Playing With Penny Flame Review

Reviewed by astroknight  on  8/8/2006

The Little Details

Running Time: 58 min.

Production Date: 12 / 17 / 2005

Director: None credited

Cast: Penny Flame and John West

The Short Story

Initial Expectations: This series has pretty much been a list of what not to do for a virtual sex release. With Penny being featured here I have high expectations for the sex, but can only wonder how badly Anarchy is going to do the rest of it.

Initial Reaction: Penny does a great job, but once again it’s not quite a virtual sex release.

Who Should Watch It : Extreme Penny Flame fans

Who Should Avoid It: Anybody wanting a competently done virtual sex release

The Technical Stuff

Audio /Video Quality: The audio leaves plenty to be desired. It’s clear, but the balance varies a bit throughout the movie. Sadly, that’s the best things about it. There’s also plenty of background noises, including Penny being fed lines from behind the camera that she really doesn’t need. The video is okay. It’s a bit soft, but well lit. It’s held back more by a lot of camera motion and fast zooms and pans that make it a little hard to watch.

Music: The only music is during the striptease sequence, where it’s also the only audio. It’s not quite standard porno music, btu also far from original feeling.

Bullshit, Borderline, and Boneheaded Advertising: The front cover makes claims of Various Angles, Extremely Interactive, Strip Tease, Blowjob, Titty Job, Handjob, Tease Menu, Shot Exclusively for DVD, Point of View (P.O.V.) and Different Sex Positions. Anarchy is getting better with their claims here, and there are several true claims here. You do get the Strip Tease, Blowjob, Titty Job, and Handjob. That said, they’re still not quite honest and continue their string of penalties against the overall score with another half point penalty here. For bullshit claims, as usual, there’s no tease menu. You get to choose between masturbation and toys, but there’s nothing to let you choose between Penny teasing with her tits, ass, or anything else. There’s also the claim of an “extremely interactive” interactive DVD. I’m not quite sure how this can be considered “extremely” interactive when you can’t change the star’s mood, camera angles, or decide what she should tease you with. Yes, once again Anarchy’s less than honest approach to cover claims has earned them a half point penalty.

Once again, there’s only one borderline claim, that of the POV claim. Yes, there is some POV footage, but it’s definitely in the minority of footage. Just like they did with release after release with a lie of multiple angles on their front covers, Anarchy doesn’t seem to want to drop a deceptive POV claim.

Finally, there’s the boneheaded claims. Top of the list is Various Angles, which is included on the same list as the Point of View (P.O.V.) claim, and is just a little over an inch below that claim. One way or another, Anarchy shows themselves to be less than honest because it’s kind of hard to have a release that’s POV and also various angles. Shot Exclusively for DVD? That might mean something if there were “Interactive VHS” releases being made. Finally, there’s my favorite boneheaded claim: Different Sex Positions. There’s no new positions here, so all I can assume is that Anarchy is offering more than one sex position in their releases. Whew! I’m not sure what they’re going to advertise next. I guess I should be happy that they’re not a condom only company or they’d be advertising that they only use new condoms in their releases. Once again, Anarchy has continued to try to deceive the people who buy their DVDs while also showing what your brain can do on drugs without an egg and a frying pan.

Menus: The main menu just gives a few clips of the action with the choices. It looks cheesy and doesn’t give anything like a good first impression.

The Feature

Penny Flame’s a smoking hot brunette with a great natural body that’s been turning heads for a couple years now. She started with just girls and then moved on to take on guys. Here she decides to do a pseudo-virtual sex release.

Penny starts out with a striptease in a sexy red and black bra and panties which moves from behind a ringed curtain to on a runway. After she gets done with one strip tease segment, things magically return to her behind the curtain and she crawls out for a second strip tease that I guess is supposed to be a second angle or something else. Regardless, it makes things appear convoluted and poorly edited. After the second tease, Penny crawls onto the stage with a short jean skirt and pink shoes added to her bra and panties, and teases the camera while talking to it. She works herself over naturally before magically being changed into a white and brown dress and working her pussy over with a glass dildo both on all fours and her back. Penny moves on to suck John’s cock, give him a handjob, and lets him fuck her titties. She’ll also fuck him in both cowgirls, missionary, and spoon. Finally, Penny takes a nice facial to finish things up.

For her part, Penny does a very nice job. She looks fantastic and puts some very nice enthusiasm into her entire performance. When the camera actually goes for a POV angle she plays nicely to it, and no matter where it is she gives plenty of great vocals. Penny’s vocals are easily the best thing about this release, makes her seem like a natural for a real virtual sex release such as the My Plaything series. Penny just might have put on the best sexual performance I’ve seen so far in the Playing With series.

Once again, Anarchy screws the pooch not just in their personal time, but with their virtual mechanism and menu. Basically, there is no virtual mechanism. Instead, you get a chapter menu in the upper left corner of the screen that takes up roughly an eight of the screen. It’s just a list of sex acts with some kind of smudgy picture next to it if you have more than one option for the choice when that option is playing. It isn’t unusual for the menu to cover up some of the action or Penny’s face. If you want to see something, you just click on that menu choice and it takes you right there.

If you don’t make a selection, the movie just runs like a normal movie, complete with plenty of editing cuts. This is the main thing that to me makes the Playing With line not seem like a virtual sex release. It’s rarely shot POV and you don’t have complete control of the action. For a movie to be a good virtual sex experience, the viewer has to feel like they’re in control of the action, and once again Playing With Penny Flame makes that aspect seem secondary, and almost discouraged.

Playing With Penny Flame once again shows that Anarchy would rather make a quick buck rather than taking the time and money to do a virtual sex release right. Here their shortcomings really come out because Penny does an absolutely fantastic job with an extremely vocal and energetic performance. It’s the type of performance that should make any virtual sex release, and makes this one seem all the weaker with the cheap-ass chapter menu in the upper corner that’s supposed to make this a virtual sex release. Playing With Penny Flame doesn’t come close to doing Penny justice.

The Extra Stuff

Trailers are included for Shooters, NarcASSist, Blasted, Anal Life, and Psychotic. The photo gallery lasts about three and a quarter minutes with about three seconds per heavily pixelated snapshot. There’s also a featurette and weblinks.

Get to Know Penny Flame lasts about fourteen minutes and features Jimmy D. talking with Penny and John. Jimmy starts out sucking John’s cock verbally before moving over and doing the same to Penny. She talks about Asians, agents, lawyers, and having limits to being a whore while talking about losing her website. Penny also talks about being signed by Shane’s World as a director and getting a nice deal while Jimmy ironically talks about dishonest companies. There’s also a bit of joking around about porn lifers and courtesy. It’s a nice little interview with Penny that shows some nice personality from Penny.

The Down -n- Dirty Sex Stuff

Themes: Straight, tease, masturbation, toys, oral, titty fucking, and hand jobs

Raincoat Factor: High

Condom Usage: None

The Bottom Line:

Currently, most of the Playing with series can be found online for between about $13 and $25 with several stores offering it near the low end. Rent this one before you buy it. Penny does a great job for her part, but Anarchy continues to not just drop the ball, but to run away from it screaming like a little girl after they drop it for their end. The technical aspects are weak but there is a little effort put into the extras. Penny shows a lot of virtual sex potential, but Playing With Penny Flame rarely makes use of it.

Note to Anarchy: It’s too bad when you release a movie and the first thing somebody things when they look at what you advertise on the cover is “I wonder how many of these things are really in this release?”. After the effort you’ve put into lying to and deceiving consumers, it’s going to be a long road if you ever decide to change that practice for more than a random release here and there. Of course, a random release here and there would be a welcome start.

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

Other reviews by Astroknight