The Adams Report
by J.C. Adams

November 2001

The Year in Porn

If you’re a porn model and you live somewhere in Eastern Europe, 2001 was a very, very good year for you. Also this year, star power briefly came back into vogue. A number of industry heavyweights turned up in new productions, and studios made more installments of favorite titles (Aspen, fallen angels or links ring any bells?).

The unceasing flood of gay XXX from Eastern Europe provided plenty of eye candy for porno fans. Pacific Sun Entertainment, High Octane, Men of Odyssey, Jet Set Productions and Studio 2000 International joined Bel Ami, Falcon International and a handful of smaller companies in the crush to film these gorgeous young men, nearly all of whom boast 0% body fat, perfect tans, rippling abdominal muscles, bulging pecs and biceps, and plush asses. If the vast majority of their sexcapades feel a tad passionless and rote, it’s unseemly to complain when the men are that gorgeous. While these guys are perfectly willing to have sex with other men for money, it soon becomes apparent that their interests lie elsewhere.

A rousing exception would be George Vidanov, a young stunner who left his mark on 2001 with his sculpted physique, strikingly pretty looks and an irresistibly humpy vibe. Vidanov popped up in half a dozen films under a variety of stage names and was never less than sexually voracious, both as an insatiably hungry bottom and a pile-driving top.

Bel Ami fans rejoiced with the summer release of CoverBoys, a smorgasbord of sex, behind-the-scenes footage and other tidbits hosted by the gregarious Johan Paulik. Both he and fellow megastar Lukas Ridgeston appear in the video, fucking their way through a regiment of Bel Ami beauties.

Model-turned-director Blue Blake made a definitive splash in 2001. Demolition Daddy, his directorial debut, was nominated for five GayVN Awards and was a commercial hit. Blake followed up with Married Cops Do, then made an about-face with the twinkalicious Tales from the Treehouse. He flip-flopped genres yet again with the release of Crash of the Titans and Muscle Penitentiary, a pair of muscle flicks featuring bodybuilders culled from competitions across the United States. Married Cops Do introduced the baby-faced bodybuilder Duke Miller, who made his debut, retired, and then came back out of retirement in less than six months.

Directrix Chi Chi LaRue maintained her prolific ways, churning out at least a film a month. S/he struck gold with In Gear (Channel 1/Rascal), starring (natch) newcomer Lance Gear, an affable bald sex pig with an irresistibly nasty twinkle in his eye. He scarfs down all of Chad Hunt’s thick python with remarkable ease, matches Tom Southern’s imposing sexual mojo without blinking, and sucks, fucks, kisses and rims his way through the rest of the video as if he’d been deprived of any sexual contact for months. It’s one of LaRue’s most erotic videos, and it established Gear as a star.

LaRue also turned out a fourth installment of her Link series, and topped off the year with a terrific shot-by-shot remake of Jerry Douglas’s 1972 classic The Back Row.

Sure to be a contender at the GayVN Awards this spring is Gino Colbert’s Porn Fiction (codirected by Sam Slam), featuring the final performance of the late Jon Vincent. Due to the video’s extended production (roughly three years), a number of the featured models are now in semiretirement, among them Drew Andrews, Anthony Gallo, Vince Rockland and J.T. Sloan.

Colbert also managed to nab porn legend Johnny Rahm for an oh-so-brief nonsex cameo. At year’s end, Rahm surprised everyone by appearing in the final scene of The Return of Johnny Rahm from director David Collins and Brigade Studios/Celestial Entertainment.

All Worlds Video launched an ambitious eight-film series titled The Seven Deadly Sins, in which each of the seven deadly sins are reimagined as a porn film by a different director. The eighth video--Redemption--will feature one new scene from each of the previous seven flicks. First up was Dirk Yates’s Pride, which featured Duke Miller bottoming (for the first time!) for superhung Chad Donovan. Michael Zen’s Lust was next, the highlight of which is one hellaciously sexy flip-flop between Michael Brandon and Tony Acosta.

Number three in the series was Gluttony from Wash West. An imaginative reworking of The Picture of Dorian Gray, Gluttony stars Eric Hanson as a legendary porn model who has remained mysteriously ageless despite a decades-long career in erotica. An ambitious, horny film school student (Tanner Hayes) falls in love with Hanson and attempts to track him down. West convincingly recreates Hanson’s old porn loops and reel-to-reels by experimenting with different lighting, shutter speeds and film stocks. Horndogs will appreciate the sex, but fans of porn with a plot will want this superb video for their permanent collection.

The big news early in the year was the return to XXX of Zak Spears: bigger, hairier and just as horny as ever. The Journey Back, codirected by LaRue and Jim Steel, has Spears scorching the screen with adorable newcomer Kyle Kennedy. He also turns up in an oral-only orgy and a large group fuck at video’s end. That leads into Spears’s next flick--The Joint--for which a large, expensive jail set was constructed.

Spears’s pair of films exemplifies 2001’s star power: Jeff Palmer returned from a two-year absence with Palmer’s Lust from Pacific Sun, the highlight of which is a superb orgy in which Palmer mercilessly fucks newcomers Bryan Archer, Rocky, Tiger and Brady Martin (it was Martin’s first time with a guy, too!). The prolific Pacific Sun lassoed porn’s reigning golden boy, Billy Brandt, for Getting It at the Rave (directed by Phil St. John) and Angel Blue (from Michael Zen). Even the legendarily shy Ken Ryker returned, albeit in an unexpected way: he appeared in a heterosexual video directed by (and costarring) none other than Jeff Stryker.

Ryker and Spears weren’t the only stars returning to the gay porn firmament. In late August, superagent David Forest announced the return of that angelic Eastern European beauty, Andel. He was quickly put to work in three videos, several of which were set to appear before the end of the year.

Star power didn’t manifest itself solely in front of the camera in 2001. The famously reclusive Joe Gage surprised everyone when he appeared in the flesh at the GayVN Awards for his induction into the Hall of Fame. At that time, he announced that he would be making another film, to be titled Tulsa County Line, for Odyssey. It is a continuation of his famous "on the road" trilogy that includes El Paso Wrecking Corp., L.A. Tool & Die and (my favorite) Kansas City Trucking Company.

Falcon Studios celebrated their 30th year of operation by returning to Colorado for The Other Side of Aspen V. One would tend to think that by now there isn’t anyplace left in Aspen for lovely, horny men to have sex, but with the help of newcomer Jimmy McGuire (who resembles Aspen II star Kurt Marshall to a startling degree), Falcon pulls it off.
As the first year in the new millennium draws to a close, a new trend is surfacing in gay erotica: golden showers. As fisting migrated from kink videos into everyday fuck flicks, so now urination is receiving heavy play, most significantly in The Missing Link and Sea Men: Fallen Angel IV. And they aren’t alone. If there isn’t any fallout from this trend, expect even more piss to douse your fuck flicks in 2002.

Faversham…

—J.C. Adams

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