Gram’s Dirty Dozen of 2012

Porn Valley has come to terms with the fact that its salad days have been tossed into a compost pile of internet piracy and declining DVD sales, so in many ways this year's Dirty Dozen Best Porn Movies reflects the more and more thoughtful choices mainstream pornographers need to make while remaining true to the pull-out-and-come-on-the-face aesthetic that has guided the industry since 1971.

In order to think about making money, commercial pornographers need to maintain a production schedule. But even as the economy improved in 2012, the adult business in Los Angeles was jarred by the potentially seismic passage of Measure B (the condom law), a syphilis scare, and trouble at the top of Manwin—Porn Valley's biggest employer.

So out of guaranteed sellers/renters like romantic cumshot loops and wall-to-wall gangbangs come these gems, well worth your owning them.

1. "Voracious"—John Stagliano's sprawling web series-turned-deluxe DVD trades Porn Valley McMansions for Iron Curtain capitals in a cocksucking bloodbath. This is not "True Blood"-meets-Evil Angel; there is nothing languid about the work of Brooklyn Lee, Rocco Siffredi, Omar Galanti, Lea Lexis, Sandra Romain, Manuel Ferrara, and Steve Holmes. Instead, this is a movie as filthy as vampire movies tend to be poignant, and its travel expenses are frequently offset by thrilling guerilla moviemaking in unexpected places.

· Buy "Voracious" (tlavideo.com)

. If "Voracious" shows us how Porn can innovatively corral the Internet, the vampire zeitgeist, and an international cast, Jacky St. James' splendid "Torn" reminds us that good scripts needn't be orphans when good actors are still willing to take off their clothes. Steven St. Croix and Remy La Croix (no relation) expertly walk us through their affair in a movie unafraid to take its time, graced as it is by the equally nuanced performances of Raylene and India Summer. A couples' movie with sex scenes we believe, "Torn" is good porn.

· Buy "Torn" (tlavideo.com)

3. Speaking of zeitgeist, "How To Make A Cheap Porno" captures the cost-cutting choices of the working pornographer on a tampon-string budget whose only advantage is that he already knows he's going to Hell. Tommy Pistol, two years into a heralded comeback, channels director Mike Quasar in a hammy and sociopathic tour de force du porn, and Lexi Belle, Anthony Rosano, and Alyssa Branch poke fun at the porn star persona in a movie that might as well be a documentary.

· Buy "How To Make A Cheap Porno" (tlavideo.com)

4. If there's anything nine years of Fleshbot should have taught you, it is that Porn Is Uncomfortable. But, as both strippers and Aldo Nova are keen on telling us, it's just a fantasy. That is why there is room for beautiful movies like "Oasis" on this list, because even as I, personally, like nothing more than the simple vanilla pleasures of coming home to A.) Someone wearing my Jagermeister t-shirt, braless, or, B.) a medium-fat ass in flannel pajama bottoms, I recognize the aesthetic wonder of mounting the juicy Anissa Kate on designer furniture in the desert. Do we want to ply Anissa Kate with Jagermeister and bring her medium-fat ass home? Hell Yes, but she and comrades Melody Jordan and Christie Stevens are doing a great job keeping that old fantasy alive—having sex in the desert so we don't have to.

· Buy "Oasis" (tlavideo.com)

5. I have always been more interested in occasional sexy moments backstage on porn sets than I have been with any completed movie, and I don't know anyone in my position who feels differently. If porn is fantasy, it is the fantasy of capturing the lightning in a bottle spirit of someone who is ready to let (you) in.

Of all the great movies released this year in which we catch a glimpse of this or that person, none more effectively snaps as pleasing a picture as "Dani Daniels: DARE," in which the charming and thoughtful—not to mention pretty—Daniels inspires us to let her have her fun. We want her to have a good time, and director Mason makes sure she looks great doing it.

· Buy "Dani Daniels: DARE" (tlavideo.com)

6. We also feel fondly about the debut of Bonnie Rotten. In "Meet Bonnie," the 19-year-old Ohio native makes us feel right at home in her swirl of tattoos. Her sassy, smart brunettitude reminds us of a cross between Stoya and Belladonna, and we can only hope that 2013 creates an opportunity where all three of them could form a crimefighting dream team.

· Buy "Meet Bonnie" (tlavideo.com)

7. Director Paul Thomas once told me that he hated movies with "Happy People Having Happy Sex." Me, I love movies like that. More to the point, I think the acting challenges required to "go dark" often torpedo a porn film and reveal the limitations of its director, screenwriter, and cast.

But Thomas is also a master craftsman and veteran actor himself, and the only person on this list who was part of porn's Golden Age. His "Shared Wives" recalls a time when porn shoots took longer, contained more than just two locations, and featured just as much talking as fucking. This tale of the perils of swinging features Andy San Dimas, Jessie Andrews, Eric Swiss, and Richie Calhoun, each of whom gets to act in classic porno style.

Why do some porn movies have to be so grave? Perhaps because there is still a powerful institutional memory of a time when shooting porn was illegal. Who knows? Maybe if porn is truly driven out of the San Fernando Valley in 2013, we'll start to see more films like "Shared Wives" (though there are very few who can carry off this sort of seriousness as well as Thomas).

· Buy "Shared Wives" (tlavideo.com)

8. Do you remember this? Do you remember video stores and the roulette wheel of pre-Internet movie selection? Part of the fun of that time was you could select something truly awful but still have the satisfaction that you were staring directly into someone's mind.

Production values have increased as companies have become more focused on a Return of Investment, which is most often good, but the casualty is the disappearance of true freakshows like Mondo Video's "Camp Erotica," a recently-reissued movie from the year 2000 that featured a then-24-year-old Kiki D'aire in full white trash mode.

"Camp Erotica" will inspire you on at least five occasions to pull out your own eyeballs. It is a piece of history from a time when things still could be so bad they were good.

· Buy "Camp Erotica" (gamelink.com)

9. The porn parody is here to stay, and will always have a built-in audience of curiosity seekers hoping to find a pornified Charlene Tilton. Much as we bellyache when there is a lousy parody ("Hairy Twatter"), there are plenty that still get the balance right, exploiting something inherently porny about the source material.

"Dallas XXX" is a winking telenovela of a porno, with syrupy performances from Eric Masterson (as J.R.), James Deen (as Bobby), Brooklyn Lee, and Bobbi Starr, who it's a treat to see in a scripted role as Sue Ellen, always in danger of being shipped off to the "Sanitarium for Nymphomaniacs."

· Buy "Dallas XXX" (tlavideo.com)

10. If you've ever heard Steven Spielberg talk about "Jaws," he is often dismissive. We get the feeling that he wishes people would forget his 1975 blockbuster. In Hustler/Adam & Eve's "Jaws XXX," (Adam & Eve has often teamed up to share costs with other studios, first and most notably with Digital Playground for 2005's "Pirates"), director Stuart Canterbury actually tweaks the script to move the action along in a way Spielberg might approve. Not only that, but he gives the Richard Dreyfuss role to Alexis Ford.

Granted, the CG shark is about as impressive as that pirate ship in 2005, but one choice I found sweet in this movie was that Dale Dabone's Brody actually stayed faithful to his wife, despite having the juicy Ford onboard. There was a lot of nice Quint in the film, too.

· Buy "Jaws XXX" (tlavideo.com)

11. Only because "Love, Marriage, And Other Bad Ideas" comes from "Torn"'s same New Sensations' writing/directing team of Jacky St. James and Eddie Powell does this no-less-good, just lighter movie not rank higher. Violence magnet therapist Richie Calhoun must work through his own issues before landing true love of his own. In patient Alison Tyler we have a believable character who doubles as an absolutely beautiful porn actress.

· Buy "Love, Marriage, & Other Bad Ideas" (tlavideo.com)

12. Finally, my favorite sex scene of the year comes from a movie in which I wouldn't expect it. Nacho Vidal and Charlie Chase wander into Digital Playground's "Skip Trace 2" and prove that nothing beats chemistry (even as Vidal beats Chase). Neither Vidal nor Chase is for everyone, pornographically speaking—Vidal is very rough and Chase is not some tiny blonde thing—but their scene is messy and destructive and physical, and both look like they get a huge kick out of it.

"Skip Trace 2" is not in itself a bad movie. There's a reason Jesse Jane is the most famous porn star in the world. But all it takes is one inspired performance to make the rest of a porn movie look like people playing dress-up.

· Buy "Skip Trace 2" (tlavideo.com)

Friends, the porn industry is an odd business teeming with a wild diversity of people, and I am not always sure that many of them should be doing what they're doing. Sometimes I think piracy and Measure B separate the wheat from the chaff. Not only that, but I also think the money you spend on your porny dalliances doesn't always go to the people it should. Still, I implore you not to download pirated content, whether it be of Philadelphia's own Hooters ("All You Zombies") or actual hooters.

See you next year!

——Gram