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Walter Lloyd writes: "It’s not often that I get to review a gay porn film like this one. It's the first effort from Henri De Rohant, the ‘nom de plume’ used by a man who has been known to me for many years as one of the top ‘legitimate’ directors in Europe. I asked Henri ‘Why a gay porn film? You've won more awards around the world for your legitimate work than I can count, and certainly can have your pick of projects.' Henri corrected me that his film is ‘xxx rated male erotic cinema’, a distinction I'm not sure I understand, except for Henri's passion for quality.

This movie is certainly not deficient in the sexual arena; Henri further explained that he and his co-producers, Franck Garnier and Sven Lundquist, had long talked about the fact that porn films are generally made by guys who started out by taking ‘dirty pictures’ and learned about cinematography as they were doing it.

‘We often wondered what the result would be if a professional and successful production company, with a reasonable budget, set out to make a male erotic film. Before we knew it, we'd struck a deal to make this film.’

This film is really beautiful. It tells the story of a confused boy, Enrico Benetti, who plays the wardrobe man on the set of a porn film being made in a dojo. It's really a film-within-a-film, shot with both a camcorder (supposedly the wardrobe boy's) and with state of the art professional equipment. It's a very difficult technique to pull off, but Henri makes it look easy. Enrico is allowing us to peep into the world of a porn film set and the voyeur in me really enjoyed it!

We begin with Enrico fitting a costume for Mark Flower, a newcomer with one of the hottest bodies I've ever seen. We see Enrico play a little ‘grab the big sausage’, but only a quick taste because we're off to the judo lesson which is taught by another newcomer, Nicholas Quinn, who has one of the handsomest faces I've seen in years.

He looks like that innocent, dark and handsome college freshman who is quiet, straight and a bit shy, but just happens to love to throw his legs in the air and get screwed senseless. Guess what guys, he gets to do exactly that after his two judo students are nice enough to tear his clothes off... Ricci Mondano, who is a tightly built little ball of energy - we've seen him in quite a few films before but we never get tired of his constant horniness - and Stefano Bianco (another newcomer - a sexy little Italian looking boy with a wicked smile) are the insatiably hungry students.

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Meanwhile, there is a photoshoot going on and we are treated to a brief taste of what it's like to be on the set of a still photo shoot with a bunch of naked boys around. This movie moves from scene to scene at a quick pace, but it never feels disjointed or too quick. I hardly touched the remote; rarely to rewind and replay a part and never to fast-forward.

More backstage scenes. I really like these; I hope they become Henri's trademark - I really enjoy seeing the actors in a relaxed environment so I feel like I know them better when they're doing the sex scenes. In fact, one of the things I don't like about most films is that I'm not always sure who is having sex with whom. In this film, I met the actors; decided that I liked them, wanted to see them in action and my wish was granted.

This one gets my highest rating. I hope this isn't going to be Henri's only film. Now that he's come over to ‘the dark side’ and we have a taste of what he can create, it would be cruel to cut off our supply. Keep 'em coming, Henri!"

Mike Sander's Big Bad Afterword:

Cowabunga! It's the world's first gay martial arts movie! But don't pop your Pringles too soon - as Alanis Morissette might wail, there are a couple of things you oughta know...

Groundbreaking as it is, Making Porn - the Academy lets itself down on several counts. To start with, judo appears only once throughout the course of the whole production; the rest of the film delves into everything from yoga (a discipline which, in the somewhat ga-ga mind of director Henri De Rohant, prominently features cancan kicks, foot strikes and - I kid you not - the wringing of hands in an invisible wash basin) to food fights. Worse still, every setup begins with an incredibly camp man saying 'Silence, please; action!' in a voice so irritating it could easily be used as an effective form of torture.

Secondly, the judo segment is probably one of the most disappointing in the entire production. There is a token (and butt-clenchingly bad) demonstration of o-soto-gari and o-goshi, and that's all; the judoka waste no time getting out of their gis and straight into intercourse, with zero groundwork in between. Add to this the crazy, feminine giggling of a synaptically-challenged Ricci Mondano - the dude reviewer Walter Lloyd refers, rather too forgivingly, as 'a tightly built little ball of energy' - being (clumsily) stripped of his uniform, and what you have is, well, pretty much a disaster.

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But wait - it ain't all lemons and turkeys. (Excuse me? - Ed.) The real star of Making Porn is be found in the weirdest of places: the capoeira scene. For those of you who aren't in the know, capoeira can best be described as a kind of death-dealing dance routine, where every movement, beautiful though it is to watch, has the capacity to - uh - incapacitate. In the hands of a real professional, it's a martial art in the truest sense of that word: both aggressive and graceful, devastating and poetic. Toni Brasci (the guy on the right) is one such professional.

Obviously the only member of the Making Porn cast who's got any real experience in the martial art around which his scene has been built (with the exception of hunky judo instructor Nicolas Quinn), Toni is not just skillful, moving around the tatami with a poise and grace developed over many long years of hard training; he's also mind-bogglingly studly to boot. Chocolate hair, caramel eyes, lips like strawberries -

Hey - how come I'm so hungry all of a sudden?

Toni's students, unfortunately, fall way short of the standard set by their teacher, bumbling and stumbling their way across the mats with about as much subtlety as a herd of blind wildebeest. Special mention must go, once again, to Ricci 'Retarded' Mondano, who prances from side to side like an accountant trying to jive at the office Christmas party.

It probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to you, then, that he's quickly jumped on by the group (five guys in total, including Toni), desperate to put an end to his brain-melting rendition of the Funky Chicken.

This mock 'attack' winds up becoming what I reckon is the first (and last) really erotic scenario in the movie. Keen to subdue Moronic Mondano, Toni Brasco shows himself to be master of more arts than one, taking the younger man in an amazingly strong kuzure-kami-shiho-gatame, while the others attach themselves to the struggling student's lower body as it twists and turns against the hold down. One of the group begins to undo Ricci's drawstrings; the rest of the guys fall away, and it seems, just for moment, as if they're about to split into pairs for some seriously sexy ne-waza.

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But the moment passes. Everyone stands up, the gi pants come off like caps at graduation, and that, like they say, is the end of that. No grappling. No groundwork. No payoff.

Nothing but plain, old-fashioning humping.

Total bummer.

There's a third and final reason why Making Porn - the Academy may not make for the bestest investment in martial arts pornography. The reason is this: just because some dude you've never heard of (hellloooo, Mr Lloyd) says, 'This one gets my highest rating', doesn't mean he really believes it. For real honesty, stick with guys who aren't trying to sell you anything - like us!

Verdict: Certainly an interesting title, noteworthy if for no other reason than its status as 'first of a kind'. Will be blown away when MatBattle.com eventually gets around to producing BJJ and judo videos of its own.

Web Links:

Buy 'Making Porn - the Academy' at MovieMountain.com (Opens in a separate window.)

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