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Betsy Rue goes full frontal as porn primadonna Ashley Saint in Lucky Bastard.
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| Coming to shoot or shooting to come? |
At a glance:
Here's a welcome break from your
Fuck Team Five and
Dorm Invasion downloads. Just when you thought there can't be any more variations of the over-saturated found footage subgenre, filmmaker
Robert Nathan's unheralded
Lucky Bastard (2013) scores in more ways than one. This little low-budget project had no right to be much better than the shyte I've been siftin through in recent months but it is. After a rather unnecessary prologue, we're let in on what we understand to be a video recordin of an adult shoot in an L.A. mansion gone wrong, involvin veteran porn producer Mike (
Don McManus), his ditsy muse and porn star wannabe Casey (
Catherine Annette), his bitchy top-liner Ashley Saint (
Betsy Rue) and a rather unbalanced young stranger (
Jay Paulson) whom they hired for one of those fan-fuck episodes. Movie title is in reference to the sleazy website that hosts them.
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| Not a comedy but Betsy Rue and Jay Paulson revisit American Pie shortcomings. |
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| A nod to Silvia Saint? |
Bad news on the doorstep:
Well, I don't reckon I have too much to complain about a well-conceived movie as indie as this.
Lucky Bastard keeps it tight and enjoys a committed, believable cast with sound character exposition throughout, maintainin credible tension long after its sloppy contemporaries have fizzled out. I'd have preferred a little more emphasis on the darker themes but perhaps that would've made it a different movie.
Perennial wonderment:
Don't people keep cuttin and resubmittin until they can get an R ratin these days?
Reminds me of:
You don't wanna know.
Watch out for:
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| Too tied up to talk to me about the dangers of gay sex? |
Don McManus as Mike hits all the right notes, a character that
Abbie Bernstein for Assignment X describes as "a very recognizable Hollywood type, glib and proficient, with
glints of pain and weariness peeking through the smooth exterior." Amusin that the last two items on his CV that I could recognise are both related to adult entertainment -
Lovelace (2013) and
For A Good Time, Call... (2012).
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
An effective cheap story. This could be easily remade by a big studio as an R-rated wide release... or it could even be remade as a bona fide XXX movie by Reality Kings! Go check out the trailer.
★★1/2
Bonus material:
All photos taken from the
Lucky Bastard official website and
Facebook fan page.
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Director & co-writer Robert Nathan, co-writer Lukas Kendall,
actors Don McManus & Betsy Rue. L.A. premiere. 5 Apr 2013.
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| Don McManus as Mike the porn producer. |
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| Lanny Joon plays a nervous assistant. Looks like a young Tony Leung Ka Fai, no? |
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| Lee Kholafai |
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| Chris Wylde lets his natural comedian charm flow into his cameraman role. |
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Catherine Annette as Casey
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