Anything

David Stanley demonstrates his prowess at both writing and directing miniature films with "Anything", a well-crafted melodrama that unlike most porn is direct and to the point, rather than mindless filler in search of an orgasm. At the end of this review I will put it into context.

Wendy Divine (aka Maya Divine) has one of her best roles (and she is aware of this, in her BTS interview included on the DVD) as a community college student who turns out to be homicidal. Stanley keeps the violence entirely off-screen, but it is a testament to his abilities that her malevolence as an off-beat femme fatale comes through loud and clear.

He uses a complex flashback structure that is meticulous in its construction, taking us from a happy couple: Wendy and bald lover (with British accent) Anton Michael, in a set-up scene where she is mapping a journey from L.A. to Albuquerque on a map that flashes back a year to them in college together taking a test in unbilled teacher Eric Masterson's classroom.

A cafe scene shows Dale DaBone as her boyfriend, but he goes to the loo for a quickie with busty waitress Brittney Skye. Wendy sees them in action, and tosses her cup of coffee at DaBone when he returns to their table. She impulsively "borrow" Anton from a nearby table, and they go home to hump, revenge for her boyfriend's infidelity.

Stanley's script pointedly repeats the word "anything" in dialog many times over, generally in the context of "I'll do anything". The couple is unpacking their belongings having moved from some small town to L.A., and the camera pans to a newspaper used for wrapping, fictional L.A. Tribune with a big headline "College Student and Waitress Found Brutally Murdered". This plot device is marred by the fact that it's not credible that the local crime (back at the city where they attended community college before moving to the big city) would be covered by an L.A. paper or that they would have been using L.A. newspapers for packing.

At this point Stanley explores the kinky sex of their relationship. They enjoy watching a porn video -the VHS box reads "Take 5" but per the BTS this is original material shot by Stanley for "Anything" - in which Mickey G is a voyeur doctor beating off as two nurses (superstar of the future Savanna Samson and Autumn Austin) make love in the exam room.

Later in the show, Wendy and Anton re-create this scene with waitress Cheyenne Silver, picked up by them at an Italian restaurant. This leads to the climactic case of infidelity that breaks up the lead pair forever in a wonderfully staged ending.

For her efforts, Cheyenne Silver gets all the marketing attention, as cover girl for this video, while poor Wendy/Maya is overlooked, typical of porn's Star System (Cheyenne a Vivid contract girl at the time). Anton is an interesting Adult character actor, vaguely resembling the later gonzo stud Johnny Sins, but like Maya relatively unsung.

An interesting sidelight to the factory assembly-line system of porn: "Anything" was made almost simultaneously with three other Stanley pictures, the far-out (couldn't be more different in style and pretentiousness) "One Good Minute", oddball "Sparks" and also "Girl of My Dreams", each sporting almost identical casts. I liked "Anything" best of the bunch, but almost any Stanley feature is intriguing enough to merit watching.