Review

Do you remember Ulysses? He was a legendary hero who disappeared for 30 years until everyone thought he was dead, and then miraculously returned. He initially bungled his homecoming, but eventually he reasserted his heroic reputation.

Ulysses - meet Joe Gage. In the 1970s, Gage didn’t just help define modern gay pornography, he helped create a new model for gay masculinity. Before Gage, gay men were depicted as either dress-wearers (Billy Crystal in "Soap") or self-haters (Boys in the Band). In his "Road" Trilogy, Gage introduced rugged truck drivers or construction workers who were proud to be first-class cocksuckers. The "Gage Man" became a gay icon, and Gage became a gay hero.

Then came the landmark Closed Set: Gage hired every butch sex pig he could find, plus several relentless cameramen, and then let them all loose on each other! You could see the cameramen film the sex as it was happening. It was the greatest gay orgy film ever made.

And then he disappeared. When he was recently inducted into the GayVN Hall of Fame, people were astonished he was still alive. He announced his home-cumming with Tulsa County Line, but it was not an auspicious return. But now comes Closed Set: The New Crew. Ulysses is back, and he’s hot as hell!

The New Crew is a rock-hard suck-sessor to the original, though it’s not exactly a remake - there is a scenario here. It begins with Michael Brandon walking the streets and seeing Carlos Morales in a window, who waves him inside. Brandon finds himself the set of a porn video with Morales and insatiable porn pup Sean Storm. The three start devouring each other as the video’s crew looks on.

On this Closed Set, however, the "crew members" are played by porn stars. For example, Chad Hunt is the "best boy" (no argument there), Peter Dixon is the gaffer (more like gagger) and Blake Harper is the VP for Creative Affairs (who looks as good in a suit as he does out of one). One by one, each "crew member" is drawn into the action, which becomes a whirlwind orgy of man-flesh. It’s a simple premise and incredibly effective. And as in the original, we see actual crew members filming the sex, and we hear Gage and others direct.

The cast is perfection, with two GayVN Performers of the Year: Brandon and Harper. Gage still knows his men better than anyone. There are all types of "types" and all levels of experience. Harper is of course a hirsuite veteran (who must never retire - is that clear, Blake?), while smooth-skinned Dixon was coaxed out of semi-retirement. Newcomers include punkish young blond Rory Park, balding butch Zach Davenport and Latin sexpot Diego Alvarez. They all have two things in common: they are all fantastic cocksuckers, which is important considering that’s about all they do (see below). Second, they are all enormously hung. And these penises are poetry in motion. No one films male genitalia as effectively as Joe Gage.

There are two interludes to the orgy, both involving Colton Ford, the crew’s "key grip." This reviewer has already sung the praises of Colton Ford (see Bearing Leather), and he’s only too glad to keep worshiping from that "him-book" - especially on his knees! Colton Ford is all man, from his sexy gray goatee to his rock-hard ass, and he is - god bless him - all gay. Watch this guy and you’ll forget about all those gay-for-pay imposters.

In the first interlude, Ford enters a room with three glory holes (a beloved relic from the 1970s), from which are protruding three massive cocks. Being the self-respecting cock-sucker that he is, Ford sucks spewing loads out of each. Meanwhile, two security guards (veteran Adam Wolfe and muscled, mustached Ben Archer) walk in. Ford wastes no time in servicing them, and these guys return the favor with some nifty sucking and rimming of their own.

The second interlude helps bring the video (and the viewer) to its climax - a pairing between real-life partners Ford and Harper. In contrast to the writhing bodies in the orgy, it is almost alarmingly intimate. We are not watching two porn stars have sex, we are watching two lovers make love. First, they undress each other with tantalizing seductiveness. Then Ford lifts Harper on a table and gives him a rimming for the record books (Queasiness alert - Harper’s hole has been pounded so often that it’s a rosebud in perpetual bloom). He then gives Harper one of the most romantic fucks ever filmed. It absolutely deserves a GayVN nomination for Best Duo performance, except this is no performance - it’s the real thing!

This awesome fuck however accentuates one of the few drawbacks of this new Closed Set. That scene plus a quick topping by Damian Ford into Sean Storm and some scattered fingering are the only anal penetrations in the video. Unlike Ulysses, Gage wasn’t "Greek." He was never a fan of the fuck - circle jerks and cocksucking were his staples in the 1970s. But things have changed since then. Today’s orgy videos require the full repertoire of man-to-man sex. Gage is climbing back to the top, but this talented old dog needs to learn some new tricks.