FOR THOSE who have never been to HUMP!—the annual festival of five-minute amateur porn flicks created by your sex-loving neighbors right here in the Pacific Northwest—The Best of HUMP! tour is a terrific gateway drug. [Full disclosure: The Best of HUMP! is a Mercury event—but hand to god, it's as good as I say.]
Curated by sex advice guru Dan Savage, The Best of HUMP! includes 18 of his favorite submissions from past festivals—the majority of this year's selections being from 2013 and 2014. So how's it different from watching free internet porn at home? Simply put, HUMP! has heart. The films are sexy, self-deprecating, boastful, hilarious, celebratory, and every one has a plot. But the biggest distinction? HUMP! finalists are normal folks who aren't being paid to have sex—they're doing it for the love of the game, and enjoying every second. Does that happen in your stay-at-home porn?
This year's tour highlights include the 2009 Portland entry Cyclust—in which two female cyclists have wicked hot sex in stop motion—as well as the highly inventive Rube (2014), which marries Mr. Goldberg's famous machine with various sexual acts. Music also plays a big part in the dance video Twincest (2010), featuring needlepoint pictures of twin siblings getting it on (!!), as well as another Portland entry, Humparoke (2014), that has one of the steamiest singing-in-the-shower scenes you're likely to witness. Cardboard silhouettes even get freaky in the gorgeous and artistic Miller's Daughter (2011) and the "meet-not-so-cute" story Gloryhole (2014), about a gay couple who fall in love in an adult bookstore, which is simultaneously hot and adorably romantic.
It may not have all your past favorites, but this year's Best of HUMP! is a fun trip down memory lane, and a great intro to the annual fall festival. Either way, it's one of the most liberating movie theater experiences you're likely to encounter.