Though A Time to Die is a thriller and Vice Academy III a comedy, devotees of junk culture will note the concept that links them: Former porn starlets (Traci Lords, Ginger Lynn Allen) trying to go legit. Of the two, Lords comes out ahead; her A Time to Die may be a routine cop thriller with a plot lifted from Antonioni's Blowup (photographer takes picture that gets her into trouble), but at least it feels like a real movie, has a half-decent supporting cast (including Taxi's Jeff Conaway, looking strangely like Keith Richards), and features a performance by Lords herself that is professional and unaffected.
The supposed comedy Vice Academy III, however, is a witless variation on the Police Academy formula of dimwits at cop school (in this case, good-looking women who take off their clothes a lot), in which porn expatriate Ginger Lynn Allen exudes the star power of a suburban mall girl. Personally, I'm waiting for Seka in a remake of Blonde Venus.
Die: B-; Vice: D+
