69th Parallel

Ever have one of those days when something shitty happened or was going on, and you wished you could turn back the clock and change one little thing, so that everything would turn out differently? Well, Shayla La Veaux's having one of those days in "69th Parallel". It seems her boyfriend Kyle Stone is not only an all-around jerk, but he's also sticking it to some outside cooze on the side. Her big dilemma is should she stay with the guy, or ditch him? And with Taylor Moore narrating and helping her turn back time, can she make things better for herself?

It's a kind of cool concept, but that's all it is, a concept. Director Bud Lee treats it like Award Winning Material, but he's no Paul Norman or John Leslie, so things get kind of clunky between the boffing. And the sex -- while certainly good -- is nothing stellar, even though I'm a big fan of Shayla and co-star Kylie Ireland (who's a ravishing redhead in this flick). Still, Shayla really gets to show off her acting chops here (she's honestly very good) and even if I've seen her and Kylie really burn up the screen in other stuff, this flick is probably a decent introduction to the ample charms of both lovely ladies.

The movie starts with Shayla La Veaux ditching her guy and deciding to stay with luscious buddy T.J. Heart. T.J.'s better off, with a happy life and a fine fella in Randy Spears. So fine, in fact, that T.J. has to fuck her man even with Shayla in the other room. Randy dines on his blonde beauty's snatch before she huffs his cock. After some doggy and missionary style banging, he sprays his love juice all over T.J.'s hard body and 100% natural rack.

The sounds of sexing make Shayla want to go back to Kyle Stone, but her car breaks down along the way. Steve Hatcher stops to help her (and give her his number, the sly bastard), but that's still not enough to get her home in time to see her guy chowing down on Kylie Ireland's cunny. The voluptuous Ms. Ireland vacuums his dick into her accommodating mouth before taking him reverse cowgirl. After switching to doggy and missionary, Kyle creams her belly.

If she hadn't hung around chatting up Steve-O, Shayla probably would've caught Kyle red-dicked and planted firmly in Kylie's sopping box. But oh well, she made her choice. Fortunately for her, Kylie forgot her flower hair-clip -- and Shayla notices. So she plots her revenge. She calls up Steve, who comes over for lunch, and then gets ready to cum in an outdoor fuckfest. These two cut right to the chase -- none of that foreplay shit -- and he fucks her doggy and missionary style before losing his load on her tits.

Meanwhile, Kyle goes to visit Kylie at home, and she's got a present: Elle De Vyne. The two gals give the lucky gent a bump 'n' grind lesbo show-off, rubbing and eating each other's hair pies. Still, the fuckstresses know that man-meat is what they really need, and they take turns inhaling Kyle's blue-steel rod, jacking him off every now and then. After giving Kylie a hearty reverse cowgirl ride, Kyle slides his shaft into Elle's ready-and-willing pussy before going for her tight asshole. That backseat drive is enough to make Kyle spew spunk all over Elle's tits. Kylie shows her true love by rubbing her fingers in the fresh cream and taking a taste.

But Shyla's taking on the wild life too. Fed up with Kyle's bullshit, she makes the decision to join Steve at a swingers' get-together. Shayla and Steve hook up with T.J. Heart, Alec Metro and Coral Sands, and the ladies get things going first. T.J. nurses on Shayla's ample silicone jugs while Coral laps T.J.'s labia. Shayla thanks her buddy T.J. by munching on her tits. That's enough to get Alec ready, so he dives into T.J.'s muff and licks away. T.J. says "gracias" by sucking his cock. Coral fingers Shayla's sweet slit before Steve buries his face in it. Then T.J. sucks Steve's shaft while Shayla mouths his balls. Alec, meanwhile, eats and fingers Coral's wet cunt. (That, my friends, is the only man-action she gets here). T.J. gets the real fucking going by cowgirling Steve. Shayla goes cowgirl on Alec, and then both switch to doggy until Alex spoos all over Shayla's back, and T.J.'s ass gets covered with Steve's special sauce. All this hardcore humping is enough to make Shayla ditch Kyle forever.

There's a decent amount of sexing here, but let's face it: "Decent" doesn't always get all of us off. Newer smut specialists will probably dig this movie more than vets. The rest of the disc is an OK package, with 2 trailers, a photo gallery, animated menus, website info, and some pretty eye-opening bios (be sure to check out the one for Steve Hatcher. Whew!).

Blonde, petite and incredibly cute, Shayla LaVeaux makes for an eye-batting presence on the cover of Bud Lee's 69TH PARALLEL. Dressed up (or rather, dressed down) in a sexy white outfit, Shayla looks simply gorgeous on the non-explicit DVD packaging, which alone almost made me purchase the disc outright. I say "almost" because, unfortunately, the contents of the movie are a little too average to warrant anything more than a half-hearted recommendation.

Director Bud Lee doesn't have the artistic touch of an Andrew Blake, nor does he have the erotic sensibility of a John Stagliano or John Leslie, but The Former Mr. Hyapatia Lee now known as The Former Mr. Asia Carrera has directed some good, solid films in the past. His mid-1990s movie, CENTERFOLD, features a heated performance from Francesca Le, and his more recent video LADIES NIGHT OUT (both from VCA) has some top-notch performances that warrant Adult DVD Empire's highest ratings. Unfortunately, 69TH PARALLEL fails to match the quality of his earlier works.

Although the lovely Shayla has been in the business for a while, I never tire of her sultry beauty which can go from innocent playfulness to smoldering seductiveness with a single flash of her beautiful blue eyes. Although she stars prominently in this movie, her sex scenes are little disappointing because they fail to show her at her enthusiastic best. Shayla plays a bored and unloved significant other opposite Kyle Stone, and naturally, she seeks the attention of other guys to fulfill her needs (of course, why she turns to Steve Hatcher of all people, I don't know, but hey...). Her outdoor sex scene with him is hot, but for some reason, lacks any display of her fantastic oral skills. I don't know if Mr. Hatcher felt as cheated as I did, but we are to wait until towards the end of the film to see her cocksucking abilities during a rather by-the-numbers four-way, involving Ellen DeVyne and Alec Metro. Due to rather poorly directed videography, this ménage a quatre is a mess of close-ups and awkward angles, which became annoying after a while. Also, the rather fey Mr. Metro does not seem to take much interest in the proceedings, which makes for rather emotionless action. I would not go so far as to say that Ms. LaVeaux is in these scenes, but she has done a lot more in far better movies (one of her hottest films is her appearance in the STARBANGERS series, where she fucks, sucks and swallows like rabid animal, and which will hopefully make its appearance on DVD someday).

Early on, old-time performer Randy Spears does a post-retirement scene with hard-bodied blonde T.J. Heart, and although she is not one of my favorite performers, their straight scene is perhaps the hottest in the film. Director Lee allows a lot of foreplay time which helps the chemistry between the two; they really seem into each other. Also, T.J. looks sexy in her skimpy blue dress, and her oral skills are well displayed here. As in all other scenes in this movie, condoms are overwhelmingly present during the in-and-out shots, but most viewers will get used to them. Former VCA contract girl Kylie Ireland also has an okay straight guy-girl tryst with Mr. Stone, and later, a robotic three-way that again, was only average. The real problem here is that since the story revolves around Shayla, there is very little situational events surrounding the other characters, so they just simply go through the sexual emotions, and it shows on camera.

Another disappointment was the non-sex appearance of Taylor Moore. This sexy blonde made many memorable appearances in Randy West's UP AND CUMMER series, and it's nice to see her in feature films. However, she plays an all-omniscient narrator in this story, and a potentially hot lesbian encounter between her and Shayla never materializes. The coupling of these golden-haired beauties would have added a lot to the video, but we are denied the opportunity to see these girls in sapphic action. Taylor Moore has shown her aggressive lesbian sexuality in past films, so a match up with Shayla could have been something really special (sigh!).

The video quality of this DVD is very good, with very little in the way of artifacts, and only occasional dropouts which were probably present on the original master. Sound quality is also very good. The extras include the familiar photo gallery and web-site information, but as long as the picture quality is up to par, extras mean very little to this reviewer.

This DVD falls strictly into the realm of porn videos recognized as just being "okay." For fans of Ms. LaVeaux, I would look into her many VCA DVD titles before picking up this one.