Forbidden Encounters

The good news is that performances have improved as time went on with Nica Noelle's ongoing series of Gay features for her Icon Male label. Unfortunately this early title in the series has terrible stabs at thesping.

The effect of many of these performers reciting their lines merely in hopes of not stumbling over the words is to create automatons on screen. I was surprised in the BTS short subject to hear Nica's enthusiasm, even citing one vignette as the most passionate she had ever filmed (most assuredly NOT!). But with the stiff, almost other-worldly robotic line readings leading up to sex, everything was reduced to mechanical, not emotional.

To fulfill the melodramatic promise of the title, Nica has concocted some rather exaggerated plot lines, better suited to a campy Charles Busch play rather than porn. In the opening segment, young Ludo Sander declares "I can't look my mother in the eyes", as he tells burly Billy Santoro he wants to break off their relationship. The DVD liner synopsis completely garbles this plot line, in which Santoro's brother is set to marry Ludo's mom. I guess "unseemly" rather than Forbidden would be the correct title, but basically we have a sex scene for Gays involving the usual disparity in sizes. Not only is Billy a hulk of a man compared to Ludo, but similarly Ludo's tiny cock cannot compare with that of the big fella.

Adam Russo, most trusted actor in Nica's Gay troupe, is carrying on an affair with his step-son-to-be Ty Roderick. This bit of infidelity is not all that interesting, and Ty's sullen non-performance sunk this vignette entirely for me.

Noelle falls back on the diminutive member of her stock company, little Armond Rizzo, matched in an older/younger liaison with Brad Kalvo. Again, the size disparity seems to be the not-so subliminal reason for this segment, and when Rizzo was riding Kalvo's condom-covered cock I could only think of him as a horse- racing jockey.

Finale brings back Ty, up to no good with newcomer Liam Harkmoore. Liam is soon to be his step-brother, so as an equal-opportunity humper Ty gives Liam some of what he accorded Liam's pop Adam. There's no resolution to this story, and no indication that Nica is ready to mount a Gay remake of the classic "La Ronde".