A Taste of Kunst Vol. 1

This two-parter from Erika Lust Films is about what you'd expect - a mediocre "indie feature" heavy on the explicit sex and with a lousy, pretentious screenplay. Having the sexy bonafide porn star Skye Blue in a leading role is its main value.

Attractive locations aren't enough to bring a static, stilted story to life. It's one of the corniest plot hooks around: a group of strangers brought to a masion for not the reading of the will, but almost. It seems that a great art patron and philanthropist, Petra Fasstender, has hit the bucket and has sent for four young artists to spend a month holed up at the mansion, each creating a work of art, with the best one to be buried with Petra in her mausoleum and its creator inheriting all her wealth. NOTE: Petra is meant as an in-joke to Rainer Werner Fassbinder's 1972 classic lesbian camp film "The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant", one of my favorites of his movies.

Skye is an erotic performance artist who has lost her groove, and is on the wagon, making her a party pooper. The others are a boring lot: a femme video game designer, a Black sculptor, and an introverted painter. Other than being cast to deliver lengthy sex scenes, they're a dull lot.

The untalented filmmakers throw in some brief and pointless philosophizing, but the sex dominates. The show is arbitrarily divided into two relatively short parts, with this first one quite dull.