Fade to Black 2
I run hot and cold on Paul Thomas. He’s probably the most ambitious — for certain values of the word — director in porn, and sometimes I think he overreaches. When he’s firing on all cylinders, though, he creates some noteworthy films, and while Fade to Black 2 might not rack up as many accolades as its acclaimed predecessor (which some people still call the best porn movie ever), it’s a very good flick. Thomas reprises his role as manipulative porn director Trent Morgan, and once again the emphasis is on the transformation of ordinary people into porn performers, this time through a complicated plot that revolves around Morgan agreeing to help a group of ordinary people, most married couples, make a porn movie for private distribution. The plot actually gets a lot twistier than that, but I won’t spoil it for you. Watch to the end, though, to see all the complications resolve.
Thomas is a champion of narrative porn, and at one point his filmic alter-ego says he prefers to see people have sex when it affects them as characters, not just as two bodies fucking. He’s got a point. This is a movie with angry sex, and eager clumsy sex, and cold-hearted revenge sex, and sex-for-money, and the narrative component actually does add something, which is a testament to the director’s ability to wring real acting out of his performers.
It’s a long movie, and there are nine sex scenes, all hot. The second-best involves Haley Paige, Lexie Marie, and Van Damage, with Lexie playing the part of an amazingly sexy “real” porn star brought in to teach the amateurs how to perform. The three-way is very hot, with Van Damage beautifully playing the part of an ordinary guy who can’t believe how lucky he is to get to fuck a porn star (not to mention his neighbor), and never mind how pissed-off his wife looks about it. The best scene is the last one, with Ava Vincent, Lexie Marie again, and Scott Nails. This time Lexie seduces Ava for some nice-if-unremarkable girl-girl action, but when Scott joins in, it reaches a whole new level. Everybody seems to be pushing their limits here, and at one point Ava is on her back with Scott fucking her ass, his hands on her throat, as Lexie sits on her face, basically riding on Ava’s tongue and smothering her. All three performers seem utterly transported. It’s like a golden moment of perfect porn sexual chemistry. You don’t often see scenes like that. They should be treasured.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, 31 January 2007 at 3:38 pm and is filed under Videos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.