the whole shebang

scene title:  girls night in performers:  amber d, julia rain site:  viv thomas (metart) production credits:  sandra shine (dir.), frank mirror (ed.) trailer l: amber d, r: julia rain perhaps the slightest and least compelling of sandra shine's directorial efforts for the vivthomas brand this month. it's beautifully shot, but even by the story-free standards of the site the intro is lackadaisical: houseware-porn closeups of amber d preparing popcorn for a tv night, then she sits down on a couch and pretends to watch tv, julia rain joins her, the popcorn goes everywhere, julia plucks it out of amber's nightie, they kiss. maybe if either of them demonstrated a scintilla of personality it might be more engaging, but they're both very new (their only previous credits seem to have been for sexart in the past month) and although they perform sex perfectly adequately (sandra shine can nearly always be relied on for that), their total lack of communica...

scene title:  perfect sense performers:  arian, olivia sin site:  sexart (metart) production credits:  andrej lupin (dir.), john sweet (ed.) trailer l: arian, r: olivia sin and we say goodbye to sexart with this entry. april 2018 hasn't perhaps been the best showcase of the site's girl/girl strengths: a lot of diminishing-returns sequels, relatively few of the big european stars who can be relied upon for memorable scenes, little of the visual experimentation that makes the site a must-follow despite the relative paucity of output (at least from a girl/girl perspective). i suspect that metart is beginning to feel the competition from other big euro-heavy brands, including the porndoe collective and greg lansky's sites, and trying to continue to distinguish themselves without spending that kind of money. this scene, at least, is classic sexart: stylishly filmed in andrej lupin's signature chiaroscuro, no dialogue (except a few murmured expressio...

scene title:  coffee and kisses performers:  adora rey, ginger mary site:  viv thomas (metart) production credits:  xanthus (dir.), anna mary (ed.) trailer l: ginger mary, r: adora rey apparently this is director xanthus's debut on viv thomas, as well as both models'. adora rey, the blonde, has a few more credits (all 2019), but this looks like ginger mary's only shoot to date. they are both latvian, and ginger in particular looks so young that i feel uncomfortable watching them. the narrative is a slender thread: they wake up in each other's arms, adora gets up naked, brews coffee, brings it back to bed, they sip it naked and kiss and eventually the coffee gets put on the windowsill and they move through leisurely positions. there is not a scintilla of personality that flickers in either of their faces, and the occasional whimper is all the vocalizing either of them ever do. the sex never rises above the level of mechanical (ginger in particul...

scene title:  whore - lazy room performers:  paula a, emily j site:  sexart (metart) production credits:  paul black (dir.) trailer paula a once more, we're pushing against the limits of what can reasonably be called a girl/girl scene. the two performers who appear in this never share the screen and have quite possibly never met. both of them are from latvia, although paula (who is filmed directly) has only been doing erotic modeling since 2016; emily (who only appears on phone and laptop screens putting on a sex show for paula; her whole face is never shown here) has been doing erotic modeling and very occasionally pornography since 2012. this is a sequel of sorts to a black-and-white 2017 sexart film called "whore - the day after" featuring emily and an anonymous male performer, also by director paul black and producer ilona black. emily's name is only given as "whore" in paula's messages with her, apparently as a nod. is it a girl/gi...

scene title:  domination performers:  vanna bardot, gina gerson site:  als scan (metart) production credits:  none listed trailer l: vanna bardot, r: gina gerson the absolute low point in the metart empire, as far as my preferences are concerned, is alsscan. als stands for all ladies shaved, which was a dumb fucking selling point even at the site's height ten years ago; now it's just an exhausted trope, faux-teens with protruding pelvic bones using the same cheap plastic toys on each other in every scene, world without end. there's a market for it, obviously, but i'm not part of that market demo. i don't talk here about what gets me hard or wet, but from a purely aesthetic point of view the "teen" niche doesn't interest me and from an ethical point of view really skeeves me out. further, in isolation i don't care whether performers sport pubic hair or not (it's their body), but making "shaved" a selling point trips m...

scene title:  full of joy 2 performers:  eilin flame, julia rain site:  sexart (metart) production credits:  andrej lupin (dir.), ty rodriguez (ed.) trailer l: julia rain, r: eilin flame when the metart network finds new girls, they put them to work: i just reviewed ivy rein's second scene of the month for viv thomas, and her partner from the first scene, elin holm (credited as eilin or elin flame in the metart network because euro glamour sites are weird about letting the girls get too famous across platforms), makes her third appearance of the month here. her partner, julia rain, isn't familiar to me, but she appears to be brand-new anyway (her twitter profile was created april 2019) so that's not surprising. this is the second scene in a two-parter starring julia rain; the first was with a man, maximilian dior, who appears briefly in a previously-on here introducing julia to a compact vibrator. elin's discovery of the vibrator is the (very m...

scene title:  love is in the air performers:  ivy rein, sarah cute site:  viv thomas (metart) production credits:  sandra shine (dir.), frank mirror (ed.) trailer l: ivy rein, r: sarah cute there's little to say about sandra shine's third entry of the month, and second featuring russian newbie ivy rein. her hungarian partner here, sarah cute, seems to have more credits, but is also relatively new, so it was interesting to see ivy taking the, ahem, reins in their encounter; the last time i saw her, with elin flame, she was more passive. the photography remains exquisite, with a warmth and subtlety that functions as something of a rebuke to the more static and chillier vibe of the fox/veller team that is shine's primary competition at viv thomas. a yardwork montage over sentimental guitar plucks leads to perhaps the fakest bonking of heads i've ever seen when they both reach for the recycling; ivy kisses sarah's forehead to make it better, which ...

scene title:  taking turns performers:  amie, serena a site:  the life erotic (metart) production credits:  alana h (dir.) trailer l: amie, r: serena a metart, as a production company, has traditionally focused on erotic photography, usually of a single model; even when they branched out into video toward the end of the 2000s, the videos have tended to remain solo masturbation. their sub-brand the life erotic, which focuses more on female pleasure and light kink than on pristine visuals, is also largely solo-oriented, but occasionally includes a girl/girl scene. on the website, this scene is called "taking turns 2" because "taking turns 1" is the name of the photoset from the same session, another reminder that video is a lower priority for any metart-owned brand that isn't sexart or viv thomas. like most metart models, the women using the names amie and serena for this site don't appear to be prolific elsewhere; i can't even tell for s...

scene title:  honey, i'm home performers:  blue angel, helena moeller site:  viv thomas (metart) production credits:  sandra shine (dir.), frank mirror (ed.) trailer l: blue angel, r: helena moeller it's ridiculous to paint all of european porn production with as broad a brush as i frequently do, but to be fair to me i'm only looking at girl/girl productions, which do tend to be fairly samey despite a certain amount of envelope-pushing from a number of different directions. one direction that will never push the envelope is viv thomas. even their best director, sandra shine, is content to select and light a location to maximize its sensuous beauty, dress two beautiful women beautifully, and shoot them undressing one another and having patient, uninflected sex with the most beautiful photography. this is old-school glamour porn in modern dress, and there's nothing wrong with it: it's just that, compared to the narrative drive and vivid personali...

scene title:  my summer part 3 performers:  emylia argan, alexis crystal site:  sexart (metart) production credits:  andrej lupin (dir., ed.), david "tata" jones (scr.) trailer l: emylia argan, r: alexis crystal it feels like this month is not showing off sexart at its best. not that this scene is bad at all, it's just something that any viewer of european erotic porn has seen before. alexis crystal and emylia argan are two of the most prolific czech performers, with alexis a rarity in europe, a performer who primarily does girl/girl. in keeping with the scenario of beach fun that turns into further intimacy, both of them are wearing hairstyles that keep their hair out of their face, alexis with pigtails and emylia with a messy bun. which is great from a verisimilitude point of view, but it's not particularly glamorous. the scenario, by the way, is about all that connects this to the other "my summer" episodes on sexart, the remainder of ...

scene title:  midnight love performers:  marry morgan, naomi bennett site:  viv thomas (metart) production credits:  nik fox & tom veller (dir.), john sweet (ed.) trailer l: marry morgan, r: naomi bennett sometimes it feels impossible to have everything. viv thomas sets such a high standard of lighting, photography, and staging that virtually every us production company could stand to learn from even the dullest of their scenes; but their scenarios are so limited, the european talent is so frequently limited in their acting ability, and the sex is often so perfunctory that the finished product may be beautiful, but it hardly engages me at all. the specific talent here doesn't help. slovakian marry morgan appears to be brand new, and is very awkward even in the limited pantomime of scrolling through her phone; czech naomi bennet is more experienced, but neither of them reveal any hint of personality, letting the delicate photography and exqu...

scene title:  two girls one lake 2 performers:  sabrisse a, lorena b site:  sexart (metart) production credits:  don caravaggio (dir.), laurie adams (ed.) trailer l: lorena b, r: sabrisse a i must say, particularly immediately on the heels of the beautiful sandra shine scene for viv thomas, this was a disappointment. i normally love the visual style of sexart's scenes, especially andrej lupin's use of light and shadow; and don caravaggio's nom de porn led me to expect similar a tonal lusciousness. but a white couch against a picture window is hard to shoot, so that only from certain angles, and when the sun emerges from behind the clouds, does the light really wash over the bodies in a satisfyingly beautiful way. otherwise, the room lighting is harsh and unpleasant. even so, the photography remains stiffly-composed and inelegant, lacking the intimacy of shine's work. even the more heavily-processed introduction set to a generic romantic pop son...

scene title:  take the shot performers:  elin flame, ivy rein site:  viv thomas (metart) production credits:  sandra shine (dir.), frank mirror (ed.) trailer l: elin flame, r: ivy rein what a difference even a slight bit of scene-setting makes. the last time i reviewed a viv thomas scene, i couldn't be invested because the two women had no reason to have sex, or indeed to not have sex; they were just there. this time, we open on elin flame and ivy rein playing billiards (not well), and the loser has to dance for the other. (they are both russian, but they speak their few lines in english.) the dance turns into a kiss, and so we're off to the races. part of it also is that sandra shine is undoubtedly a better director than fox and veller: a former performer, she knows how to light and shoot her models to their advantage, and loves to play with deep focus, depth of field, and even reflections to keep the visuals interesting. her shot compositions...

scene title:  love time performers:  freya dee, sabrisse site:  viv thomas (metart) production credits:  nik fox & tom veller (dir.) trailer l: sabrisse, r: freya dee once upon a time viv thomas was the most celebrated girl/girl brand in porn. that was a long time ago, and the british pornography industry has virtually disappeared since. metart, its production based in the czech republic, owns viv thomas now, and while the revived brand remains exclusively girl/girl and still focuses on beautiful, elegant, and slightly soulless photography, the imagination and narrative skills that were once the actual viv thomas's hallmark are now mostly gone. here, while a mumbly faux-gospelfolk ballad plays, russian freya dee and czech sabrisse wander through a snowy park, sit down on a bench, kiss, get up, and cut to an indoor scene where they playfully show off their lingerie, and so on. not a word is spoken, no story is even attempted. who are these wom...