Porn Of The Ancient World: Michael Ninn’s “Neo-Pornographia 2”

Michael Ninn directs his all-sex movies like Hieronymus Bosch staged his paintings; on the surface they seem like all hell's breaking loose, but they are actually tautly-controlled scenes of heightened reality.

Neo-Pornographia 2

Director: Michael Ninn
Starring: Nicki Hunter, Jayna Oso, Manuel Ferrara, Steve Holmes, Alicia Rhodes, Hillary Scott, Marco Banderas, Arianna Jolie, Scott Nails, Alex Sanders

Review by: Gram Ponante

In "Neo-Pornographia 2: The Secret Tapes of Michael Ninn" (yes, yes, I know), Nicki Hunter is the majordomo of a trio of scenes that now and then go over the edge.

Ninn's work isn't for all porn fans, but you can never say his heart isn't in it, and you could never call the graphic and hardcore fuckfests he puts together "precious." Skilled and sturdy performers earn their money under Ninn's artfully arranged lights and, besides, Ninn could never be as full of himself as Jayna Oso's anus was filled with the cocks of Manuel Ferrara and Steve Holmes (but more on that later).

This movie was shot and released in 2005. I was given a copy by a friend who said, "You've never heard Nicki Hunter sing? Watch this."

Hunter as ringmaster has a beautiful mezzosoprano voice and gives it an operatic workout singing (something) to Loren Alexander's low-dub soundtrack. Then Hunter introduces the likes of Arianna Jolie, Alicia Rhodes, Hillary Scott, and Oso to us before those women are tossed about and fucked with brutal attention by the likes of Ferrara, Holmes, Scott Nails, and Alex Sanders.

It is a scene between Sanders and Jolie that opens the movie and, if the scenario depicted was scripted, it seemed very real. Sanders slapped Jolie a little too hard and she storms off set, but not before threatening to hit him back and cussing him out. "I've fucked you a thousand times and you never hit me that hard!" she yells. The camera pans in and out of darkness as we hear Sanders' protestations and someone commiserating with Jolie in the next room. "Make it right," someone says, and we cut to a few moments later, with Sanders sharing Jolie with Nails.

On-set meltdowns happen maybe once every two months and, assuming this one wasn't staged, captures a reality about porn: porn sex isn't real sex, but it can encompass so many emotions while going through those acrobatic motions.

If the Jolie/Sanders tryst weren't enough, Disc Two features the intense three-way between Oso, Ferrara, and Holmes that includes the first double-anal I've seen, with both those gallant European dudes having a swordfight in Oso's ass. (Oso took a break from the business shortly after this.)

Being that this movie was made five years ago, many of these performers have moved on (though all of the guys are still around, in more or less the same shape) and we see Hillary Scott on her way in with Jolie on her way out.

Hunter, then as now, runs the show, and it is a real revelation to hear her singing voice. But if the heightened dialogue is a distraction, watch this balletic and evil movie with the sound down.

· Buy "Neo-Pornographia 2" (gamelink.com)