Roma

In a bizarre und unexpected perversion of the way I usually feel about ambitious historical porn features, I somehow find myself wanting to see the next installment of Roma. I can't explain why, except to say that it is weirdly not terrible. All it has going for it is great costuming and plenty of sex. The sex is to be expected, but there's also something about it, something very hard to explain, that doesn't suck. The characters are your standard historical ones, Caesar and Pompey and Mark Antony and so on, plus some small fry who don't show up in Shakespeare, and almost all of the story is told by a guy reading from a scroll. He tells the broad details -- who went where, who's allied with whom, what Caesar is doing with his spare time -- and almost all the dialogue is concerned with the political and personal maneuvering at home; in this way, Roma manages to tell two stories without spending too much time on either one. All of the intrigue at home culminates in fucking. Caesar and the field staff don't get laid too much, except for a brief orgy at the beginning when they're winding down from what seems to have been the final battle with the Gauls.

If there's one thing I learned about history from watching Roma, it's that the women of the Roman Empire were, perhaps more than those of any other era, enamored of facials. And it's not like they just kind of like a facial -- they take a great and sensuous joy in every spurt of legionnaire juice, spending minutes savoring the dripping and the shooting. These are no ordinary facials, like the kind you see in modern gonzo where the girl flinches when she gets hit in the eye or keep her mouth determinedly closed and blows it off her lips when it gets too thick. The Roman women love their money shots, and they insist on getting one every single time, making eye contact and making sure to let the men know how much they really appreciate it. Usually too many facials wear on me -- one or two are okay, but I like to see a string of them broken up by a big pair of tits being splashed with come, or a heroic, arching shot fountained onto a girl's back over her upturned ass, but in this movie I found the facials oddly appealing - almost all because of the avidity with which the girls savor them.

It's not all facials and clothes. There are other things to recommend Roma -- a plethora of slim, natural-breasted young European actresses who don't try too hard and look pretty good. There aren't any standout beauties in the cast, but every single girl is at least pretty hot. Daring Media Group is doing a good job of challenging Private on its home ground with Roma -- seven scenes of good, clear, beautifully shot sex in well-made sets. There are a couple of excellent double penetrations and a great deal of other penetrations, with no annoying girl/girl to interrupt the constant flow of good sex, not to mention plenty of anal, the way the Romans are reputed to have liked it. And then, of course, there are all those great facials. I hope they don't lose sight of the formula in Roma II.

Also, the dubbing is excellent.

Roma stars a bevy of girls, most of whom are the kind of generic blondes and brunettes that you find in productions cast entirely out of eastern Europe. The female cast for this installment consists of Lydia St. Martin, Julia Taylor, Claudia Rossi, Angel Dark, Jennifer Love, Vanessa Mae, Renata Black, Daria Glower, Cayenne Klein, Boroka Balls, Alexis, Josette Most, Lea Lexi, Emili Doll, and Yasmine Gold. They are a toothsome lot, although, with a couple of exceptions, only to be distinguished from each other by extensive tattoo research. If you're interested in any of them in particular, though, this is when they appear, and with whom:

Scene 1. Andrea Moranty, Daria Glower, Fausto Moreno, George Uhl, Renata Black
Scene 2. Fiorina Rose, Roberto Malone
Scene 3. Andrea Moranty, Lydia St. Martin
Scene 4. Cristian Devil, Emili Doll, Fausto Moreno, Josette Most, Kid Jamaica, Lea Lexi, Vanessa Mae, Yasmine Gold
Scene 5. Julia Taylor, Roberto Malone
Scene 6. Claudia Rossi, Roberto Lyon
Scene 7. Claudia Rossi, Fausto Moreno

In a bizarre und unexpected perversion of the way I usually feel about ambitious historical porn features, I somehow find myself wanting to see the next installment of Roma. I can't explain why, except to say that it is weirdly not terrible. All it has going for it is great costuming and plenty of sex. The sex is to be expected, but there's also something about it, something very hard to explain, that doesn't suck. The characters are your standard historical ones, Caesar and Pompey and Mark Antony and so on, plus some small fry who don't show up in Shakespeare, and almost all of the story is told by a guy reading from a scroll. He tells the broad details -- who went where, who's allied with whom, what Caesar is doing with his spare time -- and almost all the dialogue is concerned with the political and personal maneuvering at home; in this way, Roma manages to tell two stories without spending too much time on either one. All of the intrigue at home culminates in fucking. Caesar and the field staff don't get laid too much, except for a brief orgy at the beginning when they're winding down from what seems to have been the final battle with the Gauls.... Read the Full Review!