Chanel Preston fulfills the promise made by Olivia Hussey (and ignored by Clare Danes) in Lee Roy Myers’ couples’-friendly “Romeo & Juliet.”
Director: Lee Roy Myers
Starring: Rocco Reed, Chanel Preston, Andy San Dimas, Anthony Rosano, Ann Marie Rios, Brian Street Team, India Summer, Tom Byron
You can rest assured that Lee Roy Myers’ adaptation of “Romeo And Juliet” does not feature a 13-year-old Juliet, as William Shakespeare imagined her. By casting the 26-year-old Chanel Preston, in fact, Myers has struck a blow against Porn Valley ageism.
Not only have there been countless mainstream adaptations of “Romeo & Juliet,” from “West Side Story” to “Alien Vs. Predator” to the Indigo Girls’ version of the Dire Straits song, but the porn world has tried its hand at bringing the tale of the star-crossed lovers to life on several occasions.
Combining actual dialogue from the play with the occasional too-tempting to avoid line like “Paris? Son of the hotel chain mogul?” and hybrids like “My family can’t see past his trust fund, and trust me to make my own decisions,” the earnest Rocco Reed/Chanel Preston vehicle is aimed directly at couples who will find Reed both dreamy and non-threatening and Preston both hot and not 13.
Set in modern-day Verona, CA at the garage of Benvolio Montague, cousin and best buddy of Romeo (Brian Street Team in a role that shows off his acting), the movie by necessity pares the action to the basics, but adds a scene in which Juliet’s nurse is actually her best girlfriend so they fuck.
Invited by accident to a soiree at the home of Montague family rival the Capulets, Romeo lays eyes on Juliet, and that’s not all.
Review continues after gallery
But trouble comes in the person of hot-headed Tybalt Capulet (Anthony Rosano, who never gets enough credit), who doesn’t like Romeo sniffing around his cousin Juliet.
Myers adds a couple of plot shadings that would doubtless have satisfied Shakespeare. For example: need another reason for Romeo and Tybalt to not like each other? Tybalt is boning Romeo’s ex-girlfriend, Rosaline (Andy San Dimas). And what is it perfectly natural for grieving parents like the elder Capulets (Tom Byron and India Summer) to do at the slaying death of Tybalt? Fuck.
Showing great restraint in his grief, Byron does not once ask Summer to lick his anus.
Myers also economizes the dramatis personae by modernizing the script. No longer is there a clunky temporary coma-inducing poison fake suicide pact suggested by a priest; now there’s a mailer daemon error that brings on the tradge.
“Romeo And Julet” will be released for Valentine’s Day by DreamZone, and it is worth mentioning that this is a very targeted movie. It is not full of sly jokes like oh, I don’t know: “There’s a place for us—ON TOP OF EACH OTHER” or “I’d really like to break your yonder window” or “Wherefore art I Romeo? Wherefore art thou a cheap whore??!” because that is not the audience.
Instead, “Romeo And Juliet” will draw the ladies in with the dreamy Reed, and the admirably un-schoolgirlish Preston will please the fellas with her stripper good looks.
Still, all this nudity has me wondering what Olivia Hussey is doing lately…
Buy “Romeo And Juliet” here
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Bonobos, baby talk, and bullshit: one perspective on the usefulness of sex writing; “The 8th Day” review
See also: DreamZone
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