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sex in the dark

I might not have indulged in much porn titles last year, but I’m okay with certifying James Deen and Kristina Rose’s fuck in the dark in Manhandled 4 the best sex scene of ’11.

Belladonna performs in and directs Manhandled 4, a rough-sex porno exploring women’s submissive fantasies. Anti-porn disciples may never get their heads around a movie like this one.

Could they understand the thrill of submitting to Belladonna’s light in Deen and Rose’s scene? Instead of pulling focus or choosing a frame, Belladonna uses a spotlight to direct the viewer’s eye in an otherwise pitch-black scene. When the circle of light hits their breathless faces we can still sense hips thrusting. Seconds later all that is visible are genitalia, but we can feel their thrashed expressions. It’s a melody of subtlety and lucidity. It responds to complaints of hardcore pornography being too in-your-face, then assaults the voyeur with what they’re aching for.

More importantly, the scene makes the viewer a submissive participant. You may be jerking off, but Belladonna is calling the shots. You’ll see what she wants you to see. You’ll get turned on on her terms. It’ll last as long she wants. And you will like it.

The spotlight scene is one of the most refreshing and affective in contemporary porn. That’s not to say that the rest of the scenes in Manhandled aren’t superb. The London Keyes and Jordan Ash scene is particularly harrowing, in a good way.

Manhandled 4 is an appropriate pick-me-up to being burnt-out on all the X-Art prettiness.

Clip Reblogged from delectatio morosa and a thousand others.

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I Watched ’9 to 5: Days in Porn’


Pornography has never been as widely available or consumed as it is today; it’s not news. Yet shame tucks it away, keeping the porn industry from the public discourse. We repress, we hide from reality. The public bases their image of the business on the occasional censored TV special and, of course, the stereotypes. A liberated portrayal is far from the view of an abashed society. This is what Jens Hoffman’s unrated documentary on the people in porn, 9 to 5: Days in Porn, attempts to correct.

Moments of bias can’t be entirely escaped in the editing room, but 9 to 5 is all in all merely observant. Hoffman surrenders the podium to the veterans and newbies of the industry, allowing the voice of the film to be solely that of the insiders.

Like all great documentaries the movie owes its success to its subjects: Otto Bauer and Audrey Hollander, the porno couple, challenge middle-America’s perception of marriage every time they fuck other people on porn sets. A controlling Otto is content with the status quo, while the film strongly suggests Audrey is struggling inside, comprising for love. But rookie Sasha Grey and her boyfriend are happy. Hoffman catches Grey on her rise as the game changer in the industry. She’s the idealist with conviction and a self-described fuck junkie. Gaging on cock, slimy with saliva and semen, Sasha Grey makes her competition Mia Rose look prissy. Rose admits she’s not sure what she wants in life. Roxy Deville could care less, distancing herself from the biz, only performing for the paycheck. But Katja Kassan is the real pro; she’s up for anything that’ll pay. Belladonna (mother, wife, porn star and Sasha Grey’s inspiration), then, is the fulcrum of the featured stars.

The sleaziest looking character is not a pornographer but the valley’s most sought-out agent, Mark Spiegler. In actuality he’s the most professional and is kind enough to house aspiring starlets. Jim Powers, punk rocker turned overexcited porn director, refers to him as a pimp. On his own work Powers laughs, “I just work in a shit factory and I keep on pumping it out.” John Stagliano a fellow peddler of obscenity explains that they’re only producing what people demand.

Dr. Sharon Mitchell is probably the voice with the most clout. She was a burnt-out porn star before getting her Ph.D. in human sexuality and starting AIM (industry’s health care). Dr. Mitchell offers some of the harshest criticisms, but does it with care as Hoffman labels her “The Good Soul”.

Porn connoisseurs will recognize other faces: Lorelei Lee, Ava Rose, Jonni Darkko, and Nina Hartley. Kimberly Kane and Andrew Blake, unfortunately, get one line each.

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I Watched ‘POPPORN: The Guide to Making Fuck’




Popporn, the ever popular porn blog, already experienced in Internet videomaking, was given the chance to make their own feature length pornographic film. POPPORN: The Guide to Making Fuck is that film, a spoof of Brian Bangs and Spock Buckton’s pornmaking odyssey. What they’ve accomplished is near superb yet a frolic.

Popporn has done something different not by tweaking the hue to an alt aesthetic but through its use of narrative.

Sex scenes in feature porn productions are normally isolated chunks. By the nature of porn, sex scenes pay little attention to the story connecting them. Porn as usual is okay; it’s just nothing to rave about. Popporn, however, has mastered how to flow from non-sex scene to fuck-making scene with little disconnection. Spock Buckton (the ‘director’) does an industry no-no, but it’s welcomed, in interrupting performers during sex, making the scenes both part of the narrative and the ‘porn’.

Of course it helps a deal that this is a mockumentary about the making of a porno. Which by the way: Why has this not been done before (or has it)? Acting is more believable when it does not stem from the loosely added dialogue typical in everyday features.

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I’m Still Partying in Hell



Last I mentioned Hell is Where the Party Is, its trailer got me gushing about wallpaper porn: the kind of porn perfect for a wall at a hot party. Better late than never, I finally got around to watching the film, and it’s as awesome as the trailer suggests.

Edited like a techno music video, Hell is Where the Party Is makes you want to do a little dance as you jerk off (or fuck). If you’ve watched a lot of porn movies, you know that sex scenes are often boring and overlong when you’re not looking for stimulation. HiWtPi is mesmerizing regardless of your mood. You could watch it with your clothes on. Of course, that wouldn’t be as fun.

Because you love free stuff, I’m directing you to a free stream of Lucie Theodorova and Keni Styles’ scene via TattooPornTube… with the caveat of having to submit your email address. That doesn’t sound as bad, if you know about MeltMail.com (create a temporary email).

Lucie Theodorova and Keni Styles
Silvia Saint FFF threesome – sample (previously linked)
Update: another scene Kinky Pink Pussy

Trailer
HiWtPi Official site

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I Went to the ‘Hardcore Circus’



You probably don’t know Erica McLean as the director of multiple Barely Legal titles. You’ll know her as the director of Hardcore Circus and, let’s hope, of more edgier productions to come.

Hardcore Circus isn’t as subversive as the hype led me to believe. Although, it’s definitely better than something as pretentious as this. Its Super 8 intro and transitional vignettes (see trailer) now look like porn’s new wave trend, as another (better?) woman-directed porn film featured the same technique earlier this year.

But that’s okay, because the big tricks in Hardcore Circus are where they need to be: the sex. This movie is worth watching for the scenes pictured below. Too many of the rest play like obligatory fillers.

And so the story goes…
McLean is the valley’s biggest pornographer. She faces anti-porn mobs and religious fiends because of it. On her way to masturbation lane she slips on her would-be lube. Then, not unlike Dorothy Gale, joins the hardcore circus.

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Catherine Breillat’s ‘Une vraie jeune fille’

Cross-post from The Grey Line

French novelist and filmmaker Catherine Breillat (director of Sasha Grey’s 4th favorite film) is a regular when it comes to depicting sexuality in her work. Her movie 36 Fillete was advertised as “the French ‘Lolita’!” She’s cast porn star Rocco Siffredi twice, and made a film about the trouble of filming sex scenes, Sex Is Comedy. Yet, nothing has given Breillat more strife than her debut, Une vraie jeune fille (A Real Young Girl). Made in 1976, it was banned in theaters until 2000.


Charlotte Alexandra plays 14-year-old Alice, a boarding school student returning home for the summer. She’s experiencing a sexual awakening and is quite a filthy girl. By filthy, I mean she doesn’t attend to the mess after vomiting on herself and uses her finger as a cotton-tipped swab. “Disgust makes me lucid,” Alice narrates. Also, there’s a sequence involving a mutilated worm and her vagina. Some scenes are surreal imaginings. All are about self-discovery and her sexual qualms.

Breillat never denies the viewer an explicit look at Alice’s curiosities or desires. At the same time, not once do you feel like a voyeur. It may be risky for film to show the vulva of a young teen character* (that’s what provoked controversy), but we often forget or ignore that sexual development starts before adulthood. Although challenging, such a subject must not be neglected.

Catherine Breillat tackles the theme with full force. There’s not a bolder representation of (female) adolescence than Une vraie jeune fille.



Options:
Buy/Rent (it’s on Netflix, thanks Muna)
Stream it on Google Video without English subtitles (low quality)

*actress was over 18 at the time

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I Saw ‘Nurses’



Digital Playground knows not to waste time with a clever title (Babysitters, Cheerleaders, etc.). A succinct and direct approach is sufficient when it comes to porn, but DP also knows how to have fun with the story (funny bits in between the sex).

Nurses is no exception. Bring in the cast of Pirates II (exclude Belladonna), dress them in hospital attire, use a Red Camera, which gives it a beautifully crisp look, and you’ve got this year’s tentpole title.


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About ‘Night Trips: A Dark Odyssey’


Andrew Blake’s Night Trips: A Dark Odyssey is very much the modern successor to the original Night Trips. Its narrative is darker and more mature. Gone are the ’80s soundtrack and the phony dialogue. Instead it broods among a haunting score and recites its tale through avant-garde imagery.

Paola Rey plays the sex obsessed protagonist. “Sex obsessed protagonist” is about the only thing A Dark Odyssey has in common with the ‘89 version. Here, our heroine is suicidal, struggling with her erotic dreams and desires.

Her visions are projected as she sees them, resulting in dreamy vignettes intertwined with shots of Paola Rey masturbating in a bathtub.

Among these visions: the most beautifully photographed boy/girl affair with Paola Rey and her partner making it in a shallow pool and a threesome with Kelly Summer, a guy and Paola Rey. The group scene climaxes with a cut to a wide shot of Rey ejaculating. Gorgeous.

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Recently Watched ‘Night Trips’



The now legendary Andrew Blake released his first erotic film, Night Trips, in 1989 to much acclaim. To date it’s the only pornographic film to win a metal at an international film festival.

Today Night Trips feels corny.

What shows its age most is its distracting synth new age soundtrack, which masks all shouts of ecstasy. Turn the volume up all the way and the person next door will think you’re listening to an awful album. Inaudible moans to airy music is actually a staple of Andrew Blake’s, but thankfully his newer work doesn’t sound like a dated TV special. The best scene concerns Tori Welles and Peter North, and it’s good because the noise is toned down.

Granted, everything from the late ’80s to early ’90s is cheesy. I rebuke the audio, but, visually, Night Trips is porny art.


Buy or Rent Night Trips
AndrewBlake.com


clips at Megaporn

Tori Welles and Peter North (6 min.)

Stay tuned. I’ll write a few words on Blake’s 2008 re-imaging of Night Trips, Night Trips: A Dark Odyssey soon.

See also: A Scene by Andrew Blake

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