The world has been waiting.
In 2001, the population of the world looked on aghast as, following the most controversial election in history, Lex Luthor was sworn in as President of the USA. Nineteen years later, these memories have been all but undone, the world having moved and and looking in a different direction – all except ILB, who continues to churn out his own memes with multiple pop-culture references in the space of one single paragraph.
And then there’s the other sort of waiting. We have been waiting for something else to happen – something wonderful – something I’ve been predicting for a while. It made us wait a long time, but it finally has come.
Which reminds me, inevitably, of Escape from Pleasure Planet.
Appearance: Escape from Pleasure Planet (2016)
Characters: Cassia & Agent Daniels
It’s almost inevitable that Cassia (Veronica Vain), who presumably is an alien because very few humans have breasts that humongous, will end up having sex at least once during the course of Escape from Pleasure Planet. She kisses Aria (Erika Jordan) once, but as we all know, Aria ends up having sex with the sentient pleasure android by the side of a swimming pool, instead sending Cassia off to Earth to do… I don’t know, evil stuff. It’s been a while since I watched this.
Of course, the US Government has to get involved, so while the heroic characters are busy getting laid in a variety of amusing ways, General Randall (Michael Gaglio) sends Agent Daniels (Long) off to find the aliens.
Daniels finds the aliens, has sex with one of them, and then appears in a completely inappropriate orgy scene at the end in which he has sex with every female character at least once. (I can’t do that scene; I’d get RSI.)
I mentioned waiting, and that isn’t wrong; Veronica Vain doesn’t wear a bra throughout this entire movie, and what’s left of the clothing doesn’t leave much to the imagination, and yet it’s almost an hour into the film before she has her first sex scene. Her character, Cassia, is a sexy assassin looking for an escaped princess; Daniels is an idiot working for the FBI looking for whoever – he has a less defined mission. When they confront each other, very little happens until Cassia decides to try sex (“Why don’t you show me? But no funny business!”). There’s also a convenient sun lounger nearby.
Hey, this thing writes itself!
Retromedia Entertainment – and I’m saying this from the point of view of someone who’s seen four of their films, so it appears to be a thing – specialise in long sex scenes, and this one is particularly long and features Long, so it’s a long Long sex sce… no, I’ve gotten lost here, let’s backtrack. There’s a relatively quick cut to the aforementioned sun lounger (clothes are lying around but there’s no disrobing here), and we start with Daniels giving oral sex to Cassia.
Who has rewarded our waiting by finally being naked. Her breasts are humongous.
Vain’s acting, for all the ridiculousness this film might contain, is probably the best in it. She’s been the right level of menacing throughout, and now that she’s (meant to be) having sex, she’s making all the right sort of noises. Assuming, of course, that this is her first experience of oral sex (the dialogue suggests she is a virgin), she’s moaning in a sort of “oh Lord, this is amazing!” way – not the high-pitched screams of hardcore porn or the muffled sighs of arthouse softcore. Just irregular, sexy moans.
She even does some stuff with her body, holding onto the lounger with her hands and writhing a bit and whatnot. Daniels is doing basically nothing, so there’s at least something there, being relatively entertaining to the casual viewer while they fap.
After a while of this – and with no change in the sexy moans – we cut to an annoyingly close-up close-up of sex in the missionary position. At least, I think this is sex, but we can’t see anything other than Cassia’s and Daniels’ head and shoulders, so it could be anything, but I doubt they’re playing Donkey Konga with their feet, really. (He says, as there’s an immediate pan from face to bum, which confirms they are indeed having sex, if you can stand looking at Long’s arse for that long).
We even get oral sex from Cassia, who seems to be very skilled for someone who’s never done so before. There isn’t much more to say here, it’s the usual soft porn blowjob with hair blocking anything too specific, but it’s something.
Something in this scene’s favour, however, is that while giving oral sex, Cassia doesn’t make any sounds – some softcore flicks overlook this and put in the moans anyway. Since her mouth is hella busy right now, it’s Daniels doing the noises. He’s not fantastic at it – and there’s an amusing bit where Long appears to forget where he is and zone out while sunbathing – but it is, at least, something they put a little bit of thought into.
We then get reverse cowgirl from a number of angles, followed by doing it standing up against a fence, and then on the fence, and then on the fence in a different position, before it fades to black and we cut back to Aria, reminding us that there’s a plot in here somewhere. The whole thing takes place against the backdrop of a nice forest and is overlaid by some pretty piano music and everyone has a lovely time.
So why do I have an issue with this?
As I said above, this is a long sex scene – over five minutes at least – and, although it does have variation in sex positions, camera angles, lighting, depth of space and participation (mostly focusing on Cassia, but Daniels gets some screen time too), it’s precisely that length of time that puts me off. I like a long sex scene, sure, but the fact that this is just two actors bumping and grinding for a few minutes – sexy as Vain might be (Long isn’t much to look at) – just gets… well…
…boring.
And that’s the case with a lot of longer scenes, no matter how good the mise-en-scène may be. If it works for the first few minutes, then cut it off there. The plot here declares that Cassia sleeps with Daniels as a kind of sexual awakening: you can do that, as well as arouse the viewer, in three minutes. You don’t need to do it in six.
It’s a very rare occurrence that I get bored with softcore, and even more so that I get bored during a sex scene. These scenes are probably long enough to give the viewer something to fap to (and, incidentally, these are all porn actors, so sex is what they do on screen whether or not they’re in a softcore movie), but when all is said and done, this is a sci-fi story with sex in it, and if you’re going to be invested in the plot, you need to move on with a quicker pace.
Otherwise it ends with me… well… waiting, I suppose.
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