Babeland Premieres debuts their first ever porn release, The New Romantix by first-time filmmaker/ director Max Royale. The premise of the film starts with an interview of each of the six porn stars followed by a porn scene with one extra thrown in for good measure. The film is marketed as profiling “six beautiful, intelligent, funny, and amazing women on their passionate quest for sexual liberation and empowerment”. The girls in the film are hot (Joanna Angel, Ryan Keely, Riley Mason) and a few of the interviews are very good, in particular Ryan Keely who comes across as “beautiful, intelligent, funny, and amazing.” Joanna unfortunately doesn’t really seem to know what to say, looks uncomfortable and is a bit lame during her interview. Lexi Belle’s interview is shot in downtown LA with a graffiti backdrop, which is visually interesting, although she comes across a very young and a bit naïve. The girls talk about first-time sexual experiences and some of this is interesting and enlightening. I always love getting to know the performers better so this was the best aspect of the film for me.
I was hoping that the sex scenes would highlight their fantasies and “empowerment”, but only Ryan’s scene comes close to being empowering as she masturbates solo with a dildo and is in control of her own fantasy. Since she talked about lesbian encounters quite a bit in her interview, I was expecting a girl-girl scene with her, but unfortunately this was not the case. This is the only solo scene in the film, and most of the sex is girl/boy with two girl/girl/boy scenes that are more about the girls giving the guys double blow-jobs than about the girls getting it on together. So if you are hoping for a bit of lesbian/queer action, you won’t see it in this film.
Joanna Angel and James Deen have a lot of chemistry in their scene together and the sex is hot, with Joanna squirting several times. Lexi Belle, Lexi Bardot and Tommy Pistol romp and bounce in a bouncy castle, which was a novel idea and could have been fun. However, the atmosphere is ruined by the distracting music which drowns out any sexy nuances and moans it may have had. The sex is pretty typical and apathetic. Avy Lee Roth is a rock-chickita groupie who claims to be the daughter of David Lee Roth. She gets it on with a long haired guy in leather pants, but neither performance is especially amazing. Riley Mason is super hot and has a pool table scene with Daniel. This scene would have been great if the music wasn’t again so distracting, as Daniel is always fun to watch and such a pro. James Deen has another quick vignette with Joanna and Lexi Bardot as they compete to see who will get to suck his cock, and that’s about it.
The final scene is between Lexi Bardot and James Deen again and says it is shot with Infrared in total darkness. I’m not sure why they say this, as Infrared is not red (as the scene is) but B&W and highlights heat, not color. Usually people’s eyes glow and you can see their veins under porcelain skin with Infrared photography. Also, you can see shadows everywhere in this scene, which leads me to believe that it was shot with lighting and not in a pitch black room at all, as in blackness there are no shadows. So, not sure what they were trying to pull here, except they thought it would be a cool special FX for an Altporn flick? They do use a wide angle or fisheye lens to distort the image somewhat, but it does nothing to enhance the scene which is again ruined by the music.
There are just too many things wrong with this film to list how they may have improved it. Certainly having some connection between the interviews and the sex scenes would have helped with continuity and a connection to the stars. A girl-girl scene would have been fabulous to include and there could have been way more focus on the girl’s pleasure than the typical blow-jobs and facials. Also, the music should have been integrated much better into the overall soundscape. Finally, I’m not sure how well the final rendering of the film was, as my DVD set has a lot of pixilation in it throughout it. The New Romantix is an ambitious project for a first-time filmmaker that ultimately does not deliver. It is just the same-old, same-old, marketed with an alt-porn aesthetic, but there is really nothing new or interesting about it. I do look forward to seeing Ryan Keely in more films, as she was The New Romantix one saving grace. Hopefully, Max Royale will have a chance to redeem himself with future attempts.
Totally agree! The music sucked so much life out of this film. Interesting point about the infrared light, too.