Cash Markman strikes again with another awful video, one out of a thousand he penned over the years. I like to present an arm's length view of his junk, as opposed to the self-aggrandizement peppering IMDb that was submitted years back by some sycophant or perhaps the great man himself.
This misogynistic exercise has Cash/Marc typically talking down to his presumed Adult audience, as encapsulated in the final dialog: "The sins of a young woman will screw you in the end". In an obvious example of transference, Cash presents us with a police detective (Eric Masterson, humorless for a change) suffering a mid-life crisis, probably the auteur's own. It's all caused by guys falling for younger women, a theme that is p.c. cleaned up in Penthouse's release title for the DVD that implies a Couples strategy instead.
Besides Eric's own marital problems, despite being hitched to lovely and sympathetic Brynn Tyler, he reviews old cases, in order that stand-alone vignettes can fill out the running time, typical of these Penthouse releases. In fact, though Markman/Cushman takes writing, directing and line producing credits, Skye Blue gets a co-director credit at the end, likely having pumped out one or more of the separate vignettes.
SPOILER:
It is that line producing credit that earns Cushman my specific wrath this time out. I had to check off IMDb's Spoiler box to discuss the matter, as the show climaxes stupidly (and quite cornily) with jealous Eric jumping to the wrong conclusion when he surveils his wife bringing home his partner Danny Mountain (and then imagining for us fans an explicit sex scene between the two of them), and ends up brandishing his revolver and accidentally fatally shooting his boss Captain Reynolds (Cash's favorite NonSex actor Slick Rhodes in an uncredited role).
Problem is that when Eric fires two shots, each time a mysterious red flash crosses the screen -almost akin to those blood-packs so prevalent in gore movies. I slowed down the action on my DVD player and froze it, to reveal perhaps a single frame in Red reading "Media Offline". So it appears that the production (Guy DePrisco as post-production supervisor shares the blame) slovenly forgot to add the minor special effect of a muzzle flare to simulate a shot being fired. But the slob who line produced this junker is one Cash Markman and the buck stops there.
Until that fatal error to mercifully end a dull, dull show, we have failed black humor and endless dumping on the fairer sex, supposedly to massage the egos of undoubtedly male porn hounds. Au contraire: Penthouse was and is a Couples label and belittling women is not part of that business model. Markman's crummy dialog doesn't help matters, and the situations involving infidelity are tired and uninteresting.
ANOTHER SPOILER:
Most elaborate episode concerns one older guy Harold Williams (played by another Cash regular Frank Bukkwyd who gets a screen credit unlike Rhodes) killed by his young wife Celeste Star after she treats the old voyeur to a lesbian show with bosomy Juelz Ventura. Celeste delivers spoon-feeding dialog about poisoning him and taping the whole incident to divert suspicion that is as convoluted and unconvincing as possible, typical of a Markman script -how he ever became a college prof teaching the art of screen writing is beyond me.
It looks like a cameo by Cash himself playing a 50-year old guy named John Greene who shows up to kill his wife Mulani Rivera (another awkwardly staged shooting scene but without the Red "Media Offline" blooper) after she's humped Bill Bailey poolside. Mulani is an obscure actress who I enjoyed seeing; similarly for folks who can ignore Cash's worthless attempt to put this into a story context, I enjoyed the watching vivacious Raquel Devine in a departure from the show's theme, portraying a 40-year-old woman hitched up to a younger man TJ Cummings.
This misogynistic exercise has Cash/Marc typically talking down to his presumed Adult audience, as encapsulated in the final dialog: "The sins of a young woman will screw you in the end". In an obvious example of transference, Cash presents us with a police detective (Eric Masterson, humorless for a change) suffering a mid-life crisis, probably the auteur's own. It's all caused by guys falling for younger women, a theme that is p.c. cleaned up in Penthouse's release title for the DVD that implies a Couples strategy instead.
Besides Eric's own marital problems, despite being hitched to lovely and sympathetic Brynn Tyler, he reviews old cases, in order that stand-alone vignettes can fill out the running time, typical of these Penthouse releases. In fact, though Markman/Cushman takes writing, directing and line producing credits, Skye Blue gets a co-director credit at the end, likely having pumped out one or more of the separate vignettes.
SPOILER:
It is that line producing credit that earns Cushman my specific wrath this time out. I had to check off IMDb's Spoiler box to discuss the matter, as the show climaxes stupidly (and quite cornily) with jealous Eric jumping to the wrong conclusion when he surveils his wife bringing home his partner Danny Mountain (and then imagining for us fans an explicit sex scene between the two of them), and ends up brandishing his revolver and accidentally fatally shooting his boss Captain Reynolds (Cash's favorite NonSex actor Slick Rhodes in an uncredited role).
Problem is that when Eric fires two shots, each time a mysterious red flash crosses the screen -almost akin to those blood-packs so prevalent in gore movies. I slowed down the action on my DVD player and froze it, to reveal perhaps a single frame in Red reading "Media Offline". So it appears that the production (Guy DePrisco as post-production supervisor shares the blame) slovenly forgot to add the minor special effect of a muzzle flare to simulate a shot being fired. But the slob who line produced this junker is one Cash Markman and the buck stops there.
Until that fatal error to mercifully end a dull, dull show, we have failed black humor and endless dumping on the fairer sex, supposedly to massage the egos of undoubtedly male porn hounds. Au contraire: Penthouse was and is a Couples label and belittling women is not part of that business model. Markman's crummy dialog doesn't help matters, and the situations involving infidelity are tired and uninteresting.
ANOTHER SPOILER:
Most elaborate episode concerns one older guy Harold Williams (played by another Cash regular Frank Bukkwyd who gets a screen credit unlike Rhodes) killed by his young wife Celeste Star after she treats the old voyeur to a lesbian show with bosomy Juelz Ventura. Celeste delivers spoon-feeding dialog about poisoning him and taping the whole incident to divert suspicion that is as convoluted and unconvincing as possible, typical of a Markman script -how he ever became a college prof teaching the art of screen writing is beyond me.
It looks like a cameo by Cash himself playing a 50-year old guy named John Greene who shows up to kill his wife Mulani Rivera (another awkwardly staged shooting scene but without the Red "Media Offline" blooper) after she's humped Bill Bailey poolside. Mulani is an obscure actress who I enjoyed seeing; similarly for folks who can ignore Cash's worthless attempt to put this into a story context, I enjoyed the watching vivacious Raquel Devine in a departure from the show's theme, portraying a 40-year-old woman hitched up to a younger man TJ Cummings.