ana foxxx, avi love, and lacy lennon in “endless”
scene title: endless
performers: ana foxxx, avi love, lacy lennon
site: all her luv (missax)
production credits: whitney wright (dir., scr.), missa x (ed.)
trailer
there are three names in the header, but this isn't a threesome: according to the writer/director, it's a two-part scene that seems to have been released as one for maximum impact. at an hour and twenty minutes, it's long enough to be considered a feature film by the academy of motion picture arts and sciences, and in fact it's smart, well-made, and narratively fulfilling enough to play at a film festival, which i wouldn't say about anything else i've reviewed this month. structurally it's still very much porn, as the bulk of the running time is taken up by two extended sex scenes, one between avi love and lacy lennon and the other between avi and ana foxxx, but the structure, communicated almost entirely in film language rather than dialogue, is more considered and complex than nine-tenths, or even ninety-nine-hundredths, of porn.
which doesn't mean it's not essentially a simple story. paige (avi love) has fallen out of love with her alcoholic ex-con husband derek (will pounder, with some of the best nonsex acting i've seen) and in love with her pesonal trainer jen (lacy lennon), but is too afraid of the consequences to leave him. a spot of groundhog day (or maybe more aptly russian doll)-style magical realism literalizes her hesitance by resetting the day every time she takes an irrevocable step; but not for everyone. so jen grows tired of waiting (the director makes a cameo as the other other woman), and paige drowns her sorrows in a bar manned by rhea (ana foxxx), who takes a shine to her and brings her home. upon which, finally, paige's life stops resetting.
if the jauntily-edited first half of the story is slightly more compelling than the second half, that might be due to lack of time (the miracles porn can achieve with the budget and time constraints it operates under are often remarkable), or to the narrative compulsion toward a happy ending. but the same can frequently be said of any indie movie on this scale: sticking the landing is always the trickiest part of narrative.
immense credit has to be given to indie-porn auteur missa x for inviting ambitious performers to write and direct their own material for release on her sites: no corporate porn entities are offering anything like that kind of platform to performers (even though casey calvert is co-directing for gamma, it's still very much in a house style). and whitney wright, as should be clear from some of her more off-the-wall performances and witty social media presence, is one of the smartest and most creative young performers in the business: her script is thoughtful and plays fair with the high concept, and her direction is frequently masterful, if occasionally overripe. it helps that she hired cameramen she's worked with frequently at evil angel and gamma, and who very much know what they're doing.
the stars, too, are people she'd worked with before and so knew she could trust with her dialogue: she and lacy were rivals in mike quasar's closing time, she and avi teamed up on jenna sativa recently for girlsway, and ana foxxx's casting might be by way of an apology for reducing her to her race in a zero tolerance release where whitney had sex only with black people. i'll note that neither avi, lacy, or ana have ever appeared on missax or allherluv before, which because of the sites' reliance on the small handful of performers willing to shoot in wisconsin isn't surprising. another reason why giving performers based in the los angeles area the opportunity to write and direct for them is such a great move for missa x: suddenly the talent pool opens up.
i will note a few technical issues. when the standard missax cameo filter settled on the screen after the opening credits, i sighed. and sure enough, during the sex, there were enough places where faces got obscured because they were in a corner of the screen that i could resent the filter for a reason. also, the allherluv logo faded out at the 12:30 mark. it's an eyesore of a logo so it's not much of a loss, but it probably wasn't on purpose.
this is the highest mark i've given out yet, and unless a lansky site drops a girl/girl scene will almost certainly be the highest mark i give out all month. the acting was uniformly excellent, the sex was deeply engaging and delightful, the writing was sharp and compelling, the filmmaking was well above the site's usual standard, and the editing carried the narrative momentum; as much as i complain about missa x's stylistic choices, her editing helped make whitney look brilliant.
performances: 28
cinematography: 22
editing: 20
script: 15
sjw points: 5
total score:
performers: ana foxxx, avi love, lacy lennon
site: all her luv (missax)
production credits: whitney wright (dir., scr.), missa x (ed.)
trailer
 |
| l: avi love, r: lacy lennon |
there are three names in the header, but this isn't a threesome: according to the writer/director, it's a two-part scene that seems to have been released as one for maximum impact. at an hour and twenty minutes, it's long enough to be considered a feature film by the academy of motion picture arts and sciences, and in fact it's smart, well-made, and narratively fulfilling enough to play at a film festival, which i wouldn't say about anything else i've reviewed this month. structurally it's still very much porn, as the bulk of the running time is taken up by two extended sex scenes, one between avi love and lacy lennon and the other between avi and ana foxxx, but the structure, communicated almost entirely in film language rather than dialogue, is more considered and complex than nine-tenths, or even ninety-nine-hundredths, of porn.
which doesn't mean it's not essentially a simple story. paige (avi love) has fallen out of love with her alcoholic ex-con husband derek (will pounder, with some of the best nonsex acting i've seen) and in love with her pesonal trainer jen (lacy lennon), but is too afraid of the consequences to leave him. a spot of groundhog day (or maybe more aptly russian doll)-style magical realism literalizes her hesitance by resetting the day every time she takes an irrevocable step; but not for everyone. so jen grows tired of waiting (the director makes a cameo as the other other woman), and paige drowns her sorrows in a bar manned by rhea (ana foxxx), who takes a shine to her and brings her home. upon which, finally, paige's life stops resetting.
if the jauntily-edited first half of the story is slightly more compelling than the second half, that might be due to lack of time (the miracles porn can achieve with the budget and time constraints it operates under are often remarkable), or to the narrative compulsion toward a happy ending. but the same can frequently be said of any indie movie on this scale: sticking the landing is always the trickiest part of narrative.
immense credit has to be given to indie-porn auteur missa x for inviting ambitious performers to write and direct their own material for release on her sites: no corporate porn entities are offering anything like that kind of platform to performers (even though casey calvert is co-directing for gamma, it's still very much in a house style). and whitney wright, as should be clear from some of her more off-the-wall performances and witty social media presence, is one of the smartest and most creative young performers in the business: her script is thoughtful and plays fair with the high concept, and her direction is frequently masterful, if occasionally overripe. it helps that she hired cameramen she's worked with frequently at evil angel and gamma, and who very much know what they're doing.
the stars, too, are people she'd worked with before and so knew she could trust with her dialogue: she and lacy were rivals in mike quasar's closing time, she and avi teamed up on jenna sativa recently for girlsway, and ana foxxx's casting might be by way of an apology for reducing her to her race in a zero tolerance release where whitney had sex only with black people. i'll note that neither avi, lacy, or ana have ever appeared on missax or allherluv before, which because of the sites' reliance on the small handful of performers willing to shoot in wisconsin isn't surprising. another reason why giving performers based in the los angeles area the opportunity to write and direct for them is such a great move for missa x: suddenly the talent pool opens up.
i will note a few technical issues. when the standard missax cameo filter settled on the screen after the opening credits, i sighed. and sure enough, during the sex, there were enough places where faces got obscured because they were in a corner of the screen that i could resent the filter for a reason. also, the allherluv logo faded out at the 12:30 mark. it's an eyesore of a logo so it's not much of a loss, but it probably wasn't on purpose.
this is the highest mark i've given out yet, and unless a lansky site drops a girl/girl scene will almost certainly be the highest mark i give out all month. the acting was uniformly excellent, the sex was deeply engaging and delightful, the writing was sharp and compelling, the filmmaking was well above the site's usual standard, and the editing carried the narrative momentum; as much as i complain about missa x's stylistic choices, her editing helped make whitney look brilliant.
performances: 28
cinematography: 22
editing: 20
script: 15
sjw points: 5
total score:
update to the above: whitney wright has now directed for gamma in a girl/girl spinoff of pure taboo, kirsten scott is set to begin directing for girlsway (it's unclear whether it will be in the house style), lena paul is directing work for high-end mindgeek brands like babes and digital playground. it looks like corporate porn entities are offering that kind of platform to performers after all.
ReplyDeletewhich is fantastic, and one of the bright spots in the porn-media landscape of 2019.