All Star Review

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If You Liked This DVD, You Should Enjoy
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The First Word: Rocky Road's first anal scene is overshadowed by catfights, limp wood, and talk about yeast infections.

What's It About?: According to Digital Playground, the idea for this disc was to shoot an "all-star" lineup of talent and use the best available DVD technology to present them.  An ambitious goal for sure since very few studios have even come close to achieving both criterion.  There are six scenes on this DVD after the annoying intro that Alex Sanders delivers with a fake Southern accent.

Rocky Roads, Envy, & Alex Sanders - Alex offers to put baby oil on mammoth-hootered star Rocky Roads, who is "sunbathing" in the twilight.  Alex starts with a bit of anal fingering before going to town on Rocky's pussy, all the while plunging his thumb in her backdoor.  Envy is lying on a chaise lounge a few feet away but stays on the sidelines for the first few minutes until Rocky starts to blow Alex.  Some doggy and reverse cowgirl is the warm up to Rocky's first on-screen anal, with Alex pounding her rectum doggystyle.  The scene finishes with an abrupt cut from anal to the popshot on Rocky's stomach.  Envy really doesn't do anything but serve as topless eye candy since she doesn't have sex.

Sadie Sexton & Christian Todd - With fake lashes, bleached blonde long hair, and bolt-on knockers, Sadie is yet another Jenna clone.  There's an artsy B&W to color intro of her posing in a see-thru top and tight black workout pants.  The sex starts with a nice, if not tame, licking her boyfriend Christian's erect cock as honkytonk music plays in the background.  The oral continues with a leisurely blowjob as Sadie bobs up and down in his lap.  With cleavage like hers, a titfuck is clearly called for, and the two manage a little between the boobs action, although not enough to satisfy anyone.  I think it's classy that she doesn't get naked until about halfway through the scene -- a refreshing change of pace.  After some cunnilingus, we get the old cowgirl and reverse cow until he pulls out and squirts on her stomach.

Bonita Saint & Steve Jagger - Bo Saint is lying nude and glistening on the ledge of a bathroom whirlpool when her then real-life boyfriend, Steve, comes in and begins to rub her ass.   After massaging her posterior, he rubs and licks her nether regions for a few seconds before the customary blowjob begins.  Unfortunately, the rest of the scene is an epic struggle for the boyfriend to get wood, despite Bo's efforts that would make a hooker proud.  The audio commentary elaborates more on this suitcase pimp's difficulty in maintaining an erection and how the crew was never happier when the whole mess was over.  As usual, Bo looks on the verge of starvation, and although her oiled/wet look is good on her, any time you can count ribs on a woman, it's a bad sign.  And when Tabitha Stevens says in the commentary that the camera adds a few pounds and that Bonita looks "really good," I wonder how she looks like in real life.

Lisa Belle & Eric LeRoy - These two French performers have sex right at the net of a tennis court.  As with the other girls, Lisa is a surgically enhanced bleached blonde (and something of a prima donna according to the commentary).  The behind-the-scenes antics are better than this scene, although I did dig the RC anal position that the two engage in vigorously. Plus, I like seeing naked women in only tennis shoes and ankle socks (hey, we all have our "things"!).

Rocky Roads & Vince Voyuer - Filmed in someone's rented home in a room with an aquarium built in the wall, this rather short scene features Rocky and Vince in a standard boy-girl fuck scene.  It's somewhat hard to see the action since the lights are off except for the "portholes" to the aquarium behind the wall and an indirect blue light from off camera.  It's a pretty average scene with the standard foreplay followed by vaginal in several positions and a pop shot on Rocky's ass.

Rebecca Lords & Mr. Marcus - This is the strongest scene on the DVD, an interracial pairing on a balcony.  I'm a fan of Mr. Marcus, despite his less than stellar reputation for showing up to shoots on time.  Although Rebecca is too skinny for my taste, she's the only girl in this video with natural (and might I add beautiful) tits.  The action starts off on a good note as she pulls his limp snake out of his pants and proceeds to suck him to full erection.  It's one of the better blowjobs I've seen recently -- the combination of the contrasting skin colors and the sun glistening off his saliva-slicked cock is mesmerizing.  Also notable are the standing doggy and tree-hugging positions (you know, where the spinner wraps her arms and legs around the guy and bounces up and down on him in mid-air).  Now, if all of the scenes were like this one, then I probably would have liked this DVD better.

What I liked:  Technically, it's a great DVD: Although I think the content of the DVD is pretty mediocre, the technical aspects, such as the mastering, extras, camera, lighting, makeup, and so forth, are excellent.  That's an award-winning formula that can be applied to any adult production.  And I think that if the subject matter was improved, Digital Playground would be hard to beat.  Unfortunately, I haven't seen either consistency nor high-quality content from this studio.  While they have a couple contract stars, they don't have nearly the top girls as other studios have in their stables, nor the creative talent on the production staff.  But who knows...given enough cash and the right goals, it's certainly possible to change that.  Doesn't really help this DVD, but with such a high-quality production, it's something to keep in the back of your mind.

What I didn't like: How many pounds of silicone can you stuff in two funbags?:  Aside from Rebecca, all of the girls have had gravity- and nature-defying surgery.  I don't understand the American fascination with abnormally large, perfectly round breasts, but it's ridiculous here.  It's a total turn off to me to see a girl with huge fake knockers yet the rest of her is anorexic or when you can clearly see the implants bulging out from the rest of the breast tissue.  Blech!

Limp wood:  No excuse.  I don't care whether the girl will only work with her boyfriend -- if he can't maintain an erection, then she either needs to re-evaluate her position or get the hell out of the industry.  I can't believe any director puts up with it, and with the availability of last-minute talent, it shouldn't be a hard decision to substitute when that happens.

Bitchiness is not good fantasy:  Porn is about fantasy.  I don't think most people fantasize about women who are "snotty bitches" and probably would prefer to be blissfully ignorant even if they are in real life.  The main theme running through the commentary and behind the scenes material is how catty, petty, and rude some of these women actually are.  Save that stuff for the gossip columns, I don't want to see and hear about it on the DVD.

DVD Extras: The commentary audio track features June (the director), Sam and Davey (producers), and Tabitha Stevens, who was scheduled to appear in All Star, but due to talent issues, she didn't perform.  But she was on set and caught a glimpse of some of the off-camera antics, which she is more than happy to share.  I can't say that I was that impressed with the commentary...it's full of a lot of gossip, self-congratulatory comments from the production staff, and some rather gross comments relative to yeast infections from Tabitha.  Furthermore, it describes what can only be described as massive egos coming into conflict on the set.  If that floats your boat, then you'll love it.

The behind-the-scenes extras includes a photo gallery and a short video.  The BtS video begins, unfortunately, with a minute of watching Bonita Saint getting nasty with Rocky Roads during the last day of shooting (and not in that way).  Then there's an interview segment with Rocky and an explanation of why she shot one of her two scenes with Vince Voyuer instead of Eric LeRoy.  From there on, there are assorted interviews and behind the scenes clips of the other girls, and sadly, two more instances where Bo proves to any would-be suitors that she would not be an ideal mate.  The eight-minute video ends on a funny note with Mr. Marcus' rant "So you want to be a porn star..." and his desire to go back to flipping burgers for a living.

The blooper reel is dominated by Bo Saint being more of a cranky bitch and Sadie and Christian cracking up during their sex scene.  But there's also miscellaneous mishaps, including a heated argument between Eric LeRoy and Lisa Belle -- in French -- over him cumming in her ass before the end of the scene, an urgent request for a paper towel, and a condom staying behind after withdrawal.  There's nothing really funny here, and it's just more behind the scenes stuff that most people would probably rather not see.

I like what DP did with the alternate angle, basically another camera shooting at the same time.  Careful attention was paid to the color levels, synchronization, and camera placement to make the angles seamless...you can toggle back and forth between the two angles and it doesn't look (or sound) weird.  Happily, Digital Playground also was kind enough not to watermark the sex scenes with an on-screen icon like just about every other company does.  Perhaps that's because they include a screen at the beginning of the movie pointing out the true multiple angles or because ALL of the scenes were shot with more than one camera.  Either way, it's nice to see that someone really understands what multiple angles are supposed to be.

A/V Quality: The quality of this all-sex shot-for-DVD video is outstanding, with a very crisp and realistic image, so real in fact that you almost feel like you're looking at the scene through a window.  The audio is mostly okay, except for a fluttering microphone sound in some of the scenes and the behind the scenes.  It sounds like a muted helicopter and is pretty distracting.  The scene between Steve and Bo Saint also has what sounds like either bouncing bed springs or some sort of bird squawking.  But overall, there's a good mix of production sound and the background instrumentals.

The Last Word:  Digital Playground should have called this "All Silicone Stars" or "All Bitchy Stars" rather than congratulating themselves on making such a great DVD with the top stars in the business.  Please.  Trading card collectors would classify these players as "minor stars" and trade them up for the truly major stars (apologies to Rocky Roads fans, but she just doesn't have the exposure to be a well-known star).  Even though it's got a lot of DVD extras, there's no way that I can recommend this DVD since I can't stand the fake tits and bitchy egos in All Star.   I suppose if you're a big fan of Rocky Roads or if your ideal starlet has big tits, bleached hair, and a slutty look, you'll probably love it.  As for me, it gets no replay and a one-way ticket to my trading list.

- Saki (saki@my.adultdvdtalk.com)