Home Vault Rate State Bab Link Mail |
There is one thing conspicuously absent from this website.
"Decent writing?"
. . .
Okay, so there are two things conspicuously absent from this website: decent writing and soft core pornography.
Why? Is it because of my deeply held religious belief that pornography in all its forms is evil, and that to gaze and unclothed breasts is a mortal sin, worthy of being condemned to the blackest pits of hell?
Hell no. I just haven't gotten around to it yet.
But, I have Cinimax now. I love Cinimax. They show the movies Showtime didn't have the gall to put on. Like this one, for instance. You would never see Centerfold on Showtime; there's too much heavy breathing.
Of course, I'm not a fan of soft-core porn, per se. I mean, the acting in these movies is usually rancid, the characters as inert as an ice cubes, and the whole experience an exercise in Zen meditation. Or masochism, depending on the movie you happen to watch.
Also, the genre as a whole is unbelievably hypocritical. HEY, future filmmakers! Yeah you, the one reading this site (yeah, right, in my dreams) here's a free tip: if you're going to make a movie about people having sex show people having sex! None of this pathetic, halfhearted, "don't show anything below the waste line" shit! Have the balls to go all the way!
I am, however, a male. And a liberal one at that. Thus, I like seeing naked women frolicking around and (unlike the rest of this neo-puritan country) I am not afraid to say so.
Those two hundred and sixty-three words bring us to Centerfold. Thanks to a mid afternoon nap I found this movie on Cinimax at 2-o'clock in the morning originally intending on simply watching people pretend to have sex. All that changed when I saw the character named Scott.
Scott (Justin Lauer) actually generated pathos. To use regular English: I felt this dude's pain. We'll get to why latter, but for now, you have to understand my total and utter surprise. I actually sympathize with a character in a T&A movie. At first I couldn't believe it, then I saw him in scene after scene, saw him go through his plight, saw him loose something that obviously meant the world to him, and saw him (God help me) act!
Once I saw that one person could not only act, but also make me feel for his character I turned my critic switch "on". Damned if I'm going to let this one get away.
Mistake number one.
Well . . .maybe I'm just being dramatic. Centerfold is not a bad movie. And after all the crap I've forced myself through, I think I know a bad movie when I see one. However, don't get your hopes up, Centerfold isn't that great, either.
The plot goes something like this: Gail (Gabriella Hall) and her boy friend Scott live together in LA. She's a wannabe actress; he's a wannabe writer (I sympathize). Forced to deal with the cold, cold world they've both taken side jobs to put food on the table while chasing their dreams. Gail works at a bar; Scott . . . does something else menial.
Hey, I watched this movie at 2 AM, you expect me to remember everything? It doesn't matter much, anyway, since Gail is the main character here.
Gail, being a woman with nice breasts, eventually gets the chance to pose in a well-known men's magazine, much to the chagrin of Scott. He doesn't take this very well, and it puts a big ass strain on their relationship. Things get worse (they have to, the movie isn't even half over, yet) when Gail spends a night at the publisher's Mansion.
Now, this magazine, its asshole publisher, Robert Brisbane (Antonio de Santiago) and his mansion are pretty obvious jabs at the Playboy empire. The difference is that Rob is still middle aged and has the nasty habit of using his centerfolds as bribes. Take former centerfold Billie (Cheryl Bartel) for instance. In several acted (notice, I didn't say "well acted") scenes she is dangle like a piece of meat in front of Senator Windsor (Jim Kocher) a very seedy secondary character, who disappears 10 minuets and 1 sex scene after his introduction. (Kinda sad, considering he was one of the best actors here.)
Guess who's the next centerfold? Could it be . . . oh, I don't know . . . Gail?
Ding, ding. Tell them what they've won, Gary.
"Well, Dr. Psy, they've won an all expenses paid trip to . . . the rest of this review. Back to you, Doctor."
Thanks, Gary.
As noted, Gail's new job doesn't go well with Scott, and damnit all if Justin Lauer doesn't play this part well. This boy's got enthusiasm on his side. He didn't just come to the set, punch the clock, and then give a performance to make the Golden Turkey Awards rave. No, he acts. And he does a good job of it. He's probably the only real actor in the cast; he's certainly the only decent one.
Don't get me wrong, Gabriella Hall does her job well, most of the time, anyway. In some scenes, she's a good actress, and in others, she's a . . . crash test dummy. I can only assume that, halfway through the shoot, she fell asleep, and in the night the talent gnomes came and spirited away her acting ability. Yet, in all the scenes she shares with Lauer I have no trouble believing that the two are a couple in love. Maybe decent acting is contagious.
Finally, we have the nicely evil Antonio de Santiago. Don't let his early scenes fool you, this guy is a real bastard. And he acts like a real bastard. AND he does a good job of it. Here we have the one, two, three combo that pushed this movie over the edge of apathy, into the land of actual enjoyment.
Not that I don't enjoy seeing nekkid women every few seconds, but at least the writers of Centerfold (D. Alvelo and Tom Lazarus) managed to wrap a story around their nekkid women. The story of a naive girl, who gets a big taste of fame really fast. She poses nude and suddenly the casting directors are knocking down her door, she's meeting rich Italian men with straight noses, and making friends with other big breasted women (causing me to hope against hope for a lesbian scene, which, thank the Gods, arrives! Yeah! All is well in the world.)
Yes, the plot is just an excuse to show people pretending to have sex, but so what? It's not the plot itself that gets me to like (yes, like, though that's probably to strong a word) this movie; it's the way the plot is executed. In other words, the plot isn't worth much, but the actors don't embarrass themselves. And when talking about T&A, that's about the best you can hope for.
RATING (OUT OF A POSSIBLE FIVE)