Drift

"Drift" is a pretentious star vehicle for Maitland Ward by her amanuensis, writer-director Kayden Kross, who has piloted the mainstream TV and film actress's successful transition to porn stardom in recent years. Considerable effort was poured into the project, but for me it is a case of close, but no cigar.

Publicity for the overlong (nearly 5 hours) movie intones influence from the likes of Tarantino/Oliver Stone and David Lynch (all highly overrated directors in my book) but what emereges is ego-tripping in the extreme, loaded with unnecessary and repetitious gimmicks. I grew up as a film buff in the 1960s, watching hundreds of underground/experimental films which were shown in the Cinema 16 weekend midnight programs at my local Cleveland art theaters, as well as on college campus, and Kayden has interjected much of what was original and fresh in those short films by the likes of Joseph Cornell (his "Rose Hobart" classic in evidence), Vanderbeek, Emshwiller and Brakhage into her work here with diminishing returns.

So as we watch Maitland dominate the screen with her story of TV and movie stardom (imaginary, as she was hardly a star in her own heyday) mixed with XXX porn scenes spotlighting her rather overdone erotic talents (screaming orgasms in the manner of that '90s crossover star Teri Weigel). Director Kross keeps throwing in montages of '60s sexploitation movie footage, lots of subliminal images and other interruptions to the narrative.

It's meant as an immersive technique, but becomes quite annoying as the movie meanders onward. Like her previous Maitland feature I just watched, "Muse 2", the combination of overlong XXX scenes with the other mainstream (or in this case nostalgic) material doesn't mix well. And the purple prose voice-over narration is awful.

Worst segment is the opening: a satire of 1950s TV sit-coms starring Maitland, Mick Blue and Seth Gamble, with the boys showing limited (or close to zero) talent at comedy, merely overdoing physically everything as if that were instantly funny. It makes Pauly Shore (may his career rest in peace) seem talented by comparison. Right away, Kayden's indulgent use of random black and white footage is cryptic rather than effective -clearly she did overdose on Lynch (whose work has left me cold dating back to when Eraserhead was on the Midnight Movie circuit in the '70s).

Violet Myers is effective in a rare acting role as her assistant (I've enjoyed some of her gonzo work but never saw her trying to create a real character before), but even she is misused when KK outfits her in tight skirts that make her famous big butt look freakish even in shots taken from the front. A new blonde actress named Little Dragon is subjected to a misogynistic scene set in a laundromat that is a stupid riff on an awful movie, Adrian Lyne's infamous "Indecent Proposal", with Dragon in the Demi Moore role and KK regular AJ as her Woody Harrelson cuckold, as slumming Maitland makes like Robert Redford and offers them tons of cash if Dragon will hump a couple of Black studs while AJ watches. KK has a habit of casting Black talent frequently but usually, as here, merely as sex objects rather than real characters.

Maitland is styled unattractively, not looking as pretty or fit as in previous KK assignments. She is given numerous fetishes here, beginning with so much cigarette smoking (which of course has become rare in mainstream movies where usually a disclaimer is displayed to avoid being accused of promoting the destructive habit) as to be glaring. Oddest fetish has Maitland visiting a VHS era video store (I almost expected a celebrity cameo by Tarantino or Kevin Smith but no such luck) where she has awestruck employee/fan Alex Jones (no, not the conspiracy nut but the Black porn actor instead) give her head through a hollow red piece of licorice.

Time frame is left indeterminate but with push button pay phones and the black & white sitcom meant to be in past decades. As well as a store for Metro-PCS phones on screen too. Skye Blue is wasted in a nothing role masturbating in a limo, apparently playing a prostitute (not made clear) whose services Maitland no longer requires. And both nurse and maid fetish costumes are arbitrarily thrown in for a ridiculous scene of Maitland kidnapping (sort of ) a hospital patient in a wheelchair and neck brace, with Danny Mountain in the role suddenly displaying uninjured vitality when it comes time to humping insatiable Maitland.

It adds up to an indigestible "look at me, aren't I impressive" mess, tarnishing the hard-fought reputation both KK and MW have built up for themselves.