The Unrwitten Rants of a Porn Reviewer, Volume 1

Things I haven’t said in reviews but which I got to thinking about while watching them:

1)      What is up with the constantly terrible sound editing, people? Most high-end porno movies have excellent, or at least well-planned, lighting. Some have elaborate sets, fancy costumes, character names, scripts… the whole nine. But the microphone work, sound mixing, editing, and production are more often than not bottom-of-the-barrel. I know most porn films aren’t working with gigantic budgets, but if you can afford the rest, how much extra will it cost to pay a sound technician? Common complaints? Vastly different volumes between “dialogue” and sex scenes—I don’t want to turn the volume way up to hear what they’re saying because it’s so quiet, only to have all my neighbors suddenly alerted to the fact that I’m watching porn when the action begins due to uneven sound levels! And in group sex scenes, it often appears that though there are at least two or three camera crews making the rounds of all the action, there is but one lonely stationary mic set up in the middle of the room, resulting in close-ups of one couple in which it sounds as if the noises they’re making are coming from a far-flung corner. It’s confusing and incredibly unprofessional.

2)      Another thing about group/orgy scenes. I personally enjoy them. They up the ante of sexiness without getting crazy in the shock value department, or so I like to think. But as far as I can tell, the point of a group scene is that there are more than two people in the room—it’s the whole vista of skin and sex, taken in at once, that gives it its zing, right? So why, then, are so many of these scenes simple back-and-forth shots from couple/threesome-to-couple/threesome? The whole room panorama is a rarity, often overshadowed by extreme closeups of one coital corner. Seems to me you could cut out one of the many camera crews and let one do more sweeping shots, install another microphone or two, and improve everything.

3)      Ladies, can we cool it a little with the over-acting? There’s a difference between making your pleasure in the little things known and screaming when someone touches your earlobe. If people think that all you need to elicit a wail of pleasure from a woman is a kiss on the wrist, they’ll be very disappointed someday.

4)      Also, why the tooth-sucking sound when people breathe in? You know what I mean? The “impassioned” hissing noise a lot of porn stars make during foreplay? Like, “Oh, yeah—hssssss­—right there—hsss—mm-hmm…”? I get that breathing heavily is a sign of arousal, so I understand how loud breath intakes like that make sense… to a point. But I’m not into serpentine porn, and when the performers I’m watching sound like a nest of vipers, I get too annoyed to be turned on.

That’s all for now… more to come…