Here Comes the Bride

HERE COMES THE BRIDE is my favorite of Kay Brandt's feature videos, extremely well cast and coming closest to conventional narrative storytelling. I hope she returns to this genre in future in place of today's commercially emphasized all-sex formats.

Zoey Holloway is the central story figure, a planner of lesbian weddings who has a real knack for customer service within that niche. I have liked the actress for sometime, and Kay gives her a great opportunity to excel in dialog delivery and elegant carriage.

Comedy element is provided by top-billed Missy Martinez, also shining in a rare opportunity to act (rather than do her eye candy in motion thing). A bubbly, eager young woman anxious to make it in this competitive field, she fortunately catches the eye of Zoey and gets hired to replace Zoey's previous right-hand gal Celeste Star. Star performs fabulously in bed for her boss but proves disloyal at the first opportunity (only a week on the job) when Zoey's domineering (think Joan Collins on industrial-strength estrogen) partner Nyomi Banxxx shows up, reads the riot act to Zoey and takes Celeste under her wing.

The infighting of the event planners, very well acted by all concerned and exaggerated enough to make Ms. Sandberg add a new chapter to the next edition of "Lean In", is ultimately secondary to the movie's examination of two contrasting lesbian couples getting married with Zoey & Co.'s help. Center stage are Joslyn James and Sophia Jade, an odd couple with the odder casting of Jade as dom and James as sub. James, who probably provides too much information about herself in the DVD's accompanying Behind the Scenes interview short subject, is a huge (fake) breasted, butch buzz cut beauty whose constant deferring to Jade's often goofy wishes is a fun aspect to BRIDE. Jade is actually a graduate of those (I'm trying not to be judgmental) "different" fetish videos involving wiggling toes, Saran wrap and the like.

The other couple is sexually potent but treated rather tongue-in-cheek by Brandt, a pair of strippers whose no-class approach to the wedding (they want to slide down a stripper pole in the banquet hall rather than walk down the aisle in traditional manner) extends to their amusingly trashy wardrobe. Tanya Tate and Sinn Sage live it up in these roles, but one defect of the film is that their story is completed, while we are left hanging (no marriage ceremony) regarding the saga of James/Jade.

As with other Brandt projects, the sex scenes are arousing and extremely well staged, leading to a show-stopper (and ender) threesome in a bathtub involving Banxxx, Missy and Celeste.

Only serious fault I could find was with an extremely poor continuity lapse midway through the feature which indicates Kay needs to do more wood-shedding on her narrative skills. Jade warns a reluctant James that they will have to meet with the wedding planners. We then see them confer with Zoey and Missy in a nicely done scene, yet a couple of scenes later James shows up and doesn't recognize Zoey, in fact asking fellow customers Sinn and Tate: "Which one of you is Brielle?" (Zoey's name in the screenplay). The scenes are not really out of order but the structure of this section of the film is contradictory and makes no sense.

Photography by Mike Quasar (seen acting up in the BTS) is suspect, with his lighting particularly unflattering to Ms. James for no apparent reason.

The BTS short is also informative when Kay discusses originally having written the role in Cherry 1 & 2 that Zoey played originally for Banxxx instead, and having a new part for Nyomi in a projected Cherry 3, which she admits has not been given the go-ahead for unspecified reasons. I guess Digital Playground abandoned its JewelBox lesbian content label along with the trademarked "Cherry" franchise; Brandt's BRIDE was made for Filly Films (oddly advertised as "a Lesbian company" whatever that means given that the parent is gonzo Combat Zone).