Compare the DVD running time of 130 minutes with 83 for cable version and you have a tale of two films: "Tango to Romance" vs. its bowdlerized version "Spanklish". Latter title is really stupid, as it suggests Darla Crane in a fetish spanking epic, and not this mild romance.
James Avalon has proved over the past two decades to be a proficient pornographer, occasionally capable of truly quality films (more recently his last 100 or so projects have been quality but workmanlike series features for Sweet Sinner). Quite amusingly I saw a quote on the DVD sales website ADM calling him "the Jean-Paul Sartre of porn" - give me a break!
Philosophical content is fortunately absent from "Tango", a simple tale of college student Andy San Dimas, certainly among the most talented of the actresses cast during that brief Romance ( = Couples) product era of four or five years back. After a meet cute and ending up tutoring him in English, she falls in love with Argentine student Marco Rivera. Not much more meat on the movie's bones, hence the casting of dismal, no-talent Rivera sinks it like a stone.
The Cuban-born performer fashioned a career of sorts, and I had previously seen him in a particularly dull romance titled "Afternoon Delight", but he's got nothing -not looks, zero charisma, not even rudimentary acting ability, and just pumps away boringly in the sex scenes. Given the plot line, his character has a terrible time speaking English, which Rivera certainly approximates but without any humor. Yet Avalon is stuck with the lug for 3 out of 5 lengthy sex scenes.
Another ludicrous lapse, the kind that only a stickler like me seems to notice, is setting the film at student Rivera's campus home, which turns out to be the lavish mansion used for dozens of porno shoots (recognizable due to its oval-portals on doors and spiral staircase) which I christened the "Immoral Proposal" mansion after seeing it in the Sweet Sinner movie of that name. Porn in lavish surroundings is standard procedure, but this guy is merely a student who had to suddenly flee his home in Argentina after a general caught him in bed with his wife -not conceivably someone who could own an 8-figure level house.
The other male humpers are up to snuff, and supporting San Dimas well are a pre- boob job (I think she looks far better unadulterated) Alexis Ford as Andy's oversexed blonde roommate, Jessie Andrews sympathetic as always (and oh-so natural, girl- next-door looking) plus sexy Vicki Chase in a flashback set in Argentina.
Real tango dancers Amadea Bailey and Matt Buchboot get screen credits in non-sex roles and all tech credits by Avalon's regular crew led by d.p. Matt Holder are fine. But as we all know, casting is 90% of the equation and falters miserably here with Marco.
James Avalon has proved over the past two decades to be a proficient pornographer, occasionally capable of truly quality films (more recently his last 100 or so projects have been quality but workmanlike series features for Sweet Sinner). Quite amusingly I saw a quote on the DVD sales website ADM calling him "the Jean-Paul Sartre of porn" - give me a break!
Philosophical content is fortunately absent from "Tango", a simple tale of college student Andy San Dimas, certainly among the most talented of the actresses cast during that brief Romance ( = Couples) product era of four or five years back. After a meet cute and ending up tutoring him in English, she falls in love with Argentine student Marco Rivera. Not much more meat on the movie's bones, hence the casting of dismal, no-talent Rivera sinks it like a stone.
The Cuban-born performer fashioned a career of sorts, and I had previously seen him in a particularly dull romance titled "Afternoon Delight", but he's got nothing -not looks, zero charisma, not even rudimentary acting ability, and just pumps away boringly in the sex scenes. Given the plot line, his character has a terrible time speaking English, which Rivera certainly approximates but without any humor. Yet Avalon is stuck with the lug for 3 out of 5 lengthy sex scenes.
Another ludicrous lapse, the kind that only a stickler like me seems to notice, is setting the film at student Rivera's campus home, which turns out to be the lavish mansion used for dozens of porno shoots (recognizable due to its oval-portals on doors and spiral staircase) which I christened the "Immoral Proposal" mansion after seeing it in the Sweet Sinner movie of that name. Porn in lavish surroundings is standard procedure, but this guy is merely a student who had to suddenly flee his home in Argentina after a general caught him in bed with his wife -not conceivably someone who could own an 8-figure level house.
The other male humpers are up to snuff, and supporting San Dimas well are a pre- boob job (I think she looks far better unadulterated) Alexis Ford as Andy's oversexed blonde roommate, Jessie Andrews sympathetic as always (and oh-so natural, girl- next-door looking) plus sexy Vicki Chase in a flashback set in Argentina.
Real tango dancers Amadea Bailey and Matt Buchboot get screen credits in non-sex roles and all tech credits by Avalon's regular crew led by d.p. Matt Holder are fine. But as we all know, casting is 90% of the equation and falters miserably here with Marco.