Cyber Seduction

Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life
Lifetime (July 2, 2005)
Director: Tom McLoughlin
Cast: Jeremy Sumpter, Kelly Lynch, Lyndsy Fonseca, Jake Scott

View the trailer


Wow. Just... WOW. What else can I say about this movie? Despite being made by Lifetime: Television for Women (or, perhaps, because of it), the trailer to Cyber Seduction: His Secret Life is something else. Sadly, it's just a made-for-TV movie--and one that ultimately must have the moral that being a prudish woman is better than being a Redbull-chugging porn addict--so, despite the film's promising title, the trailer doesn't contain any nudity. And yet...

One click can destroy a mind... a marriage... a family.

This inane slogan is interspersed with what the folks at Lifetime presumably think is drama. And despite the fact that the film's synopsis clearly pegs previously-good-boy-now-turned-porn-addict Justin as the main character, the trailer almost completely ignores his struggle with whether or not to whack it, and instead focuses on the trials and tribulations of MILF mother Diane, as she tries to keep her fragile reality from crumbling down into a pile of porn-addled rubbish. "I can't believe this is happening to us," Kelly Lynch's character Diane confides in a friend, never coming to grips with the fact that her movie son must have come across (pun very much intended) the sex scene, including full frontal nudity, she did in the 1989 movie Warm Summer Rain (safe for work).

However, the trailer notwithstanding, the producers obviously want to have Justin's porn addiction be the crux of the movie. From the synopsis:

"This is an important topic because online porn addiction can affect all ages," says "Cyber Seduction" executive producer Michael Bremer. In fact, according to a recent survey, 90% of eight- to 16-year-olds with Internet access have viewed porn online, mostly while doing homework. "Addicts blur the lines between fiction and fantasy, creating devastating effects on relationships," adds executive producer Paul Goff.

Clearly, there is an epidemic out there, where 9 out of 10 boys cruise around the internet ghettos, snorting crack off of dead hookers, giving blowjobs for loose change, and killing a man just to watch him die, all the while looking for the next big porn fix. Concerned parents thought Cinemax would be the downfall of our society, and clearly its late-night softcore skin flicks have paved the way for greater evils, like stealing your parents' credit card to get access to for-pay porno sites, or--may God have mercy on our souls--drinking Redbull. The usual rallying cry from parents who would rather censor things so that the rest of us can't enjoy our porn want to make the world a better place is, "Won't someone think of the children????" (As an aside, I know there's a Michael Jackson joke in there just itching to be let out, but I'll refrain... for now). However, this only seemed to have spurred on the internet porn industry, which has, quite to its economical benefit, indeed thought of the children when designing their wanking sites.

So, "Can Justin kick this self-destructive habit?" as the synopsis breathlessly asks. Well, considering that this is a movie made for the middle-aged-independent-woman-soccer-moms out there, the answer is a resounding "yes." However, I posit the supposition that Justin's soul will be irrevocably sullied by his three-month flirtation with the darkness known as internet porn. Of course, the trailer hardly pays this a thought, as Diane is not on screen for a grand total of one second during the 30-second trailer. Justin, by comparison, is on screen for a measly eight seconds. I suppose the producers know their audience, and that this audience responds better to a story which, depending on the perspective, is about an independent mother who wants her family to remain spiritually pure, rather than a story about an abrasive bitch who won't let her son whack off to scantily-clothed-yet-not-actually-naked women. Actually, now that I think about it, by not letting her son ogle beautiful women, Diane is really just making sure that Justin becomes that 1 in 10 that doesn't look at porn. She is ensuring that Justin grows up an introverted and repressed loser--someone who will probably eventually molest little children. It really makes sense when you consider that Micahel Jackson was probably too busy being exploited promoted by his parents to ogle beautiful women while growing up.

With all that in mind, I cannot in good conscience give this trailer any stars. Perhaps it would be different if we, the audience, got a good look at what Justin was wanking to--for realism's sake, of course--but sadly this trailer only gives us hints of probably less than fulfilling things to come. But, really, what else can you expect from a channel that plays "The Nanny" eight times every day?

Secret Things

Secret Things
First Run Features (January 2, 2004)
Director: Jean-Claude Brisseau
Cast: Coralie Revel, Sabrina Seyvecou, Roger Mirmont, Fabrice Deville

View the trailer


One of the greatest things about foreign movies is that they're usually just softcore (and sometimes hardcore) pornos. I mean, check out this synopsis of the French movie Secret Things:

Two young women find themselves struggling to survive in Paris, street-wise Nathalie, a stripper, and naïve Sandrine, a barmaid. Together, they discover that sex can be used to their advantage, and pleasure. Both find positions in the office of a large bank, where bored, under-stimulated, prey are easy pickings. After making their way though several layers of executives at the bank, with destructive, and lucrative, results, they approach Christophe, scion to the bank director. What they don't know is that Christophe is a manipulative voyeur, whose last two lovers set themselves on fire when he rejected them. A connoisseur of high-class orgies, Christophe is only interested in new talent to satisfy the appetites of all whom he controls. In Christophe, the girls have found an opponent who knows all their wiles, and will challenge their simple under-class friendship with levels of jealousy and ecstasy that they have never experienced before. Will they survive?

I don't think I'm imagining things when I say this sounds like the plot of 90% of all pornos. But maybe I'm wrong; I'll have to consult with my friend Gary, the porn expert, about such matters. But anyway, with a plot like that, and a trailer filled with sexy French women, what's not to like?

The trailer begins with the two women taking off their clothes from underneath the long trenchcoats they're wearing, and then proceeding to walk around outside and talk about how exciting it is to do this. Already, the trailer is off to a great start. Sadly, the middle part of the trailer slows down a little, as it tries to show the very beginning of a sensual sex scene; however, the scene is too dark to see much of anything--if the porn industry has taught us nothing else, it's that lighting is key--and takes too long to get started. And then by the time anything actually happens, the trailer cuts to a different scene--namely, where a woman is taking off her clothes, trying to seduce some random guy in an office while his door is still open and people are walking around in the hallway. Good stuff.

Finally, the last segment of the trailer shows the two women feverently making out in a closet with the door ajar, while some doofus stands there staring, mouth agape. This lasts for a good little while, until the trailer finally ends with the inviting words "coming soon." God, I love double entendres.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what else there is to say about this trailer, except go watch it now. It's pretty hot stuff, and proves that the only difference between pornos and foreign films is the lighting and (sometimes) the acting. As long as you don't think about it too deeply, it's a very enjoyable ride, and very deserving of a 4-star score.