer.

Which brings me to what I don't like about the movie, which is, as with other porn parodies, unfortunately most of the sex.  (I thought at one point I might wind up a porn addict, but I was apparently buying porn for the wrong reasons.)  The sex here is mostly BDSM, which is definitely not my cup of tea, although at least it's not overly violent here.  I suppose it could be said that it's used to reveal Mrs. Robinson's character, that she's a bitch who secretly wants to be dominated, but then why do we also get Stone bullying the poor stripper?  As for the more vanilla scenes, the threesome earlier on isn't bad, but we don't find out until after the fact that the man is Elaine's cheating boyfriend.  (Lexi Belle, who was Sam's friend in the Who's the Boss parody, is one of the two baby-voiced coeds.)  The Ben and Elaine scene is the only sex I actually liked, especially since it pays off in a surreal moment when her boyfriend shows up and she claims Ben is just an old friend of the family, when it is extremely obvious they've just had sex.

In fact, quite a bit of the movie is surreal, to the point that I was half seriously considering using a "fantasy" tag.  Characters can suddenly arrive at lightning speed, like they've been Scott-Pilgrimized.  And for no reason at all, both sets of parents show up on the bus when Ben & Elaine run away.  They're not angry, they're actually quite cheerful, like this is all some Candid Camera stunt.  It makes plot holes like Mrs. Robinson's consequence-less seduction of Ben's mother after he falls for Elaine perhaps not matter.  Maybe this whole thing is just meant to be a drug trip, since there are scenes of drug use at the frat house (Delta Kappa Smegma, hee hee) of the boyfriend (Parker Cameron Stevenson, ho ho).  Or maybe the source material (both book and movie) never made much sense to begin with.

Who's the Boss? A XXX Parody

Who's the Boss? A XXX Parody
February 14, 2010
New Sensations Video
Porn, Romance, Comedy
Download
C+

To make a long story short, a year ago I rediscovered Who's the Boss? in time for the 30th anniversary.  I'd watched it at the time but it was very interesting to revisit it.  And part of that revisiting ended up being watching this porn parody in the sub-sub-genre of "sitcums."  Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, it's porn with a laugh track.  And with the "audience" squealing over kissing and suggestive lines.  (Luckily, both tracks are silent during the sex scenes.)  The comedy portions are pretty contrived, and the funniest thing about the writing is the writer's name, Crystal D. Lite.  (Which seems fitting, since Bud Wiser produced the actual show.)  The movie is directed by Lee Roy Myers, who appears to be the king of the porn parody.  And, yes, with this source material, the movie is also a rom-com, since we want Tony & Angela to get together, and, oh, yes, they definitely do.

However, as with Sex Files, there are other pairings and groupings.  I generally enjoyed these more than in Files, since there was more set-up for why these people were together and the sex seemed less interminable.  In fact, the Sam & Marcy pairing is actually a bit sweet and sexy.  Yes, "Marcy" with a Y rather than an I.  The movie is not exactly canonical to the show.  The Tony & Angela dynamic is similar to the first season, with him walking in on her in the bathroom, as he did early on in the show.  (Rosano also walks in on Kimberly Kane in Sex Files, although it's less farcical there of course.)  This Angela pulls rank more than the TV version usually did, especially in later seasons.  In fact, there are unresolved class issues here, unresolved even after consummation, not that I expected a serious political treatise of course.

The biggest change is that "the kids" have been aged up by about a decade, so that they're in college and thus able to have girlfriends.  Sam has a boyfriend, too, Jesse, who, unlike his TV counterpart, who was very much the late '80s activist, is sexist enough to think girls don't need to go to college.  He ends up with Mona in the kitchen, even though Sam and Marcy are in the next room.  In fact, the entire movie is set in the house, with a very tiny cast (ten people), none of whom walk in on anything more than mild making out.

The casting in the movie ranges from way off to dead on.  I don't at all care for 43-year-old Payton Leigh as Mona, or the final sex scene, where she has slaves up in her room (proving that she's the boss) and she hardly interacts with them.  She doesn't look or sound a bit like Katherine Helmond, not even a younger, Soap-era Helmond.  And obviously she's much too young to be playing the grandmother of a college student.

Anthony Rosano and India Summer were both 33 at the time this was released, she a few months older than he, so they're not too far off from the ages of first-season Tony Danza and Judith Light, although, again, too young to be the parents of college "kids."  (Rosano and Summer would reunite in The Graduate XXX, as respectively Benjamin and Mrs. Robinson, despite their lack of age difference.)   Twenty-three-year-old Alyssa Reece plays Sam and 22-year-old Sonny Hicks is Jonathan and they're reasonably well cast, looking and sounding enough like their TV counterparts to not be distracting like Leigh.

Summer somewhat has the look of Judith Light, although she's wearing an obvious blonde wig.  She's tall and slender with a small chest and long legs.  She doesn't really sound like Light and she does seem overly uptight, except of course when she lets herself go in the sex scene.  Rosano on the other hand is perfectly cast.  (And Danza-ly cast, considering his screen name is Anthony, so he is another Tony playing Tony.  He also was Tony in the porn parody of Taxi that same year.)  He doesn't quite look like Danza but he sounds like him.  Even during the sex scene, he's perfectly in character, yes, with an "ay-oh" here and there.  If everyone were on his level, I would give this movie a much higher rating.  Watch this movie for him, especially with Summer.  They have good chemistry together, in the sexual tension scenes as well as the release of tension scene.  And they're actually adorable in the post-coital goo-goo eyes scene.  Pity that the movie doesn't end right after that.

Lexi Belle, who plays Marcy, would again be a College Student in Graduate XXX.