Heart Strings (2002)

Directed by Chloe Nicole
Starring Chloe, Daisy Chain, Kylie Ireland, Tyler Wood
Rated XXX
USA

"Now, that was punk rock."

Heartstrings-the-movie is a Beyond the Valley of the Dolls style rockudrama about a mostly girl band from Hollywood determined to claw their way to the top. Plus, it's got explicit anal sex. Heartstrings-the-band is an all porn star supergroup consisting of 10 foot tall blonde deity Daisy Chain on guitar, the ever-present Kylie Ireland as the punk-in-Vixen's clothes 'Brinks', skinny, red-headed ball o' fire Chloe on bass, and some dude in silver pants named Tyler Wood on vocals. It looks like Wood picked up the Buckcherry Halloween costume at Wal-mart for his rock star outfit, and the puffball flash metal-lite the band is heard playing at the film's opening sounds better suited for one of those dumps in New Hampshire that the Bullet Boys still play at than LA, but I'm not here to review fake rock bands, I'm here for the pussy.

As our story unfolds, the Heartstrings are tearing up Tinseltown with their signature brand of estro-glam. It's rock and rollin' business as usual at the club, complete with groupies- or at least one of them. Aria, a dramatic looking brunette in a panty-less pink miniskirt and fake bulletbelt, sits at the bar, licking her lips over the power-ballad king on stage. After a little classic power-brokering, she's sent to the men's room by Kyle, the Heartstrings' sleazy manager, with a promise to meet Tyler later- if she's lucky.

There's no time for the 'ol in and out now anyway, as Kyle has big news for the band. Seems a certain sideburned son of a bitch by the name of Forrest Black (Eric Masterson), also known as the head honcho of Black Note records, has his eye on the Heartstrings. "He wants to hear your demo for consideration", Kyle tells them excitedly. "You're as good as signed!" Only in Hollywood. As the band chatter amongst themselves about their inexplicable stroke of luck, Kyle sneaks off to the bathroom and the waiting groupie. She services him in every way possibe. As she wipes the man-goo from her lips, she asks, hopefully, "Is Tyler going to be here soon?" Kyle snorts. "Tyler left already. Maybe next time." And then he splits, leaving her humiliated.

Welcome to rock and roll, baby.

Meanwhile, back at the Heartstrings ranch, Tyler and Daisy are discussing their precarious relationship.
"It's an unwritten rule", she says. "No fucking between band members. Look what happened to Pat Benatar!"
"Pat Benatar? They're still together."
"You know what I mean."
They fuck anyway.

Ever resourceful Kyle has a surefire plan for inking the deal with Black Note. He wants to offer up his woman to Forrest Black. "You want me to what?!" asks an incredulous Mya (Wendy Divine), his long suffering girlfriend. "It's sleazy, I don't want to do it." Kyle puts on his best snake charmer voice. "Baby, that's just the way this business works. It's how we cement the deal." Listen, I know plenty of record label guys. Sleeping with one of those fuckers is way beyond the call of duty.

But Mya is dedicated to the Heartstrings cause, so she reluctantly agrees to the foolish plan. Foolish because there might not even be a band by the time she gets Black's pants off.
"I can't do this anymore", Chloe says, 5 minutes into rehearsal. "I have to go home and fuck my boyfriend." And she does.

"Gen X porn star" Chloe, instantly recognizable as the Poison groupie in half a dozen VH1 specials on...well, either Poison or groupies, has her gratuitous sex scene, and it's a revelation. I have never seen anybody fuck like this, outside of a badly supervised methadone clinic, maybe. Chloe channels demons when she screws. Her eyes roll back in her head, she murmers in strange tongues, and she convulses as if hit by lightning. She even manages to wrangle a little crazy girl tenderness out of the anal portion of the proceedings. Chloe is my new favorite porn star. If there is any brilliance to having sex on film, she's beholden of big fistfuls of it.

Meanwhile, at the (literal) workshop, Brinks and Daisy are happily sanding down guitars. Normally, this would not be an erotic activity. But these are not normal girls. Suddenly voraciously horny, they launch into an audacious lesbo scene, with neon colored dildos conveniently popping up all over the place. Brinks even has one sutured to a guitar. Of course she doggy styles Daisy with it, stretching the 'guitar as a phallic substitute' metaphor to it's logical extreme. And while we're getting poetic about it, later on, Brinks backs up ass-first onto a big pink dildo attached to a vice. Vice. "Vices". Like the Circus of Power record. Kick Axe, too. Rock and roll, right?

Then Mya meets up with Mr. Black. Instead of screwing her, he takes her out to lunch, and they fall immediately in love. "I've already decided to sign the band", he tells her. She fucks him anyway.

Then everybody in the band quits.

Then Daisy plays an acoustic hippy chick song. Who would've thought that underneath the Warped tour tattoos and the Amazonian, Ozzfest chest, lies a Lilith Fair heart?

With their future hanging in the balance, pragmatic Chloe pulls everyone together and saves the day. "If this was a movie, what would we do now?" Daisy asks. I'm sure you know the answer.

Heartstrings is rife with all the loopy line delivery and threadbare plot development you'd expect in a porn flick, as well as plenty of lovely young things having seriously athletic sex. That much you knew already. But is it an accurate portrayal of life in a Hollywood rock and roll band? I dunno, I've never been there. But it's probably pretty close to the truth. I mean, something's got to explain the career of the Beautiful Creatures, right?

File this one under 'Rock and Fucking Roll'. Literally.

- Ken McIntyre

Vinyl Dolls (2002)

Directed By Buddy Beale
Starring Tiffany Shepis, Beverly Lynne, Ander Page
Rated R
USA

"We're definitely better than the Lollipop Guild."

I'm sure I've groused about this already, but I've never really understood this whole 'softcore' sex trip- I mean, have you ever had softcore sex? I think I might have once, in the parking lot of the Ground Round, but I'm still not sure about that one. Still, there's gotta be a big, meaty market for the stuff, since Playboy (who produced this dizzy little epic) has a whole network dedicated to non-insertion sex. Still. In 2009. It's pretty crazy. At any rate, the idea of a hard 'R' rated flick about an all girl rock and roll band clawing their way to the top brought to my fevered mind classic cinematrosities like Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Desperate Teenage Love Dolls and Down and Out with the Dolls- hell, 'Dolls' is even in the title- so I was pretty excited to see this one.

Curses. Foiled again.

Vinyl Dolls starts the same way every movie about a rock band does- with the guitar player quitting in a huff, right before a major gig. They never play her songs, man.
"Fuck this band," snorts Alex-the-guitar player (C Ashleigh), "And fuck you, Samantha."
Samantha (Beverly Lynne) is the bass player. The one who says what everybody's thinking. You know the type.

So Alex splits, which is a serious snag, since she does it right before the girls have to play "12 sold out shows in a week!" I don't know if any band in the history of rock and roll has had a schedule like this. Certainly not a local LA club band. Certainly not a local LA club band that sounds like some half-assed cross between Janis Joplin and Kelly Clarkson. Anyway, this short-haired chick, Nola (Tiffany Shepis) rolls into town from Las Vegas- she's on the run from her drug dealer boyfriend, of course- and shows up last for replacement guitarist auditions. Naturally, she's the best guitar player they ever heard.

She gets the job, and they proceed to play said 12 sold-out shows. How she manages to learn the band's songs in one day is yet another curious mystery of Vinyl Dolls. Things are going swell for the band until the drug dealer boyfriend shows up, and then all hell breaks loose.

Luckily, Nola happens to be banging the local sheriff, who solves the only dramatic dilemma in the entire film with a couple punches to Mr. Coke Dealer's nose. Everybody lives happily ever after. Except for me, maybe.

Every scene in Vinyl Dolls is punctuated with a ten-minute phony sex scene. So, if you're just looking for story, you can get through it all in 20 minutes, which is merciful. If you really do wanna watch faux-sex (erotica, some might call it), then I'd say you oughta pay close attention to the band's drummer, Ander Page. I think she's got three grope-a-dope scenes in this one, and there's a good reason why she's so convincing in them- she's actually a porn star. Or at least she was -her trail ran cold around 2006, but not before she left behind a legacy of seriously raunchy sex flicks. It's a real gas watching her in the 'behind the scenes' featurette, talking about trying to get over her nervousness at getting naked in front of a room full of people for this production. I'm guessing her first ATM scene over at the Redlight Disctrict warehouse cured that up, but quick. Still, I mean, look at this face - is this a porn star face?

Clearly, Miss Page took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

The other main actresses, Tiffany Shepis and Beverly Lynne, have taken less slippery slopes to the Playboy studios, bein' a rock video girl and a low rent scream queen respectively, but neither of them can act nearly as well as the lovely Ms. Page. They all look good naked, tho, and something tells me that mattered a tad bit more during the casting call for this one.

I think the most remarkable aspect of Vinyl Dolls, however, is the music. For a movie about a rock and roll band, the songs they play are about as far away from rock as you can get. Not surprisingly, a guy named Herman Beeftink" (!) wrote 'em all. They sound exactly like the work of one of those sweaty guys running around LA all day shoving their demos into the hands of any A&R hack they can find- "You gotta hear my new song, it's perfect for Britney!" You know the type, or at least you've seen them on TV. The music on Vinyl Dolls is the work of all those clowns rolled into one. Director Beale must either be 60 years old or deaf to buy into Beeftink's cracked musical vision.

Of course, despite all this, I still watched the whole thing. Why? Tits. That's why. Same as you. If you really want to see a phony all girl band frolicking around, tho, I'd suggest the similarly themed Heartstrings, from VCA. At least that one's got anal scenes.

PS: The movie's called Vinyl Dolls, yet the DVD cover prominently features a CD. That's not right.

PPS: Tiffany Shepis went on to become the coolest girl in the world.

Availability: Vinyl Dolls is available on DVD.

- Ken McIntyre