The Toronto sex store Good For Her will forever have a warm place in our hearts here at Comstock Films because Good For Her was the very first place that bought our first film, MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY. We sent them a screener, they watched it, and then they placed an order. After nearly a year of hearing other people tell us why MARIE AND JACK was great, but not salable, we were thrilled!

Now we’re thrilled all over again with Good For Her’s fantasitic review of our latest, MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER:

This installment from award-winning documentary-style filmmaker Tony Comstock is a revelatory look inside the intensely intimate and incredibly sexual relationship of two young, attractive people.

Think there’s nothing new in the world of porn? Think again. Matt & Khym sets a new standard for documentary sex films.

If you’re up North and want to do your shopping in-country, nothing would make us happier than if bought our films from Good For Her. And if you’re in Toronto, Good For Her offers our titles for rent as well!

I’ve never seen something like this for any other Gooogle search:

Have you?

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not dead. They are alive, and apparently they are living inside our film, DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER. SARA SCHIERON, of the San Francisco Bay Guardian:

“Almost a brother film to WebCam Girls [another film playing at CineKink], Damon and Hunter: Doing It Together is a short feature nested in the Passion Plays Program (Fri/19, 9 p.m.). For the women of WebCam Girls, the issue of individualism is essential (Anna Voog makes Rorschach-inspired videos for her word-association songs, and Ducky Doolittle puts on fashion shows), but Damon and Hunter are like Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: porn stars with protected identities as opposed to global brands. Primarily composed of one talking head interview with the two lovers, director Tony Comstock’s documentary intercuts a XXX scene that is more sweet than erotic. The footage feels deliberately contrary to a porn aesthetic, giving the impression that we’re observing, with anthropological so-called neutrality, the well-worn sex life of a couple. One partner asks, “Are you comfortable?” and the request for consent is like a demonstration of love.”

I’ve never seen Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, but I have seen Hamlet, twice. Still, I have no idea what Ms. Schieron is talking about. To tell the truth, I’m not even sure if this is a good review or a bad review, and it makes me feel a little slow-witted. At any rate, apparrently reports of Rosencrantz’s and Guildenstern’s deaths are greatly exaggerated.

Reports that DAMON AND HUNTER is a great date movie are not. If you’re looking for romantic evening out in San Francisco this weekend, you could to worse than DOING IT TOGETHER.

Friday, January 19, 9:00PM
Yerba Beuna Center for the Arts
701 Mission St @ 3rd
415.978.ARTS (2787)

Comstock Films’ DAMOM AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER will have it’s West Coast Premiere in San Francisco on Friday January 19th, 9:00PM at the Yreba Buena Center for the Arts as part of the Passion Plays session of the CineKink Film Festival.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street (@ Third)
San Francisco

The award-winning DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is the third in an ongoing series of documentaries from New York based director Tony Comstock that explore the real and vital role that sexual pleasure plays in human relationship. In this case, the couple in question are long time lovers Damon DeMarco and Hunter James, and the film centers around an explicit portrayal of Damon and Hunter making love.

“From the first moment we turned the cameras on Damon and Hunter, I knew I had the opportunity to capture something very special, and by the time the shoot wrapped I knew we had the raw material to make a very wonderful film,” says director Tony Comstock. “The reception the film has received has been overwhelming. It’s a very tender-hearted film, but explicit film that has provoke both praise and condemnation, and I can’t wait for the chance to show this film in San Francisco!”

In July 2006 DAMON AND HUNTER was name Best Documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival in Melbourne Australia, but was subsequently banned by the Australian government from showing a the 2006 QueerDOC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival held this September in Sydney Australia. The film went on to be named to several “Best of 2006″ lists, including Fleshbot’s Top 10 Erotic Gay Films of 2006

Comstock Films produces award-winning, documentary-style erotic films that acknowledge the role of sex in human relationships, depict it graphically, and celebrate the power and joy of sexual pleasure and emotional intimacy. Comstock Films titles have enjoyed worldwide recognition as outstanding achievements in cinema, appearing in festivals and taking home prizes in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany and here in the US.

Other Comstock Films titles include MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY , named Best Documentary and Best Overall at the 2002 SinCine New York Erotic Film Festival and Best of the Fest at the 2002 Sexual Health and Pleasure Film Festival; XANA AND DAX: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT , named Hottest Straight Sex Scene at the 2006 Emma Awards for feminist porn in Toronto, Canada; and the just released MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER, Comstock Films’ first title featuring a Bay Area Couple.

From the Nina.com Forum. Says Nina:

“Percentage-wise, I’d conjecture that less than 15% of women have real orgasms at all. Five percent or so have them regularly, as they are women who come easily. Aria is in this catagory. Her orgasms are real, as she can have them several different ways.

“Remember, I’m a performer. I love what I do, and that what I do is sex, but the mission objective is to leave behind a good, hot, fun, timeless scene that will please viewers always.”

I understand exactly where Nina is coming from on this. Films, even documentary films, are illusions. They are shadows dancing on a wall, or phosphores flickering on screen. They have an effect on us not because they are real, but because they they appear to be real. A performer’s job, whether she’s a hoofer on Broadway, or an adult actress is to make it look like she’s having the time of their life, even on the days when she’d really rather be doing anything else. The thrill comes as much, or more from making the audience happy as it does from the dancing, or the sex.

When I first set out to make erotic films my “mission objective” was to create an entertaining, explicit, convincing, and arrousing depictions of sexual pleasure. From there I took into consideration my limitations of talent and resources, the limitations of the market for sexually explicit films (especially for sexually explicit films made with the intent to arouse,) and the formal effects of explicit depictions of sexuality on various film genres.

That’s a fancy way of saying I decided to make movies of real couples having (and enjoying!) real sex it was because I didn’t think I had the talent or the money to fake it in a convincing and entertaining way!

To that end, I find people who see working with us as a chance to share something about themselves and their sexuality with the world at large. I do my best to make my set (both the love-making set and the interview set) a place where people can relax and be themselves, a place where what is unique and special about them, as a sexual being and as a human being, is valued, indeed prized.

It all sounds embarrassingly touchy-feely, doesn’t it? It makes our set sound like some sort of encounter group or other relic of the 70s; before herpes, before HIV, before sex became so fraught. (In 1975 I was nine years old, so I’m really just going by what I’ve read or been told by people who were in the thick it.)

Well in a way I suppose it’s true. I try to create a set that is insulated as possible from all the worries that can make it hard to relax and enjoy sex. The thing I always tell my crew is that we have to make the set a safe place. We’re going to be asking people to reveal themselves in the most intimate ways, and we have to create an environment where it is easy, even pleasurable for them to open up; to each other, to me, and through that, to the audience.

Come to think of it, that’s what couples do for each other when they make love, and maybe that’s what makes the lovemaking in these films feel so wonderfully intimate and private, even what it’s happening for the whole world to see!

Butch Harrison, Mannet’s Editor in Chief says, “Thousands of male adult titles are released each year. And, of those releases, our favorites have been pulled out of the quagmire to compile this list, The ManNet 100, selected by ManNet’s editorial team.”

Making the Mannet list caps a stellar year for Comstock Films’ first gay title.

In July 2006 DAMON AND HUNTER played to an overflow crowd and was name Best Documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival in Melbourne Australia.

Two months later the film encountered controvery when it was banned by the Australian Office of Film and Literature Classification from showing a the 2006 QueerDOC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival held in September in Sydney Australia.

In October DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER drew record crowds at it’s hometown premiere at the New York CineKink Film Festival.

In November, we were invited to submit the film to the !f Istanbul/AFM International Independent Film Festival for inclusion in the in the Rainbow Film program in the 2007 edition of the festival, taking place Feb 15-25, 2007 in Istanbul, Turkey.

But my favorite part is this last bit from Brent Blue’s ManNet Review. He almost seems like he’s not sure he believes he’s seen what he’s seen, but he’s willing to give us the benifit of the doubt!:

Shot by Tony and Peggy Comstock, the scene here is revealing and trusting by Damon and Hunter in allowing the viewer into their private life. The scene is rather short and purposely unglamorous, so it’s often hard to know what really went on, but it is clear that these two men are doing something different than just fucking for the camera. There is emotion here, not faked, not acted, but truthful. It’s an alternative to porn. Not better, not worse, just a different side.

Thanks Brent, Butch, and everyone else at ManNet for naming DAMON AND HUNTER as one of the 100 best of the year!

Oy, where do I start? (cue Julie Andrews…)

Thanks to our wonderful sponsor, PjurUSA we printed up 250 posters and 2500 postcards in advance of this weekend premiere of DAMON AND HUNTER at the New York CineKink Film Festival.

And because Ell told me she had such fun and received so much love and support when she put out posters and flyers in Melbourne I thought it would be a good idea if I went out and postered for CineKink. After all, it’s a home town premiere, and there’s nothing like the personal touch, right?

So Saturday I came into town, posters and postcards in a big box, first stop Chelsea, which has (in many people’s eyes) replaced Greenwich Village as the gay ground zero in Manhattan.

Chelsea is fabulous. The streets are filled with fabulous looking men, there are fabulous boutiques and restaurants. Chelsea looks and feels like what you think gay New York would look and feel like. Chelsea does not care that you have a movie. Not even if it’s your home town premiere. Not even if it has beautiful young men kissing it. My sister and I schlepped around, hearing “no” more often than “yes”.

I also managed to dump the cart four times. It’s a toss up between the time that I hit the older gay man in the ankle with the cart and then dumped the contents all over the Southwest corner of Ninth Ave and 23rd (fourth dumpage), and the time I spilled all 250 poster and 2500 postcards over the narrow foyer of the porn shop on 21st just off Eighth (first dumpage) for low point of the evening. I know that a few people said nice things, but the specifics are lost in the haze of people who were disdainfully disinterested, or even down right surly.

We caught a cab back to my neighborhood (Hells Kitchen) and tried few places between where the cab let us off and my apartment. They were nice, they were interested. We had dinner, and as a last stop I put a poster and cards in the gay bar on Ninth between 45th and 46th. Everyone there down right friendly.

Sunday morning we had a diner breakfast and then when schlepping up Ninth Ave. I had resolved to ask at every place we past, no matter the toll it might take on my (already low) spirits. But instead of another ass-kicking, everyone smiled and said “sure!” and “congratulations” and “do you have tape”. Every Arab-run bodega said yes; every Korean run beauty salon said yes; every pizza place said yes, nearly every resturaunt. The cobbler said yes, the frame shop said yes, the barber said yes. By late morning posters for DAMON AND HUNTER were up and down both sides of Ninth ave, from 42nd to 57th, and I had received a bunch of well-wishes, good-lucks and way-to-goes.

My sister had a singing thing to go do up town, so I said goodbye to her and caught a cab downtown to the Village. Would the Village be more like Chelsea, or more like Hells Kitchen?

Well I’m pleased to say that the Village was like Hells Kitchen. Shop keepers and bartenders told me “tear down what ever’s out of date and put of your poster”, or “I have a lot of customers I think would really like to see this, can I have a few more cards?” I criss-crossed Bleeker and Christopher streets, Greenwich Ave, and Hudson, went up and down West 4th twice. Every where people were nice and interested and congratulatory. They made me feel like I had accomplished something special by having my movie play in New York! It was fun, and my spirits were buoyed!

Monday I made hand-deliveries to editors at HX and Gay City and Next. I stopped by both Babeland stores and got a warm welcome, and they turned me onto a few joints in their neigborhoods that were hip to having the poster up. I went to the Pioneer theater and they were nice enough to let me put out cards (they rent my movies at their Two Boots Video). I stopped by Kim’s Video on St. Mark’s Place, and all the cool indie kids said “congrats!” and “good luck”!

Then on the way home I visited my lab and my telecine house, and everyone came out and clapped me on the back. “Best Documentary! Good for you!” Higher-ups were fetched to see the poster, and everyone had a good laugh at the big “Banned” red dot. Not many people shot porn or docs on film anymore, and these were just the people who could appreciated what a risk I took shooting D&H on film. All the NYU film students who came in, their 100′ daylight spools of 16mm in hand, were eager to take cards, and excited to meet a real live DIY filmmaker who actually shoots film and makes a living.

I got back to my neighborhood, got a meatball hero and a beer. I ate the sandwich and drank the beer, and was asleep by nine o’clock and didn’t wake till nine this morning. Tonight is the opening party for CineKink. I’ve got a few posters left so I suppose I’ll take them. There are just enough postcards for the screening itself.

The last few days feels a bit mad. I actually lost a notch on my belt from all the walking around, and there were some moment where I thought I must be a bit crazy going door to door in Manhattan and with my poster and cards and DVDs. But here now, after three solid days, I think it was the right thing to do. Google results for “Comstock Films” have spiked and so have sales, so maybe people are actually seeing the poster, going home, and getting on their computer to find out who we are.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking about the word “shameless”. One of the things I love about making my movies is when it looks as though the people are so lost in their pleasure that they’ve gone entirely beyond caring that the camera is there. Somewhere Saturday late evening I stopped caring about how silly I felt trudging up and down Eighth Ave with my little cart. Not caring didn’t make it fun, but it did allow me to keep going. I was shameless, and that shamelessness took me into the very nice days that I had Sunday and Monday, and now a few hundred more people know about DAMON AND HUNTER and Comstock Films, and that’s a lot better than a sharp stick in the eye!

More film festival news! This time the world premiere of XANA AND DAX: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT at the Berlin Porn Film Festival. XANA AND DAX will screen October 22th at 10pm at the Kant Kino 5 at Kantstraat #54.

XANA AND DAX is an inside look at the sexual and emotional relationship of Xana and Dax Star, and is said by critics to contain the most intimate 69ing footage ever captured on film. Just this Summer, XANA AND DAX was named Best Straight Sex Scene at the 2006 Emma Awards for Feminist Porn in Toronto Canada.

The Berlin arts festival will also include works from many of the worlds most provocative erotic artists, including: Andreas Fux, Bruce LaBruce, Richard Kern, Maria Cyber, Anja Weber, Emilie Jouvet, Christine Wons, Nan Goldin, Charles Gatewood, Henning von Berg, Isabelle McEwen, Eon McKai, Emilie Jouvet, Annie Sprinkle, Maria Beatty, Todd Verow, Jerry Douglas, Benjamin Meade, Yuji Kitano, Chris Ho, Maria Cyber, Andreas Fux, Christina Wons, Anja Weber, Petra Joy, Eran Kedar, Louis Dupont, Jörg Andreas, Falk Lux, Horst Braun, Akihiro Suzuki, Ela Troyano and Tessa Hughes-Freeland.

Comstock Films produces award-winning, documentary-style erotic films that explore and celebrate the connection and chemistry of real couples having real sex. Comstock Films titles have enjoyed worldwide recognition as outstanding achievements in cinema, appearing in festivals and taking home prizes in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany and here in the US.

Other Comstock Films titles include MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, named Best Documentary and Best Overall at the 2002 SinCine New York Erotic Film Festival and Best of the Fest at the 2002 Sexual Health and Pleasure Film Festival; DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER, name Best Documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival; and the soon to be released MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER, Comstock Films’ first shot-on-film, anamorphic widescreen title featuring a straight couple.

DAMOM AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER will have its US premiere at the 2006 CineKink Film Festival, going on October 17-22 at the Anthology Film Archive in New York, NY.

DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER will screen on Saturday October 21 at 8:30PM, and director Tony Comstock will be part of a panel with other New York erotic filmmakers Candida Royalle, Joanna Angel, Joe Gallant, and Michael Lucas, and moderated by Audacia Ray, held at 4:30PM that same day.

DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER is the third in an ongoing series of documentaries from New York based director Tony Comstock. Comstock’s films explore the real and vital role that sexual pleasure plays in human relationships, depict it graphically, and celebrate its power. In this case, the couple in question are long time lovers Damon DeMarco and Hunter James, and the film centers around an explicit portrayal of Damon and Hunter making love.

In July DAMON AND HUNTER was name Best Documentary at the Melbourne Underground Film Festival in Melbourne Australia, but was subsequently banned by the Australian government from showing at the 2006 QueerDOC Gay and Lesbian Film Festival held this September in Sydney Australia.

Says director Tony Comstock, “I’ve long known that by making a movie like DAMON AND HUNTER I was charting a course toward making films that would ask provocative questions about collision of sex and the moving image, and personal freedom and the boundaries of the legitimate role of the state. But in all honesty, I never expected DAMON AND HUNTER would be the one to bring these issues to the fore. It’s a very tender-hearted film, there’s really nothing “controversial” about it in anyway, save the fact that we actually see what physical love between two men looks like in intimate detail. I can’t think of a better way to get over the disappointment of not having the film screen in Sydney than by having our hometown premiere at CineKink!”

CineKink is an organization that recognizes and encourages the positive depiction of alternative sexuality in film and television, most visibly through its annual film festival, CineKink NYC.

Comstock Films produces award-winning, documentary-style erotic films that explore and celebrate the connection and chemistry of real couples having real sex. Comstock Films titles have enjoyed worldwide recognition as outstanding achievements in cinema, appearing in festivals and taking home prizes in Canada, Australia, Sweden, Germany and here in the US.

Other Comstock Films titles include MARIE AND JACK: A HARDCORE LOVE STORY, named Best Documentary and Best Overall at the 2002 SinCine New York Erotic Film Festival and Best of the Fest at the 2002 Sexual Health and Pleasure Film Festival; XANA AND DAX: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT, named Hottest Straight Sex Scene at the 2006 Emma Awards for feminist porn in Toronto, Canada; and the soon to be released MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER, Comstock Films’ first shot-on-film, anamorphic widescreen title featuring a straight couple.

One of the reasons we can make the films we make is because we have a dedicated and patient group of investors that help fund our work. I’m speaking, of course, of the people who take us up on our pre-order offer for upcoming films.

We started the pre-order program with XANA AND DAX: WHEN OPPOSITES ATTRACT. Clever folks jumped on our pre-order offer and got XANA AND DAX for only $12.95.

Some of the folks who pre-ordered DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER waited as much as a year. But in the end their patience was rewarded with an award-winning film at a discount price! (How many other no risk* investments double your money in a year or less?)

Now everyone who had the good sense to get in on the ground floor with MATT AND KHYM: BETTER THAN EVER is about to see their “investment” pay a handsome return. The narrative has been sequenced and distilled, the sex scene cut together.

Now the whole thing gets viewed and reviewed, looking for what I call the “flat spots”–places where the rhythm and pace bogs down or stumbles, places where the meaning becomes unfocused and attention drifts. This is the real work of editing, this is what turns a sequence of shots into a film.

Meanwhile, Peggy is working on the box-cover art for MATT AND KHYM. Nothing fancy, no tricks to make you think there’s something in the box that’s not really in there. A nice photo, some nice typography. Like the film itself, it’s all about rhythm and balance. It’s about simply letting the film speak for itself.

And to those still waiting on ASHLEY AND KISHA, you have not been forgotten. Whenever I get stuck on MATT AND KHYM I turn my attention to ASHLEY AND KISHA. It’s going to be a lovely film, well worth the wait.

So with the release of MATT AND KHYM just around the corner, I want to take a minute to thank everyone who has pre-ordered a title from us. Your “investment” helps take a little of the pressure off of things around here and lets us take the time to make these movies the way they need to be made. Without you’d we’d have to be churning them out just like everyone else, and that’s something we’re just not interested in doing, and I don’t think you’d be interested in seeing “churned out movies” either. When you think of it that way, I don’t think there’s any other no risk* investments that pay these kinds of dividends!

*All pre-orders are 100% refundable at any time before they ship, for any reason or for no reason at all. Simply ask, and we’ll happy refund your order.