Twenty Five Reviews Special

I figured since I'm now twenty five reviews into the Pornonomy reboot, I'd take a little time to review...the reviews, I guess?

First, a quick look at how things have changed. The first time around, it took me 543 days from the time I posted my first review (February 11, 2009) to the time I posted my twenty fifth (August 8, 2010). That was an average of 21.72 days per review. I neglected the blog for months at a time which was obvious since what seemed like a third of the old posts were stuff like, "Wow, it's been awhile since I've posted," or "I'm going to try to do two reviews a week until the end of the year," only to inevitably not do even one per week. I recently went through and culled most - if not all - of those posts since they were pretty tedious.

This time around, reviews one to twenty five spanned a "mere" 283 days (June 5, 2020 to March 15, 2021), at a clip of a review every 11.32 days. That's posting nearly twice as often as in the Old Days. Of course, the main difference between this past year and the late aughts, early teens is (duh) a global pandemic. That's not to say I've been super regular with reviews this past year. I'll almost certainly get one more in this month, so I'll have averaged just shy of three per month since last June, but I didn't post anything at all last August. Though I made up for it (and then some) with a whopping seven reviews in February. (The shortest goddam month, at that!)

As for the films themselves, here's how they've graded out by tier:

A quick refresher on how these "grades" work. Basically, I'm going through - at random - the films deemed Collector's Choice by Robert Rimmer in his book The X-Rated Videotape Guide and then determining how large a collection would need to be in order for me, subjectively, to "allow" for the film's inclusion. So if I rated something a CC100, the collection would need to be a minimum of 100 movies for it to make sense.

CC1
Visions of Clair (1977)

CC5
High Rise (1972)

CC10
Center Spread Girls (1982)
Corporate Assets (1985)
Firestorm (1984)

CC25
Dutch Treat (1977)
Erotic Pleasures (1976)
In the Pink (1983)
Sweet Alice (1983)
That's Outrageous (1983)
Titillation (1982)

CC50
Cry for Cindy (1976)
Debbie Does Dallas (1978)

CC100
800 Fantasy Lane (1979)
Between the Cheeks (1979)
Champagne for Breakfast (1980)
Lady Dynamite (1984)
Second Coming of Eva (1974)
Teenage Cowgirls (1973)
Virgin and the Lover (1973)

CC250
Hot Action (1978)
Rendezvous with Anne (1973)
Small Town Girls (1979)
Thoroughly Amorous Amy (1978)

Looking these over, I'm pretty pleased where everything landed. I realize having Visions of Clair as the highest rated film to date could be a little controversial, but fuck it, I was really impressed with it. The only other thing I waffled on was whether Hot Action should be bumped up. If I was able to get my hands on a French version with English subtitles, it probably would. The English voice "acting" on the dub was really pretty awful and I (1) don't speak French and (2) like to know what's going on in my sexvids (as Rimmer would say), so c'est la vie.

The oldest film reviewed was 1972 (High Rise), the newest 1985 (Between the Cheeks and Corporate Assets). The latter makes sense since the second edition of Rimmer's book was published in 1986. The median is 1979 (which effectively the mean, too: 1978.5).

So far, I haven't seen two films by the same director. I think it's unlikely - if not virtually impossible - to get through another twenty five without doubling (or tripling) up at least a few times. There's only been one film that I reviewed previous to the reboot (Titillation).

I must have a bias toward auteurs, because the two highest rated films were directed by men with only two dozen credits between them: Zachary Strong (23) and Danny Stone (1). Of the remaining directors in my top 5, only Robert McCallum hit triple digits (150) with Thomas Paine coming in with 92 and Cecil Howard at 32. I realize talking about five directors averaging nearly 60 credits per in terms of "only" seems ludicrous, but that's porn for ya.

For actors, the males appearing the most so far are Eric Edwards (6), Jamie Gillis and Paul Thomas (5), and John Seeman and Michael Morrison (4). The females are Sharon Kane (4), Bonnie Holiday, Desiree Cousteau, and Kay Parker (3). Interestingly, Seeman, Morrison, Kane, Holiday, and Parker were all in Champagne for Breakfast.

I've long maintained that Michael Morrison should be the patron saint of chubby, averagely endowed dudes everywhere. He was a capable actor, performed with most of the best ladies of his era, and was low-key one of the most impressive and dependable pop shooters of his time (if that's something one pays attention to). I have a vague recollection of someone saying he could be kind of a jerk (possibly on a Rialto Report interview?), but not that he was any sort of creep or predator. Naturally, apologies and retractions all around if there are any skeletons in his closet.

Multiple porn names are not uncommon, but Sharon Kane has to rank pretty high in terms of unique billings (Sharron Kane, Elizabeth Loy, Shirley McGuire, Karen Kane, Sharon Kain, Sharon Caine, Alice Wray, Shirley Woods, Shirley Wood, Sharon Cane, Sharon Cain, Jennifer Walker, Jennifer Holmes, Sheri Vaughan, Sharon Maiberg) and I've often wondered when she became - primarily - Sharon Kane. After some light leg work, it looks like her most-credited name stuck by 1985, although the best I could tell, she wasn't known by anything other than a "Kane" homonym (Cain, Caine) since 1981 when she was credited as Shirley Wood [a great name!] (Vista Valley PTA) and Sharon Maiberg (Aunt Peg's Fulfillment).

For a long time, I had trouble keeping John Seeman and Ken Scudder separate, even though they don't really look much alike. It looks like they shared around 45 non-compilation credits. Of those, they appeared in the same scene (in varying degrees of proximity, since some were orgy scenes) in seven: Baby Rosemary (1976), Female Athletes (1979), The Hit (1975), Inside Baby Sister (1977), Rendezvous with Anne (1975), Ski Hustlers (1976), and Vista Valley PTA (1981). Of those, only Rendezvous and Vista Valley PTA got Rimmer's CC rating. Since I've already reviewed the former, if the latter ever pops up in the random number generator, I'll try to pay close(ish) attention to the Seeman/Scudder scene.

This turned into a bit of a stream of consciousness post. I covered the stuff I intended (laying out the reviewed films by rating) and got into some stuff I hadn't (the history of Sharon Kane's name). I guess the upshot of this whole thing is I'm pretty pleased with where this project is at and would be ecstatic if I can keep the momentum going through then end of Year 1 of the Pornonomy reboot/refresh.

Cheers!