Playing with Ariana Jollee Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  12/22/2004

The Little Details

Running Time: 82 min.

Production Date: 5 / 19 / 2004

Director: Jimmie D. (which you learn by paying attention in the behind the scenes since Anarchy apparently didn’t care enough to give him credit here)

Cast: Ariana Jollee and “you” (played by John West)

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: I should have high hopes here because Ariana has been extremely impressive from what I’ve seen of her, but after Anarchy’s entire line of Virtual Sex with... DVDs not coming close to delivering what they claim, I can’t help but go into this one with low expectations while wondering if they just changed the name of the series because people were catching on to their deliberately deceptive cover claims.

Initial Reaction: It’s the best interactive DVD I’ve seen from Anarchy, but it still leaves plenty to be desired.

Who Should Watch It : Fans of Ariana Jollee

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody wanting a top notch interactive DVD

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The technical aspects leave a bit to be desired. You can normally hear Ariana pretty well, but you can also hear a few comments from behind the camera and background noises. The video also leaves a bit to be desired. There’s a bit of grain and the lighting is a little low and at times, extremely inconsistent.

Music: None

Bullshit, Boneheaded, and Borderline Advertising: It just wouldn’t be an Anarchy DVD without false advertising. The front cover has claims of Multi-Angle, Extremely Interactive, Strip Tease, Multiple Toys, Tease Menu, and Different Sex Positions. Not surprisingly, the movie doesn’t have a single multiple angle that I could find. There are a couple spots where the menus make it look like there might be a multiple angle, but when I checked they just looked like the same angle. I also didn’t see the Tease Menu in the movie. There is a foreplay menu, but to me that’s different from a tease menu. To me a tease menu means you get to choose what part of her body Ariana teases you with or something like that, and there’s nothing close to that here. When it gets into masturbation, that’s part of foreplay and not the tease. Normally I’d probably give somebody the benefit of the doubt on this, but since Anarchy had such a string of blatant lies on the cover of almost every other DVD I’ve seen from them, I’m calling them on this one.

On the borderline side of things is the Extremely Interactive option, since there’s fewer interactive choices here than most anywhere else. You don’t get to choose between moods for Ariana, camera angles, or anything else special to tailor the scene to your tastes. Things like that make a title seem extremely interactive. Compared to a kid’s flip book, however, this is extremely interactive. The Different Toys claim also implies that you get to choose which toy to use on Ariana (such as Smash did in My Playtoy 3). Yes, she does have a few different toys, but you never get any choice in which one she uses when.

Finally, some of these just seem downright boneheaded. Different sex positions? Come on! What next, advertising that the girls actually put the toys inside them? Maybe a cover statement on how the crew actually turns on the lights before shooting the scene. I’d make a smart ass remark about advertising having both a woman and a man, but Digital Sin shot that one in the ass with My Plaything: Jenna Jameson. Once again, Anarchy earns a half point penalty overall for not delivering what they advertised having.

Menus: The menus are fairly basic. The main menu has the still from the cover and that’s about it.

The Feature

Over the last couple years, nasty brunette Ariana Jollee has become one of the top adult stars out there. It was only a matter of time before somebody put her in an interactive movie, and Anarchy appears to have got the prize here.

Ariana is easily the best thing about this DVD. She looks great, and puts plenty into the entire movie. She does a fantastic job of playing to the camera, lets go with plenty of smiles and great looks, and never holds back on talking to the camera. She seems to know right where the camera is, and plays to it extremely well without making it seem faked or forced. When it comes to the sex, she’s nasty and full of energy, and does dang near everything possible to make you wish you were right there and fucking her for real. Ariana works her way around her body with her toys and “your cock”, takes herself to a few double penetrations with her toys, and even squirts a few times. She gets her pussy fucked in both cowgirls and missionary and then takes it in the ass in both reverse cowgirl and doggie. Throughout the entire release I couldn’t help but wonder why nobody else has picked up Ariana to do a top notch virtual DVD.

Ariana also handles the pop shots very well. I have to give Anarchy credit here as they do a good job with the pop shots. There are only two pop shots, which is a disappointment, but they are both real. The first is an anal cream pie which Ariana cumfarts out and licks off her fingers, while the second is a nice facial. There’s some nice volume for each of them, and although I would have liked a cumshot for each position, at the same time I’m almost satisfied with only two of them because they’re both real. Anarchy actually did something pretty well here.

Unfortunately, there’s a lot about Playing with Ariana Jollee that isn’t anywhere close to the level Ariana is playing on. To start with, there’s the camera work and set. The set looks to be a bed set in a dungeon. It doesn’t give Playing with Ariana Jollee a friendly feeling, and made me wonder if Anarchy was going to include an option to have a drunken hillbilly come through to get a fresh jar of pickled pig feet. The camera work is okay, but very inconsistent. One time it will just sit back and let you observe from afar, and the next segment it’ll move around so much you might wonder if the cameraman was epileptic. There’s also plenty of clips where the camera zooms in so far that if she moves a little she’s off camera, such as during the blowjob, and plenty of shots where you can clearly tell that it’s John West boning Ariana during the sex. The camera work doesn’t quite make it to an average quality level.

The virtual menus also leaves a lot to be desired. To start with, it’s placed in the upper left corner (which isn’t a problem) and has an odd, futuristic font which is often kind of hard to read (which is a problem). During the foreplay, or maybe it’s to be considered the tease, the menu changes from having plenty of choices to basically having none. After a bit it changes back, but for well over twenty minutes its so generic you feel like you’re not supposed to make any choices. There’s also an odd symbol next to some of the choices that almost looks like it’s to be a multiple angle symbol. In reality, I have no clue what it’s to be because whenever I selected it I was taken to the start of the same action that’s listed next to the symbol. It’s one of those things that makes me think that once again Anarchy had ideas that they didn’t feel like following through on. There’s also some laughable choices in the menu, such as the highly defined Pussy Fuck and Anal POV mixed in with Cowgirl, Reverse Cowgirl, Anal Reverse, and Anal Doggie. I’m guessing it ended up as Pussy Fuck because nobody at Anarchy could spell “missionary” and “Guy fucking with girl lying on her back” took up too much space. The Anal POV just ends up being a different angle on the anal doggie. Most anybody else would have found a DVD author who could figure out how to work the multiple angle feature.

Some of the menu choices are just sad for other reasons. For instance, there’s the blowjob menu, which lets you choose between watching from the Side, POV, and Standing Side. This seems like a joke, and the question about whether “pathetisad” is a real word or not came to mind. When you watch the movie, it goes from clip to clip with small cuts so you watch the scene in that order of camera shots. It’s yet another time where multiple angles appear to be above and beyond what Anarchy can provide. It’s too bad, since Anarchy’s ineptitude really interferes with what looks like one hell of a hummer.

My final problem with Playing with Ariana Jollee is the overall feel and setup of the DVD. It doesn’t feel like an interactive DVD. When I think of an interactive DVD, I expect loops of the performer doing a specific sex act. When I want the performer to do something different, I tell “her” through the menu or remote control. Here, that doesn’t happen. Yes, you have the menu in the upper left corner, but the segments just keep right on going past. In an interactive title I feel like I should be taking some kind of action to guide the movie. That’s what makes it interactive. Here, you have the ability to take action to guide the movie, but since it cycles through the segments on its own, the entire thing feels like one big horribly edited movie. This feeling was one of the biggest things to interfere with my enjoyment of the movie.

Playing With Ariana Jollee is a step up for Anarchy’s virtual sex DVDs from their lackluster My Virtual... line, but not much of a step. The biggest difference I noticed was that they eliminated most of the false advertising from the cover, which was a great improvement. Apparently it caught up with them since they appear to think that the best way to draw people back to them is to change the name of the series. Beyond that, I couldn’t help but be disappointed. Ariana does a fantastic job, and I’m sure most of her fans will be happy with the job she did here. I like what I see of her, and although I started off completely into this release the longer it went the less interested I was in it. The main reason for this is that it didn’t feel like an interactive DVD. Yes, there’s the menu in the upper corner, but it’s frequently hard to read and changed in odd ways that made me afraid of using it at times. Rather than having to make choices to have Ariana do things, the scene just went from clip to clip and felt like an extremely long Ariana Jollee scene with mediocre camera work and bad editing. Ariana Jollee shows that she has what it takes to make a great virtual sex DVD. Unfortunately, at the same time Anarchy shows that they still don’t have what it takes.

The Extra Stuff

Trailers are included for Anal Life, Border Hoppers, No Cum Spitting, Pop That Cherry 5, and Twisted. The photo gallery includes about a dozen good looking full screen photos. There’s also an interview with Ariana and a bit of advertising crap.

Jimmie D.’s interview with Ariana lasts about six and a half minutes and takes place shortly after she finished the scene. She talks about her sexual side, what gets her off, and even shares a sex story. It’s a nice little interview and seems to give a good look at Ariana’s personality.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Straight, interactive, tease, masturbation, squirting, toys, anal, DP (toy), anal cream pie, and cum farting

Raincoat Factor: High

Condom Usage: None

The Bottom Line:

Currently, many of Anarcy’s interactive DVDs can be found online for between about $10 and $25 with stores offering them everywhere in between. Rent this one first. Ariana does a great job, but Anarchy falls far short once again with the virtual aspect of it. The technical aspects are fairly average and there’s a little effort put into the extras.

Note to Anarchy: Thanks for dropping most of your false advertising, and I hope you become a bit more honest with future releases.

If you have any questions or comments, please e-mail me .

Other reviews by Astroknight