Cafe Amore

There's something about the hyper couples-specific adult films that does make me chuckle a bit. It's not that they're poorly done or in poor taste or anything of that nature. Rather, it's how hard they try to make themselves seem both upstanding and naughty at the same time. Case in point is Café Amore, from the Romantic Encounters line of Adam & Eve's films. Here, a film starring the indisputably dirty/hot Andy San Dimas, Alexis Texas, and Dana DeArmond, and yet we're supposed to regard this as an occasion for love. There's even a dead ex-spouse in the story ? of course, not a laughing matter ? but it definitely tries very, very hard to give this a kind of Nicholas Sparks feel. The final step? The fact that this is actually TWO films together! While that made me think we were getting two separate films here, what they actually mean is that there are two versions of the same film: one with the penetration and gooey parts, and one without. At least they market this as a "couples" version (though OranjeWife would be remarkably angry if I showed her this one... she likes harder porn than I do) instead of as the "party" version as I've seen in the past. "I know, I'm having a party... I'll put on a porn flick with all of the fun parts edited out!" What? Thank you to the Free Speech Coalition for updating their anti-piracy ad for this (and I assume other) films going forward. The industry is hurting quite a bit from thieves. Support what you love. I'm pleased that we've gone for the poorly imitated coffee shop instead of the poorly imitated bar scene for this film. The bars always really feel like a meeting room in an office with some props changed around. This one feels much more like, erm, okay, well, at least there aren't any bad bar stereotypes here. And, to be fair, it's still better equipped than my local café. There's a lot of plot. Be patient, as it isn't really the best-acted film you'll ever see, but I was still sympathetic, as they're all clearly trying. Think along the lines of a telenovela, though at a much slower pace. The sex scenes themselves are safe and relatively well-done, though the lighting is a bit more high-contrast than I would like. It makes the scene itself a bit harder to watch. The one between Rocco Reed and Dana DeArmond is a bit better than the opening scene with Lily LaBeau and Danny Mountain, though the lighting issues are present in all of the scenes. Alexis Texas and Anthony Rosano manage to put together a strong scene, but it's on a couch, and couch scenes are inherently limited position-wise. Also, why was Alexis doing her customary ass jiggle at the end of this one? It just didn't seem to flow with the theme of the film. Then there's the denouement, where Andy San Dimas, who has been portrayed as co-protagonist throughout, has her jerk of a boyfriend cheat on her (that would be the Alexis and Anthony scene), and Rocco Reed gets to reenter as having a relationship again, being the knight in shining armour for Andy. At this point, the disc stopped cooperating for me in my player and became a bit jumpy, but what I could see showed a well-lit, well-performed, feel-good scene in the coffee shop. Though, to be fair, I don't think the health inspector is going to be too happy with these shenanigans. This scene also makes me think that Andy has been sold short as a performer over the years, as she can reliably deliver lines and have the presence to be sympathetic. Café Amore really is an alright film, and it has a plot that, while it has plenty of drama, is not the type that will give anyone that squirmy kind of uncomfortable feeling.

It is predictable, reasonably well-shot, well-performed, and safe. Adam & Eve has enough knowledge of the couples market to know what they're doing, but even with that said, they really seemed to have nailed their audience with this one. Now what I want to know, as a small business owner, is when I get to get up to these sorts of things while at work!