I’m glad you weren’t offended by my earlier remarks, which were after all, only of the professionalism of your self-product-promotion.

I read your autobiography, and enjoyed it mightly (I recently published a book with Alyson Books myself), and I have purchased many films you have directed (Thank you particularly for WHEN BEARS ATTACK. What a hot furry pleasure that picture is!), and rented many more. I gave a lovely blowjob to a man while he watched a film your directed only last night.

You go girl.

XXXO right back at you.

And he did okay sucking all those guys, if not as well as I would.

Conversely, BLACKBALLED 1 was so extremely terrible, it was unwatchable.

That said, that is the only video with Luke I ever bought, whereas I have a LOT of Dean Monroe vids.

I understand that this piece was a publicity-puff piece, not a review of a video. That was part of my point. That in a puff-publicity piece, anything a participant in the making of the video says regarding it’s quality (or “hotness”), as opposed to merely informing us who is in it, and what it consists of, and interesting FACTS about it, is valueless. Chi Chi always says everything he’s just shot is the best or hottest thing he’s ever done. This is not just true of Chi Chi, but of anyone in that position. I am interested in knowing of this movie. I’m interested in any details about it. I WANT to see it. I am not interested in Chi Chi’s (or Markus Ram’s) statements about it’s quality, as these will be, by necessity, self-serving, and I will end up deciding about its quality for myself. (As I, for instance, thought BLACKBALLED 4 sucked, but 2 and 5 were terrific.)

My remarks about porn criticism was a seperate-but-related issue. As for the plethora of only-positive-reviews, it is truely a mistaken policy. I don’t trust a critic whose reviews are always positive, any more than I trust the reviews of a critic whose reviews are always negative. (Critics of anything, not just gay porn.) When I read good review after good review after good review, I stop paying attention, because it has become mindless industry-boosterism, and not criticism at all. The critic loses all credibility. And we as readers, end up feeling that he’s not watching our backs, but just shilling for advertising dollars. (And you know as well as I that that is the REAL reason for jettisoning negative reviews. Bad videos buy advertising too, but not in a forum that just called them lousy.)

And also, the fact is, negative reviews, or even just negative remarks within an otherwise positive review, are the most entertaining to read. An endless parade of “Oh my God, this one is so hot my eyeballs melted!” reviews get boring after a while, VERY boring. Very quickly.

I appreciate your thoughtful reply.

I’ve noticed that if I don’t like a film I tend not to mention it. This probably comes from years of reviewing for the Adam Gay Video Directory, which had limited space and the publisher would always jettison a negative review in favor of a positive one just to give people a sense of what’s good out there; he felt that the absence of a review could be an indication of its quality (I disagreed, but I wasn’t signing the checks).

In any case, that practice sort of sunk in and became habit. It’s worth reconsidering.

Regards,
JCA

I’m not saying BLACKBALLED 6 is going to be bad. For all I know, it may well turn out to be smoking hot. I truely hope it is. I’m just saying that the pre-release “opinions” of folks who worked on a video are valueless, as they are publicity, not buzz. I’ll be interested in what the critics say.

That said, a lot of gay porn critizism is just more industry boosterism. I can’t remember the last time I read a negative review in MEN or UNZIPPED on on ManNet.com, although there’s nothing unusual about my renting a video that received raves on all three (Raves being all they ever run) and found it to be a lousy piece of crap. I would love to find a reliable source of actual reviews, designed to actually clue patrons on to the good ones, and warn us away from the stinkers. What’s been posted here on this film is just fake buzz.