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 Studio: Hustler
Director: Richard Hamilton
Cast: Jessica Jaymes, Hillary Scott, Samantha Ryan (Kurt Lockwood's girlfriend of one year, so you know), Sandra Romain
A well-made, straight to the point wall-to-wall with just enough in the background to remind us that Larry Flynt is rich, the thoughtfully (but not self-consciously) art-directed Jessica's Jet Set shows off the talents of stacked and capable badass Jessica Jaymes.
This movie doesn't waste any goddamn time. Talon, whom brunette (not blonde) Hustler contract girl Jessica (not Jesse) Jaymes (not Jane) goes after is half hard three seconds into the movie. He fucks her through mesh stockings on a weight bench - just like I do, and jerks off onto one of those flashing boxing ring lights, which she licks clean. Her animated jet takes off from a backdrop of St. Louis and deposits her in an even cheesier Paris backdrop, where an accordionist plays and Tommy Gunn waits in a striped shirt and red bandanna and beret. Gunn jerks off onto a 14" scale model of the Eiffel Tower and she licks it clean.
Off from the Alps, then, to some Euro disco, where Sandra Romain is zestily double-teamed by two slick party boys. By now I'm wondering what they are going to jerk off onto, because people kept missing Jaymes' face. Surprise! They come on her face.
The jet takes off again and we are now in a well-lit bathroom with Jaymes and Samantha Ryan. They bond over a crystal dildo.
For a change of pace, the plane then flies over the Great Plains and lands near Hillary Scott, who bellows throatily through a major ass-fucking from Jean Val Jean (why wasn't his scene in Paris?) and doesn't once say "Stop, that hurts." He jerks off into a tumbler and she drinks the contents.
This movie is packed with healthy-looking girls doing wonderful things. Bravo.
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 Studio: Private
Director: Alessandro Del Mar
Cast: Silvia Saint, George Uhl, Angel Dark, Francesco Malcom, Horst Baron, Nikki Blond, YoKasta
People can be forgiven for having low expectations of porn. As long as the sex is good, that's all that matters. That is why it is doubly cruel when a film aims high on the non-porn trappings (the story for example) and fails in both those and the sex.
The Spain-based label Private is known for interesting locales and long-leggedy women. High production value and a three-act script do nothing to make Robinson Crusoe on Sin Island any better than a tepid couples' movie with weak scenes.
The film is told in flashback via Robinson Crusoe's diary, which is novelized by Daniel Defoe. This is kind of interesting in a "Once And Future King"-type way.
Robinson Crusoe is unlike Grizzly Adams. First off, he admits having killed a man. Also, it's not the mountains he winds up in but an island that looks on the map like a widened, flattened Australia. Finally, he doesn't so much escape as he gets shipwrecked. In a voiceover, he describes his destination as a "dessert island", foreshadowing the eye candy we hope awaits him.
Private doesn't worry too much about getting to the sex scenes in this movie, favoring instead a long setup featuring Crusoe hobbling all around the island because, I think, the production could not find him shoes that would fit the rest of his 18th century costume. He is washed ashore with a few planks of wood and a trunk containing candles (the two stubs he unloads last a very long time), a telescope, a gun, a pen, ink, and paper. It's like Riven with worse dialogue.
He wiles away his time thinking of more pleasant things, like comely peasant girls who blow him but look at the camera. These scenes are unsatisfying. All the girls remain partially dressed, as if the the Europe of his dreams was filled with Mormons. He also has frequent flashbacks of the man he killed in self-defense.
For eight years (he keeps forgetting) Crusoe lives alone on the island. Why is it called Sin Island again?
Finally a group of well-dressed ESL pirates show up (their map says Blood Island), leading a slave girl and a fey captured French nobleman. They are there to search for treasure. The slave girl escapes, finds Robinson, fucks Robinson, and is named Sunday. Her porn name is YoKasta.
The pairings are arbitrary and the sex is listless (except, but just barely, for Angel Dark). I have a hard time believing that's a European thing. I guess the Euros like weak couples' films, too. Why don't Europeans seem to be having fun while having sex? Is it all that socialized medicine?
Anyway, Crusoe escapes with the nobleman's mistress and sweet, doomed Sunday. They are all rescued but I guess Crusoe ditches Sunday despite her teaching him how to love again.
It's a dumb movie.
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 Studio: Excessive Entertainment/VCA
Director: Mason
Cast: Her Sluts (Kami Andrews, Hillary Scott, Taryn Thomas, Missy Monroe, Georgia “Dirty” Southe, Kelly Wells, Chris Charming, Sascha, Tony T, Denis Marti, Brian Surewood, Joe Rock, Brandon Iron)
This, like all porn movies, only strengthens my commitment to my husband.™
An informal poll shows me to be, yes, just fucked up enough to write this review. While many readers will naturally assume I allude to a general way of being, I really must clarify that I am specifically referring to the fact that I am drunk.
Enough.
Or am I: Here’s your bit o’ feisty-ass fucking (better: feisty assfucking?) I recall from the good days of early-aughts, we-support-natural-bodies-at-AVN gonzo: utterly filthy little animals’d scare the shit out of you if you could remove your hands from your genitals long enough to notice, Mr. President.
Opener pits Keeeeee-raaaazy Kami Andrews (note straightjacket) against Chris Charming & Sascha, and for the first moments the boys seem outclAssed... but(t) not for long. The fucking’s long, hard and punishing, with stellar scary breath control play courtesy of an industrial roll of shrinkwrap. Found objects make great bondage tools; all you do-it-yourselfers, take notes. Charming & Sascha do as the lady says, fucking the cum out of her in a grueling DP that would put many a contract star in the hospital.
Not for the fainthearted... and you ask why I drink. Hillary Scott. I believe the press release said something about how she looks to be the most innocent of the bunch--wait, here it is. “Hillary is so innocent--and she's the nastiest one of them all!” In actuality, no, but As Nasty As She Is so artfully juxtaposed with As Innocent As She Seems must have ripped a hole in the space-time continuum. What’s utterly in the pink as regards the whole business is how Tony T just about kills the willing gagger with his cock, but after; after, people, he’s like, so tender. Just so fucking tender with her.
I’m crying.
It’s time for something completely different when Taryn Thomas brushes up against a Best Couples Scene (ugh) in her kissy kissy pairing with Denis Marti (are they dating?). Genuine heat renders this an acceptable breather in between all the throat-fucking-to-throwing-up, cum-swapping, DP, ATEverything, squirts-r-us goingson surrounding it.
Fucking slut Missy Monroe brings herself to a gushing climax in about three seconds flat to dampen out an offending cigarette in the forest, bless her Woodsy Owl. However, the fire continues to rage as she comes... er... upon hardworkers Brian Surewood (dude, that beard) and Joe Rock, proceeding to vandalize their dicks with her mouth (why no fucking? You’ll almost forget to ask, watching her suck them off... almost).
Finally, covergirls Georgia “Dirty” Southe and Kelly “Fucking” Wells want to be flight attendants--or this is what famously mouthy Brandon Iron accuses them of when he gets a gander at their tutus, breast-baring latex waist-cinchers and elbow-length gloves. I wonder what gave it away? Great, GREAT scene follows, where everybody does just about everything to everybody else that anybody can do to a body, not quite neutralizing the acute urp-factor in the prolonged cum-swap that follows.
In the vein of constructive criticism, I guess it might do to suggest that five scenes delivering the punch that only three had here would rocket anyone’s mercury on into the stratosphere, over and over and over. Directrix Mason, present as P.O.V. cam, knows dirty; after only a little time with one of her Sluts, you will too. Fantastic shooting, quick-n-tight editing, fabulous packaging--it’s so great to see real porn again.
xox
Eugenie Brown
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 Studio: Bad Seed
Director: Roy Karch
Cast: Cytherea, Flower Tucci, Tiana Lynn, Missy Monroe, Lily Thai, Kelly Wells
When Adam & Eve launched its gonzo subsidiary, Bad Seed (I'm assuming it had something to do with an unwholesome apple, though the mascot is some kind of badass sperm), I despaired that there would be no more educational films in the Nina Hartley vein. How would I learn about female-positive fisting? At whose well-adjusted knee would I learn proper ball gag maintenance?
Luckily my fears were unfounded, as Hot Squirts provides a great primer on how to coax watery torrents from mesh-clad starlets.
We meet each of these performers in a 7 Ninjas fashion, each actress materializing in a different part of the house during the opening credits so we get to know her better. Each then overlaps on the previous scene so, for what it's worth, we get a sense of continuity. The viewer is left with the idea that this entire rented porn house is filled with women squirting all over it.
And squirt they do*. Cytherea interrupts Randy Spears' solitary game of pool to let him know that there's trouble in River City. (Cytherea plays the river, with a capital C above the levee.) Cytherea is one of those people who looks like she really enjoys her job, and is very good at it. While female ejaculation requires the intake of copious amounts of water (I once saw Cytherea go through almost an entire Arrowhead jug on a set) and might be far more mechanical than it is emotional, there is a tremendous amount of pride involved in making one's partner ruin a rented couch with her squirt volume, which Cytherea does.
Well done! William Mulholland would be proud.
Tiana Lynn comes next, and does. Since she wears glasses, you know she's thinking about what's happening, so it is odd that she didn't notice her scene partner lurking by a nearby couch as she executed a solo scene. Whatever. She takes her glasses off for her blowjob duties, which is the way it's done in most countries.
Both Cytherea and Tiana punctuate their scenes with random squirting, and it's a welcome relief from the "beats" corporate porn has to hit to please the guys in accounting (mostly relatives).
Karch has put together a cast of girls who show up ready to go. While there isn't a big range of body types on porn's current A list, Karch has assembled everyone from people so small you could fit them in your pocket (Cytherea and Tiana) to people like Missy Monroe (her partner grabs a little handful of her bellyfat at one point and, not only did she not belt him, it took the scene up a notch) to a delightful brick house like Flower who, if she were clad in a dirndl, might very well milk all your cows before fucking you nearly to death.
Karch reminds us in Behind the Scenes footage that squirting originated when Hindis came to Flatbush Avenue. While this information does nothing for erectile tissue, it does help explain the growing popularity of the niche.
*Winner, Ways I Never Thought I'd Start a Sentence contest, 1997
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 Studio: HIS DVD/ LFP Video Group (image swiped from Five-Star DVD)
Director: Various
Cast: Hank Hightower, Zak Spears, Jerry Davis, Donnie Russo, Tony Davis, Chad James, Brad Peters, Sal Diego, Morgan Hunter, Steven Brock, Ken Rogers, John Rock, Pierce Daniels, Tico Patterson
This, like all porn movies, only strengthens my commitment to my husband.™
If some of the names from the cast transport you to the heady, heady days of mustachioed, fuzzy-bunned barebackers, that’s because this is a compilation, y’all, and it cuts to the chase - if what you’re after is, you know, mustachioed, fuzzy-bunned barebackers.
Seven scenes, little-to-no set-up, just galloping straight for the clitoris - or whatever, thank you very much. Players, while definitely representative of “Hairy”, don’t always forward the notion of “Hung”; also, those interested should note the complete absence of anything having to do with “barrier methods” or “safe”.
Aside from nostalgia, not much recommends the opener, which apears to be the most dated. A three-way ensues in a shower room with shaggy, nubile comers who mostly serve to remind one that there was sex before porn: organic, in-the-raw, comparatively gentle and earnest sessions in which the language isn’t rehearsed, the bodies aren’t constructed, and the overall effect is a kind of fly-on-the-wall sincerity totally unlike what we mean by today’s Reality TV.
Hottest - and maybe it’s the cop uniform, sure; but maybe it’s because it’s the most recent - is the Hank Hightower/Donnie Russo alleyway pairing. It’s unclear what behavior possible thug Hightower’s being yardarmed for; but he takes cop Russo’s reprimanding right in the jockstrap with nary a complaint. (“Bends right over”, as they would say, yuk yuk yuk.)
The scene featuring a velvet-gloved (I swear to God) T/V at the control panel of Zak Spears’ fantasy (three Daddies comin’ at him straight outta black-and-white - ?!?) gets the vote for “Wow, I’d like to see the whole movie!”
Dudes and others looking for decent scenes featuring hairy guys will find repeated rocks-off opps w/in... those looking for an actual plotted porn vid with current stars need not apply.
Dear LFP/H.I.S.: We rate first-run features over here at Ponante Towers. Yes, even the gay ones. I promise.
xox
Eugenie Brown
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 Studio: Hustler
Director: David Aaron Clark
Cast: Taya Cruz, Nyomi Zen, Gianna Lynn, Asia, Mila Yung, Nyla Thai, Mr. Marcus, Brian Surewood
As my first visit to a porn set (yes, it's all about me) was Whoriental Sex Academy 4, the appearance of Asian Fever 25 was like the voice of my ancestors across the gently rustling bamboo of my rock (with bamboo) garden.
Here is a sample sequence from Whoriental Sex Academy 4:
BUDDY 1 and BUDDY 2 take a seat at an oriental restaurant/whorehouse.
BUDDY 1:
"I know you've had yellow fever for a long time, bro."
BUDDIES slap five, hoot.
Anyway, I got the feeling from that film that the cast and crew didn't go home and turn the very idea of Asians over and over in their minds.
David Aaron Clark does. He likes Asians the way Mecha-Godzilla likes destroying Tokyo. His films use Asian women fetishistically, and if the women themselves seem nonplussed by the attention they're receiving from the male talent and the camera, one understands that Clark is not presenting a film for them, but to a particularly voyeuristic element of the porn consumer market.
...which reminds me of this Onion article.
In the first scene, we plot Nyla Thai's arrival, by freight elevator, at a well-appointed loft where she is met by Sledge J. Hammer. Hammer circles and appraises the merchandise, whom he has instructed to stand on an ornate trunk. After the lovin', when other films fade to black following the pop shot, Asian Fever 25 follows Thai as she re-dresses and gets back in the elevator.
The same worshipful objectification characterizes each scene, none so much as Taya Cruz' pairing with Brian Surewood. That porn girls tend to be smaller than the general female population and porn guys a little bit bigger than their civilian counterparts is a given, but the male/female pairings in this release are notable because guys like Surewood, who on first glance looks like he'll kick your ass (he won't; he's a pacifist and doesn't need to prove himself) and especially small women like Cruz have scenes that are genuinely sweet.
Props to Clark on the music, too, which doesn't get in the way and is carefully tailored to each scene (this shoould be a no-brainer, but that is too often literally the case in porn soundtracks).
Clark is clearly a fan of his subject and the only mystery is why his Frasier (or Ghost Dog)-like title cards weren't haikus.
If you're into girls from the land of the pentatonic scale and karate, kid, you can successfully wax off to Asian Fever 25.
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 Studio: VCA Pictures/BurningAngel.com
Director: Joanna Angel
Cast: Joanna Angel, Sabrina Sparx, Kylee Kross, Pinky Lee, Katrina Kraven, Sleazy Pete, James Deen, Tommy Pistol
Duties at Ponante Towers for Skank du Jour rival anything gossiped about happening in the integrity-free cells of alleged porn star “agent” Regan Senter, and finding myself in the position currently (among oh, so many wanton, physically improbable and fulminatory others), it befalls me to humbly ask that you not be taken aback, dear reader, by this Guest Review from Yet Another Meow in the Gram Cattery.
Especially as regards a work as important as Joanna Angel’s. Understand that, had our mothers raised us a bit differently, or had we come up in the world 20 years later than we did, Joanna Angel is, in an ideal universe, what would have become of all of the gomis* .
Possesor of canny fashion, music and PR sense, the Arquettish (Rosanna, not Patricia; Desperately Seeking Susan, not Searching for Debra Winger) Angel is the It-Girl of N.Y. skin, and here parlays the formidable BurningAngel.com canon into decent, recent-style adult fare that VCA Pictures (under the auspices of LFP) seems to be holding the banner for.
Plot: serviceable, wherein Joanna’s Angels (Angel, Sabrina Sparx, Kylee Kross) take on nemesis Katrina Kraven in her bid to L.A.-ize the Big Apple, wielding cute & hammy “hipster” Tommy Pistol. (Angel’s talent really seems to lie in providing her viewers with game, kooky woodsmen equal to, say, Evan Stone in the funny department, but blessedly alt rock in appearance, as opposed to the typical manicured pornstud.) (They fuck good, too.)
Sex scenes are long, with multiple chapter stops, a brilliant method for giving a viewer more bang for the buck; sadly, this turns out to be necessary, as there’s a lot of unmoving footage, such as a D.P. sequence where James Deen and Angel maintain a Newark-worthy holding pattern while Pistol plugs away dutifully. Yawn. Girl/girl/girl at the top of the show likewise fails to hold heat. Too bad, because Joanna, Sparx, and Kross are just so great to look at. Additionally, outside-the-scene distractions are numerous, and the filmmakers regrettably commit the ultimate beginner’s faux pas (mainstream and porno): a surplus of blah, blah, blah.
Big ups to Darien Train for showy smart editing and Straius Music’s fabulous fucking soundtrack (with Music Supervisor Dave Freeman) - these elements raise the “watchable” bar. Fans of BurningAngel.com will like the look, sound & feel, but there’s only so much leverage to be bought by the lovably grungy close-ups of post-punkettes in sexual distress, viscera pooling at the corners of their mouths and eyes. Getting there’s supposed to be at least half the fun, and it’s, uh, not.
Best of show: brief bouts of intensity during the first Angel/Deen pairing; but head-n-shoulders above all else is the finale fuck w/professional Katrina Kraven, who shows Angel and Deen what makes a veteran. To their credit, they rise to her level.
Just like you, we can’t wait to see more, better.
xox
Eugenie Brown
*girls of my ilk
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 Studio: Team Tyler
Director: Wankus
Cast: Tyler Faith, Daphne Rosen, Katie Morgan, Mika Tan, Cherokee, Kinzie Kenner, Michelle Lay, Lexie Lamour, Wankus, Tommy Gunn, and, for some reason, the president of the Los Angeles Sparks
Porn DVD technology goes through certain phases, so some consumers will remember a time, before the inevitable backlash, when a full twenty minutes of DVD time would be taken up with 900-number ads and websites unrelated to the movie advertised on the boxcover. There is one ad for a German Goo Girls sex line (the distributor of UnFAITHful Secrets, Black Widow Media, also distributes the Goo Girls in the United States) but this film falls prey to another porn staple, which is the Short Loop.
The Loop is the sequence of the DVD menu where viewers can choose a scene or bonus material. In the case of UnFAITHful Secrets, the loop is ten seconds long. We see Tyler being serviced, reverse-cowgirl style, by Tommy Gunn, and a cutaway to Wankus checking his watch. Those two scenes rotate endlessly with the background music that goes like this:
"Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!"
And so on. I only know this because the phone rang just as I was starting the movie, and I watched this hypnotic sequence about 90,000 times. I am going to sing this song at PSK one night. But as one who has never directed a porn movie before, my note is this: don't show a guy checking his watch at the beginning of a porn movie.
UnFAITHful Secrets is about men and women deceiving each other in the adult industry. It is shot in a distinctly 80's style, with high color, minimal effects, stock transitions, and often poor sound quality. I came to believe through the film, which is really a nice handbook about couples' relationships in the porn business, that this works (well, aside from the sound quality). As a movie about the adult industry, the style reflects the video era that made porn the major consumer product it is.
In the first scene, Mika Tan is a trophy wife who won't give up her ass to her husband, Dick Nasty. Saying she's heading out to a day spa with her friends, she leaves that scene and goes immediately to a porn set where she is the female talent. The male talent is Jack Lawrence. (I didn't know this at first, but then I saw that his shirt read "Jack Lawrence".) Mika goes in for a blowjob the way my mechanic changes my oil - on her back and from below. This is a fantastic technique. Fellas, advise your significant others to be like Mika Tan when it comes to their fellating duties; this method allows for full view of the real estate. Meanwhile, her husband gets it on with his secretary, played by Daphne Rosen.
"Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!"
Scene Two features Wankus and Tyler. Tyler does a quick solo scene in the shower, showing exactly why she is the Pride of Saugus but also why she is an enemy of grouting. She leaves the curtain open and the water goes everywhere. In the next room, she comforts Wankus, playing himself, with the news that she's "only doing girls" and that if he's feeling frisky, she might bring one home from the set. She then goes off to be impaled by Tommy Gunn. Cut to Wankus asleep in front of the television.
"Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!"
KSEXRadio.com gets a nice bit of product placement in the next scene, as Stephen St. Croix hosts a show featuring Michelle Lay, Lexi Lamour, and Kinzie Kenner, who explains that her fiancee thinks she's a makeup artist. The three women on the couch do that which makes KSEX a national treasure: they get naked for little or no compensation and reveal that neither guests nor hosts wear underpants.
"Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!"
Katie Morgan is a naive model in the next scene. She walks into a talent agency with hopes of doing photo shoots or rock videos, but is easily seduced by weasely manager Randy Spears into adult videos, despite her initial half-hearted protests that her husband wouldn't allow it. I am ashamed to say that I lead a starlet down this path just last week, except it was much worse: she was my temporary mail carrier.
"Should I just leave packages on your porch, Mr. Ponante, or should I go out back?" she asked.
"Would you like to do adult videos?" I replied.
"Yes," she said.
"Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!/Unfaithful secrets, Unfaithful secrets!"
The slick landmadel Cherokee is entirely naked throughout the final scene, playing a duplicitous stripper, if you can believe that. Though her white boy gangbanger wannabe boyfriend is sitting by the stage, Cherokee tempts the D.J. (Chris Cannon) into her dressing room, where he needs little convincing to engage in a morally-unsound adulterous tryst with her. Myself, I would pay to watch Cherokee blind rabbits in a cosmetics lab, but the idea of a strip club D.J. getting any is pure fantasy.
This movie plays to all my biases because I like women who look like they've had lunch today. I also like that it looks like it was shot in 1987, the year I was born, with Richard Marx doing the music. What's most important, though, is that each of these scenes looks like it could have been taken from real life which, as you know, appeals to me as a serious journalist.
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Studio: Hustler
