And here we have another Terrance Ryker-directed sci-fi film from Retromedia. Released yesterday, at the same time as Escape From Pleasure Planet, Cosmic Calendar Girls (or “Cosmic Cover Girls”, as it’s displayed in the film’s opening credits) stars, well I guess it stars Jay Smooth. Yes, despite his name not being on the DVD box cover, and being a man, technically his character is the driving force of this story (and I use the word “story” lightly).

Spoilers ahead. Sort of.

Jay plays a photographer named Todd. He gets beamed aboard a spaceship where a floating metal ball of lights (which refers to itself as “The Metal Ball of Light”) tells him that he’s been brought there to shoot one of their alien models for an upcoming intergalactic space calendar. Apparently sales have been low in recent years, so they need some new blood. August Ames plays Ilya, the alien model, whom Todd directs and takes photos off in a special room on the spaceship. Afterward, Todd, Ilya and the Metal Ball of Light all agree that the photos Todd took were great, but The Metal Ball of Light now insists that Todd also take some pics of Ilya on Earth, to add variety to the backgrounds in the calendar. So Todd and Ilya are beamed down to Earth, where Todd takes Ilya to a bar and she proceeds to get drunk, which we learn causes her “Sensory Shield” to begin to falter. It’s this shield which makes her appear to look like a beautiful human woman, when she’s actually a hideous monster. So Todd needs to cut her off before that happens. Todd was also given 24 hours to photograph Ilya on Earth, and there seems to be an implied threat to him if he doesn’t, but that’s never followed up on.

The 2nd plot of this film revolves around the investigation into Todd’s disappearance. Carter Cruise and Veronica Vain play Jessi and Rita, respectively. Jessi is a model, and Rita is Todd’s girlfriend, and also maybe his photography assistant. I’m not sure. But Rita was there while Todd was shooting Jessi in his photography studio, and both women saw Todd disappear when he was beamed to the spaceship, and they called the police. Cody Deal plays police detective Barnes who arrives at the scene. And despite the unbelievable story of Todd’s disappearance (and despite the fact that it has not been 24 hours since it happened, which is the minimum time required for someone to be missing before you can open an official missing persons case), Barnes immediately takes this case very seriously, and devotes all of his time to trying to find out what happened to Todd.

That is pretty much the plot of this film. It mostly switches back and forth from Todd and Ilya in space and then on Earth, to Detective Barnes interviewing the various women in the film, which includes Casey Calvert as Rita’s roommate, to figure out what really happened to Todd. Eventually their paths collide and so the mystery of Todd’s “disappearance” is solved, as Rita gets beamed back to space (despite not actually taking any pictures on Earth, which she sent for in the first place, remember?). So, story wise, this film doesn’t really hold up. And I also have to say that it’s not helped by leading man Jay Smooth, who isn’t very believable in his role. In fairness, I’m not sure it’s really just his bad acting, or the fact that he has a really thick accent (I think it’s French), which bugs me whenever he talks. Cody Deal on the other hand is much better.

As for the ladies, they all mostly did good jobs with what they were given. Veronica Vain comes off a little better than she did in Escape From Pleasure Planet. But while I was very happy to see August Ames in another softcore film, her role isn’t as dramatic as it was in Model For Murder as, outside of the sex scenes, she’s just acting drunk. I have no complaints about the performances of Carter or Casey.

Now, let’s drop all this talk of plots and acting, and talk about the SEX SCENES!

As usual, there are 7 in this film, although one is a solo shower scene, featuring Casey Calvert. Carter and Veronica have a hot lesbian scene, and then Veronica, Casey and August have an even hotter lesbian threesome. I have to say that in particular this is one area in which Retromedia has been improving in their films, and that’s the realism during the lesbian scenes. I swear, the ladies really look like their going for it.

On the boy/girl front, Jay gets sex scenes with August and then with Casey, while Cody has sex scenes with Veronica and then with Carter. All of them are also quite realistic, and the only disappointment is that there is an implication of another threesome, with a man and two women, but it’s not followed up on. I would have rather they included that scene, and cut the shower scene.

So, overall, I’d say this has some attractive women and hot sex scenes, but the story and male lead bring it down a bit, so best I could give this one is 3 and a half STARS

I do want to add that, although I consider this the weakest of his three films, I am impressed with the direction of Terrance Ryker, he has proven to be an able substitute for Dean McKendrick, so I hope Retromedia utilizes him again when necessary.

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