Page 52 - AVN January 2016

LIGHTS,CAMERA...
EDITOR’S CHOICE
Starmaker
editor’s choice
AAAAA
Wicked Pictures
Wickedb2b.com
Director: Brad Armstrong
Cast: Asa Akira, Jessica Drake,
Kaylani Lei, Kalina Ryu, Jean-
ie Marie Sullivan, Courtney
Taylor, Amia Miley, Tommy
Pistol, Brad Armstrong, Kurt
Lockwood. 219 Min.
Category: Drama
This three-and-a-half-hour drama starts like a light
comedy, with struggling mainstream writer Jeremy
(Tommy Pistol) and struggling mainstream actress Mia
(Asa Akira) meeting cute in a coffeehouse. After Jeremy
offers to get her into an audition and mentions that
there might be a part for her in his new script, there’s a
jumpcut to Akira enthusiastically gobbling Pistol’s dick
to start a high-energy scene. Life for an Asian actress
isn’t easy, she tells Jeremy—too few parts, too much
competition, and she’s still broke and couch-surfing
at friends’ places. He invites her to stay on his couch
and they develop a symbiotic relationship, where they
work their way into a party at the home of mainstream
producer Martin Anderson (Brad Armstrong), who
goes to get his trophy wife Elise (Jessica Drake) a drink
but stops for a bathroom blowjob from Kaylani Lei
and Kalina Ryu before meeting Mia and Jeremy and
introducing them to Elise, who receives them coldly.
Above, Asa Akira plays an actress who entraps a Hollywood director (Brad
Armstrong) with the help of Tommy Pistol (right, second from top), but they
are no match for his wife (Jessica Drake, top and bottom right). in Brad
Armstrong’s Tinseltown drama.
52 | AVN.com | 1.16
Back home after the party, Jeremy hatches
a plot to entrap the notoriously Asian-girl-
happy Anderson: Mia should videotape him
at her audition “where he will inevitably play
the old casting couch move” and use the tape
to blackmail him to get her a part and him a
writing gig. The audition at Anderson’s office
looks legit, with a cameraperson and a second
actor, but once the others leave, Anderson asks
her to read a romantic scene with him alone—
just like Jeremy said he would. The wife, who
suspected Mia “and her creepy writer friend” all
along, confronts hubby over dinner: “Did you
fuck her?” He denies it, which makes the screen
caps Jeremy gives him from the video all the
more upsetting.
Anderson calls a meeting with the
blackmailers and then plays hardball. Jeremy
is outmatched, but then Mia takes over, asking
how it would go over if she hits the talk show
circuit saying he needed a handful of pills to
get an erection and begged her to fuck his ass
with a strap-on. For starters. “I may even cry. I
am an actress, after all.” Anderson capitulates:
Mia gets the part. Jeremy gets a writer credit.
Elise gets wind, which makes for an interesting
confrontation. And right around here the movie
goes into roller coaster mode, with the viewer
hanging on for dear life.
Akira acts and fucks her way to a Best Actress
nom and Brad Armstrong pulls the writing/
directing/acting hat trick, with Jessica Drake
nailing her supporting role as the calculating
wife and Kurt Lockwood appropriately weaselly
as the studio enforcer. Nine sex scenes and a
second disc full of extras add value.
— Tod Hunter