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I don't know if I would dare to classify this film as an ordinary cinematographic work with real sex scenes, or as a sensationally written and starred pornographic film, as would happen with a conventional film of a certain level.

Perhaps that is the disappointing factor about Roommates, since the people who went to the premiere to see it were undoubtedly expecting a standard adult work, knowing, of course, that it would be a show in any case interestingly filmed by Chuck Vincent. And what they ultimately brought to the retinas was a spectacular drama with splashes of explicit sex that attract attention, not so much for the usual crudeness of the genre, but for quite the opposite, for showing sex in a very superficial, even romantic, way with short, natural and even dramatic sexual scenes. As if they said: "let's finish this, we must return to the plot line."

And the truth is that no one (and I repeat NO ONE) goes to the movies to see Veronica Hart or Samantha Fox to enjoy their artistic or acting skills. Although they do it very well here. With this I do not want to belittle this work of Vincent. Absolutely not. But there is more sex in some famous mainstream movies than in Chuck Vincent's Roommates. Although it surpasses some in cinematographic quality.

Voyeurism, bondage and videotapes

The well-known morbidity of voyeurism is what Maestro Leroi wanted to convey with Jeux de Langues (AKA Couples Voyeurs et Fesseurs). For all of us who like this concept for its own sake, we must add the BDSM scenes that, without being especially harsh or "professional", will fulfill the desires of a few of us.

The performances are weak, and the sexual numbers are erratic and poorly prepared, with absurd conversations in hasty contexts and without much meaning. But in the end, all that doesn't matter, because Monique Ciron, a secondary diva of French adult cinema, is shown in all her splendor.

That said, fetishism comes together here when Hélène and Henri become casual witnesses of the depraved acts of their neighbors across the street. They decide to borrow a camera and proceed to record everything live. Right until the targets realize their exposure, and invite the couple to take part in their games, in a final scene as boring as it is cliché. But until they get here, the tasty couple, fed up with their sexual routine, has already been doing dirty things with randomly selected couples in the countryside without any predisposition or explanation. The script is therefore weak and inconsistent, but definitely sexual.

A lot of plot and little sex. That would be broadly the conclusion for Co-Ed Fever. It is not that I dislike the purely cinematographic application in adult cinema, especially if it is fun and contains some bright gag. The real problem is that if I had gone to a film room in the year 80 to see a crazy comedy, I would never have chosen this film, but rather a mainstream comedy of the time (there were lots). Co-Ed Fever is supposed to have fulfilled a ratio of acceptable pornographic scenes for the public that sought this gender in particular, but this really does not happen here. Perhaps there are five complete (I repeat: complete) explicit sex scenes (not counting the recurring final orgy), and the rest is pure plot, pure argument. Dialogues and more dialogues for a story that has its grace, of course, but that seems to forget its authentic essence.

I am aware that, on the one hand, that was the greatness of adult cinema in that golden age, and I will always be a defender of that type of plotted pornography, but I think that Gary Graver (a kind of Ernst Lubitsch of adult cinema) has sinned here by being pretentious. Even so, I recognize the great mastery of this director (Summer Camp Girls, Center Spread Girls, Amanda By Night, V The Hot One and Indecent Exposure... among other greatnesses), and I fervently recommend viewing it without further prejudice or objections.

With capital letters

Remarkable cinematographic exercise by maestro Scott. The best film, without a doubt, of 2023. Perhaps it is too hard and intellectual work for a man of his advanced age, and it is possible that he has received technical and artistic assistance. All of that is very possible, yes. But, finally, the Scott Free brand chains together two epic stories worthy of this renowned director (if we consider, of course, that The Last Duel is a great film, as is my case), after a string of botches (I mean , in fact, to Covenant, Exodus, Counselor, Robin Hood...) that almost made me lose faith in this mentor.

More than two and a half hours that didn't seem long at all. And does anyone know why? Well, it's called "Narrative Rhythm". Exact. Something that Scorsese and Nolan (to give two recent and highly overrated examples) have lost sight of, much to my regret.

The performances are sensational, but hey, I'm not going to discover Joaquin Phoenix now. And some will say, even write, that the film fails in many ways, among others because the protagonist "does not look anything like" the real Napoleon... And I cannot help but be astonished by such statements. It's like those who watch a movie and come out saying "what a lack of historical accuracy..." Really?

Seriously, anyone who wants to know truths about General Napoleon should read books or sign up for Netflix documentaries, because this is a personal work, ladies and gentlemen. A fictionalized version of a character that existed. It is not relevant whether a Caesar really went down into the arena to fight hand to hand with a gladiator, or whether Hitler was gunned down in a neighborhood cinema by the French Resistance. This is cinema, an Artistic Expression, with capital letters, yes. And in Artistic Expressions with capital letters, the truths are just a version of the same story. And that is what a large part of film critics, whether amateurs or professionals, do not understand.

Napoleon is majestic, it is romantic, it is aesthetic and, finally, another version of the infamous emperor of the French. It is a narrative, a story, a fable, not a historical study, let that be clear to you. And the funny thing is that it has a worse rating than the artistically inconsequential cheesiness of Barbie. That should really bother you.

Sensational staging, and a blatantly feminist look at the sexual adventures of the most daring students at Townsend, a school for young ladies. The cinematographic resources of Lease (a renowned actress for adults, who here directs under the name Joanna Williams) are evident, not only in the special montages that superimpose different shots to explain a thought or a dream, but in the ability to mix small subtle and irreverent gags while the surreal brushstrokes merge with the plot. Bill Matchton's music, with the whisper of a harp and the sound of Rhodes, fits perfectly in the different sexual sequences, but also in those that surprise with a transition or original and fun sequences.

Little Girls Blue was approaching the end of a decade that was glorious for adult cinema, and the homage paid to the schoolgirl fetish closes here a paradigm that was not repeated with the second part, 5 years later.

A bucolic setting of the Swedish countryside serves the great Sarno to present a delicious erotic-pornographic comedy, in which a group of villagers (all represented by amateur actors) spend the day of the summer solstice arguing about the authenticity or not of certain Viking legends, which give women an unexpected libidinousness thanks to the sound of an ancient horn.

The period contraption will serve the town's slut to enervate the sexuality of each female, including a religious missionary, skeptical of the stories and too pious to participate in certain games. But the truth is that the horn works, and everyone ends up becoming intimate with the rest naturally and without prejudices or regrets.

A very healthy and fun story that includes various explicit numbers, including an unexpected fisting by the more mature, but no less hot, protagonist. You won't see models with sculptural bodies here, nor stars from the adult film firmament, but precisely that circumstance, and the good narrative rhythm, will make Fäbodjäntan a film that is difficult to forget.

On the foundations of an irrefutably morbid script (Summer of '42 style, by Robert Mulligan), Christian Lara builds a narrative that is too weak, perhaps because he only projected it for consumers of the alternative pornographic product. And, indeed, the sex scenes, with the delicious forty-something Michèle Perello, are really beautiful, and do not focus essentially on the most explicit aspect, but rather provide an authentic aroma of romanticism that is unusual in commercial adult cinema. But, as I said, the narrative does not provide any sophistication, it does not break down the main characters, delving a little (only a little, I say) into the idiosyncrasies of each one. I would have liked to know, for example, why Helene is driven to seek romantic support when she must separate from her partner for a week (a week!) for work reasons. Something happens there that we don't know, and it throws her into a sexual frenzy.

Although the IMDb listing says that the film should last 1 hour and 30 minutes, I have only been able to find the 65-minute version dubbed into German! (thanks Nochvemo for the subtitles in my language). Perhaps in those 25 minutes lost in the limbo of Les Films de l'Epée is all the broth for this bland soup. But I doubt it.

Although the intention of this film seems to be set up as a kind of tutorial for the practice of female squirting, the truth is that when it reaches the middle of the film everything becomes a succession of scenes unrelated to any script or plot. But until we get there, things are funny, since we see, for the first time and almost unprecedentedly, Annette Haven herself being stimulated by Harry Reems until she squirts. Without a doubt, a huge gift for all fans of the goddess Haven. But before all that, and as a prologue to the aforementioned scene, Ginger Lynn also shows her acting skills by exploiting her passion on Annette's face, in a now famous slow motion scene.

Sensational pornographic thriller filmed in mainstream style, in which an urban psychopath, a former police officer expelled from the force, takes advantage of his acquired knowledge to pursue, harass and rape different women. His violent and misogynistic nature leads him to an escalation of crimes while, at the same time, he poses as a law enforcement agent to extort shady deals and compulsively listen to the police radio while tracking down his next victim.

It seems like a very interesting erotic exercise that Lee Frost (a director more versed in R-rated plots) applies here, including explicit sex scenes, of course, and providing a certain realism to the violent vignettes.

In certain sexual acts one immediately senses the use of substitute actresses, as well as the technical resource of close-ups to avoid discovery. And that is where A Climax of Blue Power falters, a masterful film embedded in the underworld of commercial pornography.

I am sure that anyone interested in the production details about the filming of this striking film from the late 70s will find a lot of information on the Internet, so I will focus on the essentially cinematic aspect, if you can call it that, of a unorthodox film with overtones of Buñuelian surrealism (The discreet charm of the bourgeoisie).

The room of a restaurant (a real one, by the way, not a set) serves to offer on a silver platter any à la carte sexual demand that customers require from their waiters, to the rhythm of a waltz. Each with their own demands, the mistakes of the female servants are paid for with fellatio to the head waiter. All very strange and at the same time so magnetic.

I haven't really found a specific plot thread to intertwine the different scenes, but the majestic setting and the appearance of a spectacular Annette Haven seem like two essential arguments for reviewing this title once again. And then another.

P. S.- The sensational oral study that actress C. J. Laing performs on one of the waiters, and which ends with one of the most morbid facial discharges that I can remember, will be etched in your retina in perpetuity. You are welcome.

If for some reason this title stands out in the pornographic panorama of the 80s, it is basically because of the stellar appearance of the great and ill-fated Shauna Grant who, although here she does not act as the protagonist as such, when she appears on the scene she completely devours everything around her. Your surroundings.

A summer camp for wealthy girls with lax morals is the common thread for a fairly conventional story shot effectively and written with verisimilitude in the pornographic context. The sense of humor around a simple and effective script is evident with the recurring gag of Paul Thomas continually fearing that he will be fired for interacting with the boarding school sluts, who keep harassing him to sleep with him. Very funny.

The traumas of a rural childhood drag Valerie, an attractive young woman magnificently played by the goddess Annette Haven, towards a mismatch in her relationships with others. Already in her adulthood, she senses this psychopathic behavior even with her husband and, randomly, she leaves home at night to roam the clubs of San Francisco in search of easy sex, sleaze and exhibitionism, even engaging in street prostitution for Pure vice and not out of economic necessity.

Once again, female dissatisfaction is the ideal counterpoint to male desire, and once again serves as the backbone of a story that, although it lacks the slightest originality, is captured with taste and a very attractive erotic vision. This is one of the great porn titles of the late 70s.

A very recurring argument in the pornographic fantasies of filmmakers and consumers in the sector is the subjection of women to certain acts with which they are not comfortable. And the paradigm manifests itself with Soft Places, where the deceased abusive husband of a cold and asexual woman has left a will recorded in which he forces his widow to find the sexuality that she never showed with him. If Monique (an elegant and delicious Annette Haven) agrees to submit to rules of humiliation and submission by alternating with strangers, thus culminating her supposed sexual maturity, she will inherit her entire fortune.

Although the approach is interesting and very morbid, the problem is that here the writer and director have made a mess and, what begins in a very exciting way, turns into a stupidity that culminates in a bar in the underworld, where Monique should have forcedly exposed to unpleasant people instead of limiting themselves to simple flirting and some insipid touching.

And it's a shame, because the story is fun, well presented, offers an interesting narrative rhythm and has undeniable pornographic potential, but in Soft Places it has been ruined by not providing a little more fantasy and not having exploited (in a good way) meaning of the term) the modest and innocent image of a Haven in the fullness of her extraordinary physical presence.

Great first American film by the great master Wilder. A curious and transcendent film, not only because of the exquisite construction of a script that is somewhat complex and delicate to transmit in images, but because it touches in a frivolous and superficial way on the topic of puritanism and controversial romantic relationships between young people and not so young people.

In this context, Wilder learned a lot from his teacher Lubitsch about the trick to bringing the frivolous and dubiously moral to the public, without making it too scandalous. Perhaps it can be interpreted as a hypocritical double standard, but it is certainly one of the characteristics of the screwball comedy that has shone so brightly on the Hollywood scene in its Golden Age.

Ginger Rogers' ability to play an attractive village girl and, at the same time, a helpless and innocent young girl is delightful. In both roles she dazzles with her provocative beauty.

I think these people from Warner wanted to tease us by presenting an absurd TV movie in the cinema that is difficult to pigeonhole, since we don't really know what they want to tell us. Is this a horror story of huge, evil sea (and then land) bugs? Perhaps the plot wanted to trap us with a Chinese thriller of perfidious betrayals? Is it possible that it is an explicit denunciation showing how stupid adults are, and that only children have brains? Do we dare to venture that what all this is really about is a surreal comedy with ridiculous jokes and grotesque gags? Seriously, someone explain this to me, because this whole thing seems like a joke.

When I really thought that the ignominy towards the Star Wars world had reached its zenith, the Disney scriptwriters defecated into the crystalline waters of the spring of the spirit a spinoff that, frankly, reeks of cheapness and there is nowhere to grab. Terrible and depersonalized interpretations, figures without character, without expression, crazy turtle dolls, intergalactic bearded whales... really? Is this what those of you who have never seen the original Star Wars trilogy want? The Star Wars universe is dying and we can only praise this collection of superficial and poorly written series. Please remove Favreau from all of this and return to the Andor style that Kathleen Kennedy so rightly commanded. Meanwhile, bread and Circus.

If the sequel that concerns us today confirms anything, it is that, unfortunately, commercial cinema has ceased to exist as a cultural, literary or creative expression. Not so long ago of that masterful trilogy in which Lawrence Kasdan, Philip Kaufman or George Lucas himself devised and weaved together absorbing stories at the service of characters brimming with personality, with unmistakable traits, for someone like Steven Spielberg to interpret them in his own way and he would capture them with character and genius. All this has been lost. Even in a franchise like this (now in the hands of the infamous Disney), Indiana Jones has moved away from that cinematographic idea, and today rules the graphic hyper-realism, that of special effects, that of hackneyed and absurd gags with boring, flat and characterless protagonists. Events, anecdotes, identity, temperament have ceased to matter. It only matters that what appears on the screen is the closest thing to reality, that the computers work for the directors while they avoid any romanticism with the usual cinema. In reality, it no longer matters what is told in a commercial film of the 21st century, it is convenient that explosions and accidents are as figurative as possible, leaving no room for imagination, conjecture or fantasy. This definitely sucks.

Debora Cahn is co-director of the mythical Homeland (2011), and with this, her own creation, shows an unusual solvency to generate sensationally outlined political intrigues with subtle brushstrokes of British humour. It is a delight to be able to enjoy, once again, the enormous presence of Teri Russell after starring in The Americans (2013). But it's also that The Diplomat is happily dotted with great supporting roles that manage to maintain an addictive narrative rhythm, while a script structured to the millimeter pushes you towards enthusiasm chapter by chapter. The final cliffhanger augurs a second season even more explosive than this one, if possible.

Sensational first hour or so of footage in which the extravagant characters of the saga shine again, the hooliganism of James Gunn behind the scenes, and a very Marvel-like script. But of course, for the umpteenth time now, Disney impregnates everything good with that puerile and finicky whiff that, little by little, is smearing with sweetener what until then worked well.

A surplus of animalist sentimentality, Aryan children everywhere, and that need to tear adulterated tears from you nearing the end, simply to mark territory and confirm that everything that we were previously passionate about as shameless, mischievous, or troublemaker, is now in the cold and dead hands of Walt Disney.

I am amused that professional critics dare to label this new project by Levinson as "garbage at the service of pornography", or that some enlightened caspous from the Western media cave raise their hands to their heads for some sex scenes that, shoehorned into Game of Thrones, they were lauded and highly acceptable.

Levinson's mastery is shown here again in all his splendor after the magnificent series Euphoria (2019), and with the film Wild Nation a year earlier.

Ok, you may not like that Michael Mann-esque narrative style, I would even accept that the Hollywood music scene is not your interest, but what Barry's son does here is a master class in how a series should be created in twenty-first century modernity.

Those who judge it so bitterly are sorry because they have not understood the work as a whole. Here there is no hetero patriarchy or trivialization of sexuality, but rather a weak conductive thread towards empowerment.

The Idol is a gritty series that shows the true rawness of the world. A context that perhaps is foreign to almost all of us, but whose results we enjoy without the slightest critical spirit on Spotify. Has anyone ever been to a concert of, say, Dua Lipa? It is pure sexualization of the female body in a mass spectacle. But we love it. I love it.

Well, here, the master Levinson shows us the way in which all that is cooked, and delves us into insecurities, fears, contradictions, darkness, creating a visually and technically impeccable universe that invites reflection.

And anyone who is outraged at having to see semi-naked bodies at the service of a solid, well-set narrative, let them air out their mothball closet.