Kagney Linn Karter: Lies

LIES is a good example of what's wrong with recent porn. Take a bunch of contract players, give them an insipid script and then videotape (HD of course) real-time sex scenes, cross-cut them, and hand it in as a feature. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I blame Spike Lee for one affectation adopted here, with his cute "a Spike Lee Joint" terminology, but even the credits of LIES are garbled and pseudo-hip. This baby's referred to as "a Robby D. Capture" and "a Celeste Tale". IMDb naturally gave the director's credit to dear old Robby but watching the end credits reveals it was directed by writer Celeste, not the beloved busty Celeste superstar of '90s porn, but a more recent actress-pretender-turned-videomaker stealing her name. The so-called "capture" by RD translates to videographer (cameraman) credit.

Similarly, the title KAGNEY LINN KARTER LIES is merely an afterthought (my own style adopted decades ago when Sidney Sheldon's this and Jacqueline Susann's that were littering up the credits is to drop all personal possessives -this video's proper title is just LIES).

The largest role and central character is played by Angelina Armani (her name we are informed is merely a distributor's copyright, in the tradition of "Jesse Jane"), and in the 9-minute Behind the Scenes extra on the DVD, the title logo is displayed there as ANGELINA ARMANI LIES. Quite obviously, for release purposes KLK is a bigger name and draw, so the junker was retitled to her advantage (and packaging shows her bombastic boobs, not AA's).

Format is extremely weak, not even up to the soap opera level of a Paul Thomas opus from 20 years back. A couple (Angelina and her man Mick, played by Mick Blue, a creepy Vin Diesel porn type) invites over one of Angelina's fellow strippers from the local club, Sara (voluptuous but unpretty Sara Stone). After some boring (and stilted in delivery) banter, they welcome the fourth wheel, Scott (Scott Nails, he of the "I fell asleep at the tattoo parlor" overall look).

Mick & Angelina, plus Scott & Sara have sex in separate rooms, while Celeste cross-cuts with yet another stripper, Vanessa (Vanessa Leon, a dark Latina who almost qualifies for mixed-combo action here) entertains "superstar" (not in my book) James Deen. With the cutting back and forth this opening sequence eats up a whopping 62 minutes of running time!

Segment two of this tedious exercise has Kagney (Ms. Karter) phoning Angelina to join her for another foursome. Manuel Ferrera is there to service KLK while the surprise guest is, you guessed, good old Scott. Cross-cutting between their two separate rooms' sex scenes eats up the remaining 40 minutes or so (plus credits) of this turkey. Desultory ending has Angelina asking Scott: "Promise, you won't tell anyone" after his money shot.

So where was the drama, the tension, the content? There ain't none, though in these benighted times this junk would be filed under "Storyline Films", a double fraud.

If there's any message here, it is perhaps a Freudian Slip I detected, so common in porn. Over and over we are told that each femme character has multiple names, e.g., Sara is Stacey too, Kagney is aka Bambi. At one point this is explained: "we do that to protect you", referring to the guys who hump them. This went over my head except for the time-honored porn practice of multiple phony names. Just some standard self-justification tossed into the script by "Celeste".

Cast is tired and uninteresting, except for fetish fans' consumption. Sara's huge natural tits are their own reward, and obviously Scott impresses tattoo freaks. I had enjoyed KLK's appearance in other videos, but she is completely fake looking here and doesn't warrant the title or packaging pegged to her presence in the cast.

Oddest element is her workman-like (and tedious) blow job on Ferrera, which gets him hard immediately (Viagra, baby) but never manages to get that pesky foreskin rolled down like a normal guy. Memo to Manuel: follow the advice of the Natl. Institutes of Health and get circumcised, brother!