Though he has made thousands of routine porn videos, I was introduced to Mike Quasar at the top of his game, with the excellent romantic drama "Memoirs of a Madam" shot 20 years back. Now working for Wicked Pictures he returns to that film's theme and structure with "Turn the Page", something of a PSA for the virtues of young women prostituting themselves, defined here as having sex with strangers for pay.
If that sounds like an untenable position to take, especially in our hopefully more enlightened "#MeToo" era, it's familiar ground for pornographers to trod, so often do they get up on a soapbox to unsubtly promote their profession and its monetary opportunities. But Quasar is not just glib here but seems extraordinarily sincere in his script's proselytizing. With plenty of voice-over, the story is told by 21-year-old journalism student Alexa Grace, interviewing a leading escort service Madam played by Julia Ann, very similar to his earlier "Memoirs" feature that starred Inari Vachs as the journalist. Julia insists that the young lady experience her subject, code for being introduced to prostitution first-hand.
The various sex scenes with various Johns, nearly all of whom are heavily tattooed porn actors (Small Hands, Derrick Pierce, Marcus London) are stimulating and presented romantically rather than just a job. These guys are all shown as nice fellows, and attractive enough to more than sugar coat the profession. To watch this advertisement for becoming an escort, one would think it's all pleasure, echoing the sentiments expressed by sweet young things in the thousands of BTS short subjects I've sat through on Adult DVDs. At one point Julia even informs Alexa how quickly an enterprising college girl could pay off her student loans by signing up.
I enjoyed this heavily-slanted nonsence, right up to a well-designed and almost-surprise ending. Key line of dialog has Julia stating: "Just because I love it doesn't mean I'm proud of it" regarding her choice of work (which her character is poised to retire from), and it's repeated verbatim by Alexa at the film's satisfying conclusion.
If that sounds like an untenable position to take, especially in our hopefully more enlightened "#MeToo" era, it's familiar ground for pornographers to trod, so often do they get up on a soapbox to unsubtly promote their profession and its monetary opportunities. But Quasar is not just glib here but seems extraordinarily sincere in his script's proselytizing. With plenty of voice-over, the story is told by 21-year-old journalism student Alexa Grace, interviewing a leading escort service Madam played by Julia Ann, very similar to his earlier "Memoirs" feature that starred Inari Vachs as the journalist. Julia insists that the young lady experience her subject, code for being introduced to prostitution first-hand.
The various sex scenes with various Johns, nearly all of whom are heavily tattooed porn actors (Small Hands, Derrick Pierce, Marcus London) are stimulating and presented romantically rather than just a job. These guys are all shown as nice fellows, and attractive enough to more than sugar coat the profession. To watch this advertisement for becoming an escort, one would think it's all pleasure, echoing the sentiments expressed by sweet young things in the thousands of BTS short subjects I've sat through on Adult DVDs. At one point Julia even informs Alexa how quickly an enterprising college girl could pay off her student loans by signing up.
I enjoyed this heavily-slanted nonsence, right up to a well-designed and almost-surprise ending. Key line of dialog has Julia stating: "Just because I love it doesn't mean I'm proud of it" regarding her choice of work (which her character is poised to retire from), and it's repeated verbatim by Alexa at the film's satisfying conclusion.