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Absolute, Arid
Rating: 3 Stars
Falcon Studios. Directed by John Rutherford. Videography by Todd Montgomery. Edited by Devin Stone and Max Phillips. Music by E.M. Diaz and Beef. Starring Billy Brandt, Anthony LaFont, Matt Spencer, Dylan Reece, Sean Kirby, Josh Kane, Cameron Dalton, Spike, and Craig Everest.
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This landlocked sibling of Absolute, Aqua (the two form a set) has similar faults and virtues, but it's figuratively as well as literally more down-to-earth. Filmed in and around Windfall Farm, an Australian "gay rural farmstay," it offers more signs of human habitation. The models wear shoes. Like Absolute, Aqua, it's exquisitely shot (by Todd Montgomery) and precisely edited. There's also a decent original score. The sex varies. A foursome against a backdrop of rolling hills seems posed and unspontaneous. Coupling by a cattle pen, Anthony LaFont and Josh Kane have a fierce rapport.

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The headliner here is charismatic Billy Brandt (our September 1999 cover man), who looks deceptively like the apotheosis of vanilla pudding. In front of a video camera, he's lively, expressive, joyously exhibitionistic, and incandescently photogenic. Lascivious thoughts seem to dart behind his eyes on their way to his tongue. (He's the only performer in the Absolute videos who's allowed to be more than fleetingly verbal.) Appearing in three of the five sexual episodes in Absolute, Arid, he's given sharply directed duos with Dylan Reece and Sean Kirby, and a solo in the bush near a kangaroo-crossing sign. In the opening segment, there's a startling moment when he starts to jerk Dylan Reece off with his toes. Brandt's pairing with Reece begins at fever pitch and hits its climax near a burning tree that could have been ignited by sexual heat lightning.