Fresh New Faces 2 Review

Reviewed by Nat Hocken  on  10/6/2003

Michael Stefano’s “Fresh New Faces 2” is a hell of a porn movie for undiscriminating fans of meaningless sex. Reasonably attractive girls, solid (if strictly utilitarian) camerawork, and everything from blowjobs to double-penetration to cum-swallowing—it’s all there, just waiting for the right lustful overlay from the viewer to give it spice. Because spice—Lordy, that’s what this film is missing.

Gonzo? Yes—but any comparison with the likes of Ed Powers or Randy West is way off base. Whatever we might think of Ed and Randy, it’s pointless to deny that they have personality. It’s no use arguing that when they screw a girl, it isn’t without bravado and a perverse sense of accomplishment. Michael, on the other hand, well, he’s just in it for the sex.

This movie opens with its best-looking girl, Dani Woodward, being interviewed by Michael in front of a slate gray wall. (Michael compares it to a prison set; I came to think of it as a metaphor for Michael himself.) After determining Dani’s age—19—and the freshness of her face—she had only three scenes under her belt—Michael asks her what her favorite sexual activity is. Dani playfully responds, “Probably oral…on a girl.” To which Michael’s response is another question. Or maybe that’s when he suggested she get down on her knees and suck his dick. Either way, his interviews are just so much talk—the kind a guy engages in after he already knows the pussy is his for the taking and he’s impatient to get to it.

That may partly explain why the girls themselves aren’t allowed much of a personality either. Mason Storm, with tits the size of thunderclouds, tells Michael she likes to be in control; “I’m a very dominant person,” she says. Her scene is with Pascal Saint James, but he has about as little interest in Mason’s personality quirks as Michael. She gets the same treatment as all the other girls and just as little opportunity to shine in her own right.

Still, the girls here perform reasonably well, not that it’s especially difficult to play the part of receptacles. Sophia, in the film’s threeway with Tony Ribas and Michael himself, manages double-penetration and a double facial (more than half of which she swallows) without ever appearing as though she wished she were someplace else. Yet only Dani impressed me with any particular sexual ability. Dani can’t take a cumshot very well, but damn if she can’t suck cock. But it’s no good blaming the girls: as Mason found out, on his set, Michael is the one in control.

I still believe porn is about the girls. Michael seems to believe it’s about fucking. Now, maybe we’re both right. But the thing about this movie is, it’s none of one and every bit the other.