Review: Joe Gage’s Mens Room Trilogy, Titan Media
Joe Gage is one of my favorite directors who I don’t spend enough time talking about on here. He helped invent gay porn in 1976 with Kansas City Trucking Co., which cost $10,000 to make and grossed over a million dollars. $10k came from a group big-name Hollywood actors and execs looking for small-time investments. He left gay porn in ’81 to write hetero bodice-rippers and direct b-movies, many of which got heavy basic cable airplay in the late eighties/early nineties (Bad Girl’s Dormitory, anyone?)
When Kansas City was re-released on DVD in 2000 and became one of the year’s top-sellers, Joe decided it was time to return to making porn. The first movie he did for Titan was Mens Room: Bakersfield Station which takes place entirely in a the bus station restroom and features lots and lots of pissing. The movie follows Danny Vox‘s sexual transformation from timid voyeur to sexual powerhouse. Its one of the only porn films I can think of with a legitimate character arc.
Mens Room II: Gale Force had the unfortunate timing of being released right after Katrina and being about a bunch of archetypes who get trapped in a warehouse during a hurricane. Despite this, it features everything that makes Joe Gage a great director: Long, tense build-ups, diverse casts of younger and older guys, and deconstructed sex scenes. The sex scenes meander, and their unpredictability adds erotic tension. I don’t know why almost every other director in the industry is so terrified to stray from the strict “oral-anal-cumshot” structure.
The only element running through all three movies is an almost-endless stream of piss. In the third installment, the just-released Mens Room III: Ozark Mtn. Exit 8, the men’s room is an abandoned, outdoor trough that was shut down by the cops because of too much cruising. Shot all outdoors, the entire movie is damn good, but the strongest scene is a two-part three-way between two suited parole offers (Damien Crosse and Tyler Saint) transporting a young offender (Jesse Santana) to court. It starts with intense, piss-heavy blowjobs and ends with Tyler and Damien double-fucking Jesse in the back of their truck (What can I say? I’m a sucker for a twink who can take two dicks at once).
Free hardcore image gallery after the jump …
Related
Watch or stream Mens Room III from TitanMen.com
Mens Room III on NakedSword
Joe Gage’s Blog
Joe Gage on NakedSword
Sneak Peek: Gunnery Sgt. McCool
Tags: Damien Crosse, Danny Vox, Jesse Santana, Joe Gage, Mens Room, Titan, Tyler Saint
Mark March 1st, 2008 at 5:11 PM
They are awesomely hot movies. All of Joe Gage’s movies are…they are my favorites.
Mark March 2nd, 2008 at 4:57 AM
I think you are right Joe Gage does some incredible movies. However as you say the main element running through the Men’s Room series is the pissing & I have to say that in the latest, Dillon Buck, takes it home! This awesome new comer to Titanmen is incredible & I can see why Joe has chosen him again for his next movie release ‘Chainsaw’
idylle March 2nd, 2008 at 8:19 AM
Good Movie, these men are hot
luv
P
Tony March 2nd, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Joe Gage ranks among my three most-favorite directors. The other two are Lukas Kazan and George Duroy. Gage is a titan (pun intended) among directors.
Will March 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 AM
Actually, I prefer his subgenre of fratboys oh-so-tentatively building up to that first touch. The editing especially in these is masterful.
David March 3rd, 2008 at 7:43 PM
I found his early movies very hot and truly cutting-edge. The ones since he has returned to gay porn haven’t interested me. But then: What would cutting-edge be today? Maybe we don’t even want to know. (Sigh)
Mark March 4th, 2008 at 10:08 AM
Well, one example of what would be cutting-edge today is to dare to take your time and do a build-up to sex like Joe does, instead of just opening on naked guys already having sex.
BoinkingBoinker March 4th, 2008 at 6:18 PM
The original trilogy was amazing for its time. A real tour de force. Sort of light (as much of gay cinema was then) on actual fucking since they generally didn’t have days to shoot them and were limited in the amount of film stock (remember these were films, not videos) they could burn through.
There is a whimsy in these films. The fact that women are actually part of the action sometimes. That there is such a thing as buildup.
That you see types of men who wouldn’t make it into any current production (without being shaved, and groomed to within an inch of their lives). And the idea that you can actually see makeup on at least one.
The use of slow motion (soon to be a cliche’) and layering multiple sexual situations on top of each other are stylistic and particular to his early work.
And there was open homophobia in these films. Ugly, unchecked homophobia. It is sort of bracing, what with our “any straight guy is really just a homo” mentality that our films have devolved into.
These films celebrate a time, now long past, when sex was a means of saying “Hello” to other folks. When a cock-tease of a girlfriend was the best reason ever to get blown. When embarrassment was right around the corner for anyone who didn’t realize cultural differences didn’t equal to cultural isolation.
And that the film has lots of sex, in lots of places with lots of folks eating lots of seed, well, they’re terrific. Not something you’ll want to watch right through. But there are sequences in these films that are so seminal that they will be among your favorite wack off moments for years to come.
Will March 5th, 2008 at 2:57 AM
@BoinkingBoinker: Hehe, he said seminal.
inacio August 10th, 2009 at 7:21 AM
I love that movie. john gage is a criative director, he can create the male universe, I mean the macho universe.