Wednesday, September 27, 2017

SEXINA (2007) (Wild Eye DVD Review)

SEXINA (2007) 

Label: Wild Eye Releasing
Region Code: Region Free
Duration: 90 Minutes
Rating: Unrated
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Video: Anamorphic Widescreen 
Director: Erik Sharkey
Cast: Adam West, Annie Golden, Lauren D'Avella, Davy Jones, Allyn Rachel, Peter Stickles

In director Erik Sharkey's private eye/pop music parody Sexina (2007) we have popstar Sexina (Lauren D'Avella) who moonlights as an Los Angeles private eye, she's currently investigating the disappearance of Professor Van Bunson, a rock star turned scientist (Cash Tilton). The plot involves a mad record mogul intent on creating an army of robotic boy bands to top the charts, said record mogul is played by none other than the legendary Adam West of the camp-drenched 60's Batman TV series, which makes him the perfect villain for this camp-drenched slice of nonsense. West proves he's a fun guy with a sense of humor just by agreeing to appear in this movie, though he mostly appears in voice over and lone scenes, a fun behind-the-scenes extras shows him doing his lines in a recording studio, it's very much a Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget sort of role. 

There's a few the subplots at plays aside from the missing scientist, we have Sexina in competition with another popstar, the womanizer douche-nozzle Lance Canyon (Luis Jose Lopez), and the story about an overweight teen's struggle in highschool with body shamers, which doesn't really align with the main feature until the finale, sewn into the storyline through an essay writing contest.  

Lauren D'Avella is fun as sexina, clearly parodying the early teen-star career of Britney Spears, showing off some ample cleavage and wearing skin-hugging body suits with some campy fight sequences - the highlight for me being when a man in a bear-suit attacks one of Sexina's witnesses from out of nowhere! This is all a light-hearted romp, it's hard to hate it because it's just so silly, even though the humor often falls flat, the dialogue is beyond cheesy, and the music is corny - the damn thing even has a Bond-esque theme song sung by Davy Jones of The Monkees fame! 

Special Features: 
- Davy Jones Sings Sexina (5 Minutes) 
- Bloopers and Outtakes (3 min) 
- Deleted Scene (2 min) 
- Behind The Scenes Footage (5 min) 
- Chris Carter plays The Blues (7 min) 
- Trailers (7 min) 

I didn't love it, and I didn't loathe it, the flick has a cheesy z-grade charm that comes through while spoofing on boy bands and pop stars, it just wasn't for me, coming across as an episode of Nickelodeon's The Suite Life of Zack and Cody by way of a CW teen sitcom - if that sounds like something you might enjoy then have it. Interestingly director Erik Sharkey also directed Drew: The Man Behind the Poster (2013) documentary about legendary poster artists  Drew Struzan, and the 2016 documentary Floyd Norman: An Animated Life about the first African-American animator at Disney, so the guy is multi-talented, and multi-faceted, but let's just say I prefer the guys documentaries over this camp-comedy.