Archive for the ‘Andrew Blake’ Category
August 14th, 2008 | 
Author: The original was indeed a classic with all the elements that make a movie great – hot stars, meaningful locations and sex scenes that are sensual and seductive. It’s use of color and camera angles are still rarely duplicated even today.
LOS ANGELES – Director Andrew Blake is remaking his AVN award-winning classic Night Trips with exotic Brazilian performer Paola Rey in the role that made a star of Tori Welles.
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SANTA MONICA, Calif. – Erotic filmmaker Andrew Blake made one of his infrequent appearances in the DVD market last week when House Pets, with AVN Female Performer of the Year Sasha Grey on the cover, went out to distributors from Studio A Entertainment.
Like his 2007 DVDs X and X2 it’s made up of scenes that were first released on his membership site, www.andrewblake.com. But, Blake told AVN, “I’m not sure how that’s working for us at the moment. We hope people will find it there. But I’m still leaning toward the physical object.”
Blake’s DVD collections are usually triggered by his encounters with challenging new women, such as Grey, who appears in over half of House Pets’ 18 scenes.
“Sasha is just this sexual creature,” he said. “She’s all sex and a mile wide. For such a young age she’s very savvy about everything, very smart. Somehow I felt that coming away from that shoot she felt that I wasn’t using her to her potential sexually, but she did a great job and I just loved her.”
Also prominent in the mix of solo and girl-girl scenes is Elena Rivera, Blake’s “muse and nude assistant” for most of 2007. The other women are Faith Leon, Claire Adams, Courtney Page, Tristan Kingsley and Cassidey.
As in X—but not in X2—there is one boy-girl scene, with Cassidey and an uncredited male whose face is not seen. Blake caught Cassidey while she was “between contracts,” having left Vivid but not yet signed by Ninn Worx_SR. “She’s a great, sexy girl, not unlike Sasha in her sexual savvy, but she’s more of a tease and a flirt. I love that about her.”
Blake has found a new muse in 19 year-old Faye Reagan (formerly Faye Valentine), who’s on the roster of the A List Talent agency. “Beautiful redhead, natural boobs, just exquisite. I’m going to design a whole piece around her. I’m going to concentrate on her for a little while and eventually collect it all into a DVD.”
Blake said he was not “discounting the website,” but he realizes his core consumers tend to be more object-oriented. “My audience is not twentysomething. They’re more educated, older, mostly male, who appreciate the beauty of the woman as opposed to just wham bam thank you ma’am.
“My style is evolving. I’m looking to possibly go into the fine arts business. That’s something I’ve had on my mind for a long time but I wasn’t sure how to do it.”
The idea crystallized when he released X2, calling it “Cinema Abstract.” He would do “one of a kind pieces that would be released in editions of—I don’t know how many—as site-specific video installation pieces, in homes. There’s lots of people that collect this, that have a lot of money.”
Blake has become increasingly disheartened by having to deal with piracy of his product. “The minute you release it it’s all over the place, illegally. That’s why I think that for me, to have a new revenue stream in the fine arts world, which I have a pretty good connection with right now… we’ll see how that goes, and just try to do pieces that will be collectible.”
He shoots his scenes (always on Super-16 film) “on multi-day shoots, every now and then, probably two or three times a month. I think that gives the whole thing much more diversity than if I went out and shot consecutively for eight days or whatever. Faye Reagan will be my next subject.”
Longtime fans and site members can still expect to find regular doses of new erotic material at www.andrewblake.com or www.andrewblakehd.com .
Let me see if I’ve got this straight. Caballero had several Andrew Blake classics in its catalog, including Night Trips, Night Trips II, Secrets, and House of Dreams. But Caballero went out of business a few years back. Comes the DVD era and David Entertainment licenses the rights to those films and releases them, all but this one, on DVD. David then, apparently, goes belly up. Caballero rises Phoenix-like from the ashes and decides there’s money to be made by releasing selections from its library on DVD. Night Trips II was a logical place to start. (Strangely enough, however, Caballero also released new versions of NTI and Secrets, which had already been released by David).
I had hoped David would release NTII on DVD, because it is just about my favorite porn flick of all time. I actually prefer it to NTI, because it has Racquel Darrien (at age 21) plus I was never a big Tori Welles fan (she’s too agressively slatternly for my taste.)
Since this film has been out for ten years, you should all know the plot. Just for review, however, the plot revolves around something called the "Mindscan Foundation," where the doctors can hook you up to electrodes and see your erotic dreams on the TV monitor (yeah, right, whatever). Mindscan is sort of an outpatient clinic for the sexually obsessed.
Paula Price is the sexually obsessed young lady in this feature. She must be well to do, because she lives in a mansion and drives a Porsche. Randy Spears is the doctor, and Cheri Taylor (there’s a blast from the past) is his nurse. She’s such a bad actress that its worth the price of the disk to hear her try to stammer out the line, "There’s no diminishing of her sexual desire!" There are several masturbation scenes and lesbian romps, a Paula Price/Eric Price coupling, a Taylor/Spears coupling, a three way with Randy West and, best of all, a scene with 21 year old Racquel Darrien and boyfriend Derrick Lane. That last copulation is about the most gorgeous sex scene ever filmed. (By the way, there just isn’t enough of Darrien on DVD. DVD Empire lists only about ten titles).
The film is still the beautiful achievement it always was. Nice jazz sound track, too. Unfortunately, this is only a mediocre transfer to DVD. The biggest problem is that the chapter stops skip a couple of seconds of the movie. On my Toshiba player, they created 2 to 3 seconds of blank screen; on my computer DVD drive, they just skipped the footage and went on. Fortunately, there are only five chapter stops.
The next problem is that the bit rate is just too slow to give as good an image quality as DVD is capable of. It’s also very difficult to transfer these old Andrew Blake films to DVD, because he used a soft focus technique. On tape, the soft focus just looks blurry, on a DVD wihtout an extremely high bit rate, it tends to look grainy and pixelated. Nevertheless, it is amazing how even a mediocre DVD transfer looks better than a videotape. I compared the DVD to the tape by using the TV’s PIP function and the DVD picture was usually markedly better. The last scene, however, developed some horizontal color streaking, and its image quality actually fell below that of the tape. The sound was about the same, with the DVD sound only very slightly improved.
I recommend this disk for hardcore fans of Andrew Blake (like me) and Racquel Darrien fans (like everyone). It’s also suitable for couples (and has no anal scenes). Raincoaters who don’t like Blake should skip it (indeed, they won’t be reading this review).
Now if only VCA would give the royal VCA treatment to an Andrew Blake Film in the VCA library called "Desire" (released by Penthouse as "The Art of Desire"), I would be a happy man. That film has Darrien and Savanna (Please forward this review to Russ Hampshire).
As for Caballero, If they’re going to continue to release their library of old films in the DVD format, and rumor has it that "8 to 4" and "Amanda by Night" are scheduled for release, they’d better work out the technical glitches and do first rate DVD transfers. Otherwise, no one’s going to want to upgrade.
Review – Night Trips II (Paula Price, Erica Boyer, Lauren Hall, Racquel Darrian, Andrew Blake)
NIGHT TRIPS was a landmark movie when it first appeared back in 1989, and it still holds up today. There are many elements which make this gorgeously shot-on-film production a must for every blue film collector, even if this DVD edition by Caballero (taking over David Entertainment’s production) is somewhat disappointing. It really is no better than the initial David Production, which was no better than the original laserdisc release. Still, it’s good to have NIGHT TRIPS available in the best available video, even if the DVD deserves a "Criterion Collection" type of packaging. I do regret that Caballero could not see fit to add more extras, such as the cable TV cut of the movie (which in fact, has shots taken from different angles and additional action [like Tanja and her beau engaged in some prolonged tongue-kissing]). It’s extras like that which would go a long way with customer appreciation, but oh well…
Over a decade ago, NIGHT TRIPS thrusted lead actress Tori Welles into the superstar limelight, and introduced director Andrew Blake as one of porn’s most prominent film-makers. Since that time, Tori has gone on to legendary status despite her somewhat limited appearances in other movies (for some of her best work, I heartily recommend VCA’s THE CHAMELEON). Andrew Blake, of course, has gone on to greater fame with fantastic works such as LES FEMMES EROTIQUES, HIDDEN OBSESSIONS, PIN-UPS 2 and so forth. But even ten years later, this film still stands out as one of the all-time best.
Plot-wise, the film borrows the familiar "virtual reality/dream" device which has always been a common theme used in the history of porn movies. But the difference here is the presence of dark-haired, Latino beauty Tori Welles, who is not only stunning to look at, but also performs with more heat and passion than even the best porn starlet working today. She is in three of the movie’s six scenes, and while the other non-Tori scenes are uniformly excellent, her work is never less than superb.
Fortunately for the viewer, Andrew Blake’s camera captures every inch of her amazing body, as well as every action and reaction in her energetic sex scenes. Her lesbian tryst with Porsche Lynn and the beautful Jamie Summers is incredibly passionate, and there is nothing more erotic than to see her kiss her two partners alternately with an intensity that will make you sweat. Tori and Peter North share a darkly-tinted scene where the two fuck in every position imaginable, and Tori engulf’s his cock with her pussy and her mouth as though she were a predator. Their scene ends with a perfectly aimed facial which is filmed spectacularly in slow-motion. Mr. North literally cums in buckets (after all that action with Tori, who can blame him?) and he sprays all over her lovely face like a geyser. It’s an incredible sight that will take your breath away. However, Mr. Blake manages to generate even more heat in her last scene, where Tori gets her way with "Doctor" Randy Spears. Here, we get a close-up side shot of Tori slowly unbuckling Randy at crotch level, her glamorous hair flowing down to her shoulders, her sultry eyes teasingly stealing glances up at her partner, and her luscious mouth pouting in anticipation. With the utmost calm and ease, she casually places his relaxed cock into her mouth and proceeds to give the best blow-job ever captured on film — slow and playful at first, then fast and hungry as he gets harder. The camera never moves or breaks away except when panning in for super close-ups, and then out again to capture Tori’s lovely face. After some manic missionary position fucking, Randy cums on her face for a completely satisfying ending. The real problem with this movie is deciding which scene will be your all-time favorite!
As for the rest of the scenes, Tanja DeVries makes it with her average-sized partner in the film’s opening sequence. Victoria Paris shares an interracial outdoor scene with Ray Victory, and "Doctors" Randy Spears and Porsche Lynn play doctor on a couch. Tori is an observer to all the vignettes, and she looks sexy as hell as she touches herself while all the action is going on. This is one of those movies where every scene is worth watching for Tori alone. All the production are in place for this movie: the minimalist "New Age"-type music is perfectly scored for each scene, the alternating black and white and high contrast color photography adds depth to the action, and of course, the star of the movie makes it all a simply fantastic 75 minute viewing experience.
Now, here’s the kicker: as great as this movie, is, I found NIGHT TRIPS 2 to be even better and it remains my all-time favorite porno of all time! Starring Paula Price and featuring the incredibly beautiful Lauren Hall, this DVD is also available from Caballero and should be purchased together.
Believe me, assuming you can sustain the physical energy, you won’t regret watching the NIGHT TRIPS series in its entirety. For the main features alone (and discounting the lack of extras), there is no other pair of adult DVDs out there that I could recommend more highly.
Review – Night Trips (Tori Welles, Porsche Lynn, Victoria Paris, Andrew Blake)
I can’t think of any other director whose work either enthralls of frustrates purveyors of adult material more than that of Andrew Blake. Some people simply have no affection his stuff and, in fact, find it all pretentious and boring. Then there are those who may appreciate the creative aesthetics, but find no use for them as stroke material. And there are others who are devotees his early titles like NIGHT TRIPS and HOUSE OF DREAMS, but are disappointed by his predominantly all-girl work of late. And still, there are his groupies who anxiously await every release from Studio-A, and devour his latest films erotiques like they were Willy Wonka candybars.
Having written several thousands words of praise on his movies in Diesel’s Den and in ADE Reviews, I am not ashamed to say that I’m one of those devoted fans of his work, so I’m already predisposed to enjoying THE VILLA, a film which embodies his style and vision to a capital "V". Yet, I can certainly understand how the Anabolic or Extreme crowd may grow tired of all the pretty pictures and lack of graphic action. Obviously, the appeal of this film will depend on how much patience you have for long, extended scenes of seduction and tease with frequent kissing and fingering, but only occasional licking and deep penetration, and whether you can appreciate the hardcore restraints deliberately employed by Blake in his latest films.
Nevertheless, I remain completely enchanted by work of erotic art. Who cares if we get no double penetration ass to mouth shots? That’s what Red Light District and Evil Angel DVD are for. The title refers to the Italian settings, shot on location early in 2002, which as gorgeous as they are, can’t compare to the beauty of the performers onscreen. Like the incredibly popular Aria, Kyla Cole is yet another breathtaking looker who is for all intents and purposes the epitome of feminine perfection. Just take a look at her naked on the box cover of this film and you’ll know what I’m talking about. And yes, while it appears as though her eyes were touched up for the photograph, believe me her baby blues are as hypnotic as her figure.
The movie opens sensationally with shadowy close ups of brunette beauty Nika and Miss Cole sensuously and softly kissing as they finger each other tenderly. Most Blake films open immediately with spectacular shots of his women primping and posing like supermodels, and indeed, within a few minutes we are treated to black and white footage of Kyla Cole and blonde. Those familiar with any recent Studio A flicks won’t be too surprised to see that this movie pretty much gives us more of the same high class, but borderline softcore sequences that we’ve come to expect in titles like ARIA, BLOND AND BRUNETTES and so many others. If it sounds like I’m praising this movie with faint damnation, it’s because I am. After awhile, even I long for something a bit more nastier than what we’ve grown accustomed to getting, but what can a reviewer/fan do other than whine?
Justine, a redhead who was also cover featured in Blake’s EXHIBITIONISTS, also makes a prominent appearance here, along with two new blondes Elsa Versus and Tara Radovic. As expected, the women here are hotter than a styrofoam cup of coffee from a Mickey D’s drive-thru, although Tara Radovic’s short white hair hasn’t quite grown on me (pun intended), and the penciled-in mustache she wears in the "Lipstick Butch" segment is unappealing (and kind of spoils the erotic effect of her drooling water into Elsa’s mouth). Also, Nika wears these funky see through, seer-sucker-ish pants during the initial stages of her threesome with Kyla and Justine in a segment entitled "Mistress Nika". At first, I recoiled in horror at what appeared to be extremely hairy and badly scarred legs, before I realized that it was just her clothes. Lord knows I’m no fashion plate, but it looks like someone picked a wrong costume design for this segment. Also, there are several moments when we are able to see what appears to be an appendix scar near her waste, which is only occassionally obscured by the other girls’ roaming hands.
However, all twenty individually titled vignettes on this disc are a collectively impressive sight to behold, assuming you have the patience for hardcore which is considerably less explicit than, say, Jim Gunn’s latest LESBIAN CHEERLEADER SQUAD video (which is a series I thoroughly enjoy and recommend, by the way). To satisfy our needs for real fucking and sucking, Mr. Blake graciously offers us a self-contained vignette starring Angela Crystal entitled "Burgundy Satin." After a lengthy masturbation session, she has a little quickie with some unidentified guy which was not entirely fulfilling, but nevertheless hot to watch. The remainder of the extras are comprised of trailers for the main feature and other Studio A titles. (Sadly, there were no previews signifying the eventual release of classics like LES FEMMES EROTIQUES or UNLEASHED, which are still only available on videocassette.) Recently, Studio-A has decided to forego any of the boring old photo galleries which have become a clich� on adult DVDs, and instead offers a few high quality pictures printed on the inserts.
The slightly grainy, but artfully composed pictures are anamorphically enhanced on this DVD, which means you are getting a true widescreen format in a 16:9 ratio. (As discussed in an exclusive review with Adult DVD Empire, Blake is anticipating the eventual standardization of high definition video in the near future.) The audio is also good, but the music score is not necessarily easy listening for everyone.
THE VILLA is a great place to visit, but staying there isn’t for everyone. Still, I think the discriminating collector of erotica would enjoy a permanent tour.
Review – The Villa (Kyla Cole, Nika, Justine, Tara Radovic, Elsa Versus, Andrew Blake)
