The Fashionistas

Spoilers herein.

Yes, this is porn, with some real negatives. One of these is its perversion, pretty much all the pain, bondage and fetish you can imagine.

But it is done as a parody. The watcher is being goofed on, tortured for fun. In fact, this is intelligent writing, and may be the only movie which you'll fast forward past the sex scenes to see the real movie.

The setup is a real fashion show of the ordinary variety. It is interrupted by gangsta cows in latex. This, it turns out is a DVD created by the very same gangsta cows.

So right away we have several folded layers:

• an erotic show (this movie) that's been hijacked by deliberately demeaning porn, featuring

• a similar women's fashion show similarly hijacked, within

-two DVD's showing the fetish fashions that are hijacked by the editor, Jesse, who places fetish fantasies that are as far out from those of the gangstas as their prancing is from the world of straight porn (which itself has exactly the same distance from real life).

And the thing is well acted and photographed on film with high production values. If you can stand it and transcend the material, this version of 'Clockwork Orange' will punish you for watching. Its all about the style.

The style that turns out to matter is the 'chameleon' line of clothes that start one way and shift levels.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 3: Has some interesting elements.

The best I've seen, by far. The background material on the 3-disk DVD is as fascinating as the movie.

Strong subject matter, whatever that means in this context :), intelligently done.

A lot, but not all, of the acting rises above the standard of the genre.

Warning to viewers - this movie is extremely rough and should only be viewed by the most jaded adult fan. A lot of money was obviously spent on this movie but that doesn't make it a great film. Good audio and video, but this will only appeal to the S&M crowd. This movie is also extremely long and would be very difficult to view in one sitting. The actors and actresses are attractive and seem to be enjoying what they are participating in. The acting is pretty good for an adult film but is still well below mainstream. Maybe the sound of Rocco saying "nasty, nasty" will do it for some viewers but not me. Maybe I just wasn't in the right frame of mind when I watched this one, though, because everybody seems to be praising this movie.

Like another reviewer, I'm no spring chicken. I remember when there was really no porn, followed by the arrival of 'Blow-Up' and 'I Am Curious, Yellow' and then a lot more porn, and then the ambitious porn of the 70s, and finally the sinking of the mess into sub-genre 'specialties' that exists today. I consider myself a pretty jaded fan, and have seen a fair bit of rough and tumble stuff over this period.

When I heard about this movie, I was definitely looking forward to it, hoping that perhaps it would lead to a renaissance of sorts. I actually saw the show in Las Vegas before the movie, and that abetted my interest.

So…what did I find in Fashionistas? It was definitely high concept, artistically oriented sexually oriented material. Production values, lighting, blocking are all at the upper boundary of what you'll find in the industry. The individuals involved are attractive, fashions provocative and edgy. I'm not sure I'd say there's a story in the sense of a Dickens novel, but there is definitely an attempt to create context and atmosphere, which I think is all one should hope for in a porn production.

So what's not to like? For me, the whole thing didn't come together, at least not in a way that resonated with me. The movie was long, much longer than it should have been. Many sex scenes ran too long. The start of one coincided with the beginning of a workout, and was still running when I shut the treadmill down. Attractive people performing wild, rough sex, I found, does not necessarily make for an 'attractive' product, although I'm at a bit of a loss to explain why. I've seen and enjoyed 'nastiness', I guess the specific tone of the nastiness here, along with the length of the scenes and movie worked against my interest.

Watching the movie also made me reflect on the evolution of porn. Anal sex was wild and provocative when it arrived on scene. At this point, I'm left to wonder if very nearly every sex scene needs to incorporate it, and often as the most significant thing going on. And when did 'spitting' become erotic? I must have missed that development completely.

I do fully respect what this movie attempted to do, and most of my vote score is actually for the pretense and ambition. Unfortunately, the 'effect' marks are much lower.

Excellent Film on every level that Adult Films SHOULD be judged on! I won't get into the details but the film makers have broken many boundries and pulled more envelopes than the USPS. See it...preferably with friends - close friends