Randy Spears, playing a mentor to self-doubting fledgling artist jessica drake, gives her some decent advice: "Don't be afraid to be pretentious." That's certainly something director David Stanley seems to take to heart in his work.

Stanley's indie-movie pretentions, while easily (and sometimes justifiably) mockable, at least are evidence of some ambition, and I find that valuable in the lowest-common-denominator world of porn.

The movie is basically about Spears teaching drake how to express her creativity and grow as an artist and person, so there are wide swaths of pseudo-intellectual dialogue. But I've sat through worse at the multiplex, and at least in "Creme Brulee" there's fucking.

Pros: Hey, there's a commentary on this disc, with Stanley, drake and Spears, though Randy doesn't contribute much. I miss the days when it seemed like all Wicked movies had commentaries. The track is pretty entertaining, and somewhat enlightening as well. But the original soundtrack is left a little too loud; sometimes the two audio tracks compete a bit.

*Good-looking cast. Not just attractive people, but attractive people looking good. I'm not really excited about drake's new d-cups, but what an ass. Faith looks amazingly beautiful in her scene, especially in the setup. Much more so than usual, IMO. Jassie looks pretty sweet, and Courtney Simpson made a big impression on me during the BJ portion of her scene. Yeeha.

Cons: Two g/g scenes, both featuring Jassie. At least one too many for my taste, but your mileage may vary.

Also: If you like that kind of thing, and I really don't, there's a lot of foot-jobbing going on, by drake, Faith and Simpson. Long ones. And drake takes the climactic load of the movie on her tootsies.

Bottom line: It's kind of an ultimate couples movie -- relationship-based, mushily romantic in parts, talky, often candlelit. So be warned if you can't handle that. But it's another really well-made movie by Stanley that succeeds in doing exactly what it wants to do. He's been on a roll since joining Wicked.