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 Studio: Vivid-Alt
Director: Benny Profane
Cast: Mandy Morbid, Zak Sabbath, Caroline Pierce, Benny Profane, Sochee Mala, Coco Velvett, Marie McCrae
Mandy Morbid wakes up, pantsless, in a hospital to which she has been committed, she later learns, for her sexual deviance and drug addiction. But the lunatics are running the asylum and, though she would probably benefit from some eclectic therapeutic milieu, her current managed care environment is not salutogenic.
For one thing, the nurses Morbid spots upon waking (Caroline Pierce and Sochee Mala, who observes of Pierce's mesmerizing [parts collection: "it looks like a hot pie cooling on a window seal") are engaged in some item-stacking exercise that seems pointless unless the goal is to look up each other's skirts, which they do, and more. Morbid can't help herself as she watches. She needs to rub one out. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO HER?Then they force the already-clean Morbid into the shower, where she is obliged to writhe.
 When the mad doctor Benny Profane arrives, he suggests a session of trepanning to cure her of her ills - and Morbid's hairdo certainly suggests that a pre-trepanation shaving won't be necessary - but she manages to escape.
Along the way we get an idea through flashbacks why Morbid was sent to the hospital. She and her hoodlum boyfriend, Zak Sabbath, scam people like Kimberly Kane out of cash and into thinking that Morbid is pregnant. As the movie was released during the Sarah and Bristol Palin pregnancy controversy, Hospital could not be more timely.
 The movie has its ahare of sight gags and memorable bits of dialogue. Marie McCrae seduces the affable Daniel as the latter appears to be playing a videogame but is actually staring into a burning television. Profane helps himself to an excellent monologue before he is put out of commission by a pencil, and the rescuing Sabbath utters a line familiar to anyone eager to jump off the wagon: "Looks like you're about to have a relapse."
When Morbid escapes from her bonds she quickly and joylessly leaps back into the very behavior that sent her there, but what did you expect? It's not like she stayed long enough for Profane's course of treatment to work.
 Even though porn never really had a soul, the so-called altporn movement defined itself in contrast to what was quickly becoming a standard issue Porn Valley style of bleached and augmented porn performer. People like Matt Zane and Benny Profane, as well as websites like BlueBlood.net, championed the type of porn girl who didn't come off as addlepated and accessible as her Porn Valley counterpart. Instead she was pierced, tattooed, kohl-eyed and actively post-feminist.
Profane's Psychocandy series, which he sold from the back of his car, was a textboook example of DIY porn filmmaking from the attitudes of the models to the barebones filmmaking and distribution.
But when altporn began to be heavily commoditized in the past few years, many of its filmmakers forgot that bigger budgets required the production to look more competent. Back when the movie was being made out of some garage it was allright if it looked all Dogma '95, but when Vivid purchased a strain of VCA altporn in 2005, people began to wonder where the larger budgets were going, because they certainly didn't show in some of the films.
Profane's Hospital at first seemed like an unholy union of his talent with a label known for its poseur aesthetic but, like Winkytiki's ReBelle Rousers and Dave Naz' circa '82, Hospital succeeds because it is its own thing, a movie that doesn't really owe anything to anyone.
See a gallery here.
 Labels: Benny Profane, Caroline Pierce, Coco Velvett, Mandy Morbid, Marie McCrae, Sochee Mala, steveporn, Zak Sabbath
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 Studio: Vivid-Alt
Director: Eon McKai
Cast: Cassidey, Dana DeArmond, Charlotte Stokely, Pixie Pearl, Tommy Pistol, James Deen, Julius Ceazher, Icarus Corpse, Daniel, Justin Syder, Monique Alexander
Portions of this review originally appeared on Fleshbot
The band Dallas is coming to town, and Debbie and her friends will do anything to get at the frontman.
An Altporn reimagining of the 70's Debbie Does Dallas, Eon McKai's version is not going to make any converts to the steveporn stable of stars, all of whom do an amazing job of telegraphing how not seriously they take their jobs.
The eye rolling, gum smacking, and bad posture, the delivery of every line as if it had a question mark at the end of it, and the relentless irony of the performances made me think less like I was watching a porn movie than I was substitute-teaching an eighth grade class.
All except Cassidey, who plays Debbie. The bad seed Vivid Girl (or so she is depicted in the Showtime/World of Wonder "reality" series "Debbie Does Dallas .. Again"), Cassidey alone seems to be making an effort to do her best with what is admittedly a porn script.
She and her pals (DeArmond, Stokely, and Pearl) meet at a music video shoot playing listless cheerleaders. They take a break and hang out with local ticket scalper/drug dealer Deeze, who takes a shine to Dana.
"I'm from East Los Angeles," he says. "...so far east I have a New York accent."
Back at Debbie's place, Cassidey makes James Deen fuck Pixie as punishment for not cleaning the apartment. I don't understand stevepornkid anthropology; if Deen had cleaned the house, would he have got to fuck Pixie twice?
Regardless, a good sex scene is always a welcome departure from bad acting, and a lack of dialogue takes one's mind off the poor sound. We can hear the "record" button being pressed each time a performer speaks.
Meanwhile, we meet Punky of Dallas, whose mating dance seems to be the constant readjustment of his glasses. We are treated to Dallas' music video, a trippy interlude that puts Punky in Deen's place fucking Pearl.
A story element is added that the girls are fighting. Stokely versue Cassidey over Punky. Cassidey tells Stokely that the loser in their struggle will have to "go back to making porn in the Valley" (at this point I suddenly felt defensive of the Valley. "Well, these girls don't seem so together, either," I thought).
The groupies crash a recording session and Pearl and DeArmond hook up with the backup musicians. It's like "The Wall", except with MySpace bands. Two headscratchers of porn pseudonyms are featured in this scene: Julius Ceazher and Icarus Corpse. If I was 12, Icarus Corpse would be my band.
Down the hall, Cassidey and Stokely try to find Punky but are blocked by his bodyguard.
"I'll introduce Punky to the one who sucks the best cock," the bodyguard says. (Shouldn't it be "sucks cock the best?") Anyway, they blow him, but he betrays their trust. It's a long way to the top if you wanna rock 'n' roll.
A surprise visit by Monique Alexander from Paul Thomas' recent "Debbie" reimagining is every bit as exciting as when Gary Coleman did a cameo on "Silver Spoons" as Arnold Drummond. It is the Vivid contract girls who deliver the most inspired performances in this movie.
You might say, "But Dana DeArmond is the new Thinking Man's Porn Star, and Charlotte Stokely was the face of suburban blight in Girls Lie. How is it that cookie cutter contract girls are so refreshing in this movie?"
Probably because the script was unequal to the talent of these people. At that point it became a personal choice whether to let the audience know. Cassidey made me forget the script, Dana drew attention to it.
In the end, Cassidey gets her man. Punky, played by Alex Gonz, and Cassidey provide a sweaty and messy ending to the movie, real porn as opposed to metaporn, which is a welcome relief.
Still, we could hear an offstage voice yell "Two minutes!" as Gonz worked up to his pop shot. I asked McKai if things other directors might smooth over - like stage directions - were included purposely in this movie.
"Truth to materials," he said, quoting the architectural fad that prohibits gussying up building blocks. If that is true, why not have a split screen at all times showing what the crew is up to? What about a CNN news ticker or real-time L.A. traffic reports that would give insight into conditions on the set? Sometimes I think steveporn means never having to admit you're phoning it in.
Labels: cassidey, contract, dana dearmond, eon mckai, monique alexander, pixie pearl, steveporn, vivid
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Studio: Vivid-Alt
