Just when I thought today was going to be pointless....I finally was able to download the Paris Hilton sex tape.

It's a little unfair to review it as it's only a five-minute snippet of purportedly a much larger piece. It's like trying to gauge the sheer epic-ness of "The Return of the King" from the twenty minute preview that's been shown around Hollywood. Judgements about it's worth will have to wait until the full-version is seen, but so far, it doesn't look like it'll measure up the Pamela & Tommy Lee tape, the "Citizen Kane" of celebrity sex tapes. No, this doesn't appear to have the sheer passion, the romanticism and poignancy seen in the other tape. How could it not? It's hard to beat the sheer romantic scale of two star-crossed lovers proclaiming their love for each other over and over and over (and over) again and it's hard to top the tape's powerful climatic shot of Tommy in tears of joy as the manifestation of their love is made complete with him doing her on the boat. On the other hand, it doesn't have the seedy "is that what all the hoopla's about?" of the Rob Lowe tape.

What we do see isn't half-bad, although it's cinematography is definitely lacking. It's mainly grainy and dark, almost too much so. It's often hard to figure out whose bent where and whose doing what where. At times, it looks like it was filmed with one of those night scope cameras and I'm not sure what effect is being aimed for. Is it supposed to be avant-garde? An attempt at Indy-style filmmaking? Or merely the usage of faulty equipment? Besides being hard to see, occasionally the eyes of Paris are lit up, like Meerkats at night or demon's in cheesy TV shows in which they're demonness is conveyed by the lighting of their eyes (see "Charmed."). Paris herself is a cipher, never fully giving herself to the role. In fact, she looks almost passionless and maybe a tad messed up. While her partner, the future ex-Mr. Shannon Doherty appears to be fully into it, praising Paris for her looks and giving himself completely to several of the positions, Paris vacantly stares at the camera, even stopping half-way through to answer the phone.

As the clip ends, she is shown doing a Lewinsky with a TV or radio blasting hip-hop in the background. It's one of the few times we can see her face and get a clear view of what's going on. A comment on the white noise that we use to fill our despair perhaps? Either way, as a final image, it's haunting, despite it's obvious lifting of the end of the brilliant foreign import tape featuring Sweden's very own Bjorn Gunderson and French heiress Lille de Brie.

Still, for five minutes worth of debasement and humiliation starring two people who deserve as much debasement and humiliation as they get, I give it a thumbs up.