| --Friday, February 29, 2008--
Laura Albert might be the next porn crossover
 Laura Albert (right) published three books under the name JT LeRoy and employed others (such as the woman to the left) to adopt the invented persona of LeRoy, a male teen prodigy/prostitute/AIDS afflictee.
When the story broke in 2006 that the 40-ish Albert had invented the whole thing, she was sued by her publisher and shunned by LeRoy's early supporters; they felt betrayed when what they'd been led to believe about the author had turned out to be a lie.
It turns out Albert had fashioned a lifetime of such behavior into a career.
Dave Eggers, interviewed for an excellent LA Weekly story about Albert, said, "I teach writing to high school students, and every year, I have a kid whose writing is great, and I ask myself, is it really great, or do I think it's great because a 15-year-old wrote it? You can never separate it."
Albert herself felt victimized by the ill will generated by her unmasking, but dismissed it as "sour grapes."
Speaking of her entourage and former supporters, Albert told the LA Weekly that "We were really there (to spread) joy and love."
Her work was judged the way it was because people believed she was someone else, rather than on the work itself.
What sort of allowances do you think consumers make when faced with the invented personae of porn?
Previously: "You're not one of us"; Cultural learnings of the Abby Winters girls
See also: The lies and follies of Laura Albert, aka JT LeRoy (laweekly)
Labels: books, commentary, news
posted by Gram the Man
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Riley Steele (TM) gives up her pink trademarkhead
 Cruel Digital Playground. Do they expect me to just give up my manageable, wholesome crush on Stoya by trotting out the virginal Riley Steele (TM)? Apparently, because not only will Steele (TM) perform her first boy/girl scene in the ever-upcoming Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge, but she has also given up her tender brand identity. You should only do that for someone you love, but it looks mutual.
While the promo pictures do look slightly like those of Jesse Jane (TM), I am assured that they are not the same person. You will also notice that Steele (TM) is so new that only one picture exists of her.
"Riley is the total package and the perfect compliment (sic) to our contract star roster," Digital Playground founder Samantha Lewis said in a statement.
Not to be outdone, Steele (TM) fired back: "Digital Playground is a class act and by far the best."
"Oh you," Digital Playground then said.
"Oh you," Steele (TM) replied.
Then I trademarked the word you (TM). Make those checks payable to Gram Ponante Towers, Aviary, Helipad, Gentle-Kill Abbatoir, and Lobster Hatchery suckers!
Previously: Stoya avoids labels
See also: Digital PlaygroundLabels: "contract girls", Digital Playground, riley steele, stoya
posted by Gram the Man
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--Thursday, February 28, 2008--
Ava Rose at home
 I spoke at length with Ava Rose in her Silver Lake home yesterday. Our discussion ranged from why her dog was humping my leg to why I shouldn't feel threatened when the dog started humping a bigger, thicker table leg.
"He likes you," she said.
I should use that excuse the next time I hump somebody. ("But I like you. What? Come on, Baby; I'm a working man.")
We also talked about Resident Evil: Extinction.
"I haven't seen it yet," Rose said. "But I like the idea of Las Vegas in ruins."
You might notice Rose is standing next to a poster for the Spanish film "Ava Rosa." This was not where she got her name. I can't reveal the real reason.
The full interview will appear next week.
Previously: Backstage at the XBiz Awards; Night of 101 Girls PleasantLabels: Ava Rose, interviews, photos
posted by Gram the Man
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Madison Young is the perfect date
 I usually encounter Madison Young when she is being smacked, humiliated, or otherwise being dragged around by a chain. I should not have been surprised to see her at a poetry slam.
"Well, I made the movie to promote literacy," she said.
The short Writers And Rockstars, available on her website, is as close to perfect as a porn scene can get, and it pulls off something remarkable: with an airy chick rock soundtrack and its female-centered story, it is ostensibly a female-friendly movie that nevertheless caters to a singular male fantasy.
Read what that is here.
Previously: Perfection
See also: Madison BoundLabels: BDSM, fetish, madison young, san francisco
posted by Gram the Man
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--Tuesday, February 26, 2008--
Audrey Bitoni: Not that kind of Cardassian
 By astutely feigning ignorance of Kim Kardashian, the producers of Getting It Up with the Kardassians instead stumble full force into a group more rabid than O.J. Simpson lawyers, Wheaties-bound decathletes, and the divided realm of Armenia: Star Trek fans.
What would the legendary Cardassian Union founding father Tret Akleen think about Audrey Bitoni's performance as Kim Kardassian?
"I wouldn't kick her off the holodeck of my Galor-class warship for eating Larish pie," he said. "Also, I would like to eat taspar eggs off her ass."
Previously: Audrey Bitoni: Comin' at Ya!
See also: VenomLabels: audrey bitoni, geekery, new porn daily, venom
posted by Gram the Man
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Christa Faust's "Money Shot"; Tina Tyler talks about Angel Dare
 Angel Dare is a former porn star and current adult talent manager who is tricked into one final scene by an old friend. Her scene partner, he says, is a newish male performer who has always been an Angel Dare fan.
Christa Faust's "Money Shot" delivers more than pulp thrillers should and, as it was written using Porn Valley and its professionals as main characters, it is a compelling read.
Faust spent time as a fetish model and peep show booth worker, and her descriptions of adult industry personnel are spot-on, from the lingering insecurity of people who have nevertheless spent hundreds of hours naked on camera to the rare, rewarding, and/or fragile relationships they maintain.
"I wanted Angel to be at the top of her game; smart, savvy and satisfied with the career she created for herself," Faust told me. "(I felt) it was important to create a female protagonist who was not simply a 'victim' of the adult film industry, as is so often the case in fiction and film. Far too often, women who feature in adult videos are viewed as having hit rock bottom."
When Dare is nearly murdered, she seeks not only to change the fate of others on her attackers' list but also vengeance, and her journey from complacence to ass-kickery is the story the book tells.
On the way, "Money Shot" visits familiar spots in the Valley, drops a few names for credibility, and explores the psyche of porn stars of a certain age.
"I have worked in the fetish end of the adult film industry for years, both behind and in front of the camera," Faust said. "I spent a lot of time on sets, talking with, and more importantly listening to people in every aspect of the business from talent and shooters to editors and producers."
"Money Shot" was published by the New York house Hard Case Crime. The cover is satisfyingly lurid. Faust also makes money by writing horror movie novelizations and serials, such as for the "Final Destination" and "Friday the 13th" movies.
As I read the book I couldn't help but picture Tina Tyler as Angel Dare. Faust said she didn't have anyone in mind.
Described as "The Thinking Man's Porn Star" ("Some of my fans thought that was an insult," Tyler said, "as if my appeal was limited to thinking people"), Tyler quit performing a few years ago and started directing. Unlike Dare, Tyler says she was never tempted to return to the other side of the camera.
"Even by the time I was done onscreen I was done," she said.
Like Dare, however, Tyler is sadder-but-wiser and doesn't mythologize the porn industry.
I asked her what form propositions from fans take lately.
"It was always uncomfortable," Tyler said, "but it's more so now, because I don't see myself through those eyes anymore."
Tyler is amazed by fans who recognize her even when she's not wearing makeup.
"Those are the real fans," she said, "who know more about me than I do. They want more from you in any given public moment than any other person and you have to be cordial with them and let them down in the same breath."
 I loaned "Money Shot" to Tyler and she read it in a few days. This photograph was taken at the Lamplighter Restaurant in Chatsworth, which Faust failed to mention, but then again the photo was staged.
"Some of the plot points shocked me," Tyler said. "In a good way."
Always going above and beyond, Tyler provided a written book report:
I was really looking forward to reading this novel and wasn't disappointed in the least. The heroine Angel Dare's journey from aging porn star to ass kicking survivor is riveting and impossible to put down. I was impressed with Ms. Faust's knowledge of the adult industry as a whole and loved the 2257 info as a plot point.
 Ms. Faust has a keen perception and must have talked to a few women in this business at length, as every female character rang true. The men on the other hand were rather one-dimensional and stereotypical. However, this just drives the point home that even strong women in this business suffer from lower esteem than your average woman and don't feel they deserve true happiness with a man that will treat them right, preferring instead to follow their genitals into situations that their brain screams No to.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in the opening of the book; it's Angel's pussy and insecurity over her (in her mind) fading looks that put her in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The men in this novel seemingly have no redeeming values, from the sadistic stud Jesse, to Malloy the former cop/bodyguard and all the men in between, they all betray our heroine in some real way. I don't believe this was meant as a slam, but in any crime novel your bad guys need to be so bad that you root for your heroes that much more.
The reader needs to remember that this is fiction (with a few famous names and streets thrown in) and as fiction "Money Shot" really does its job well. I read it cover to cover in three days and wanted more when it was over.
"Money Shot" is the perfect marriage of two of my favortite things, the adult indiustry and brilliant crime fiction. Kudos to Ms. Faust for crafting a story that all women should read. It left me feeling empowered. I mentioned that Dare is ultimately abandoned by the one person the reader isn't expected to suspect, and seems to shrug it off.
"That kind of taking it in stride comes from a lifetime of betrayal."
Previously: Tina Tyler refuses to stop being hot; At home with Lexington Steele; Area code impurity to destroy Valley, porn
See also: Christa Faust
Labels: books, interviews, tine tyler
posted by Gram the Man
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--Saturday, February 23, 2008--
Minstrel in the Gallery Bertinelli
 "Grams, you don't spend enough time synthesizing the appeal of Jethro Tull and One Day at a Time on your award-winning web-site," is a complaint I hear almost as often as "How come you don't think I'm a genius the way my mom does?"
I have started to compile a comprehensive list of the photos I've taken in the event that I am taken down in a hail of bullets as is so often the fate of crusading porn journalists who know too much about how most of the cumshots in gay porn and interactive straight videos are fake.
You can look at the starter gallery page here.Labels: "set visits", fotos, WGL
posted by Gram the Man
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--Friday, February 22, 2008--
Jewel De'Nyle and the rise of the British Empire
 Now assay, said Sir Ector unto Sir Kay. And anon he pulled at the sword with all his might; but it would not be. Now shall ye assay, said Sir Ector to Arthur. I will well, said Arthur, and pulled it out easily. And therewithal Sir Ector knelt down to the earth, and Sir Kay. Alas, said Arthur, my own dear father and brother, why kneel ye to me? Nay, nay, my lord Arthur, it is not so; I was never your father nor of your blood, but I wot well ye are of an higher blood than I weened ye were. See the review of The Notorious Jewel De'Nyle and Shelly Martinez here.
Previously: Study: Women require orgasmsLabels: geekery, jewel de'nyle, literature, reviews, shelly martinez
posted by Gram the Man
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--Thursday, February 21, 2008--
Conversations with porn writers: Why Alexis Texas' ass subverts the dominant paradigm
 Rarely does porn dare to examine college life. Usually it goes straight from high school to MILFhood. But Ashlynn Goes to College 2 is different. It deals tenderly with issues of class, privilege, and giving lapdances to gang members.
I had a thoughtful conversation with Wayne Hentai, the screenwriter of this movie. I didn't let the cult of celebrity surrounding porn screenwriters like so many barnacles on a battleship dissuade me from asking the hard questions.
GP: Did you have sex with Ashlynn Brooke to understand her essence for the movie?
Hentai: No. No, I didn't.
GP: What did you want to say to America with this film? I notice that you have Alexis Texas playing a cable repair person - a role traditionally reserved for men.
WH: I wanted to make a statement against the patriarchy and the occupational stereotypes that permeate porn.
GP: Yes, yes.
WH: It's very revolutionary when you think about it.
GP: I am thinking about it. But that scene in the narrative landscape of the movie, that scene with Tommy Gunn and Alexis Texas, neither of whom you see or hear about again, well, it didn't need to happen, did it?
WH: It did, in its own way, because you get to look at Alexis Texas' ass. Isn't that a reason unto itself?
See the review of Ashlynn Goes to College 2 here.
Previously: A Night of Heroes
See also: New Sensations, Hentai PRLabels: alexis texas, Ashlynn Brooke, interviews, new sensations, Tommy Gunn, wayne hentai
posted by Gram the Man
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Tragedy: Sunny no longer loves Matt
 Sunny Leone has broken up with fiancé Matt Erickson, her first onscreen male partner, making the title of her Boy/Girl debut, Sunny Loves Matt, retroactively incorrect.
The Canoga Park-based International Porn Naming Registry voted Thursday to add a silent "...at least when this movie was shot" to the title. Should the movie win any awards or otherwise be mentioned aloud, the speaker will be required to indicate the amendment with a subtle undulating hand gesture.
The "...at least..." amendment was first invoked in 1998, when reality porn company Empowerment released Real East Coast College Lesbians, only to be rebuked by a Family Research Council study that found that 100 percent of the cast had bolted to heterosexual relationships within seven days of graduation.
Leone is now working with other male talent, but is not engaged to them.
Read the review of Sunny Loves Matt here.
Previously: Sunny Leone channels Sir Mixalot
See also: VividLabels: standards and practices, sunny leone, vivid, WGL
posted by Gram the Man
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Report: Purchases of "Gene Simmons" sex tape limited to people who already find Gene Simmons repugnant
 The triumph of the "Gene Simmons" sex tape is that, even though the dude in the video doesn't really look like the Kiss buffoon, people believe that Simmons would be delusional enough to release such an unflattering movie, so it might be him after all.
See how it works? Simmons is meta all the way to the bank.
I think of Peter Criss' "Beth":
Beth, I hear you calling
But I can't come home right now
(You see) Me and the boys are playing
And we just can't find the sound (not surprising, considering it's Kiss)
Just a few more hours
And I'll be right home to you
I think I hear them calling -
Beth, what can I do?
It is tragic that the only useful member of that band was also incapable of having the balls to stay home with poor, long-suffering Beth. That he "thought" he heard the boys calling and then was spineless enough to ask for her advice only cements my opinion that proximity to Gene Simmons makes everyone abhorrent.
Everyone with a website has written about the purported Gene Simmons sex tape (AVN got it first) but no one has said it was good. The man's partner refuses to kiss him - three times - and both look off to the left side of the bed, perhaps to see themselves in the monitor.
The radio plays power ballads by Foreigner and Steve Perry. Yes, you should've been gone.
 But whether Simmons is good at what he does or not has never been the point. Meta celebrity means never having to be good at something.
So it seems that the only people forking over the 30 bucks to the Panama-based site hosting the tryst (allegedly) between Simmons and an Austrian (not Australian) sports drink spokesmodel are pundits, because nobody actually likes the movie, which is like the sexual equivalent of the Daniel Pearl video.
Then we get to wonder if the man in the video is actually Simmons, and with each speculation, somewhere money is accruing interest in someone's offshore bank account.
Here is a Terry Gross interview with Simmons, in which the latter just sounds like an ass.
Listening to this broadcast reminds me of people in porn who, like Simmons, chuckle at their own well-rehearsed soundbites while their interviewers throw up a little in their mouths.
It's such a train wreck that Yes, that might actually be Gene Simmons with that poor girl. Either that or a posthumous Wayne Newton.
(ADDENDUM: I contacted Jon Stevens, whose e-mail was provided as the administrative contact of the domain genessecret.com- thought the registrar was listed as Roberrto Rodriguez. Mr. Sevens said:
The man is gene simmons, the girl is one of Franks Energy drink's girls, believed to be Elsa.
we believe gene has given permission to broadcast.) -emphasis added- Calling Dr. Love (to Please Euthanize Us) - Fleshbot
See also: Gene's SecretLabels: "gene simmons", celebrities, commentary, hype, just wrong, meta
posted by Gram the Man
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--Wednesday, February 20, 2008--
Hookers And Blow: An important film
 Joe's hooker addiction is interfering with his drug habit.
I know some people consider "Hair" or "Dirty Dancing" to be their generation's movies, but not until Brandon Iron's Hookers And Blow did I find a film about my life.
See the review here.
Previously: "This girl is half his age."Labels: brandon iron, las drogas, minireview, new porn daily, wendy west
posted by Gram the Man
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--Tuesday, February 19, 2008--
Porn Screenwriting: Money Can Buy a Happy Ending
I wrote a porn screenwriting article for XBiz and it was published there a few months ago. Since then I got a complaint from a director who felt I misrepresented him, so I've left his name out of my edit of the article.
 How do we recognize good screenwriting in a business that, sales show, has no need to value it? Porn's screenwriters say that there are more differences than the presence of the word "blowbang" between the scripts of Porn Valley and Hollywood.
EXT. CHATSWORTH APARTMENT - AFTERNOON
DICK knocks on door of Apartment 69. Shirt open to his navel, he carries bags of delivery food. He checks his watch, ad libs other impatient gestures (suggestion: watch passage of sun across sky, sigh heavily, look at watch again).
DICK
Damn. I'm impatient.
Door opens to reveal AMBER. She is perfectly made up and in high heels. Otherwise, she is wearing a bathrobe that is threatening to fall open. We can see she is braless.
AMBER
Hi.
DICK
I brought your Indian food.
AMBER
Oh, really?
DICK
Yeah. Really.
THEY exchange smoldering glances.
AMBER
Do they have blowbangs in India?
DICK
I'm Lakota Sioux, baby. (And Yes.)
B/G SCENE ONE The first rule of writing is to write what you know. This either means that fast food delivery personnel across Los Angeles are the luckiest men in the world or that porn screenwriters are breaking the first rule of writing. It is probably the latter, and that is because screenwriting for porn follows a different set of rules.
It is a cliche to deride porn's scripts in the same way it is fashionable to dismiss awards for acting in adult movies. But while it is a disservice to porn to make it play by the rules of mainstream fare - for budget reasons, if for no others - we will see that porn scripts face their biggest challenges when attempting the quality of the least Hollywood script.
This makes it difficult for screenwriters who know the expectations but who stalk the elusive quality porn script regardless; the script that seamlessly blends the required sex with a compelling reason to have it.
"I know that I can write the best porn script in the world and it will still be judged below the lowest piece of Hollywood crap," said director Eli Cross, whose "Corruption" (written with Alvin Edwards) won the Best Screenplay prize at this year's AVN awards. The grim tale of the moral unraveling of a U.S. Senator also picked up numerous acting awards from adult outlets, with Cross routinely recognized as Best Director.
Writing often seems at odds with the goals of porn producers, who strive to deliver as much sex as possible. Managers of several L.A. area video stores interviewed for this story reported that their top ten rentals were all all-sex titles, with couples movies like Digital Playground's "Pirates" far down the list.
Sales of scripted porn movies are far brisker on the Internet, said Ron Austin, buyer for Inglewood's Wildcat Distributors. "The stores are still the home of the raincoat boys," he said, "and they look for theme or girl or sex act, not script.
"People who come to the stores are obviously the ones who are not too embarrassed by it," he said. "But even people who want the tamer Wicked Pictures products tend to go online, as do the people who want the really nasty stuff we can't sell in stores due to local ordinances."
Purveyors of scripted materials also have to contend with the emerging pay-per-scene or, even more threatening, pay-per-minute VOD markets.
But that doesn't mean porn's screenwriters will be out of a job.
"The feature isn't dead," said Vivid veteran Paul Thomas, whose feature "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again" recently won top honors at Berlin's Venus Fair, "but it doesn't have the market share it once did."
Further, fetish stylemaker Ernest Greene, who directed last year's "O; The Power of Submission", points out that "every new technology and format convinces people of the death of the old ones, but that isn't always true."
So if the feature isn't dead and most studios, for reasons of prestige, boredom, or genuine interest, aren't planning to give them up, what are the secrets of a successful porn script?
The most important is that a porn script is a different animal from a mainstream script, a play, an infomercial, or a Powerpoint presentation; it is a genre unto itself.
"We ask, 'How does the sex find its way into this movie?'" said "Upload" co-writer Edwards. The sci-fi script called for a cast of more than 40, and the film was almost a month in production. "'What does the sex reveal about the characters?' 'How do we make sex and the story one and the same, where a deficit of one will mean the deficit of another, and vice versa?'"
Edwards said that "Upload"'s reported $375,000 budget helped preserve the creative elements that would otherwise get stripped away from a standard porn with a budget of $30k.
"The money made it happen," Edwards said.
Indeed, Paul Thomas' AVN acceptance speech for 1996' "Bobby Sox" thanked the money as much as the actors.
"If the right people had the right budgets, as I did here, there would be more great movies," he said.
As a large percentage of today's porns are gonzos with setups as limited in length and character development as the snippet that opened this story, many performers would rather not be bothered with dialogue.
"I show up on set and of course my agent hasn't told me that there's dialogue," said one female performer known mostly for gonzo roles but who lately has been showing up in features. "So I'm not motivated to learn lines; it's not like I'm being paid any more for it."
The actress, who chose to remain anonymous, makes a good point. She can earn just as much money in a gonzo with no dialogue, where she will be in and out, as it were, in a few hours, and possibly even make it to another shoot the same day, as she would in a feature that would require her to turn down other work.
Performers are paid by the blowjob, or the double penetration, or the race of their partner. These are notated as "BJ", "DP", and "interracial" on the various adult talent booking sites. Not one mentions "dialogue". Since performers are not paid to act in this most capitalist of businesses, it is not incredible that they don't.
"So sometimes, when I know it's a feature, I conveniently get sick," the actress said (and this is why she chose to remain anonymous), "and shoot web content instead."
"You have to think of the performers as dollie heads," said director Gazzman, production manager of London's Harmony Films and winner of AVN's Best Foreign Feature for "The Scottish Loveknot". "You're never sure if someone isn't going to be there on the day of filming, so you need to make the parts as interchangeable as possible."
Cross echoes this sentiment almost to the exact wording (except the American says "doll" rather than "dollie"). "One consideration when writing the script is being conscious of the real possibility someone won't show up."
Despite comparatively huge (for porn) budgets for "Corruption" and this year's "Upload", Cross still contended with the no-shows and flakes ubiquitous in the porn industry. "You can have someone locked and then suddenly she'll get a boyfriend who only wants her to do girls," Cross said. "So there goes your anal scene."
This does not happen in Hollywood, where performers would do double, or even triple anal scenes if the money was right.
Porn scripts, once written on doomed napkins the day of filming, are now computerized. Some even make it to the cast before the shoot.
"But it's not like they courier it over," said the actress.
Even though many porn screenwriters type their scripts into Hollywood-standard screenwriting programs like Final Draft and Movie Magic (and Cross and Edwards used the Hollywood term "pink pages" to describe one part of the revision process, which is understandably ambiguous in their chosen industry), most feature porn scripts are 15-to-20 page affairs saved in Microsoft Word.
"I write it down and have my secretary type it up," said one industry veteran who thought I wasn’t painting him in the right light so I took out his name, whose recent feature script ran to nine pages and was filmed in one day, along with most of another movie. "There were sex scenes going on all over the house."
But most feature directors bemoan the limited budgets and tight deadlines of a studio system afraid of breaking the formula of five-to-six sex scenes in a movie in which one needs to be girl/girl and another needs to be anal.
"I know a lot of people who end up putting their own money into their movies (directed for other studios)," said "O"'s Greene, "just so they can retain a semblance of honesty to the script."
Jim Powers makes movies for Sin City and JM Productions. Most are filmed in a day. "I know there are limitations," he said, "and I work within them."
Powers, who is a prolific moviemaker, is representative of porn's writer/directors who aren't aspiring to Great Art.
"Porn is what it is," he said on the set of a MILF movie. "Guys watch porn for five to seven minutes at a pop, then hide the DVD, then watch it the next day. I guess your dialogue needs to fit in there somewhere."
One way to handle dialogue that actors don't want to learn and that directors don't have time to direct is by layering on a blanket of voiceovers.
"It's a shortcut to at least approaching an effective narrative," said Rebecca Gray, whose script (with Ren Savant) for Vivid's "Seven Deadly Sins" won AVN's 1999 screenplay honor. "If you can't get actors where you want them to be, you can solve a lot of problems with a voiceover."
Gray recalls hiring out of work Hollywood voice talent for several films for this purpose. "They charge less than porn actors," she said, "and they're motivated to do a good job because a voiceover is the most anonymous thing you can do in porn and still get to brag about being in porn. It's all the glory with none of the consequences."
And as Hollywood has a fascination with porn, so does porn relentlessly attempt to go Hollywood. Wicked Pictures is the most earnest of the Hollywood wannabes, with director/writer/contract girl Stormy Daniels churning out high gloss porn versions of Hollywood movies, most recently "Operation Desert Stormy", a hybrid of "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", and the "James Bond" and "Austin Powers" series. The budget was reportedly $250,000, which Wicked used for screening parties, creative swag boxes for press, and both an airplane and a live camel in the movie.
Daniels, like Paul Thomas before her, maintained that the money was essential to the success of the movie. "This is an expensive movie because it needs to be expensive," she said on the first day of shooting.
Most of the writers and directors interviewed for this story highlighted workarounds like voiceovers and interchangeable characters, and each mentioned money as integral to the success of a feature. Working independently of studios, or working as autonomously as possible within studios, was also considered a plus.
"I appreciate the freedom Wicked gave me," Daniels said.
And it was only when constraints of time and budget were relaxed that some felt they could do their best work.
"We had money, so we could buy time," said Edwards. "And with the time, Eli (Cross) could direct, and the actors didn't have six other sets to go to that day."
"And we had people on set who weren't 'feature' types," Cross added, "who hadn't had the opportunity to do a lot of acting in porn before." Here Cross mentioned Eva Angelina, who he said not only auditioned (this is what a $375k budget buys) but also "did a brilliant job."
Another porn cliche is that of the failed artist who cannot get work anywhere else but who succeeds in porn as the smartest monkey in the zoo. This serves as a cautionary tale to screenwriters writing for their employers and not their audience.
"Porn has become more acceptable to educated people," said Wayne Hentai of Hentai PR, a marketing firm for porn companies and personalities. "The Internet has made porn safe for women and couples who don't want to go into the dirty bookstores. But they come to the picture with higher expectations."
Hentai mentioned misspelled boxcovers and movies with boom shadows and audible offstage banter.
"You can put on airs and talk about Nabokov all you want in your porn movie," Hentai said. "But if you can't get your lead actress to pronounce 'Lolita' properly, the jig's up."
A veteran director says porn movies need to be simple. "You need the hot girl, and everything else is just you winking at the camera. But the viewer is looking at the hot girl."
Everyone agrees that the porn script is its own thing; it has a structure particular to it. Whether that structure is populated with five or six simple setups and sex scenes or if it is, like "Upload", a film Edwards calls "a porn movie for sci-fi geeks, complete with a lexicon on disc four," the structure has to compell viewers beyond those five to seven minutes.
And the script is as important an investment as a perfect under the muscle boob job (though porn scripts are far less expensive).
Justin Kane, the writer/director of this year's comedy "Spunk'd", shopped around the treatment of his "Punk'd" parody to several studios but couldn't get the budget he wanted. So investors who also happened to be friends put up $90,000 for the project and Kane wouldn't have it any other way.
"I wrote (the main part) for Nick Manning, and I'm glad he agreed to it, because he was perfect," Kane said of the ensemble project, uncharacteristic of most porn. "But in retrospect I couldn't have made that movie anything but independently. I think it would suck the life out of me not to have the final cut or to do a job for hire. The extra time was important for the actors to get to know their lines."
Kane said that writing the script presented challenges one would not encounter in Hollywood.
"You'd think that writing a group sex scene would just be about the choreography, right?" he asked. "But each performer is contracted for a certain thing, so I can't have somebody get anal who was only hired for a blowjob, or I'd get their agents mad. I had to be precise in writing who got what, and where. A cock in the wrong place would have meant the difference of hundreds of dollars."
Previously: Gram Ponante announces Oscars of PornLabels: "eli cross", "paul thomas", "stormy daniels", business, directors, ernest greene, interviews, justin kane, xbiz, xbiz articles
posted by Gram the Man
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A certain kind of evil
 The best superheroes drop clues about their abilities with their outfits. Spider-Man looks like a spider, Batman emits little screams to navigate in the dark, and Apache Chief cries when you litter. But what does this woman do?
It seems her ensemble is tailored to combat a specific kind of foe, but what is it?
This image comes from a site called Bizarre Japan, which is redundant.
Benny Profane writes:
That is Kekko Kamen, created by the famous manga artist Go Nagai (Creator of DevilMan and pretty much every giant robot from the 70's.) Kekko Kamen's main superpower is grinding her crotch into her enemy's faces until they are subdued.
Previously: Japanese boob size and the economy; What I learned from hentai
See also: Bizarre JapanLabels: asian, geekery, japan, websites
posted by Gram the Man
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No wonder Sasha Grey can't find her car
 It's because she has no place to put the remote.
Unless...
Previously: Sasha Grey's movies
See also: Elegant AngelLabels: because, elegant angel, new porn daily, sasha grey
posted by Gram the Man
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--Monday, February 18, 2008--
Sunny Leone channels Sir Mixalot
 Some say I only rap about wealth
But baby can I talk about your health?
Lungs, lungs, motherf**kin' lungs - Sir Mixalot: "Put 'em on the Glass"
See also: Sunny Loves Matt mini-review; Joe Gallant channels Sir MixalotLabels: b skow, sir mixalot, sunny leone, vivid
posted by Gram the Man
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Memphis gets back to me re: boobs
 People drift in and out of our lives so often, especially in porn, as the caprices of Fate dictate our schedules, geography, partners, and spirochete trajectory.
We can't grow attached to things - even our original breasts.
So I was happy to receive an answer from a three-month old request of Memphis Monroe to show me her new boobs, which she got last fall, and which are now old enough to marry in Monroe's native Kentucky (where I am a Colonel).
As you can see, Monroe's new additions are so versatile that she used them to steer right off that couch onto the ottoman.
Previously: Sixty Seconds with Memphis Monroe
See also: Memphis MonroeLabels: boobs, memphis monroe, WGL
posted by Gram the Man
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--Sunday, February 17, 2008--
Got Silk?
 Holy Fuck, this one worked so much better than my "Got Rainer Maria Rilke?" headline from all the porn weddings I perform.
At a recent abridged version of a "Pussy Party," Flower Tucci, Amber Peach, and Heather Silk got together at Flower's house to shoot promos for a Cousin Stevie pilot as well as content for each other's websites.
Silk, who happens to be lactating, added some vitamin D to the all-girl, protein-free proceedings while Tucci proved an able spokesmodel for products ranging from laptops to bongs to Boston Terriers and Peach just looked adorable.
When asked how she chose her porn name, Silk replied that an old boyfriend had referred to her vagina as "Silky Thumper."
See the gallery here.
Previously: Scenes from a Pussy Party
See also: Cousin Stevie, Amber Peach, Flower Tucci, Heather SilkLabels: "set visits", amber peach, Cousin Stevie, flower tucci, heather silk, las drogas, pussy party, WGL
posted by Gram the Man
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Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn Monroe: I don't get it
 Marilyn Monroe photographer Bert Stern has re-created Monroe's final famous photoshoot with Lindsay Lohan. Why?
The semi-nude series was released in New York Magazine 46 years after its inspiration, now known as "The Last Sitting," appeared.
In 1962, a vulnerable, playful, and perhaps drunk Monroe posed for a series of photographs at the Hotel Bel-Air. She was dead six weeks later.
Now Lohan, whose own accomplishments have similarly been eclipsed by her celebrity - but orders of magnitude less - has stepped in for a sequel.
Despite her brilliant and iconic turns in "Freaky Friday" and "Herbie: Fully Loaded," Lohan is not Marilyn Monroe: she's not married to playwrights and sleeping with Presidents. Instead, she's driving drunk over paparazzi. Would Elton John ever write a song about her? No he would not.
Lohan doesn't even approach Monroe on a tragic scale, save for the fact that the 20-something Lohan looks older than Monroe, then 36, did. Mightn't Stern have chosen Britney Spears or Madonna instead? How about Nikki Nine? Now that's some tragedy.
Stern shot the session on film, rather than digitally, and re-created each shot down to the lighting.
Previously: Britney Spears continues to hold out hope of immaculate conception
See also: Lindsay Lohan as Marilyn Monroe in "The Last Sitting" (nymag)Labels: celebrities, fotos, lindsay lohan
posted by Gram the Man
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--Friday, February 15, 2008--
Do not go gentle into that good Spunk'd
 I spoke with Spunk'd: The Movie director Justin Kane at the recent XBiz Awards. As at the previous month's AVN Awards, Kane didn't win a goddamn thing.
"...yet it's one of the most torrented movies out there," Kane said.
Spunk'd has just been nominated for an XRCO Award. Luckily, porn's year-long awards season helps to keep a movie's name alive, though how much certain awards actually help sales is uncertain. By the time awards are announced, many companies lack either the money or the sense to buy those little stickers that video store owners would then have to stick on the box.
I thought Spunk'd was last year's best porn comedy - not to take anything away from Operation Desert Stormy, which won that category - but Spunk'd didn't pull punches by aiming at a couples' market, and everyone involved brought her or his A game. Standouts included Nick Manning, Penny Flame, Steven St. Croix, Marcos Leon, Katie Morgan, and a split-screened Hillary Scott.
Kane produced the movie independently with some shadow partners, and is in debt because of it. But the budgets offered him by adult studios weren't enough to make the movie he wanted.
"It's a great calling card for the next movie," he said, wiping away a tear.
Read the review here, then buy the movie.
Previously: Performer in a non-sex role: One actor's process; Gram's Dirty Dozen of 2007; The Da Vinci Load
Labels: directors, justin kane, reviews
posted by Gram the Man
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The Ghosts of Encino
 Like the great American artist Rockwell, I always feel like somebody's watching me when I travel Encino's lonely byways.
And they are not watching me with round eyes, if you know what I mean.
David Aaron Clark explores Asian Encino's spectral landscape through the eyes and vagina of Lana Croft in No Man's Land: Asian Edition 6.
Read the review here.
Previously: Legend of the Oriental Luv Motel!; Lana Croft takes these broken wings (off)Labels: "david aaron clark", asian, geekery, lana croft, reviews
posted by Gram the Man
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Blind Item: What to say when you are fitted with a diaphragm
 I got a call from a well-known MILF who had entered a wonderful new stage of her life.
"The factory is once again a playground," she said.
"I'll be right over."Labels: blind item, MILF, pornic voices
posted by Gram the Man
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--Thursday, February |
