Way You Kiss Me, The Review

The gist: This is the kind of movie that contains this kind of line: "How can you look into my eyes and not see how much I burn for you? Forever is in our kiss." While many will still need to hear more before deciding whether this is the movie for them, I think a lot of people will now know that it's time to forget about it.

The plot: There's not so much a plot as a central device that ties the scenes together -- a lonelyhearts talk show that's playing on the radio in a bar. The scenes either come from calls to the show or from people at the bar, or both.

The play-by-play: It wouldn't be a Wicked feature without Nicole Sheridan and Voodoo, and they start us off as an unhappy wife and the guy she cheats with. He delivered the cheesy line above -- which he said with some kind of half-assed Euro/French accent, perhaps to help make him feel a little less ridiculous -- when they met at the bar. By the time they're back at home, he's completely lost the accent. Fire the continuity editor. The sex is nice, though, with Nicole her usual vocal self. Instead of straight-out nasty talk, she tries to keep it in character with romantic nasty talk (e.g. "I love making you feel good"). Quite nice, really. I also liked the way missionary slid into piledriver -- as her shoulders fell off the couch and onto the floor, it seemed natural, and it's actually the first time piledriver looked like a believable position to me. There's a pop to the cooch to finish off a winner of a scene.

The radio host has advised a tearful caller (Julie Meadows) to remember what she loved about the man who left her (Kurt Lockwood). Turns out it was the sex, so she thinks back to happier days, when she was getting her pussy eaten. To signify the beginning of the flashback/dream sequence, the lighting goes white-hot, or anyway some kind of effect is used. It's a little disconcerting, but the blinding whiteness does give the scene a unique look. The sex is mostly pretty routine, but I like the way she smiles after her first orgasm, and to my eyes, the scene puts appropriate emphasis on Meadows' pleasure. The pop goes on her bush, and the scene ends. I think it would have been nice to cut to at least one shot of Meadows back in the real world, alone, with regular lighting, but oh well.

Next up is a girl-girl scene. Sasha Monet, the bartender, has dumped her boyfriend to be with Bella Starr. I'm not usually a big fan of g/g stuff, but when I like it, this is what I like. It's mostly kissy and sweet, as opposed to hot and nasty. No yard-long dildos or major appliances, just two women trying to convey that they dig each other. It's just pretty.

Eric Masterson, playing Nicole's husband, meets a hooker, played by Julia Ann. Shoot, one of my pet peeves: the blowjob closeups are so close that we can't see her face. Isn't that the whole point? Dammit. It goes on for a while, too... hey, is this just a blowjob scene? What do you know, it is. He pops in her hand, which is realistic considering the situation.

Julia's next trick is Steven St. Croix, who is a little taken aback because she looks like his dead wife. They lie on the bed and talk for a while, so St. Croix can get off some lines like, "She had a way of touching me that just made the world melt away. She'd make me feel like I was the only man on the planet." I guess it touches her, because for a hooker she doesn't get to business very quickly. The scene starts with several minutes of kissing and cuddling and such before any clothes even come off. It's a long scene for a feature, and they don't rush through any of it. Julia looks quite lovely in spoon and not too bad in mish, which leads to a pop on the belly.

Pros: Julia Ann looks great. Her outfits in both scenes were very flattering, especially the pink dress with black lace trim she wears in the finale.

There are a lot of sexy mood-setting setup shots in the non-sex portions of the movie, particularly of the uncredited Angela Davies as the talk-show host. Lots of smoky closeups of lips, for instance.

Cons: I didn't really figure out the premise of the movie until I watched the Julia Ann interview in the special features section. I guess in each of these scenes, people are supposed to magically realize they're in love because of the way they get kissed. It is mentioned after the fact in two of the scenes, but the point could have been made more explicitly, either in the script or visually.

Sasha's a terrible bartender. She pours Mike Horner a beer that's 90 percent foam. I don't care how cute she is, I'd tell her to try again. I know, when there's a porn star on the screen, I'm not supposed to look at the beer, but damn.

DVD extras: The usual Wicked package. No commentary, though. The behind-the-scenes and blooper segments are maybe a little below average by Wicked's standards, but still very watchable. In addition to Julia Ann's, there's a joint interview with Bella Starr and Sasha Monet, neither of whom I was familiar with. It helped give me an idea of who they were, and what they were doing there.

Summing up: This one aims straight at the couples target, though one could argue that the lesbians and the hooker aren't helpful in that regard. But it's well-executed and contains nothing that's objectionable to me, which is rare enough. If that sounds like I'm damning with faint praise, I'm not -- I really am just praising faintly.

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