The Fashionistas

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.

Definitively the best John Buttman Stagliano film in years. Only to see the performance of Belladonna (new queen of adult films) is worth of it. Great and rough action only for really adult films lovers.Rocco is back as actor and he is good. Also the supporting cast is doing very good, especially Kate Frost and Taylor Saint Clair.Everyone is convincing and enjoy what are doing.Besides is a look to the bondage world but in a soft way: hard but no illegal. And over all the things: here is Belladonna (as say Stagliano in the advertising):¨'the woman with the most incredible sexual abilities I ever see¨ if you wanna know if that is true: watch the film you will be speechless.

John "Buttman" Stagliano makes great porn because he was a porn fan first...and is still a porn fan. He publishes Buttman" magazine (probably the best and most cutting edge out there), runs Evil Angel Video, has starred in an s***load of vids, and has directed some of the best vids still out there. He's proud of his achievements and he continues to push the edge. Thus...Exhibit A: "Fashionistas".

The film (yes, film) is difficult to categorize, but it is an exploration of perception and perversion. It stars the incredible Belladonna, the current Queen of Extreme, and Rocco Siffredi, the Italian actor/director who is a living porn legend. It has a strong Sadism/Masochism bent and, though released under the Evil Angel label, is not the typical Evil Angel product, though EE is not your "typical" porn shingle, either.

Clearly a labor of love for Stagliano, the film is very rough, fetishistic, realistic and psychologically confronting. The sex is as hardcore as it gets with an emphasis on anal.

The lighting and production design are top notch, and Belladonna's performance (as Jesse) is heavy going indeed.

Although I am not an S&M aficionado, I still found the journey itself a very worthy one. Prudes be warned, though.

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

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.