Studio: Sin City
Director: DCypher
Cast: Hannah Harper, Kailey Young, Penny Flame, Cassie Young, Alektra Blue, Harmony

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

Hannah Harper is an investigative journalist who throws herself into her research. So when she decides to tackle the world of street prostitution, will she lose herself in the story?

Further, is she getting too old for this? Does she need one last score before she goes legit, opening a little place down in Mexico? Does she still have a few friends on the force? Is she part of a crack team of misfits?

Hookers is a well-thought-out piece of pornography from a director who thinks he's going to Hell anyway but can't help but sweat a little blood over what in someone else's hands might be a run of the mill porno.

Typing while wearing a caamisole (it's freeing), Harper explains how from her first encounter with a street prostitute, asking Penny Flame about the basics of servicing a john, Harper felt she might lose control.

In a funny opening scene that sort of plows over Flame's stoner-girl rantings, Flame takes on a customer in an alley. We suspend disbelief for a while as Flame does everything possible for a hundred bucks. Flame provides her fellow with what people in the service industry call a GFE.

But what of Harper? Well, "the article was a huge success. Every time someone reminded me of it I found myself getting wet." Cue masturbation scene.

See? Power of the printed word, folks.

Next time out, Harper explores the world of massage parlors. She is apprenticed to Cassie Young, who services Billy Glide in a clean, well-lit room. Like in the previous scene, Harper flees as the couple get it on. Can she not handle the truth that massage parlors are but thin facades on brothels?

Harper then finds an escort online who specializes in girl/girl shows. From there, despite already having enough material for another article, she goes to a private sex party.

"I wanted to learn why men feel more comfortable being dirty with prostitutes than with their wives or girlfriends," she explains, sad that the men are more interested in fellow blonde Harmony than Harper. "They seemed to like her direct approach," Harper says.

When Harper finally finds a man who will be attracted to her for her body and ignore her mind, finally the voiceovers stop, but she had to supplant Hailey Young to do it.

What is DCypher trying to tell us?

"Sooner or later we all need to embrace our inner whore."

I will be suing DCypher for appropriating my worldview.

Buy it.

Studio: Adam & Eve
Director: Ernest Greene
Cast: Carmen Luvana, Nina Hartley, Kylie Ireland, Adrianna Nicole, Shayla LaVeaux, Justine Joli, Monica Sweetheart, Tiger Lilly, Angelene Black, Claire Adams, Evan Stone, Tommy Gunn, Van Damage

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

This movie is a little gem. Literally a bodice-ripper, "O" succeeds in making the BDSM relationship seem accesssible without being all educational about it. Its long scenes take their time, underlining the fact that the world the characters find themselves in is one of processes. Nina Hartley as narrator keeps the movie friendly.

"O" (Carmen Luvana) is a photographer for magazines owned by Ray (Tommy Gunn). Hartley explains via voiceover how their relationship has evolved in a script right out of your darker Harlequin romances.

Luvana is best when she is reacting, and her role as Ray's new toy gives her the opportunity to just be Carmen Luvana rather than have an awkward character grafted onto her, like that of a spy or a pirate. She sits still as Ray carefully snips off her undergarments in the back of a limo, then she is led into his mansion in handcuffs.

Once inside she is prepared by a team consisting of Kylie Ireland and Adrianna Nicole, who provide for the first time in any porn movie some insight into the tedium of a master/slave gig. "You don't have to follow all the rules," Nicole says, exasperated.

Fetish movies can take things so seriously, and I'm sure that is part of the appeal, but at no point does "O" seem like it is skimping on reality, even when depicting heightened roleplay.

Hartley appears in the flesh as a whipmistress and tehers Ms. O to a frame. The scene provides just enough pageantry to satisfy viewers who are into the rules (for example, there are several characters who just sit and watch the game unfold) as well as, for everyone else, plenty of Carmen Luvana naked.

Ireland and Nicole explain to O that, at this house, Luivana can be "used" by everyone, including the various attendants. The "sisters in slavery" prepare Luvana in a silver space-skirt (with butt plug) that matches theirs.

"Mostly we're decorative," Nicole says.

O is put through her paces as she gradulaly learns what it is to be Ray's slave. Then he throws in a curve ball by offering her to his brother Steven.

"A man doesn't own a thing unless he can give it away," Ray says. "The more I share you, the more I show you're mine."

Ray cedes mastery of O to his brother. O initially balks, continuing the game skepticism her character has displayed throughout the movie. "O" is filled with patient explanations that aren't so expository that they seem boring. Instead, the repetition of rules is central to these relationships.

That is not to say that the acting is not often porn-wooden, save for some surprising exceptions. While it is always a pleasure to watch Nina Hartley (she only shows up in roles these days in which she is completely on top of things), it is Tommy Gunn's flashes of sadness at certain points that throw light on the BDSM term "top drop".

Also, Shayla LaVeaux (pictured) moves gracefully through her part, like a dancer, free of any self-consciousness.

A B story featuring the beautiful Monica Sweetheart as O's own model doesn't fare so well, and at times the story drags, but the images are as powerful as the sentiments, even if the vehicle sputters now and then.

In the end, "O"'s narrative is a thin envelope containing many heavy beliefs (sort of like "The Fountainhead" with a great ass) that never cuts the viewer short. Not once in "Dirt Pipe Milkshakes" did anyone say the line, "Everything you do for (Ray) out of love, I want you to do for me without loving me at all."

Buy it.

Studio: Vivid-Alt
Director: Dave Naz
Cast: Charlotte Stokely, Kimberly Kane, Nadia Styles, Christy Lee, Gia Jordan, Faith Leon, Leah Luv, James Deen, Nat Turner, Tommy Pistol

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

With Skater Girl Fever, Dave Naz has created the clearest expression of Alt culture, if you happen to believe that the Alt movement fetishizes the sullen.

From the opening montage of gum-snapping, couch-lounging, closed-kneed Alt usual suspects, the viewer must decide: "Is Just Lying There Sexy?"

Dave Naz is a celebrated photographer, among whose many fans is Eon McKai. McKai recruited Naz for Vivid-Alt earlier this year.

"Eon showed me how to use the (movie) camera the day before we started shooting," Naz said.

It is for this reason that SGF looks like an Eon McKai movie. It has McKai's trademark style as established in his first flick for VCA, "Art School Sluts": 1. Emphasis on socks, underpants, and hats 2. Visually arresting backdrop, and 3. Manual zoom. What do we call a person who has a recognizable style throughout a body of work? An auteur.

This does not mean people will like it. Through all the style and wardrobe wanders a cast, and it often seems that the wardrobe is enough for them; that appearing to be happy to be there would be asking too much.

This seems like the Alt footprint. It is not always this way - some scenes, like James Deen's and Tommy Pistol's lip-synching to "I Dig It" in Neu Wave Hookers, are joyful - but a general sexual moroseness seems to pervade McKai's work (though not Naz's still photography), and you can't help but think that it's a choice.

So we will look at this as a choice, and if you like this sort of thing, you will love Skater Girl Fever.

Like many porn movies, SGF doesn't have a credits sequence that allows easy identification of talent. I happen to know, though, that Nat Turner and Leah Luv star in the first scene. Luv pees in a toilet demurely whilst blowing Turner. I don't know if this act has a name yet. It would be a Blumpkin if the partners were reversed and the waste material was different. It would be wrong to call it Dimitri Tiomkin.

The rest of the movie seems improvised, featuring pairs of girls on couches who talk a while, fool around a while, and are later joined (or not) by others, including James Deen and Tommy Pistol, who do not lip sync once.

Unlike most recent DVDs, chapter stops on Skater Girl Fever don't necessarily take one directly to the action. If a viewer is, by chance, not interested in what Gia Jordan happens to be saying*, he is stuck with the manual fast forward to get away from it.

If this is a fetish movie, I can be forgiven for saying I don't subscribe to the fetish (although there is gum-swapping). If it's not a fetish movie, buyers would need to be real fans of the individual and very attractive stars to find this movie worthwhile; the production seems self-conscious about the style and unconscious of the substance.

*Don't get us wrong - Gia Jordan is always interesting, especially when she's blowing bubblegum up someone's ass.

See also: Skater Bloody Skater

Buy it.

Studio: Sex Z Pictures/Porn Faktory
Director: Eli Cross
Cast: Hillary Scott, Kylie Ireland, Bryn Pryor, Alana Evans, Herschel Savage, James Deen, Tyler Knight, Staci Thorn, Sandra Romain, Arianna Jollee, Mark Davis, Kelly Wells, Steve Holmes, Derrick Pierce

Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot

Just as in Hollywood, porn has its prestige movies. These are high-budget scripted affairs using multiple locations and all-star casts. Where most U.S.-made porn movies that find their way to store shelves and VOD downloads cost between $15k and $30k, "Corruption" cost over $150k, not including marketing.

But in the era of falling DVD sales it is often a movie that might lose money that convinces consumers the producing studio's other titles are worthwhile. Especially if that movie is tailor-made to win AVN awards.

The movie opens as Senator David Walker Helms (Bryn Pryor) rehearses his campaign speech to a mirror. He knots and reknots his tie as his slave Natasha (Hillary Scott) blows him below. Thus begins an ambitious tale of a power-hungry misanthrope's unraveling.

Corruption is a white collar sexy-bleak porn movie about men and power. No one wears board shorts, calls each other "Brah", high-fives over a pouty stripper's ass, or addresses the camera. Instead the men wear suits and the women don't dress like hookers. It is very, very dark, both thematically and in its photography, and there is more "acting" in it than any hardcore movie, ever.

Corruption is not a feel-good movie. It is, in fact, relentlessly depressing. Pryor's Helms has nothing but contempt for his constituents. It should be no surprise that he reserves his greater hate for himself, often daydreaming about cutting his own throat. His wife, Catherine (Kylie Ireland), supports his whoremongering as long as it doesn't lose votes.

Helms meets with some shady union officials, led by Gennero (Herschel Savage). They discuss killing a clean air act that would be good for the state but would harm Gennero's business interests. Speaking of business, the full name of the bill is the Kernes/Fishbein Clean Air Act. Coincidentally, Kernes and Fishbein are the surnames of the senior editor and president, respectively, of AVN.

Not about to be bullied, Helms videotapes Gennero being serviced by Natasha for blackmail purposes.

When Catherine determines Natasha is more of a liability than a wholesome means of her husband blowing off loads, she colludes with Helms' assistant, Ms. Perkins (Alana Evans) to do something about it. Natasha is kidnapped and brought to a boiler room (Freddie's from A Nightmare on Elm Street!) where Catherine tells her a thing or two. For this scene Ireland is decked out in her finest breathable bondage gear and her fans will be well served to see her knocking some sense into Hillary Scott's anus.

Meanwhile a photojournalist (James Deen) is wondering about Natasha's identity and follows her to the warehouse. When Helms discovers Natasha's absence, he interrogates Ms. Perkins most elaborately.

Orgies, double-fisting, and sex scenes that will probably get this movie banned in some counties follow, as well as Helms' undoing and Natasha's sort-of redemption.

The filmmakers stress that the narrative would be lessened by the removal of sex scenes (thus no Pirates G rating) and that the sex would be meaningless without the narrative. I agree. That the main character uses sex to dominate and humiliate his underlings requires there to be a lot of rough sex in the unfolding of a story about a ruthless man. But the movie isn't fun. The thought of rubbing one out to this movie seems as far-fetched as having Nick Cave sing at your two-year-old's birthday party.

What the movie is is technically adept. It is well-shot, well-lit, and well-acted for a porn film. That Pryor used a "stunt cock" (Chris Cannon stood in for Pryor's sex scenes) presents a dilemma. Were Pryor to be nominated for Best Actor at next year's AVN awards (and he should), he would be the first actor in a non-sex role to be so honored. There is a category for Non-Sex roles, though those parts are usually cameos; Pryor is in most of the film.

We know that Academy Awards boost sales of movies that receive them. I am not sure what getting an AVN award does for sales. Past winners like Fashionistas and Pirates sold well prior to their awards. Corruption, which seems to be a lock for nominations in several categories, holds a mirror to a world of wealthy older guys in suits surrounded by sexually submissive women. If that isn't Porn's entrepreneurial class, I don't know what is.

The question is, will the people giving out awards next year like the reflection?

Corruption opens with a quote from Caligula Caesar. Another big-budget porn movie, Bob Guccione's Caligula, opened with a line from the Book of Matthew (“What profiteth a man to gain the world but lose his soul?”) that would have been appropriate for "Corruption", too.

Corruption is a much better movie than Caligula, but with its bleakness, no matter how sexy, what profiteth a porn film to gain an AVN award but lose my erection?

Buy it.