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Many Playboy Playmates Have Died Young

MIAMI - The selection of Anna Nicole Smith as a Playboy Playmate in 1992 made her a member of an exclusive sorority. Her death at 39 put her in a more grisly club _ Playmates who haven't reached their 50th birthday.

Automobile accidents, drug overdoses, homicides, a plane crash _ all have claimed the lives of Playmates.

"It's sad how many girls we've lost," said Peter Gowland, who photographed a number of centerfolds for Playboy in the 1950s and 60s with the help of his wife.

In 1968, Gowland photographed Paige Young. In 1974, she was dead of a drug overdose. Jayne Mansfield, another Playmate he photographed, died in a car crash in 1967 at 34.

Eve Meyer, a 1955 Playmate, was one of more than 550 people killed when two airliners collided on takeoff at Tenerife in the Canary Islands in 1977. She was 46.

More recently, Ellen Louise Maligo, known in Playboy as "Star Stowe," was found murdered at 40 in Coral Springs in 1997.

Marilyn Monroe, the cover girl for the magazine's inaugural issue, famously died at 36 from a 1962 overdose of sleeping pills.

Tonya Crews, Carol Willis and 1970 Playmate of the Year Claudia Jennings all died in car accidents in the 1960s and 70s while still in their 20s.

Playmate Willy Rey, pictured on Playboy's first stock certificates, was 23 when she died of a drug overdose in 1973.

Twenty-eight-year-old Playmate Elisa Bridges died in 2002 after being found unresponsive in bed. Playboy said she died of natural causes, but a coroner's report said Bridges died of an accidental drug overdose.

Pornography is Dying?

In a recent Guardian article, the French pornographer John B. Root says:

"I want to be able to watch a sex film, get my physical pleasure out of it, and not have my brain tell me afterwards that it's revolted and ashamed because the thing was so cheap and nasty and demeaning. There's no earthly reason why a porn film shouldn't also be a good film. I want the product to respect me.

"Porn's been legal for 27 years. It's rendered sex banal. There's a generation of young film-makers who've grown up with it and want the right to experiment with sex as cinematographers. There'll always be a market for sheer bad taste, of course. But having prepared the way for a genuine sexual cinema, pornography is dying - and the way it is now, I won't be sorry to see it go."

Skronker comments: "Oh, go shove it up your Derrida."

Gia Jordan posts on ADT: "I'd like sex scenes to be less verbal. I like dirty talk but only if it's genuine. It seems like talent, especially the guys, feel compelled to fill up any empty space with banter. Sometimes just the sounds of sex is all you need."

Walter Burns writes: "I have seen 13 John B. Root videos. While most of them were a cut above average, none of them were unique, cinematographically or pornographically enthralling and more often than not they surely did not "make sense of their subject matter" and they certainly did not "portray real people"."

Vodka Tonic writes:

I find the now pretty absolute acceptance of all-sex as the new norm to be an interesting development. After decades of aping the Hollywood format, it's like pornography is finding its own language outside the scope of its cinematic heritage. It has stopped being a parody and found its own format. That doesn't mean I love it because I've always been more into erotica, but as an art form, I would say pornography is just blooming.

David Aaron Clark writes:

The viewer/user dichotomy, as WB puts it, is what's at the heart of most of the debates I see here about "good" porn versus "bad." A stunted view of those issues is what leads to musing that well-crafted, cinematic smut is "not good porn" because "I can't jerk off to it."

This supposedly argument-trumping litmus test is obviously nothing but subjective, & even more so than less physiologically involved "ways of seeing." The true issue here is the perception level of the viewer. If one has been so stunted by various factors which can include --

1. Limited -- whether in frequency or activity -- sexual history on the part of the viewer. This includes a failure to address sexuality & desire as part of a larger continuum of human experience.

2. Limited exposure to and therefore understanding/appreciation for sophisticated and/or challenging visual storytelling techniques.

-- then one is likely not to appreciate -- or even be hostile to -- porn that demands any sort of conscious suspension of disbelief of the sort we acquiesce to when walking into the movie house, turning on cable tv, picking up a book, etc.

Just because porn ostensibly, or at least on a visual level, "leaves nothing to the imagination" I hope doesn't mean it has to be anti-imagination to be effective, though the proof that post-gonzo porn fosters exactly that sort of mindset has been rife through fandom for years now. That some posters to this thread mistake Root's opining on the death of porn to mean some sort of literal economic apocalypse rather than a plaintive cry (easy to apply to other art forms, including novel-writing) that the more of this shit there is, the more it's alike & the less it all means, only points out that we're dealing with a viewing public that, de-educated by the empty candy of lifetime mass-media exposure, is left with a stunted ability to grasp or recognize much past the literal, i.e. "physical," in an idea or concept.

What I do think "state-of-the-art" current porn does -- & I've said this before -- is basically cater to & encourage little but hormonal knee-jerk reactions and/or the kind of childish, removed sadism marked by a defiant lack of self-examination.

It's a phase we all go through, though I'm using "we" here to refer perhaps more to men, who are hardwired with the breeding circuit in such a way that before higher levels of reasoning or perception kick in, all that matters is to stick it in -- that's where the solipsism of simple objectification and rape come from.

I do think that in its capitalistic zeal to make the quick buck at whatever cost, the industry has (largely unconsciously) embraced the sexual equivalent of surveillance tape of wings being pulled off flies because it's brought them the biggest bang for the buck -- one need only reference the work of Skeeter Kerkove to understand the lure of such material for the capitalists -- it's cheap & easy to produce, & you can get misogynists, lowlifes, etc to crank it out without irritating side-discussions about aesthetics, intent or societal impact.

I know that there are several educated porn fans on this very board that seem to be quite open to adventurous form & content on the pop culture board but despise it in their porn. For example, somebody might adore a tv series like THE SHIELD but if their pornography is full of the same available-light, hand-panned & quick-cut storytelling, they declare it crap & unwankable.

Though I understand intimately the relationship between eyes, brain, wrist & cock for the porn viewer -- once you've found that exact image that lets you transcend reality and BE in the porn moment long enough for a satisfying orgasm -- it does reflect a failure of the personal imagination to come half-way out of the aridity of self-absorption & engage with the tableau before them.

The fascist demand for material that caters to such remove has always been a part of our nature as viewers, & indeed still photography is a better (pornographic) art form to satisfy this need -- though in terms of explicitness, today's average gonzo porn aficionado would not be satisfied by anything less than autopsy-quality lensmanship, I fear. & as well, the stunted imaginations of the current average viewer, overwhelmed by a lifetime of too many meaningless images, may not be able to make the necessary leap of spinning their own mental scenario efficiently enough to produce the desired arousal/satisfaction.

Cinema -- which, like it or not, naysayers -- is the larger art form of which filmed/videoed pornography is by physical reality a lesser branch of, has at its finest been the concrete proof of our dreams, fantasies, & nightmares. Thanks to the relationship between human biology & the technology we create, it's more complex & demands a greater engagement than any pre-20th Century artform that comes to mind.

I'm sure I'm not the only person here who back in the days of the late 20th century jerked off in an adult movie theater. Please note that in the heyday of such activities, the material being used was projected at a fixed rate that allowed for no pause or rewind or fast-forward, & that the average length of a sex scene was somewhere around seven to twelve minutes (to pull an approximate # out of my ass). Yet the masses still wanked, happily.

That was before They stole our imaginations from us. But hey, who needs an imagination when you have a lighted speculum & a twelve-inch dick? (Try not to make any droll replies to this remark too painfully obvious & unfunny, please)

In closing, I'd like to welcome Mrs. Comstock to the board with a broad rictus grin befitting Eddie Haskell at his best -- "Very nice to have you here, Mrs. Comstock, you're looking quite smart today!"

(Unless of course, this is one of those Norman Bates things, & there IS no Mrs. Comstock, only Tony in a gray wig & dress, hiding in the shadows behind the rocking chair, waiting for one of us to discover his awful secret).

Nic Roeg bears little relationship to the storytelling I'm referring to -- besides an old-school adherence to classical lighting & composition, his calling card is the abrupt juxtaposition of time frames -- I'm not even talking anything THAT challenging, just what the "accepted" visual style of storytelling for mainstream movies/tv is at present.

I agree, Leslie came closest out of anybody with FRESH MEAT (A GHOST STORY) and its more amazing if less self-consciously narrative follow-up DROP SEX (WIPE THE FLOOR). I think DOGWALKER is a bit over-rated -- I know when I reviewed it at the time, I adored it to an extent I find impossible now, probably because it did represent such a big leap forward for shot-on-video porn.

Unfortunately, Leslie has been quite vocal (when asked) for at least ten years on why he doesn't make art like that anymore -- not only don't titles like that (which demand an enormous amount of time-consuming work that, oh say, FRESH MEAT: THE SERIES or THE VOYEUR series don't) sell any better than less ambitious stuff, they tend to actually sell LESS. Which, I suppose, if you're truly a fine artist, shouldn't matter, but since in porn the economic line for survival of the auteur is much more harrowing than the grant-heavy and/or Sundance route afforded "legit" filmmakers, in reality it becomes a roof-over-the-head survival issue.

I would say the fault lies more with the industry than the consumer, to be frank. There is no "alternate" -- the bullshit hype of "alt" certainly doesn't count -- pipeline for exposure & discussion of porn that "aspires" -- there's only the AVN Awards, which anyone sane &/or honest considers nothing but a self-promotion tool for the magazine itself &, to a lesser extent, an opportunity for the rank & file cocksuckers & camera-spinners to feel for one evening they truly are part of a "glamor industry."

Putting aside the awards ceremonies in Spain & Germany, which get nil coverage in the American porn community, there is no equivalent of Cannes, Sundance, the Golden Globes, etc. etc. -- & to get real for a moment, even the AVN Awards can't compare to the Oscars, where the voting is done not by the hired, easily-influenced & overworked staff of a trade magazine dependent on advertisers, but by actual filmmakers themselves, from directors on down to make-up artists. The editor of AVN can bluster all he wants about such remarks being the equivalent of sour grapes & whatever other schoolyard retorts occur to him, but this is an unassailable fact that points out the difference between the two competitions that makes them terminally non-analagous ....

Which does bring up the burning question of why doesn't AVN organize a voting procedure among the actual industry itself, as opposed to their historically closed-door method? But of course, that question answers itself ...

We do have true believers like Roger T. Pipe who strive to be fair, inclusive & open-minded in their annual round-ups/awards, but these are, at this point, voices in the internet wilderness compared to the financial support & organization afforded to, oh say, The Independent Spirit Awards.

As well, the state of "official" (read: print) porn criticism has hit an all-time low, thanks in part to the economics of magazine publishing. Except for a sparse handful of well-versed, literate & thoughtful old-school critics, the best porn criticism is without a doubt being published on the net, with its purveyors doing it out of enthusiasm as opposed to a need to make that big $15 for turning in 150 words on a DVD they didn't really watch & really didn't want to look at in the first place.

Of course, finding these new voices in porn criticism in the vast ocean of idiotic, grammatically laughable slop being dished out by every retard with a DVD player that hasn't been jammed up by too much Vaseline on the disc tray is a Herculean task, & yes, we are referring to the Augean stables here ... For every Crucifixio Jones, Picman, etc, etc, there's a thousand unemployed, unlaid nose-pickers who build the tower of Babel where the sheer volume of their uninformed & ill-thought opinions drown out the possibility of any universal debate & contemplation of the art of porn on a mature, intelligent level. & that's the way the production houses prefer it. They don't WANT to have to rise to the challenge of an economically powerful viewership that demands more from their porn than this week's atrocity, next week's ho-hum ... That would cut into their obscene profit margins, which are already being whittled down by the bloated surfeit of idiots who think they're going to be the next Larry Flynt, Stagliano, etc. etc.

Smitty writes: "What sanctimonious garbage."

David Clark responds: "What an excellent refutation! I bow to your four-post genius!"

Quasarman writes: "You guys are talking about porn, right?"

David Clark writes:

I will ascend the rickety soapbox for a moment -- take aim, loyal opposition, as I don't bother to do this much anymore:

The very reason my porn looks & plays out the way it does is because I refuse to give in to financial imperatives & shoot material in the style & with the intent I so often deride here.

Anybody with the camera experience of Tony -- or very certainly Quaserman -- could tell you that it's not very difficult for a competent camera person to imitate the basic tropes of what passes nowadays for gonzo porn well enough to make a name for himself -- or even rise to the top of the field. The hard part is developing enough of a sense of bitter mysogny & calculated contempt for themselves & their audience that they can put on the blinders & churn out 15 volumes of TEENAGE CUM FART O-RING BLOW OUTS OF ASS DESTRUCTION.

However, to the derision of many of my peers -- not to mention a lot of consumers -- I trade the empty allure of spinner-equipped SUVs, plasma tvs & ugly bling with my company initials on it for a hand-to-mouth existence making exactly the porn that I think is worth making, in the hopes that it finds enough of an audience to sustain itself.

Do I have contempt for, or look down on, this audience? Of course not. In fact, I show them the utmost respect by creating a product -- and sometimes art -- which reflects my standards, rather than some cynical, deliberately stupid, cruel or (to me) visually unpleasant lowest common denominator. Which is not to say that a goodly number of your gonzo heroes are necessarily cynical -- in many cases, the relationship between consumer & audience is just as honest as the one I strive to create -- we're just dealing with very different mindsets & worldviews.

Does this mean I only respect porn shot exactly like I shoot mine? Of course not. Does it mean I have to respect whatever garbage the public is eating up at the moment? Of course not. I've been passionate about pornography/erotica as a legitimate form of expression AND a jolly good wank of a pastime for most of my life, & explored it in other mediums besides videography/filmmaking.

My belief in the medium has not dulled. My belief that nobody ever went broke (or was voted out of office) underestimating the intelligence of the American public, however, has intensified. Do I think that somebody sucks just because they might prefer not to jerk off to porno made in the style of THE SHIELD? Of course not. Do I think it's a shame that they're so close-minded & conservative & fixed in what they think constitutes proper entertainment AND/OR wank fodder that they only want to even bother to sample anything but whoever the latest "gonzo" shooter who shoots just like the last guy is? Yeah, I think it's a shame, & I think people like that end up getting the porn -- & the entertainment, & the politicians -- that they deserve. An uneducated, close-minded audience is the easiest to fool & manipulate, as any good hellfire & brimstone preacher will tell you (in private).

Do I have contempt for what to me seems like the taste of sheep & lemmings? Sometimes. I have my own standards & aesthetics, whether crackpot or sublime. I happen to applaud diversity & originality, whether it's up my alley or not -- should I apologize that I don't find Donkey Punches & swirlies to be in any way original or reflect anything other than a frat-boy follow-the-leader gangbang mentality? Sorry, no can do. My tastes are probably broader than the majority's, & although I don't want my standards to be enforced on everyone else, I'm not about to pipe down when it comes to espousing them. & I've never put forth the idea that if you don't like what I like, you have no taste.

Unlike some rich & beloved pornographers, I have no problems with negative reviews or reactions to my work -- as long it's not coming from a place of ignorance & agendas based on issues other than the work itself. No, ironically enough, it seems to me the "hardened end user" (read: gonzo nazi) has more of a problem with porn that diverts from their narrow definition ("Oh, that Wicked stuff sucks!"), in fact because that's exactly what they are: hardened & jaded to the point where nuance, suggestion & anything less than hyper-athletic bread & circuses with multiple orifices & partners can no longer register as erotic.

Does it piss you off that I make note of what many gonzo fanatics make explicit in their own statements of opinion? It's a matter of record. As much as it might anger some to imagine that there's some of us out here who've been there & back & might possibly have a broader perspective on sexuality than your average American male carrying his post-adolescent views over into his 20s, 30s, & 40s, we do exist. & we have no interest in condescending to anybody or insulting ourselves by cynically churning out two or three DVD cases full of forgettable, unpleasant crap per month. & while I firmly believe its both the option & the right of anybody who wants to live on a diet of Big Macs & fries to do so, it doesn't mean I have an obligation to pat you on the head for it.

So, Tony, how am I doing at selling my point of view to the audience? ROLF

P.S. to the Dane who posted -- I'm not in favor of artists who suck at the poisoned teat of the state, either. Jim Thompson died a penniless drunk because even though working in a supposedly disposable medium, he could/would write not a word that wasn't from his heart, even though the vision in that heart was so dark & honest that it kept him from the mainstream legitimacy of James M. Cain, Raymond Chandler, etc. Now that's an artist. Spinners or no spinners.

...I would say it's a shame he needs porn in his head to have a satisfying orgasm with a real, live person. But to cut through to what I think you're asking -- the more literal the stimuli a person requires, I would say, yes, the more stunted their imagination. That goes for anything, not just porn.

...I am hardly the first – or the best & brightest – to note that “hardcore” pornography of the sort most dear to the “hardened end user” is based on, as Prof. Linda Williams defined it a decade ago, “the frenzy of the visible.”

I, however, campaign for a broader definition of pornography that blurs the Maginot Line so often drawn between the ideas of “pornography” and “erotica.”

I don't subscribe to the school that in fact defines explicit pornography as the enemy of the imagination -- the "organ" that controls our desire is called the libido, & it's a psychological concept, not something a guy takes a viagra to get hard enough to stick up somebody else's ass.

I posit that you CAN include the sort of physiological triggers associated with the “frenzy of the visible” with a visual narrative that’s both packed with detail besides that of orifice & genitalia mixing it up that contexualizes the sexual experience in a larger, more human theater than the mechanics of biology.

I understand that this is a hardwon overview unavailable to the vast majority of young men who are at the mercy of both their massive hormonal urges & their precarious emotional relationship to the vagaries & demands of love and/or desire – when I was 25, I didn’t get it, either.

...On my relatively sparse "keeper" porn shelf, there's several vintage Max Hardcore titles right next to the John Leslie & Joey Silvera right next to Rinse Dream right next to a couple of Ed Powers right next to a few transcendent Vivid titles right next to a few recent Amorz/Kokeshi titles right next to BUTTMAN CONFIDENTIAL and BUDAPEST, both of which have more to say ot me than FASHIONISTAS (certainly not putting down that landmark achievement, just exposing the quirkiness of what catches my interest).

Being a professional reviewer for a living for nearly ten years forced me to broaden my horizons where I otherwise may have not, & I can't help but feel the better for it.

As to your reactions to the "art porn" you saw, I can't really offer any opinion without knowing what it was except that the first time I tried spinach, lobster & Guinness I didn't like any of them very much, either but God knows I took to the Tasty Cakes & hamburgers all too readily. I also fell asleep the first time I saw Ozu in college film classes...

Quasarman writes: "You guys are still talking about porn, right?"

Tony Comstock writes: "I'm saddened to see this thread become acrimonious."

Quasarman writes:

...If I'm watching what I consider to be a "good film" with an erotic subtext ala Body Double, Sex Lies and Videotape etc. I don't NEED to see anything explicit because I'm clearly not viewing these types of films for the purpose of dropping a load in a hanky. I'm watching them for the purpose of entertainment and possibly becoming aroused as a bonus. The hanky may enter the equation after all is said or done or perhaps at a later date.

If my goal was to utilize the hanky in the most immediate fashion I wouldn't bother to watch a "good" movie, I'd stick "Butt Banged Cycle Sluts" into the DVD player. Let us not forget that the true purpose of pornography, regardless of whatever higher purpose we aspire to while creating it, is to facilitate masturbation. That's it.

Forgive me if I've grown callous, jaded and apathetic but the bottom line is that no matter how creative my lighting scheme, no matter how artistic my cinematography, no matter how enlightened my motivations, in the end, the thing that I create is going to be used to facilitate a guy sitting in his living room with the lights low jacking into a kleenex. Period. To me, any examination beyond that is the equivalent of searching for the meaning of life in a Star Trek episode.

While movies like "Pirates" may make oodles of dough because of the many avenues of revenue available to Digital Playground through cable, pay-per-view etc, the bottom line is that anyone who watches the movie in the privacy of their home is scanning forward until they find that shot of Janine that enables them to launch into a tissue.

That being said I feel that I can now join both Tony C and DAC in agreement on where the creative deficits lie in the present porn landscape. For the most part we all shoot the same movie week after week here in porn valley. Company owners want to turn a profit as quickly as possible. The market is flooded with product - FLOODED. It's a quantity business, not a quality business. When Joe Schmoe Company owner sees that Redlight is selling X amount of pieces of the latest creampie series, he needs to find someone who can shoot the EXACT SAME THING so that he too can take his rightful slice of the creampie demographic. This certainly doesn't describe every company but it's a pretty accurate description of the general state of things.

... I do hope that the "end user" has a subtle appreciation for the things that I do different in a movie as opposed to the Acme Gonzo company. Shooting 24p, using actual lights instead of a nearby window as my primary source of illumination, and making every attempt to not shoot on a sofa up against a white wall are all things that I hope don't go unnoticed yet more often than not reviews of my movies (particularly from ex-ADTr Houston Don) always refer to issues with "picture quality". One review went so far as to say that they wished the movie looked more like the BTS footage. Why? because most gonzo movies look like BTS footage. Most end "users" expect to see lens flares, auto-focus drifting and auto-aperture occasionally making the subject pitch black while perfectly exposing the delivery truck parked outside on the street. Is this approach to filmaking wrong? Apparently not if you read the gushing reviews for such product on this site. Sometimes it's good to step back and look at your product not as a "filmmaker" but as a masturbator. Does a guy jerking off care if the camera goes out of focus for 2 seconds? I have watched some of Jules Jordan's movies and I'll be honest, I don't see what the big deal is BUT I'm watching his movies as a guy who's been shooting camera in porn for 15 years, NOT as a guy sitting alone in the dark with a box of tissue by his side. I'm cursing the overuse of the dreaded wide-angle adapter, NOT appreciating the heat of the movie. All I'm saying I guess is that craft is not the primary ingrediant in what people perceive as quality pornography.

Addressing your other point, I do not think that my "cinematic craft" is wasted on masturbators. To the contrary, I don't delude myself into believing that there is some loftier purpose to my trade. I hope people are tugging it to Grand Theft Anal because if they aren't, I won't be paying the mortgage this month. Again, I hope they appreciate the little nuances that I attempt to convey but the important thing is that they bought the movie and liked it enough to buy another one.

Why don't I go into another line of work? I'm 35 years old, this is all I've ever done and I make a tremendous amount of money doing it.I say that not to boast but to simply illustrate a very significant reason to keep doing what I'm doing. Do I wish some things about the biz were different? Absolutely, but I suspect I would feel the same way were I to cross over to the "mainstream" side. I've been working on such a project for the last 14 months and I've encountered just as much bullshit over the hill in Hollywood as I have in the Valley.

...The image clarity that you speak of, I suspect, is because Ass Cleavage 2 was shot in 30p with a different camera than the one I use now and AW#5 (and the vast majority of gonzo) was shot in 60i. For me the term "movie" means film thus my attempts at emulating that look as much as possible. It's a matter of personal preference and clearly lots of people prefer 60i in gonzo and wall to wall productions.

David Aaron Clark writes:

I've had the exact same experience of reviewers knocking my "picture quality" in perfectly lit and even light-drenched scenes because I dared soften the image -- & go for more saturated colors -- by shooting in the film-like 30p instead of the 60' favored by reality shows, TV news crews & ... gonzo porn. This is what I'm referring to by the viewer having been trained into having a lack of imagination --- rather than appreciate a style that actually flatters the women we shoot, they would prefer to stare at every venereal zit -- because only then can their gonzo-stunted imaginations put themselves into the action. To me, that's NOT wank-worthy, so it's NOT a question of art vs. porn -- it's a question of what of stunted aesthetics.

Quasarman writes:

Even though he sometimes drives me to the frayed ends of sanity, my economic balance has been maintained by working exclusively for Greg Alves for the past 9 years. Imagine a company owner giving you relative creative freedom AND a check every single week. Almost unheard of in any line of work.

Getting back to the picture quality issue, I've long since resigned myself to the fact that some people "get it" and some don't and the ones that don't don't know why they don't get it. If all you've ever watched are movies from Red Light District and Evil Angel, anything that differs will automatically be inferior to you. If you equate porn with wide-angle lenses and available light, you won't understand what you're looking at when you see something that isn't presented that way and you probably won't like it even if it's good. It's like someone ordering tuna at a restaurant and being presented with a piece of seared ahi and not knowing what the hell it is because it's not in a can marked "Starkist".

Now people are starting to complain that their porn is presented in widescreen letterbox format because they don't understand why there's black bars on the top and bottom of the screen and there's many others complaining if it's not Anamorphic widescreen. Trying to please everyone is an exercise in futility.

P.S. I'm not suggesting that there's anything wrong with Red Light or Evil. Just pointing out that it can sometimes be frustrating when you've shot something that you really think is good but reviewers complain about "picture quality" because it doesn't look like the aforementioned company's product.

Houston Don writes Mike Quasarman:

There are a lot of factors that contribute to a "good" picture image in a modern porno; far too many than could be discussed without contributing substantial amounts of otherwise productive time. There are also a number of factors that contribute to POOR picture quality, many of which have become near standards in gonzo releases lately. Since Mike's comments specifically mentioned my review of (Strip Tease Then Fuck), let's start there, shall we?

Mike and I discussed this review via email a few years ago. He was slightly irked that I didn't notice his attempts to improve on previously weak looking releases. I pointed out that there was a lot more grain and over saturated colors that certainly didn't flatter the women in the movie. Ultimately, as DAC pointed out in a round about manner, isn't making the women look their best (and more strokable), the whole point of a porno? Mike and I had a side discussion about who the "real" director of the movie was too but that's a discussion for another time. In any case, if the ladies in the movie were so in need of "camera magic" to look strokable, perhaps the then advertised standards for Zero Tolerance should have been more readily employed: "dumb fucking dialogue, ugly bitches, stretch marks, Tijuana boob jobs, stupid tattoos, fake orgasms, limp cocks, weak pop shots, hookers who hate fucking, sorry ass suitcase pimps, crack whores, and bad pornography."

Those are the types of things that soft focus, grain, and a film look are designed to cover up. Many people enjoy watching gonzo porn with flat lighting that eliminates grain, video noise, and all those pesky problems people with higher end systems seem to hate. If you're watching your porn on a $150 TV made 15 years ago with a bargain basement DVD player, a quality picture might not matter but on even the baseline equipment many folks have acquired in recent years, a weak picture only gets worse when the source material is not shot well and transfered to DVD with a modicum of care.

I've been a fan of Mike's works since I noticed that a number of his projects looked better than average at Metro, boosting his ego a few times when I pointed out projects that looked like he was in charge looked so much better, regardless of who was credited (typically not Mike but one of the directors who didn't think being on the set was worth it). I know Mike can shoot a great porno and have praised him all over the internet for this ability. That said, I still call them like I see them (and yes, I do "get it" unlike some reviewers who praise the weakest looking crap around for some reason external to the movie: hint: sales from links, friendships, or the desire to participate in the industry more fully). By suggesting a guy doesn't "get it" simply because he has higher standards than what you shoot for, you open up a can of worms.

I'll put it simply: does the picture have to be so poor that you can't determine which hole a guy is poking before a gonzo is declared "average" in quality (I've seen reviews like this all over the place)? Does that "2 seconds" of "auto-focus drifting" matter if it happens all the time? Does the routine "pitch black" performer caused by an "auto-aperture" improperly set matter? These things matter to a lot more people than some of you seem to appreciate; helping justify, to many people on the internet, the casual file-swapping of your movies since "it's all crap anyway". Are such problems deal killers for those that buy or rent porn? Maybe or maybe not but arguing that it's "good enough" is hardly an attitude most consumers seem to appreciate when you have the skills and equipment to prevent such problems or edit them out later on.

Contrast that movie with (Drive Thru 3), another of Mike's releases though more current. Were the colors washed out? No, they weren't. Were the levels of grain and video noise almost to the point of a UHF broadcast signal? No, they weren't. Yeah, there were flaws with the picture that appeared to be the result of substandard DVD mastering but nothing like some of Zero Tolerance's older stuff.

I agree with Mike that "I'm saying I guess is that craft is not the primary ingrediant in what people perceive as quality pornography" but that doesn't mean you should ignore it or treat those of us, including a number of reviewers all over the internet and consumers who purchase porn, as second class citizens since we look for "better" quality in the visual aspects of their entertainment. If you're shooting gonzo, lose the fancy camera tricks and lighting in favor of a crisp, clear picture. If you're shooting something else, by all means try something new that can be evaluated on it's own merits. Reviewers and critics all have their own flaws and quirks but beating up on them for wanting better looking (or sounding) porn is hardly fair.