Adventures With the Baumgartners, from Adam and Eve Pictures

★★★★☆

Time: 5:02, Director: Kay Brandt, Date: 2017

Screenshots: On our Tumblr here and here and here and here

On the web: IAFD

Cast: Anikka Albrite (29yo), Edyn Blair (29yo), A.J. Applegate (28yo), Sara Luvv (24yo), Katy Kiss (24yo), Ricky Johnson, Mick Blue (41yo), Xander Corvus (29yo), and Derrick Pierce (43yo)

Source: 1920×1080 MP4 downloaded from Gamelink

Pleasure ✔+, Passion ⚧-, Balance ✔+

Review

A sequel to Babysitting the Baumgartners, which we still regard as one of the best pornos we have ever seen, Adventures With the Baumbartners is also based on a novel by Selena Kitt. This one was released at about the same time as the movie and seems to have been written especially for it. It follows the continuing polyamorous adventures of Doc and Mrs B (Mick Blue and Anikka Albrite) and their young friends Ronnie and Gretchen (Sara Luvv and A.J. Applegate). Gretchen is now working as the the Baumgartners' nanny, and she and Ronnie are sharing an apartment—and a bed. But it is not clear exactly what sort of relationship they really have, and things get complicated when Ronnie starts to have feelings for her trainer at the gym, Vince (Xander Corvus).

That, to us, is the main story here, and it's one that might have made for a really good movie. Unfortunately, it isn't developed as much as it could have been, in large part because there are two other (far less interesting) storylines that are given almost as much attention. One concerns Mrs B's sexual interest in her friend Daphne (Edyn Blair) and Mrs B's introduction of Daphne to Doc, all eventually leading to a foursome with Daphne's husband Ari (Derrick Pierce). The other concerns Daphne's daughter Paige (Katy Kiss), who is all of eighteen and already has a very serious, and very open, relationship with her boyfriend Tyler (Ricky Johnson).

It's really too much to try to do in one movie. There are a lot of missing pieces. For example, Ari has apparently been 'away' for nearly three months, but there's only a very brief, and easy to miss, indication why. There's no discussion of his relationship with Daphne, of what he might think of her fucking Doc while he is away, or of how and why the four of them end up in bed together. It all just happens. But much of what we find erotic about this kind of the story is what's going on inside people's heads. There was tons of that in Babysitting the Baumgartners. There is very little of it here.

The exception is to be found in Gretchen's reaction to Ronnie's newfound interest in Vince. She's clearly worried. And here there was really a missed opportunity. What resolution we get comes when Gretchen arrives home unexpectedly and sees Ronnie and Vince in bed together—much as she and Ronnie had watched Paige and Tyler, from the same hallway, earlier in the movie. That time, she and Ronnie had fucked in the hall, trying to keep quiet. This time, shocked for a moment, Gretchen drops her pants and masturbates. It makes it seem as if we're in pornotopia, where (as Linda Williams puts it in her classic book Hardcore) all sexual problems have sexual solutions. And that's too bad. Kay Brandt's earlier film Safe Landings was in many ways about sexual problems that don't have sexual solutions, and that's a big part of what made it such a great movie.

If you read Kitt's novel, that's not at all how it is. We won't say just how Gretchen and Ronnie's relationship ends, since that's much of the story, and we don't want to ruin it. But, here in the film version, all that nuance is lost. We think, as we said above, that this is the unfortunate effect of trying to follow all three of the plotlines from the novel. It's just too much, and all of the stories suffer. The book does fill in the "missing pieces" we complained about above, and we recommend it highly. But you shouldn't have to read the book (let alone the `prequel' Christmas With the Baumgartners, which introduces Daphne and Ari) for the movie to make sense.

So we thought the story could have been handled a bit better. Or maybe we were just frustrated by the failure to do more with the opportunites the story presents to explore some really interesting questions.^*

But this is porn, right? So what about the sex?

Unfortunately, it too is a mixed bag. There are some really wonderful scenes here. If you told us that A.J. Applegate and Sara Luvv were soulmates, we'd absolutely believe it. We have rarely seen any two people so throughly enjoy having sex together, and the way they look at each other, smile at each other, touch each other, is as heart-warming as it is groin-affecting. The second and third scenes, with just the two of them, are outstanding.

Indeed, if you told us Anikka Albrite and Mick Blue were soulmates, we'd probably believe that, too. But that would partly be on the strength of their performances in Babysitting the Baumgartners. They are not quite as good here.

The last scene, the foursome with Doc and Mrs B and Daphne and Ari, is a really pleasant surprise. These sorts of scenes too often end up being totally pornish. But not this one. It's playful and fun, and the way Mrs B sits back much of the time and just enjoys watching, while still staying in verbal and emotional contact with Doc, is very sexy in its own right.

The other seven (yes, seven) scenes are less successful. The main problem with many of them (such as the first and ninth) is just that they are too long. Some of the others (such as the fourth, sixth, and eighth) feature the sort of pornish dialogue and positions that make it difficult for us to suspend disbelief. And the seventh, a foursome with Ronnie, Gretchen, Paige, and Tyler, ended in a way that we found more than a little surprising because so stereotypically pornish.

The photography during the sex scenes is similarly inconsistent. Much of the time, it is fantastic. But it is less so in the scenes involving men. All of a sudden, one starts reguarly to see the sort of shot where the woman's body fills the frame and the man is reduced to a disembodied penis. These aren't nearly as frequent as they are in so much mainstream porn, but there are a lot more of them here than we'd prefer to see—and than we did see in Babysitting the Baumgartners and Safe Landings.

That said, the acting is generally strong. Edyn Blair and Ricky Jackson are very good in supporting roles, as is Katy Kiss, at least most of the time. (Xander Corvus and Derrick Pierce are much less in evidence but are good enough when they are around.) The stars, as we've already said, are Sara Luvv and A.J. Applegate, who are as good in the non-sexual parts of the movie as they are in the sexual parts, i.e., terrific. And we'd say something similar about Anikka Albrite and Mick Blue. They are very convincing as a couple, both sexually and just when talking to each other. We were particularly struck, this time, by Blue's ability to express sexual pleasure, in a believable way, and we don't just mean when he's having an orgasm. It's a strange thing that, in so many ways, men's sexual pleasure, especially non-orgasmic sexual pleasure, often seems to be afterthought in porn. But not with him.

We should also add a word about the sets, which are really great. It's a small thing, but the apartment that Ronnie and Gretchen share actually does look like the kind of apartment they might have: nice, but simple, and small. We really appreciate that sort of attention to detail, but that is sadly rare in porn. (No, amazingly enough, a nanny and a college student do not usually get to share a palatial waterfront condo.)

Overall, then, we have, somewhat reluctantly, to say that we found this movie a bit disappointing, though that may mostly be because it's so hard not to compare it to Babysitting the Baumgartners. Don't get us wrong. We enjoyed watching it. But it's five hours long, and, if we are going to devote that much time to a movie, we expect a lot in return. We didn't feel we got it this time.

If it were up to us, we'd have focused more on the story of Ronnie and Gretchen and dug into its complexities—and left out some of the rest, or saved it for another movie.

---

^* Since we're reviewing the movie, not the book, we'll confine our remarks about the book to a footnote. We enjoyed the book, but we do wish there'd been a bit more exploration of Gretchen's feelings for Ronnie and how Ronnie does or does not reciprocate those feelings. A really glaring question is how each of them is thinking about hetero- and homo-romantic relationships. So often, it seems as if polyamory can be really hetero-normative, despite itself, with woman-woman relationships relegated to non-primary status. (The wonderful Letters to the Baumgartners does address some such issues.)

Scene 1: Anikka Albrite and Edyn Blair (♀♀)

★★★½☆

Time: 35:00

Female Orgasm: Yes

Features: Cunnilingus Orgasm, Tribadism

Pleasure ✔-, Passion ✔+

Mrs B (Annika Albrite) has sex with her friend Daphne (Edyn Blair), just for fun. They start out in the bathtub. Apparently, the two of them have been having sex for a while, and Carrie now wants to "share" Daphne with her husband Doc. That means shaving Daphne first.

The shaving scene is playful and intimate, and Daphne does a nice job capturing the quiet arousal one might feel during such an act. After they're done, they move directly into sex, with Carrie eating Daphne's pussy as she stands in the tub. What's really great, though, is how they almost take a break after that, sinking down into the water with Carrie leaning back against Daphne, before they move to the bedroom. (So the first 14 minutes happen in the tub.) Now on a king-size bed, they take turns eating each other's pussies and do a bit of tribbing.

We were a bit disappointed that so much (not all) of the pussy-eating was done in ways clearly designed more for the camera than for anyone's pleasure. It's not faked, but really, that's not how to do it, and it made it hard to really get involved in the scene. (We didn't have any such complaint about Babysitting the Baumgartners.) Generally speaking, most of the time it just wasn't very convincing that these two characters were enjoying themselves. It didn't help that Carrie's first orgasm seemed poorly acted. She says she is about to cum, and then all of a sudden Daphne stops what she's doing, and Carrie says she came anyway. But there wasn't nearly enough time. Probably that should have been edited out.

Maybe the problem is that these two never really seem very comfortable together.

The photography here is generally very good, but there were more closeups of Carrie eating Daphne than we would have preferred. That said, those were balanced with good shots of Daphne's face and wider shots, too.

Scene 2: A.J. Applegate and Sara Luvv (♀♀)

★★★★½

Time: 31:00

Female Orgasm: Multiple

Features: 69, Analingus, Cunnilingus Orgasm, Tribadism

Pleasure ⚧, Passion ⚧

Gretchen (A.J. Applegate) and Ronnie (Sara Luvv) wake up in bed together and have a conversation about a new love interest of Ronnie's, which makes Gretchen at least a little jealous. They talk some more about Ronnie's history with the Baumgartners, and then start making out.

We loved the slow, sensual, but steamy pace at the beginning, with lots of kissing and caressing. It heats up naturally, and it's great how into sucking Ronnie's tits Gretchen seems to get, and into teasing her more generally. It's almost seven minutes until there is any genital contact, when Gretchen goes down on Ronnie. They both seem to have a terrific time, each really geting into it and having at least a couple orgasms.

We have none of the complaints about this scene that we had about the first one. Gretchen clamps her mouth down on Ronnie's pussy, from between her legs, and just does not let go until Ronnie cums hard. (Something similar is true when Ronnie goes down on Gretchen, though she uses a lot more finger.) And these two are very believable as long-time friends and some-time lovers, from the way they move together to the way they kiss, but mostly the way they look at each other. Our only real complaint is that the scene is very long. We'd have been happy for it to be a few minutes shorter.

The photography is once again quite good. There were some gratuitous shots from behind them at the beginning, as Gretchen lay over Ronnie, that we found distracting, but there is not much of that sort of thing.

Scene 3: A.J. Applegate and Sara Luvv (♀♀)

★★★★★

Time: 12:30

Female Orgasm: Multiple

Features: Tribadism

Pleasure ⚧, Passion ⚧

Paige has her boyfriend Tyler come over for dinner and a movie, and they can barely manage to get into the bedroom before starting to have sex. Paige decides to leave the door open so Ronnie and Gretchen can hear them, expecting, rightly as it turns out, that they'll be unable to resist peeking (as Ronnie once did on Mr and Mrs B).

We first see Paige and Tyler getting busy in the bedroom, but that only lasts a couple minutes before Gretchen and Ronnie show up to peek, then start having sex in the hallway. We expected there to be some switching back and forth between the two couples, but that's not what happened. Instead, we watch Gretchen and Ronnie and then it switches back to Paige and Tyler.

We were a bit puzzled why Gretchen and Ronnie just didn't head for their own room, since they don't keep watching and are trying so hard not to be heard. (Amusingly, Gretchen stuffs Ronnie's panties into her mouth in an effort to keep her quiet.) But the connection between them is amazing once again, just as in the previous scene. They start giggling at one point as things start to get too loud as they trib.

The photography is really, really good. The light from the bedroom throws huge shadows on the wall as Ronnie and Gretchen have their fun in the hall. It's visually fascinating. In some ways, the close quarters seems almost to force the camera to stay back a bit, and it's really effective at capturing the two of them together.

Scene 4: Katy Kiss and Ricky Johnson (♀♂)

★★★½☆

Time: 17:00

Cumshot: Pussy

Features: Spanking

Pleasure ✔-, Passion ✔-, Balance ✔+

Once in the bedroom, Paige and Tyler get right to it and get as far as Paige blowing Tyler before we switch to watching Ronnie and Gretchen. When we return to Paige and Tyler, they are fucking, and continue to do so in a several different positions. Not quite a position a minute, but close to it, which makes the scene feel a bit pornish.

There is nothing especially bad about the scene, but there is nothing espeically good about it, either. We did appreciate the fact that nothing whatsoever is made of the 'inter-racial' aspect. (Tyler is black.) But there isn't much of a connection between them: not much talking, or eye contact, or anything like that. And the photography, though lacking in meat shots, thankfully, is otherwise pretty basic.

Scene 5: A.J. Applegate, Katy Kiss, and Sara Luvv (♀♀)

★★★★☆

Time: 22:00

Female Orgasm: Multiple

Features: Analingus, Cunnilingus Orgasm

Pleasure ✔+, Passion ✔+

A talk about the Baumgartners, their relationship with Paige's parents, and Ronnie's experience with them leads to a discussion of the open relationship that Paige has with Tyler. As it turns out, she has had sex with him and his roommate Aidan, but she has never seen him with another woman. Gretchen suggests that she and Ronnie could join Tyler and Paige—but first, they should make sure that the three of them are "compatible". So they all have sex on the couch.

This scene heats up very quickly, with Ronnie getting her hand into Gretchen's pants within about thirty seconds. It's playful, but there's unsurprisingly less of a sense for the connection between Ronnie and Gretchen in this scene. The couch seems to limit what they can do, as well, and at times it feels more like the first scene than the two with Ronnie and Gretchen. There are some really good sequences, though, all of which turn on the relationship between Ronnie and Gretchen: when they are pleasuring Paige together; when Paige is eating Gretchen's pussy, and she is looking deep into Ronnie's eyes; when Ronnie is masturbating while Paige licks her ass and Gretchen eats Paige's pussy, and Gretchen and Ronnie are looking intently at each other. But it's still very inconsistent.

The photography, though, is very, very good. The camera is still, for the most part, with some useful closeups from time to time.

Scene 6: Anikka Albrite, Edyn Blair, and Mick Blue (♀♀♂)

★★★★☆

Time: 18:30

Female Orgasm: Maybe, Cumshot: Face

Features: Analingus

Pleasure ✔+, Passion ⚧, Balance ✔+

Carrie has successfully found a house for Daphne and her husband. They celebrate by having sex with Doc.

Carrie and Daphne kiss, standing in the living room, while Doc watches them, then leads them to the bedroom. The women undress fairly quickly and make out on the bed as Doc continues to watch them, masturbating while sitting in a chair. Doc joins them on the bed after a few minutes, and the women shift their attention to him.

We've often said before that threesomes are dangerous in porn. They tend to fall into very predictable patterns. But not here. The interaction between Doc and Carrie is terrific. One really does get a sense for how much he loves her, and how much pleasure he takes in her pleasure, and how much pleasure Carrie takes in 'sharing' him with her friend. The women, crucially, pay as much attention to each other as to him, and he is very expressive of his pleasure, even as he is 'passive', enjoying their attention.

It's a wonderfully playful scene. But it is marred by some overly pornish dialogue, a badly acted 'orgasm', and a very pornish ending, which is not well prepared. We appreciate that these scenes won't always be 'real', and can't be, but they should at least be convincing. It's a problem we don't remember having with Babysitting the Baumgartners.

The photography is generally very good, but there are some flaws. As in the other scenes, the camera tends to be very still, and in this case it is behind Daphne as she is on top of Doc. That is not the best angle, and they end up resorting to too many 'meat shots'. Doc is is a bit buried here, but we do still wish there had been more of an effort to include him.

Scene 7: A.J. Applegate, Katy Kiss, Sara Luvv, and Ricky Johnson (♀♀♀♂)

★★★☆☆

Time: 24:00

Female Orgasm: Maybe, Cumshot: Face

Features: Rough Sex

Pleasure ✔+, Passion ✔+, Balance ✔+

Gretchen, Ronnie, and Paige have been planning for a while to have some fun with Tyler, and this is the night.

We often find such scenes hard to get into. There's just too much happening, and it it is just hard to keep everyone involved. That's a big problem here. Ronnie and Gretchen start out by sharing Tyler's cock for quite a while, leaving Paige strangely on the sidelines. The whole interaction just didn't feel very natural to us. Despite their earlier experience with each other, the women often seem to be waiting their turn to be fucked by Tyler's (rather impressive) cock rather than fooling around together. We really don't have much idea at all what Ronnie was doing while Tyler was fucking Paige doggy style. (Let us know if you do.) It would have been a lot more interesting to us, and a lot more convincing, if they'd just paired off in different combinations. And the ending is truly dumb.

There's a little bit of roughness here, in the form of mild choking and hair pulling.

The photography is not great. Much of the scene is shot from below Tyler's legs, as he lies on the bed and the women ride him. He more or less disappears.

Scene 8: Sara Luvv and Xander Corvus (♀♂)

★★★½☆

Time: 21:00

Female Orgasm: Maybe, Cumshot: Stomach

Features: Analingus, Deepthroat, Rough Sex

Pleasure ✔+, Passion ✔+, Balance ✔+

Thinking that Gretchen is away for the evening, Vince and Ronnie have sex on her bed—that is, on Ronnie and Gretchen's bed. The sex begins with Vince more or less throwing Ronnie on the bed, and it continues in that sort of mode. It's what often passes for 'passionate' in porn, but we would have appreciated a bit more preparation, some indication that this is what works for them. Does she like to be on the submissive end of sex with guys? If so, that's fine, but it's a bit incongruous, since there's been no indication of that in the other scenes with Ronnie, either in this movie or the earlier one.

That said, there's some sense of genuine attraction between them, but it pales in comparison to what we see between Ronnie and Gretchen or between Carrie and Doc. When Ronnie is having sex with Gretchen, it's like she can't stop cummning. Not so here. That could be a sort of commentary on the relationship between Ronnie and Vince, but we're not at all sure it's supposed to seem that way. They're supposed still to be in the honeymoon phase, right? There are some really pornish elements, too. As a result, we got a bit bored and started skipping forward, even though the scene is not terribly long.

There is some relatively mild (by porn standards) mouth-fucking.

The photography is pretty good, though suddenly, with just a hetero couple, we have the sorts of woman-fills-the-frame shots that are so typical of bad porn. They don't dominate, by any means, but it's striking suddenly to see those sorts of shots.

Scene 9: Edyn Blair and Derrick Pierce (♀♂)

★★★★☆

Time: 27:30

Female Orgasm: Maybe, Cumshot: Pussy

Features: Deepthroat

Pleasure ✔+, Passion ⚧, Balance ✔+

Ari has been 'away' for some time and now arrives home to find Daphne in the bedroom in lingerie. She does a slow strip tease interspersed with kissing, and even takes off her shoes, amazingly enough. They then settle onto the bed together, but there is quite a bit more kissing and talking. It's one of the strengths of the scene, the sense of genuine affection between them. They do a great job portraying a long-married couple who are very happy indeed to be re-united. She plays her role particularly well, asking him at one point if he remembers the first time they had sex, though he doesn't really respond.

The sex is good. There are several nice sequences of him going down on her, including one where she rides his face while he strokes his cock. Otherwise, however, it is fairly typical porn sex (without any gratuitous roughness and the like, though). The main problem is that the scene is too long and without enough variety to really hold our attention.

But we really did like the cuddling and talking after he came, and the short scene of them in the shower. It's sweet.

The photography is very similar to that in the previous scene. He is out of frame quite a bit when they are fucking, and she is much more the focus than he is. It's not terrible, but it's noticeably less good than in the rest of the movie.

Scene 10: Anikka Albrite, Edyn Blair, Derrick Pierce, and Mick Blue (♀♀♂♂)

★★★★★

Time: 27:00

Female Orgasm: Yes, Cumshot: Face, Mouth

Features: Deepthroat

Pleasure ⚧, Passion ⚧, Balance ⚧

After Paige and Tyler have left the dinner party, the two couples start making out, separately, on the sofa until the women turn to each other. It's slow and romantic and sexy, a feeling that continues when they swap partners. It's more than four minutes before any clothes start to come off, and by then they are back with their own partners and in the bedroom.

The sex is very good and not at all predictable, with a very relaxed, playful attitude overall. There's a sequence early when Ari is fucking Daphne from behind and she is sucking Doc, and Carrie sits in a chair watching them and masturbating. It's a simple thing, but it felt natural, and it was great that no-one felt as if she had to be directly involved the whole time. In fact, she remains on the sidelines for much of the scene, as if she is, on this occasion, happy just to watch. (There's more to this story in the book, but it's not really brought to the fore in the film.)

Both men eventually cum on their partners' faces, but it is completely natural how it happens. The way Carrie and Doc's interaction is handled is really terrific, but we'll let you watch it to see why.

But maybe what's best here, as in other scenes in which Mick Blue is involved, is his ability to express the pleasure he is feeling throughout. Edyn Blair actually does a good job with that in this scene, too.

We'd venture to say that this is the best foursome we've ever seen. See our comments on scene 7 for why we so often think they fail.