Drew Turney
If you’re a connoisseur of porn of a certain age (you, not the porn), this documentary will be a trip down memory lane. Before the internet-age of sites like www.watchmygirlfriend.xxx, porn was certainly much different. If you’re a beret wearing cinephile you’ll be able to watch it and sound all cool and edgy as you discuss how porn, movie-watching technology and mainstream entertainment all cross pollinate each other in a never-ending dance.
Even if you watch it hoping for the occasional flash of rude bits (and who isn’t?), it’s good fun and there’s at least a legitimate dimension of historical appreciation to make you feel like you’re not just watching a best-of grot film, but I guess if you do want such films you could head on over to somewhere like instafap.
Starting with Deep Throat and going right through to the advent of the DVD age, a series of talking heads from the industry recount the films we should consider ‘important’ in porn, how they were made, how they were received and the often outsized impact they had on culture – especially when many of the people involved were recruited to star for some paltry sum in some stupid stag film they thought nobody would ever see.
It looks at about a dozen films, tells the story of how they were conceived and includes some comment from host Chanel Preston, who interviews the stars and directors.
In the case of Deep Throat (1972) and Behind the Green Door (1972), they made porn cool in the same inexplicable way Fifty Shades of Grey did for erotic fiction decades later. Neither are good movies – even particularly good porn movies (er… so we’re told by a friend) – fate just saw fit to bestow them with the power to send porn mainstream.
Each film is included in the list for a different reason. 2005’s Pirates involved elaborate sets and design, CGI and a huge budget (at least, huge for an industry that had been disemboweled by online piracy). 1998’s Flashpoint X was the first porno to contain real special effects and stunts; it was about firefighters and contained real fire effects surrounding the actors as they banged each other.
There are lots of recognisable faces (and other body parts) from the last 40 years or more like Marilyn Chambers, Jenna Jameson, Ron Jeremy and more who talk about their careers and recollections, and there are lots of classic tidbits you’ll appreciate.
Just one is that when pornstars are talking about their careers they tend to have a slightly inflated opinion of their talents as actors and entertainment craftspeople, but it’s left to French actor Manuel Ferrera to chuckle as he talks about a director telling him to change a line and saying ‘I think it’s better when I don’t talk’.
It’s good fun, titillating enough if it’s too early in the evening for Youporn.com and has some interesting media history to impart.
Ultimately, if all this talk of porn has got you feeling hot under the collar, you might feel tempted to spice up your sex life with the services of a high-class escort. To find an escort in your area, head to eroticmonkey.ch/#erotic.
