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Reviews
Panorama Blue (1974)
Fun and Nostalgic
Once in a blue moon I like to rent some old vintage erotica, and I ended up with this one after reading the box cover which described it as the "world's mightiest adult film". Anything that billed itself like that just had to be good. And it was pretty entertaining, with such staples of early porn as Rene Bond, John Holmes, Sandy Dempsey, and the massively endowed Uschi Digart, who unfortunately has little to do in this movie except to sit and have her (did I say massive?) breasts massaged. There's all kinds of weird scenes, which at the time must have been pretty novel, like the couple making love while an orchestra plays around them, or the hilarious blue-screen enhanced roller coaster "ride". It's all softcore, which means most of the action is left to your imagination, but some explicit female nudity is thrown in to edge it past what would today be considered hard "R". The pseudo-documentary at the beginning with the host taking us on a tour of the history of erotic film is interesting, and the voices droning that Egyptian/Arabic melody during the belly dance (you'll recognize it if you hear it) had me practically on the floor laughing. All in all, good fun and while I wished that some of the scenes had been a little more explicit it made me smile at certain points so I can't be too hard on it.
Zorrita: Passion's Avenger (2000)
Surrender has really dropped the ball...
If you ask me, Surrender Cinema has really dropped the ball when it comes to putting out good quality softcore erotica. A few of their earlier titles were boundary-pushing films, including such former taboos as explicit female nudity and full frontal male nudity, but both are vanishing quickly from their newer titles. "Zorrita" stars the beautiful Shauna O'Brien (sporting new fully-pumped breasts) in a Zorro takeoff, and since no one really watches these films for their storylines, cinematography, or plot development, let me cut to the quick and say that as erotica it is poor. There is no heat generated amongst the performers and instead all we find is the usual posing and overacted gyrating that marks Surrender's style. Pretty damn dry. Women grind and make facial expressions as if they are in the throes of a magical ecstasy when all the guy is doing is rubbing her knee. The simulated oral sex is just plain sad, and even the most vibrant imagination would have a hard time believing that ANYTHING is happening here. I don't know what it is...out of the gate they gave us stuff like "Femalien" and "Exotic Time Machine", and now they've just fizzled. Why do they even bother with so-called "Director's Cuts"? All they do is slow down an already tedious lovemaking scene. C'mon guys, spark it up a bit! I would stick to Mystique/EROS titles for better softcore...