When I first watched Tristan Taormino’s House of Ass, all I could think was “How could you pack this much porn on one DVD?” With 2.5 hours of feature footage, 20 minutes of behind-the-scenes footage, 16 minutes of slide-shows, 16 minutes of bonus scenes, and about 15 minutes of trailers, it’s a supersized meal of naughty goodness. Plus, it gives the viewer some interesting insights into the lives and thoughts of adult performers.
Set in a lavish hillside home, HoA’s premise is to gather several porn stars together, let them hang out, and let them decide with whom/where/when they want to “work.” Interspersed with the sex scenes are several interviews with the performers, talking about their sex lives, the industry, and the like. It’s an interesting approach, and is quite a bit more revealing and intimate than any mainstream porn I’ve encountered.
The movie starts out with a casual conversation about sex and attraction between the cast members. This segues into an introduction of Joanna Angel and her session with Scott Nails. Joanna talks a little about a high school crush she had, and how Scott reminds her of this dude. She then gets herself worked up by cleaning the tub, a curious but convenient fetish. She and Scott proceed to get busy in a tub, doing what Joanna presumably wished she could have done with her HS boy, but never got the chance. Quite enthusiastic, these two kids.
Next up is an hot girl-on-girl session with Sarah Blake and Justine Joli. They first hand select an arsenal of toys and then its off to the terrace for a good time on the futon mattress. Sarah and Justine giggled a lot at first (nerves, perhaps?). But soon that either ceased, or the action got so yummy that I just forgot about it. This is a must see just for the tuning fork dildo. Ding!
Then came Mr. Marcus and Keaani Lei. The expected good times go down, but Keaani is surprisingly open and affectionate in her confessional segment afterwards, calling it “magical.”
Marcus and Joanna Angel get together next, apparently for Joanna’s first scene with an african-american. It’s always struck me as deeply lame that interracial coupling is essentially a fetish in mainstream porn, and Joanna’s comments during the preceding interview caused a bit of controvery: “Does it make me racist if I let a white stranger come all over my face but not a black one?” Well… the line between preference and racism may not be as clear as we’d like, and if Joanna’s confuzzled about this one, it’s not surprising that much of the industry is racially ass-backwards.
Then it’s on to the girl-on-girl-on-girl-on-girl action. This orgyriffic Female Fantastic Four get groovy with lots of licking, sucking, biting, smacking, moaning, grunting, fingering, gasping, hugging, giggling, and spreading. Lots of toys and lube; great girl-girl action.
House of Ass is all in all a great flick, with plenty of great looking women, strapping young lads, and intriguing insights into their personalities. If I have a complaint, it’s that I would have loved to have seen more of producer/director Tristan Taormino. She was 2nd hottest woman (in my opinon) in the film, and it would have beeen great to see her getting more involved in the action (although the concept of the film probably preclulded this). Alas, I’ll have to seek out more of her work to see her in action.
