Veronica's Game

I watched a couple of Melissa Monet-scripted romantic videos recently, and the actress has a knack for writing cogent, highly functional screenplays. This "battle of the sexes" feature from Wicked Pictures is well-directed by Jim Enright and quite satisfying.

My admitted bias is in favor of XXX romances compared to those tired, usually ridiculous mainstream rom-coms starring Roberts, Bullock, Aniston or Heigl. Maybe because I prefer watching Nicole Aniston and Brandy Aniston to Jennifer.

At any rate, an actress who is lovelier than any of her mainstream counterparts, Lauren Phoenix, stars as author of a soon-to-be a hit book "Men: Just for F*cking". Her high-powered agent Aria (a terrific performance both from an acting an sexual standpoint) gets magazine publisher Dale DaBone to assign his top writer Randy Spears to profile the budding author, but egocentric jerk Spears keeps failing to show up at appointed lunch dates to interview her.

The tensions between the principal players is de rigeur for the rom-com format, and works quite well here, except that Spears typically comes off far more loathsome than necessary for the role. Think Gerard Butler in a similar situation (e.g., his film many years later opposite Heigl, and you can see who that actor never falls into this trap and is always appealing (especially to the opposite sex in the audience) even when his character is misbehaving or acting chauvinist.

Highlights include a sex bout between DaBone and Aria in which the sensual star squirts on cue. Odd thing is that in the "Making of" short subject on the DVD her full squirt footage is shown in its entirety, a considerable Golden Shower you could bottle (if that's your inclination, or if this was a German porn video).

Impressive eye candy is on the payroll as Spears' revolving door's worth of beautiful girlfriends, with the unfamiliar busty starlet Aspen Stevens standing out amongst such superstars as Roxanne Hall and Ava Vincent. Film is colorful throughout with an attractive mansion setting, plus the usual chintzy studio imitation of a restaurant set. Ending with luscious Phoenix getting the last laugh on Spears features her next novel, title "Down with Love", which was the video's shooting title.

Best in-joke: a magazine named Frottage featured on screen -I had to look up its meaning and was pleasantly surprised.