SEX TOYS OF THE GODS

Scriptwriter McLaughlin toils earnestly to pack sex, sensationalism, and B-list names into his follow-up to Glamourpuss (1994): Here, a wide-eyed Hollywood newcomer finds love, work, and a rock star for a best friend. Jason Dallin, fresh from Ohio, is nursing champagne dreams while punching a time clock as a video-store clerk. By an improbable turn of events, he finds himself house-sitting a $10- million Beverly Hills mansion where his neighbors turn out to be his idol, has-been pop star Marina Stetson, and her husband Hank. Jason's fawning adoration and bottomless knowledge of music trivia win over Marina, who's feeling insecure about her comeback album and who inexplicably doesn't seem to have any other friends. By force of will, Jason keeps his lust for Hank secret. But hunky Hank shows up alone one night, and some manly swimming races evolve into graphically rendered poolside groping. Hank, it turns out, has just realized he's gay and is smitten with Jason. Jason, for his part, wakes up to moral qualms but sorts out his loyalties. Then Marina shows up devastated—she's discovered her husband's gayness, though she doesn't know about him and Jason. And Jason, inspired by the trauma of a recent mugging, writes a brilliant video script for one of the songs on her new album—the needed ticket to the job of his dreams. But what will happen if his best friend and music-industry mentor sees the surreptitiously made video (don't ask) of his night of passion with her by-now-estranged husband? Subplots abound. Jason's former roommate, obsessive-compulsive Tricia, for instance, feels she deserves to move up at the talent agency where she's best known for her neatly typed Rolodex cards. Her frustration turns to revenge when her brutish boyfriend (with an agenda of his own?) coaches her on just how to sabotage her unappreciative boss. A good-natured, unapologetically shallow Cinderella story with X-rated interludes.