In 2007, Fleshbot's Central Porn Processing Plant handled everything from big budget epics like "Upload" to smaller, more personal films like the Amy Fisher Sex Tape. We laughed at comedies like "Spunk'd" , lifted up our (hearts) to lighthearted romps like "Babysitters", and then watched (them) get broken with "The Skin Trade". The year also saw us journeying to sordid warehouses and the beaches of Ibiza to bring you the finest snatches of Porn's Multistained Tapestry. And you finally commented!
Join us after the gap as America's Beloved Porn Journalist Gram Ponante takes us through this year's Dirty Dozen ... in no particular order.
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"Upload"
Sex Z Pictures
Of all this year's big budget award contenders, "Upload" took the most risks with some intense hardcore scenes and a bleak futureworld storyline that would be right at home on the Sci Fi channel (minus the intense hardcore scenes). We loved Julie Night and Sandra Romain and Kylie Ireland and Hillary Scott in this movie, but it was Eva Angelina who really made us believe a world in which federal employees have sex.
(Buy it here )
. . .
"Spunk'd"
6969 Productions
Director Justin Kane's first porn movie features Nick Manning in one of several scenery-chewing masterpiece performances this year, this time as Gashton Cootcher, host of a reality prank show that requires loads to be dropped on its celebrity foils. Silly and smart, "Spunk'd" features Penny Flame, Katie Morgan, and Aurora Snow among many others in this list's only independently-produced movie.
( Buy it here )
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"Naughty Flipside"
Naughty America
A vignette film presenting San Diego studio Naughty America's take on The Girls of Alternative Porn Casting, "Naughty Flipside" is an unabashedly fun porn movie that features a tapdancing Pinky Lee and some equally fancy footwork from Dana DeArmond. Adrianna Nicole and Lorelei Lee have a hoedown with Tommy Pistol and Sasha Grey makes her first of many appearances on this list as a mopey teen.
( Buy it here )
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"The Skin Trade"
Bad Seed
Sasha Grey plays a mopey teen who blows off Brian Surewood's head in Joe Gallant's peyote-porn about the dark side ("as a matter of fact, it's all dark") of sex for money. If "The Dharma Bums" was about an acid trip sex/killing spree instead of whatever it was about, Joe Gallant would need to direct it. Until then, watch "The Skin Trade".
( Buy it here )
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"Broken"
Teravision
Sasha Grey plays a mopey teen who blows off Dave Navarro's head in Dave Navarro's L.A.-porn about the dark side ("as a matter of fact, it's all dark") of sex for money. There is nothing fancy about this movie, which is nevertheless just a bit precious at times, but first-time director Navarro looks at the standard moody porn scene a different way and the movie benefits from it.
( Buy it here )
. . .
"InTERActive"
Hustler/Teravision
You carry on a secret affair with neglected mob housewife Tera Patrick and together you choose your own adventure. Shot over four years, "InTERActive" features cameos from Jessica Jaymes and Hillary Scott, but the big star is Tera, who brings to the screen an accessibility that her in-person fans know but that doesn't as often show up in her movies. More please.
( Buy it here )
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"Swallow My Children"
Loaded DIgital
Rob Rotten put together a gang of greasers, longhairs, and the homeless and paired them with a really delightful gang of badass punk girls for a blowjob vignette movie that for once features Sasha Grey as a non-mopey teen sans shotgun.
( Buy it here )
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"Ibiza Sex Party 2"
Private
I just flew in from Barcelona and I've paid a little extra for the hooker to smile at me every now and then, for Christ's sake. There's coke on my dick and house music playing - loud, I don't care how much this vacation is going to cost. This is that movie!
( Buy it here )
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"Babysitters"
Digital Playground
Everything you might want from a Digital Playground movie is here, for a fifth of the price of "Pirates" (remember "Pirates"?) - and we don't mean "Babysitters" will cost you a fifth of the price of "Pirates", just that it cost Digital Playground a fifth of the price of "Pirates". This movie showed up when we expected to see "Pirates 2" but, frankly, we found this much more accessible and less fraught with high expectations, which means that it arrived without hype. "Babysitters" also has the largest amount - four - of Digital Playground's contract girls in 2007.
( Buy it here )
. . .
"Amy Fisher Caught on Tape"
Red Light District
Maybe in future iterations of Fleshbot's constantly-changing page layout we will get a sidebar. If so, this movie would be in its own category under "Best Celebrity Sex Tape". No great shakes as compared with other standard-issue porns, "Amy Fisher" is nevertheless hands down the best celebrity sex tape this year. Why? Well, there's sex in it, for one, and Fisher is the embodiment of the Long Island hot MILF aesthetic. Watching this movie you will say, "I could shoot Amy in the face - but not with bullets."
( Buy it here )
. . .
"The Pleasure Principle"
Wicked
Wicked has had a lot of expertly-directed, slickly packaged movies this year, including "Operation Desert Stormy" and "Coming Home", but Carmen Hart was adorable in this modest "It's OK to Enjoy Sex" movie for couples. Of all the contract girls, Hart is the most reminiscent of the groovy porn stars of antiquity, like Marilyn Chambers, Seka, and Christy Canyon.
( Buy it here )
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"The Intern"
Lucas Entertainment
The second sidebar would be The Best (And Only) Gay Film Straight-Tagged Fleshbot Watched This Year. I have evidence that that people who watch a lot of gay porn liked this breezy comedy set in a New York gay studio too, and I performed due diligence by asking around if all gay-themed porn was as good as "The Intern", and was told that No, Breeder, It Is Not. So I lucked out. Buy this for your girlfriend, Girlfriend, and show her that you're not threatened by the size of Ben Andrews.
( Buy it here )
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BAKER'S DOZEN:
"Porn's Most Outrageous Outtakes 2"
JM Productions
Director Jim Powers narrates an often chilling backstage look at some of his sets with a combination of weariness and glee. While Powers usually directs rougher fare which you might expect to spawn breakdowns, tears, regret, and fights, his sardonic humor has a place in each porn company. This movie reminds us that for every high-gloss example of empowerment through porn, there are fifty times as many stories that confirm porn's detractors' worst suspicions.
( Buy it here )