I know that I discount pretty heavily any reviews where the person or persons are employees of a company, or paid by the studios.

DenverDon <<<<[[[[

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That's kinda what is going on at ADT. The thing is it's very difficult to be a reviewer(atleast to be A GOOD 1 anyway). Thus there aren't enough solid reviewers for companies to go to. Guys like Rog, Morbidthoughts, Crucifixio Jones, etc. etc. do a hell of a job putting out so many reviews with substance. I wish I had the ability. Sadly for me I'm too much of a perfectionist to roll out the reviews. I hope soon I will find that ability in myself, but who knows.

AC Cream

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I've finally made it.

On the serious side, thanks AC. It always amazes me when someone even reads my reviews much less takes the time to publicly compliment them. It is greatly appreciated.

Edited by - Crucifixio_Jones on 4/9/2005 7:54:28 PM

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Trust me, I empathize. I will never be able to roll them out with the frequency that others do.

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I think that the reason studios do not want to provide such information is so that poor poor Ron will have to spend more money trying to determnine whether a title will have what he is looking for.

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I have no problems with an insider being paid to put out 'reviews' like Den. I know he has a scoring system too but I always found his shorthand as a useful spoiler for what occurs in the scene. I don't pay attention to the scores. I sometimes use his reviews as a check to make sure I didn't leave something out.

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i know what you mean about wanting a review before buying a movie. if i'm unfamiliar with a series or company, i can never be sure if i'll like the content judging by the cover or description alone.

if you're unsure about a movie, i would suggest renting it first. if you decide you want to buy the movie, it might end up costing a few dollars more, but you'll be glad you went with renting if you find you don't like it.

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Personally, I'd be hard pressed to call what Den @ CAVR does even "reviewing." Anyone can fast-forward through five scenes and list positions and the people involved. The site serves a purpose to an extent, (Lord knows I've used it here and there, mainly for raw data) but it comes across as more clinical and distant than I'd like. How would you feel reading a review of a mainstream Hollywood movie and it was broken down this way?

I try to write the reviews I would like to see if I were a fan or consumer. I don't always succeed but I try to: include some background information and/or history as it's needed, the perspective of someone who has been watching adult entertainment a long time and has seen a great many of its stars come and go, inject a little humor and insight when I can but most of all, if a scene is good or bad, try to convey my enthusiasm or distaste for a scene as well as I can through the words I choose and make the reader FEEL what I felt as I watched.

You simply can't do that by simply saying "touching. kisses. tease. oral. screwing. facial." That gives you ZERO indication of how good or bad ANY of that was. It just tells you that it happened. I don't need a review to tell me what happened. It's a porno. Call it an educated guess but I'm pretty sure some screwing, etc. is going to occur. What I want to know is how good or bad the reviewer thinks these acts were performed. Everything else he or she chooses to add is just the extra gravy.

But reviews need gravy or else they're nothing but position lists.

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Something the only thing I can say is "Solid scene" or what ever because its one of those scenes where it looked like every one did their job in the scene and on the set, but nothing suck out - know what I mean?

Oddly I have never liked my reviews, but I get emails here and there of people who really like them and even have industry people contact me saying they really like them, so I just try o keep the format in line. I'm not all they witty when writing so it's best I don't try or I look like a buffoon.

+1 for fun and witty reviews

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i started reviewing because i wanted to help others in the same way those reviews helped me. obviously, i prefer the "just the facts" format. i doubt anyone cares to read about my personal tastes or wants to be entertained by my writing so i stay as objective and factual as possible. my review should never sell the movie, it should inform and let the reader make up their own mind as to whether the movie has the things they want to see.

sometimes when the reviewer gets carried away into lengthy detail about their personal turn ons and turn offs, how many times they masturbated to the movie or how something in the movie gives them fond recollections of time spent at summer camp as a child... the review becomes less about the movie and more about the writer.

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Edited by - Bill on 4/9/2005 10:29:37 PM

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I like the ADT reviews that have a generous amount of commentary on each of the scenes. Some just describe the action- I like those that do this and also tell what they thought about it too- It's something I do in my reviews; I have a separate commentary section on each scene and my 'Bottom Line' category summarizes all of it up.

Edited by - masamune on 4/9/2005 10:44:14 PM

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Sometimes a movie will inspire me to do something above and beyond the call of duty with ... words or themes, or whatever strikes my fancy. Sometimes.... not.

I don't know if anyone reads them, or finds them useful. I write them because I find it to be an interesting excercise in analytical thought--without feeling like I have to be perfect (which is how I feel when I sit down to write a story).

Anyway, poor Fockwolfe. I don't think he's going to get his wish--and even his thread has now gone horribly off track in the hands of the ever-egomaniacal gang of ADT reviewers. Ah well. I like talking about reviews. I like reading others' reviews. I like discussing porn from a critical standpoint--something that ADT in general has seemed to veer away from over the past couple years.

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The reason I especially liked this review was down to the fact that its author managed to be subjective and objective in his opinion at the same time.

Something along the lines of : I've given this film 3 stars (got the impression that the film wasn't really the author's cup of tea)...It's quite anal cream-pie focused...which isn't really my type of thing...but if you like this type of thing then go out and get it straight away.

Not exactly what the reviewer said. Just the jist. A review that was helpfully objective from my standpoint, even though the reviewer himself didn't seem to be that struck upon the material contained in the film.

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As to my reviews, I find myself agreeing with a lot of what PL says about his reviews. There's a lot I don't like about them, but I leave them the same because I know a lot of people really like them and I'm not quite sure how to change them. They've gradually evolved over time and I think I cover most anything anybody could look for and keep it with a consistent format that lets people quickly check it over for what they want to see if they don't want to read the whole thing.

"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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As I said before, I'm in the camp where if I'm interested enough in a movie, I'll read EVERYTHING about it, all reviews, to get a well-rounded impression of the movie. That means CAVR serves a purpose as does a review like LSB's. Even those sorry bastards at Rancho Carne can be useful every once in a great while.

I'm not offended if someone doesn't like my style of review or anyone else's. To each his own in that respect. I'm just happy to be a cog in the clockwork of this review thing and if one person finds something of mine entertaining and useful then it was worth taking the time to write. We all aspire to something different. Continued success to everyone on their seperate paths.

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I also think it's better that reviewers have their own style and dislikes/likes (as long as it's mentioned in the reviews so you get a rough idea of why the reviewer liked/disliked the title). The reviewer doesn't have to tell you everything about them, but if you know their biases, it helps you put the rest of the review in context. At least that's why I both mentioning some of my biases.

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I've come to the conclusion that I really have no idea what I'm going to like and what I'm not when it comes to any particular movie or the acts within it, so presenting a list up front isn't fair to me, or to my readers.

I figure if people are going to buy or not buy a movie based on my opinion, they've probably read enough of my reviews to understand where their "tastes" might mesh with mine, and they can draw their own conclusions. If they don't care about my opinion, then they're just reading my review for the vid-caps or the little description I give to the acts (or plot as the case may be), and that's perfectly cool too. :)

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I don't know, I may add it to my reviews, just a link to it, but in general there are things I like and dislike ALL the time, regardless - for example, cream pies.

I don't recall what review I read but it one I searched and found... Ah well, just goes to show my memory is shot

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I'm glad to see somebody said something about those sorry reviewers over there. I only check a review from them if it's the only review of the film. Every time I go I think to myself "this 1 has to have something worth reading", BUT sadly it's always the same useless shit.

AC Cream

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I read a couple. Seemed like reasonable reviews to me. I don't know that I find them too terribly interesting, but I'm sure lots of others get plenty of use out of them. No?

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"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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WTF!!!!?

AC Cream

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I can see both sides of it, but I like Den's reviews a lot, I'm always interested to know what another person thinks about a title, but unless you know that person and thier tastes well, I have found it very inconsistent to go based on what someone else thinks.

However I know what I'm looking for, and for me, knowing which performers both male and female are a big help in knowing whether the scene is likely to be good or not, and a little description helps a lot, so reviews like Den's are incredibly useful for my scouting runs. We can't always have reviews like Astro's or Bono or Saki or others put out, but I'm always glad to see atleast something of a summary of a movie, and even a cast list by scene with nothing else is better to me than just some review like at Rancho saying "this whore did that, it ruled, my balls hurt", I mean yeah it's a review, but what's that to go on?

I'm also in that group of thinking my reviews could be much better, but I have a career, a wife, and other hobbies that demand attention, and I do what I can. I'm not much of a writer, and it's difficult to be spontaneous and creative when your writing about what boils down to be a near identical act time and time again. I try to offer a little bit of oddball commentary as well as the straight rundown and then my views on the scene, I do it seperately, that way if your looking for either one you have it but if your only looking for one or the other, it's easier to sort out. I may suck, but I try.

Going back to Fockwolfe's idea, I think it's something that is possible, but would have to be instigated by the studios, because thier is just too damn much porn coming out for the relative handful of solid reviewers out there to handle. However as you suggested, it would have to be a straight by the numbers review or as has been said, it would not be at all reliable.

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Click on beautiful Taylor Rain for great porn reviews!

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The other thing is it's probably cheaper for a studio to send out a few screeners to the established review sites then to hire someone to sit there all day, taking up space on the equipment timing and describing the scenes.

After all, the raw cost of one dvd out of a run of, say 1,000(case+replicated disc+printed cover) plus a few bucks to ship 10 different titles to ADT at once is going to be a lot less than a part-time employee at minimum wage sitting in their office on one of their computers scanning through their discs with a pen and paper for hours at a time.

scipio

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Or to put it another way - why shuld they send out titles to be reviewed if they're going to be payiing someone to "review" (yes I know they're totally different) then themselves.

And as to my other comment, if I can't trust a company like Private to get their performer's names or even their running times correct, then I'm not exactly going to trust their scene length timings..

scipio

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"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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My memory is lapsing again.

DenverDon <<<<[[[[

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"Vegetarianism for me is about saying ‘yes’ to things - even meat." - Coupling

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