A
great parody from Lee Roy Myers. There's not much of a plot, it mainly revolves around the guys all wanting to get laid. The story is driven more by a series of jokes, which could have come straight from the TV show, the writing is that good.
Good casting all around with the
exception of Anthony Rosano as Peter. While Rosano, as usual, does a good
job of acting, the cheap fat pillow he wears is very distracting. I
imagine this was the hardest role to cast, since if Myers had cast
someone truly as fat as Peter on the animated series, then people
would probably be turned off. Aurora
Snow as Lois not only looks the part, but her acting as Lois is
spot-on. The other standout actor is James Deen, who throws himself wholeheartedly into portraying Quagmire.
Your enjoyment of Family Guy XXX
will depend on how much you enjoy the animated series, If you're a fan of Family Guy, you should get a kick out of this parody. If you hate Family Guy, I can't see you enjoying this film. Since I like the animated series, I got a lot of laughs out of Family Guy XXX and rate it B+.
Wow! I knew that Lee Roy Myers was no Will Ryder, but I never imagined he could make a train wreck as bad as The Big Lebowski: A XXX Parody (BLX). The first problem with the movie is casting Tom Byron in the lead role. While Tom has had a stoned looked about him for years, the important thing that Lee Roy must have forgotten is that Tom isn't that great of an actor and the lead role really needs someone strong enough to give some believability to the part, since they will be carrying most of the movie. On a positive note, Tom was either given good direction in how to ape the body language of Jeff Bridges from The Big Lebowski or he has really studied the movie, since this was the one thing that was spot on.
The actual plot of BLX makes very little sense UNLESS you have seen the original movie. Myers removed large parts of the original plot and makes references to some events that have already occurred off screen. This might be fine for those familiar with The Big Lebowski; however, the end result for BLX is one more incoherent mess.
BLX starts off pretty much on the wrong foot, we have the scene inside Lebowski's house where the hoods come to demand money that's owed to Jackie Treehorn. Only this time, there's 3 of them, 2 guys and a female, While one guy beats on Tom the other two have sex. But it's not the splooge (the movie's word, not mine) on the rug that's the problem, it's the splooge on The Dude's porno tapes. An aside: BLX is on 2 discs, one has the party version (what kind of Fucking party this is going to be played at, I'm not sure....I know they nixed the idea, when I suggested it for my nephew's birthday party!). Anyway, the party version has the plot, shorter sex scenes, and no pop shots. Since the plot requires a pop shot on The Dude's tapes, the party version has already gone astray.
At the bowling alley we meet the Donnie and Walter characters and both did a great job in their characterizations. However, at one point they have Walter say "this isn't Amsterdam, there's rules" (in the original movie it's Vietnam), in later dialogue Walter says Vietnam instead of Amsterdam. This is either the fault of a poorly written script or a poorly edited movie, since there is no consistency. Could be either, since Lee Roy takes credit for the script and for co-editing.
The scene where The Dude goes to visit the "real" Lebowski (who collects Beta porn tapes) to get reimbursed for his destroyed tapes is pretty good. The "real" Lebowski in BLX has erectile dysfunction instead of loss of his legs as the character does in"The Big Lebowski". In the scene where Bunny (Brianna Blair) says that she'll suck The Dude's cock for $1,000 and Brad (Evan Stone) will have to pay an extra $100.00 if he wants to watch, The Dude whips out his checkbook and writes a check for $1,100 to cover him and Brad.
Up next is probably the best scene in BLX with James Deen playing Jesus. Since Deen had the Jesus role down perfectly, I could only think, what if they had given Deen the lead in BLX, how much better this movie could have been. The only downfall of this scene is the really ill fitting jump suit, but then I guess by this point in the movie I shouldn't have been surprised about lack of detail. If Carlos Santana ever sees this movie, I'm pretty sure there will be a lawsuit, because they really ripped off "Smooth" for the music during James Deen's sex scene.
The Dude settles in and watches "Logjammin". The scene starts pretty good with Steve Holmes in a very bad blond wig, and he mispronounces "cable" as "cabal" which was the way the character pronounced it in "The Big Lebowski". However, only moments later he pronounces it "cable", just another example of no one paying very much attention to what they were supposed to be parodying.
Before the famous Dude flying scene (mashed up with when The Dude got slipped a mickey at Jackie Treehorn's), BLX warns the viewer that things aren't going to be following the regular movie. DUH!!! If a fan of "The Big Lebowski" hasn't figured that out by this point in the movie they're never going to figure it out.
Kimberly Kane shows up near the end of the movie as Maude and she really looks the part, of course she also still looks like Scully from The Sex Files: A Dark XXX Parody. During her sex scene, I really thought I was watching Scully and The Dude get it on. This was NOT the fault of the movie, just my own addled porn brain.
At the end of the movie, Evan Stone makes another appearance, this time playing The Stranger. Of course the makers of BLX couldn't even go to the trouble to get a sarsaparilla bottle for the scene (I can even buy Sioux City Sarsaparilla at my local grocer!). Evan sports a really bad fake mustache in this scene, rivaling the bad wig of Steve Holmes for the award for worst costuming in BLX. The most discouraging part of this scene is that the dialogue covers the fact that they had to leave out of a lot of the story, but there could always be a sequel. PLEASE, I BEG, FOR EVERYONE'S SAKE, DON'T LET LEE ROY MYERS DO ANOTHER BLX!!!!
There are EVEN more things wrong with BLX than what I have mentioned above, but I didn't want to go over each and every thing that was wrong, just hit some of the main highlights that spring readily to mind after my viewing. BLX would have gotten an F, but since I did get a few laughs and a few of the actors did a good job with their roles, I'm going to rate this one a D-
It looks like Lee Roy Myers is never going to be able make a parody as good as Will Ryder. I keep thinking that Lee Roy has it in him, but with each successive parody of his that I watch, Lee Roy appears to be unable to get it all together. Big Bang Theory: A XXX Parody (BBT) is no exception to the rule.
I watched the "party" version of BBT, which was almost two hours in length. This is only about 40 minutes shorter than the regular version. The other party versions I have watched clocked in around the 60 minute mark. It's a mystery to me why this party version is so long. There are no "pop shots" which is consistent with other party versions and I'm assuming the sex scenes are somewhat shorter; but most of the sex scenes in this version still clock in at the 20-25 minute mark, I can't imagine how long they must be in the original version.
The movie begins on a bad note as we find Leonard ( Joey Brass) imagining a slutty Princess Leia (Briana Blair). So instead of story, we immediately get the first sex scene. In a XXX porn feature, I think the normal audience for this type of film (which includes me) is interested in story with sex....NOT sex with story. Even though it was a pretty decent sex scene (that included one terrific camera shot from overhead), I had already hit FF a couple of times. I really shouldn't have been too surprised since Lee Roy often starts his parodies with this method of movie making.
Luckily, when we get to the story, written by Bensen Hearst, I found a very decent Big Bang plot with very sharply written lines that for the most part fit the characters. Whoever Bensen Hearst is could easily be a writer on the real CBS show, that's how good the writing is in BBT. It seems that Comic Con is going to be in town, but the guys didn't get tickets; however Leonard has made some counterfeit tickets on his computer. To see if they will pass for the real thing, they decide to go to the comic book store and show them to the other nerds (a plot point that was never played out). On the way out the door, they see their neighbor Penny (Ashlynn Brooke) bent over locking her door. This was very reminiscent of the CBS show where Penny always seems, for the most part, to be unaware of her sexiness (OR at least pretends to be). It should be noted that in BBT, Ashlynn had the same body language as Penny from the TV show. Either this was deliberate on Ashlynn's part and she should be commended OR it was just a darn lucky accident that Ashlynn deports herself in the same manner.
Penny has a couple of neighbor girls (Kristina Rose & Halie James) over to her apartment and I guess I don't have to tell you that they're not there to make a quilt! Little do the girls know that when Howard (Vin Vericose) was repairing Penney's computer he installed a camera he could hack into. "Luckily", for the movie, Penny must have the computer trained on her bed, since the guys are watching all of the action across the hall on their computer. I will have to say this was a very hot g/g/g scene for the first 3/4 of the scene. However, when the director started posing the trio (I assume, in order to get better shots for the camera), the FF button became my friend once again.
We next find Raj (Gabriel D'Alessandro) and Sheldon (Rocco Reed) in the cafeteria at work where they are wishing they could get access to a certain computer controlled by Leslie Winkle (Beverly Hills). She agrees to give them computer access, if they will have sex with her....which of course they do....right there in the cafeteria.....WTF, this was so unbelievable that it removed me from the story and made the whole scene uninteresting. Would it have been that hard to have them move to another set - i.e. an office or lab?
In the meantime, Howard has picked up a girl (Charley Chase) and taken her home. They are in his bedroom and just like on the TV show Howard's mother is yelling to "keep it down" and "no more sleepovers". Surprisingly, we never hear another peep out ouf his mother, despite all the noise that's made during the sex scene. This could have been a lot funnier scene, IF Howard's mother would have continued to yell at different intervals.
Penny skipped the first day of Comic Con. When the guys come home dressed in their costumes, they find Penny dressed in the costume that she plans to wear the next day. Penny then takes Leonard into her bedroom for the final sex scene, which is the end of the movie.
BBT had a laugh track that DID NOT fit. It sounded more like the laugh track from Three's Company or Not Married With Children with the audience "whooping" it up at regular intervals. Most of the sex scenes fit ok with the plot, with the exception of the cafeteria scene. The sex scenes were of course too long, but everyone seemed, more or less, to stay in character during their sex scenes and most of the scenes generated some heat.
Speaking of the characters, Sheldon is the character least like his TV counterpart. On the TV show, Sheldon is Super Nerd among the nerds. There probably could have been some great comedy mined from this fact if his character had been written a little more accurately. As it is, in BBT he just seems no different than the other three nerds. I personally think that they should have had Sheldon as a non-sex role, but as The Dude would say: "Hey Man..That's Just Like Your Opinion"
There really wasn't a weak actor among the cast (which is often the case), but Gabriel D'Alessandro, while not looking like Raj, had the performance that stood out as just a little bit better than everyone else's. I usually get to pick one person in these parodies who gets stuck with the bad wig, but the wig on Howard, pretty much looked like the bad hair that Howard has on the TV show. Although the plot was skimpy, it could easily have been a plot from the TV show (which is character driven anyway), and as I previously stated, the comic writing was great. Maybe someday Lee Roy will get everything right and move up to the level of Will Ryder, as it is, it looks like he must be comfortable with being a runner up. I rate this one a B-
I wouldn't call Tru a parody of True Blood, instead I would call it a XXX reimagining of the original. The opening credits of the movie are very similar to True Blood's opening credits and set the scene for what I hoped was going to be a really good movie. Too bad that instead of getting to the story, we're jumped right to a long sex scene between Vanessa Naughty and Johnny Castle. This is obviously Lee Roy Myers' idea of how to open a movie, since he did the same thing in a couple of his other parodies that I have seen. At the end of the sex scene, Vanessa wants to know where Sookie Stackhouse is, when Johnny can't tell her, we hear a scream and see some blood spurting from his dead body.
Tru's next scene is between Sam (Evan Stone) and Sookie (Ashlynn Brooke). Sookie wants to get off work early to surprise Bill (James Deen) when he wakes up and Sam reluctantly agrees. Vanessa Naughty shows up in Sam's office and we now find out that she's Maryann. She wants to know where she can find Sookie, but Sam doesn't want to tell her. When Mary Ann goes into her vibration mode, which would cause Sam to shape shift (I only know this from watching the HBO series), he relents and says he'll tell her. Maryann is going to reward him with sex, but there's a scream from the parking lot. Sam realizes it sounds like Sookie and he rushes out to see what is wrong. SURPRISE! No sex scene.
Sookie has found someone dead inside a car and it will be revealed later that it's Lafayette, gay cousin of Tara (Misty Stone). We get a look inside the car when the cops arrive and we see Lafayette with his heart ripped out. Sookie promises Tara that she'll find out you killed Lafayette and she calls Bill to help her. Sookie tells him to come quick and in a funny bit, he arrives in a flash at super vampire speed and tells Sookie "he got there as quick as he could!".
Sookie and Bill go to see Eric (Bill Bailey) to see what they can find out. As I have mentioned many times, each XXX parody always has one person in a bad wig. Bill Bailey's wig looks like they just grabbed the first blond wig they could find and socked it on his head.
Cut back to the bar where Sookie's brother Jason (Levi Cash) has come to offer Tara his sympathies; but she gets mad when he starts talking about his support group and Misty gets to deliver the best line of the movie.....which I won't spoil here, but it includes Kayne West. Jason starts to leave but Tara tells him she doesn't want to be alone and you guessed it, this leads to the next sex scene. Misty Stone not only does a good job with Tara's accent and characterization, but also stays in character during the sex scene often referring to Levi as Jason.
Back at Eric's, Sookie is having trouble reading his mind. Which makes me have to say WTF.....didn't Ashlynn Brooke watch True Blood before writing this movie....Sookie CAN'T read vampires' minds, that's one of the reasons she is so attracted to Bill. Anyway, Sookie and Bill return to the bar and Sookie's not real pleased about what has gone on between Tara and Jason, but more importantly she wants to know what Jason has told the people in his support group. Before we get too much about the support group, Tru makes its next bad move with a flashback sex scene between Levi Cash and Gracie Glam, who are both high on "V" (vampire blood). There are only two explanations for this scene: forcing another sex scene into the movie OR someone just wanted to play with the color palette on their camera/editing machine (you'll have to watch the movie to see what I'm talking about). Either way, it grinds the storyline of Tru to a complete halt. It would have been better to have had the sex scene missed earlier between Sam and Maryann, at least it would have flowed with the story.
When we get back to the story of the support group, we find a couple of the women (Lana Violet, Lindy Lane) are very interested in Jason's story about buying vampire blood. The two women go to Eric's bar in order to find some V. Eric is astounded that they would ask a vampire directly for blood, but wants to know how they found out about V and he tells them that they'll have to answer a few questions as Shay Sights leads them to a red couch against a very black background (this made for a very dull set) and of course this starts as a g/g/g scene but Eric eventually joins the trio. After the sex scene, Eric finds out that Jason was the one who told them about V and then both girls are killed.
Back at Sam's bar, Jason finishes his flashback story and Sookie thinks Eric must be responsible for the death of Lafayette. Sookie goes alone to confront Eric. He tells her that he had wanted to kill Jason's source of V - Lafayette, but Lafayette was already dead when he got there. Eric is really into Sookie's mind reading and he's about to make her his, but as his fangs come out, Bill shows up and stops him. Sookie refuses to tell Eric where Jason is and Eric says there'll be a price to pay later.
Winding up the day (or night actually) Sookie and Bill take to her bed and we have the final sex scene. When Sookie wakes up the next morning, Bill is gone, but she hears a voice calling "Sookie, Sookie, Sookie" (could it be John Kay? - if you don't get that reference, too bad, it amuses me). She thinks Bill might be in trouble and goes to investigate and finds out it's actually Maryann using Bill's voice. She tells Sookie that she's the one who killed Lafayette and that she is now going to kill her. Maryann dips her hands into the dirt and comes up with claws instead of hands. This is true to the HBO series, where Maryann did a similar thing. Sookie makes a run for the woods as Maryann chases her. When Sookie falls, both women hear something coming towards them, while Mary Ann is distracted, Sookie takes a log and runs it through Mary Ann killing her. If you watched True Blood on HBO, you would know that this wasn't possible and is the second biggest mistake in the plot. We then find out what was rushing toward them was a dog, which morphs into Evan Stone! This is the end of movie and looks like the set up for a sequel, which I would definitely watch.
A lot of this plot may or may not sound confusing if you have never watched True Blood on HBO. Since I've watched all of the True Bloods (we're big vamp fans here at the House of X-Ray), the plot basically made sense to me. I think Ashylnn Brooke, who is credited as the writer, did a pretty good job of condensing most of the plots from the first two seasons of True Blood. IF, she had only paid a little more attention to some details and not gotten a couple of major plot points wrong, this would have been a great script. With those few plot flaws, the first long sex scene, the let's play with colors sex scene, and the red couch sex scene.....you know, after I think about it, most of the sex scenes pulled Tru down. So, I'll grade Tru this way: Sex Scenes: C- , Plot: B+, Average: B-
I had decided that among all of the sitcum directors, Lee Roy Myers movies were never up to the level of Will Ryder, or for that matter, even Axel Braun movies. Then along comes Cheers A XXX Parody and by gosh by golly, Lee Roy has got his act together. Sure the sex scenes are way too long, most of the actors don't stay in character during their scenes and Lee Roy does one very distracting thing when directing his sex scenes.....at the end of each sex scene, he has the actress play to the camera....BAD BAD LEE ROY (and you're not even Brown).
Besides the sets and the costumes being excellent, what really stands out about the movie is the writing, also credited to Lee Roy Myers. The script of this sitcum could have been a regular Cheers script, except the majority of this dialog is about sex. As I have mentioned in some of my other reviews, it seems every sitcum has one character in a terrible wig. In Cheers A XXX Parody, we get two bad wigs, one on Otto Bauer as Fraiser and one on J Walker as Norm.
The plot revolves around Sam (Joel Lawrence) trying to convince Diane (Monique Alexander) that he's a changed man, in hopes that he can win her over. As Sam divests the things that he believes are keeping Diane from liking him, the movie is able to have sex scenes that can be included logically within the plot.
First up, Fraiser (Otto Bauer) buys Sam's Corvette. When he gets home and tells Lillith (Alexis Texas), Lillith sees Fraiser in a different light and they hit the bedroom. Selling his Corvette doesn't impress Diane, so Sam gives his cologne to Cliff (Evan Stone) and Cliff's luck changes with the ladies and he hits it off with one of the customers in the bar (Katie St. Ives). Giving away the cologne also didn't impress Diane, so Sam gives his hair products to Carla (Anabelle Lee), this of course, results in the next sex scene in the movie between Carla and another customer in the bar (Amber Swift).
Finally, just like a scene would play in the TV version of Cheers, Sam and Diane get really mad at each other, but their ire turns to lust and of course this results in a sex scene. Sam is so happy that he finally has Diane that he gives his little black book to Woody (Mr Pete). Using Sam's little black book, Woody makes a blind date. His blind date doesn't show up and Woody thinks her friend (Sara Stone) has come in her place. This results in a small surprise at the end of the movie and also leaves the stage open for a sequel. IF the sequel could come anywhere near matching this movie, I would definitely want to see it.
It was odd, to me, seeing Mr. Pete acting. I have only seen him previously in scenes where Mr. Pete was only required to have minimal dialog. He does an excellent job as Woody. It reminded me that some years back I would only see Tommy Gunn in scenes that required very little acting. Tommy Gunn has turned out to be a pretty decent actor and here's hoping since he was so good as Woody, that Mr. Pete will continue with more actual acting in XXX movies.
It's hard to pick any one actor in Cheers XXX who was the best, since everyone was good in their parts. Evan Stone, as usual in these sitcums, really gets into his part. Evan must really be a big fan of the reruns on TV Land. If Lee Roy could have gotten the actors to stay in character during their sex scenes and NOT had the females play to the camera at the end of their sex scenes, I could have easily rated this one an A, as it is, it still richly deserves a B+
This is the third Lee Roy Myers sitcum that I have seen and none of them have been very good so far(and I've got Cheers in the line-up to be watched).
That's not to say that The 70s Show - A XXX Parody was bad, it just didn't have enough good to overcome the bad.
The sets were all pretty close to the actual The 70's Show. The living room set was almost an exact duplicate, but someone put the TV in the wrong spot....I know that's just a small quibble, but it was it was so close, I was just disappointed to see this one glaring error. The kitchen and the basement sets were also pretty good, just not as good as the living room. The worst of the sets (and it wasn't that bad) was Eric's bedroom. The furniture looked pretty close, but there were posters on the wall that were nothing like the posters on Eric's wall in the real The 70s Show.
All the acting was decent and most of the actors stayed somewhat in character during their sex scenes. As far as looking like their real life counterparts, Hyde (Ralph Long) and Mrs Foreman/Kitty (Rachel Love) were the closest. Rachel Love looked like she was born to play the part of Kitty. As far as the actor who played Eric (Patrick J Knight), he looked like Conan O'Brien to me (Oh CoCo, who knew Jay Leno would drive you into porno!)
The plot of The 70's Show - A XXX Parody was pretty much like a plot you would have seen on the orginal show: the gang is going to see Led Zeppelin and Donna and Eric try to get backstage, but only Donna almost gets the chance (there's a plot point I won't spoil here) , then she lies to Eric and later has to tell him the truth.
The sex scenes of course were WAY TOO LONG, but that's not unsual for these modern sitcums. One sex scene that didn't fit with the character was the scene between Jackie and Hyde. During their sex scene, she tells Hyde to "put it in her rear". If you've ever watched The 70s show, you know this would be way out of character for Jackie.
If you liked The 70s Show, then you'll probably like The 70s Show - A XXX Parody. Just be advised that you're going to be watching a pretty average sitcum, but then The 70s Show was for the most part was a pretty average sitcom. I grade this one a C.