The Player

From: Sean Matthews ([email protected])
Subject: Review: The Player (and Sheldon's List)
Date: Sun, 13 Apr 97 11:23:40 

The Player
Dir: Ben Cameron

Asia Carrera, Janine, Jessica James, Yvonne,
Colt Steel, Marc Davis, Steve Drake

I got this out as a test of Sheldon Ranz's list of superior, even PC
(at least PC by Good Vibrations, if not Catherine MacKinnon,
standards), g/g scenes listed at the RAME archive. This is *in spite*
of the fact that it is listed at Excalibur (in Germany it often
doesn't say on the box who the director is - I wonder why?) as a Bud
Lee movie.  Unless Ben Cameron is a pseudonym for Bud Lee, Excalibur
is wrong.

We get five (six, seven?) scenes:

Jessica + Colt
[short interlude with Janine + Asia]
Asia + Steve/Janine solo (in parallel)
Janine + Asia
Yvonne + Marc
Janine + Yvonne

Both g/g scenes are on Sheldon's list.

What we get is what we usually get with a Vivid movie plus what we are
usually promised from a Vivid movie by the box, but don't get (i.e.,
respectively, beautiful women and high production values, and some
decent scenes)

I'll ignore the `plot'.

Scene 1:

Colt sits around doing an impersonation of a condom stuffed with
walnuts doing an impersonation of a dork, while Jessica, who looks
very pretty, fawns over his dick. Must be said that Colt's dick seems
to be in reasonable condition, considering the quantity of steroids he
looks to have consumed.

Interlude:

Asia and Janine necking in a shower.  Pretty, though not much
happens.  Decent plausible intimacy (really a prelude to scene 3).

Scene 2a:

Asia and Steve

Steve arrives on the scene, distubing A. and J. in the shower, so
A. shoves J. in a walk-in closet and gets together with S.  S. tries
hard to look like he is really interested in A., but, while due credit
should be allocated, he looks like a bad actor trying honestly to earn
his money.  I suppose the fact that he tries is what makes Vivid a
`couples' label, and I can appreciate, if only on `ideological' (not
meant as an insult) grounds, the effort, but I'm afraid it doesn't
work, though it is certainly better than most.  The absence of
gratuitous dick fawning by Asia deserves all available praise in any
case.  The attempt to add dramatic tension by having Asia worry, while
fucking Steve, about what Janine is doing in the closet pretty much
fails.

Scene 2b:

We, privileged over Asia, do get to see what Janine is up to.  She is
poking around, and naturally finds enough toys to stock a sex shop
stashed in the drawers. She equally naturally puts some of her finds
to use on herself with reasonable, if not earth-moving, enthusiasm
(she's earning her money, but she can have much more fun in this movie
- see below - right?). She looks really very nice though, not so much
in as falling out of a dark green silk bathrobe for the first part of
this.  I just wish she wouldn't `slink'.

Scene 3.

Janine and Asia

in a sauna.  This is the easily the best thing on the tape, and one of
the sexiest things I have seen. Sheldon's recommendation is
earned. The extent of Janine Lindemulder's taste for boys is a matter
of regular speculation, but it's pretty clear from this that her taste
for girls in entirely sincere.  She practically assaults A. (in the
nicest possible way). Her hands are all over her, and the two of them
several times get nicely tangled up in each other in frantic attempts
to rearrange themselves. This is miles away from your standard
fetishistic g/g scene: it made me think of a couple arriving home too
frantic to make it to the bedroom and, having practically fallen
though the front door with barely enough presence of mind left to
close it behind them, fucking each others' brains out in the middle of
the hallway.  Note the girls have fingernails trimed neatly back,
rather than the standard, and unnerving, boss's secretary's claws:
women with claws *do not* in real life have sex with other women, for
pretty much the same reason that boss's secretaries can't type.

Theoretically, of course, J. could be acting, but I doubt it, since in
every other way she is totally incompetent in this direction.  I find
her constant attempts at foxiness (is that a word)
cringe-inducing. She `slinks' around Asia's closet, and just before
their main scene together we get to see them walking together in a
park. This is a mistake: I would rather have kept my illusions about
the ability of a woman who is (presumably) one of the highest paid
`exotic' dancers in the world to at least walk gracefully.  Let's just
say that Sylvie Guillem doesn't need to watch her back.

Scene 4.

Marc and Yvonne

Yvonne looks very pretty in this; Marc is a dork.  Why are the boys
almost always dorks?  Yvonne is exhibitionistic, and plays with
herself in front of Marc, then Marc joins her.  In general it's OK.
Yvonne shows enthusiasm, and an enthusiastic pretty woman is always
worth something.

Scene 5.

Janine and Yvonne

[Before this, we see everyone round a table. Jessica looks gorgeous
 in a black dress which is a small treat all by itself. Janine's
 wardrobe consultant, on the other hand, should seriously consider
 investigating an alternative career]

Another nice scene, though nothing in comparision with Scene 3.  Lots
of enthusiasm, esp from J. They eventually end up doing each other
with a strapon. The scene maybe could have been a bit longer, but one
shouldn't complain.

Conclusion:

This is Janine's tape. Clearly she was horny as hell when this was
shot, since she goes at her partners like an affectionate version of
Hanibal Lector. The g/g scenes are thus the highpoint, with the
J.&A. scene in particular an object lesson in what a good sex scene of
any sort (not just g/g but b/g, orgy, w. toys, w/o. toys, etc.) might
look like: good-looking enthusiastic horny exhibitionists being
enthusiastically and exhibitionistically horny with each other.

What more is there to say: The girls are very pretty, sometimes even
when they have cloths on, and not too plastic, the boys are not
physically repulsive, sometimes try, and don't behave obnoxiously,
while the sex varies from reasonable to wildly enthusiastic.

Sheldon's list and the tape thus both get a thumbs up.

Sean