Al Parker and Casey Donovan in the same film -- even the same scene! Casey Donovan getting gang-banged by Parker, Chad Benson, Dick Fisk and Jeff Turk! We're talking one incredibly hot film. One of the things that makes it even hotter is that they all look, relatively speaking, sort of clean cut and wholesome (well, except maybe for Al), and yet they're all incredible sex pigs. The Other Side of Aspen does have a plot, involving ski instructor Turk accidentally wandering into the odd sexual situation, but the exposition is mostly supplied by the additional narrative footage shot afterwards.

Listening to the commentary on the DVD, it's amazing to discover just to what extent Aspen is an accidental film. Originally intended as a series of loops, it wasn't decided to bind them together until later, which required them to shoot that previously mentioned additional narrative footage. (The original four loops sold for $125 at the time. And did sell, amazingly enough.) The second scene, between Al Parker and Casey Donovan, was never planned; it originally started as a still photo shoot, and the models started to get carried away, so the filmmakers just shot it..

--Iain Jackson

Fred Halsted and Richard Locke star in El Paso Wrecking Corp., a film about two buddies who lose their jobs and head out on the road in search of work. Of course, they get distracted along the way.

Haunting music by Al Steinman accompanies this sex anywhere-but-in-a-bed classic from director Joe Gage. Toilet-room gloryhole sex; barroom basement sex (could Fred Halsted be any sexier kissing this married man in front of his wife, and could Gage show off the sex any better than his The Graduate-inspired through the woman's legs shot of the men fucking on the floor?); gas station sex (Halsted helps out a frustrated "straight" guy); lots of outdoor sex -- motorcycle sex (hung Keith Anthoni and the unfortunately edited-out watersports sequence) and sex on a hiking trail (daddies Richard Locke and Clay Russell); and of course construction site sex (sexy Colt model Mike Morris whacking off watching his son Jared Benson suck off Halsted); and then amazing orgy finale.

--BJ

Heatstroke is the story of a bunch of guys stuck on a ranch somewhere in Montana. They are, mostly, straight guys. They are, mostly, bored and horny.

Gage takes the "straight guy who has never done that before" concept and works it, hard. Richard Locke, as inexperienced foreman Shep, gets seduced by Pete (played by Clay Russell), his ex-wife's current husband. Shep is both just eager enough and just hesitant enough that the sex works beautifully; moreover, when he's convinced to reciprocate the blowjob he's just gotten, it's not because he wants to -- although he clearly does -- it's because it's the fair thing to do. That's the sort of detail that makes the scene work really well.

In a parallel scene, Roy Garrett's Rory, inexperienced straight guy #2, winds up at a drive-in with his best friend Lucky (Richard West), apparently abandoned by their dates, and watching a ridiculous kung-fu movie. Rory opens the glove compartment, and a stroke mag falls out with (gasp!) nekkid men doing nekkid things to each other! This encourages Lucky to whip out his huge dong, and he talks Rory into blowing him, both because he knows Rory wants to try it and with the (later fulfilled) promise of reciprocation. It's that push and pull that makes the scene work, that makes it feel right, that makes it lock into just the right place in your head.

--Iain Jackson

Director Peter de Rome tells a tale of a priest who is doubting his calling to the Church, so of course he takes a sabbatical in order to experiment with gay sex and hallucinogenic mushrooms. Caswell Campbell is so confused and screwed up that he hallucinates his evil double, who gets to have all the fun he can't. One of Destroying Angel's most intriguing scenes has Caswell actually watching himself have sex with a trick -- but watching himself get fucked is just too hot for him not to join in, so we get a three-way with just two men! A highlight is the scene of our hero lying down on the floor wearing just his Levis as a group of about eight men whack off and piss on him. (The pissing is missing from most commercial copies.) But it's not trashy, it's spiritual, really -- no doubt some sacrificial rite known only to priests.

--BJ

Includes: Kansas City Trucking Co., El Paso Wrecking Corp., L.A. Tool and Die.

The first (and to the best of my knowledge, only) set of pornvids to follow a single character through three films, which is why they're bound together as one entry. (Also, it's my list. So there.) Interestingly, Richard Locke's character is the viewpoint character only for half of the final video, and a portion of the second. In the first, the viewpoint character is Joe, the new trucker recruit. In the second, it's mostly Fred Halsted's character. In the third, Locke's character splits time with Will Seeger's character.

The sex is in The Joe Gage Trilogy is fantastic, the guys are hot, especially Richard Locke. They plug straight into that fantasy where masculine men in manly occupations (trucking, demolition and construction) like having sex with other masculine manly men, regardless of orientation or marital status or the fact that they're father and son, for that matter. It's all just sex -- great, hot, sweaty, messy sex -- and when it's done, they all go back into their lives and into the next encounter.

VCA/HIS (now owned by Hustler) apparently took a hatchet to El Paso Trucking Co. before re-releasing it to DVD and seems to have done the same to more recent videotapes; it's been so badly cut that it just makes you want to cry. The other two videos seem to have fared somewhat better.

--Iain Jackson

Wakefield Poole is often credited with bringing porn from cheesy sex-only loops into more story-oriented films with his 1971 groundbreaking Boys In The Sand. But in 1974, strapped for cash, he made Moving, his best film -- comprised of three loops and topping all others in this genre. The last loop is perhaps my all-time favorite scene -- with Poole's real-life boyfriend Peter Fisk and newcomer Tom Wright. Tom is apartment hunting and stumbles into a San Francisco apartment for rent, but finds no one home.

He spots a life-size drawing of a man, and gently runs his fingers around the contours of the drawing, which becomes the real-life Peter Fisk. Standing over Wright, Fisk pulls him close, mouths inches apart, and -- spits! But he quickly pulls their heads close together for aggressive, affectionate kissing. On the floor, pumping Wright's face with his cock, Fisk suddenly pulls out a hair clipper and buzzes all of Wright's hair off, beautifully showing off his tattooed forearms all the while. But tattooed forearms aren't meant for buzzcuts alone, and soon, somehow, he manages to get his hand in Wright's ass. Even if this is not to your taste, the display of Fisk's body and arms is hypnotic, and you can't look away.

Available from Bijou Video.

--BJ