The Star

The great Anthony Spinelli, late in his career, was reduced to directing gonzo crap. "The Star" is not in that category, but this tale of Hollywood meanders along with so little drama it's very hard to like -seeming unfortunately like a waste of time (so common to VHS era porn features).

Title role goes to Brad Armstrong, not yet the industry legend when this was shot in 1994, but very convincingly portraying the attitude of a smug, egocentric Hollywood star.

He's married to beautiful Dyanna Lauren (the real star of this movie), who's aware of her husband's many scandals and checkered history of divorces, but stands by her man. That is the entire storyline, asking us to watch a completely uneventful day or so in their lives as an excuse for mainly extraneous sex scenes.

Of course, the attractive and talented cast is what fans care about, moreso in Adult Cinema than the mainstream, as evidenced by the frequent flops a la "Gigli" when stars wander through lousy stories. Here we have a hot sex scene featuring beautiful Isis Nile and handsome Brick Majors which has nothing to do with the movie, followed by Alex Sanders humping a young Melissa Hill, just as awkwardly inserted into the movie.

I enjoyed the show's moody small-combo musical score, but even here it became quite repetitious by movie's end. When he interviews (and mocks) aspiring talent Sanders and Hill, Brad makes a cynical quip mocking the inevitable studio crass retitling of his current science-fiction movie project. It turns out to be an extreme in-joke, as Spinelli directed "Revenge of the Pussy Suckers from Mars" (release title) the same year as "The Star" and featuring four of its cast members.