Appetite for Love

These five vignettes were released by Wicked Pictures under its "Passions" sub-label, a probably anachronistic venture these days, some 7 years after the industry attempted to tap a Couples Romance niche in its product lines, but circumvented by the prevalence of both internet porn and an unfortunate consumer preference for wall-to-wall sex content.

The dreamy scenes directed by Skye Blue reflect her prowess, helming hundreds (if not thousands by now) of these vignettes for label like Playgirl and Penthouse. It's basically pantomime porn plus voice-over narration, and interestingly enough both the producer (Lorri Moore) and writer (Heidi Sikes) were part of Skye's team over at Playgirl. The key connection is that Wicked distributed all of Playgirl's DVDs.

Unusual for Wicked is the casting of virtual unknowns, certainly not stars by any stretch of the imagination, in all of the femme roles, hardly a prudent commercial move given that fans selecting something to watch generally look through the "Models" tab first (models = actresses in the currently debased nomenclature).

Sikes' narration proves to be overly sappy at times, not insulting but too much a reminder that this video is "aimed at women" to use the frankly insulting industry parlance. Skye is well aware of this fact, as we see her often in BTS bonus segments like the one included on this DVD admonishing her talent not to do this or that gonzo stunt or overdo the "opening up" to the camera of a usual porn shoot not specifically oriented to Couples. Frequent propaganda by industry know-it-alls that the Couples market doesn't exist and never did (purely specious arguments) means that supposedly only women want to watch this stuff.

My favorite segment involves blonde Victoria White, a versatile actress who has done fine work both for the lesbian labels like Girlfriends Films and as a fetish model, but who was lost in the shuffle when it came to important mainstream assignments. She meets Seth Gamble at a remote Open House for sale, and they get it on quite romantically.

The other segments are also erotic, but bland. Perhaps had Skye, whose experience as a fetish actress and director years back is quite extensive, been permitted to include some far out content rather than filming for Wicked with both arms tied behind her back (pun intended - I'm sure she would enjoy that) the result would have been more invigorating.