Don Jon (2013)

When a film is both written, and directed, by the lead actor then I'd say that it's acceptable to have some hesitation about just what you're letting yourself in for. Thankfully, when the main man is Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who seems to exude natural cool ever since he stopped being just the little guy in comedy roles, then that hesitation is unwarranted. It may be his feature directorial debut, but you wouldn't know it from the end result.

Don Jon isn't really what you might expect if you've already seen the trailer. Gordon-Levitt plays Jon, a man who can get with a different girl every night thanks to his charm and good looks. He's also addicted to porn. That becomes a problem when he falls for the gorgeous Barbara (Scarlett Johansson). Can he change his ways and become a better man?

Okay, by describing the movie in the way I have, I've just done it the same disservice as the trailer. So many people, myself included, thought that this was a movie about a man addicted to porn. That's part of it, but it's actually not the main part, even when it seems to be.

Don Jon is about sex and love. It's actually, underneath the porn clips and excessive masturbation, a standard rom-com for guys. Every box is ticked: family tensions, class issues, personal development, good friends, a need for guidance. As well as that standard stuff, the film looks at the hypocrisy of those who view good sex (or porn) as something sinful. Whether it's the church, doling out punishments that somehow don't seem to fit "the crime", or the whole environment surrounding the main character, bombarding him with advertising images that appeal to the part of him that leads to him turning on his computer and getting his computer to turn him on.

Gordon-Levitt is great in the lead role, all about the pleasures of the flesh with little seeming to go on in his mind. Some may find his performance irritating, but I warmed to him after the first few scenes. Johansson puts in a good performance. It's far from her best, although she's entirely believable as a damn sexy woman who makes a man want to change his ways for the better. Julianne Moore is another main character, despite not appearing until almost halfway through the movie. She's pretty good, but her performance feels a lot like a medley of her previous "greatest hits". Elsewhere, Tony Danza and Glenne Headly are wonderful as Jon's parents, Brie Larson plays a character who spends most of her time texting on her phone, but makes an impact with her one main moment of clarity, and Rob Brown and Jeremy Luke are lively and fun as friends of the main character, appropriately disappointed when he takes himself off the market and stops joining them for their big nights out.

It may be far from perfect, but Gordon-Levitt shows a lot of skill while wearing a number of different hats (and, dammit, I bet he could even do that literally - the man is just THAT cool). I've always tended to enjoy his acting performances, but now I will watch with interest to see what he decides to write and/or direct next. And I hope others do the same.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Don-Jon-Blu-ray-DVD-Digital/dp/B00FRILRYS/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1409084862&sr=8-2&keywords=don+jon

You can help me to convince my loved ones that I don't spend all of my time online looking at porn by investing in my bargain movie guide. Ohhhhhhhhh yes.

The UK version can be bought here - http://www.amazon.co.uk/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395945647&sr=1-3&keywords=movie+guide

And American folks can buy it here - http://www.amazon.com/TJs-Ramshackle-Movie-Guide-Reviews-ebook/dp/B00J9PLT6Q/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395945752&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=TJs+ramshackle+mov

As much as I love the rest of the world, I can't keep up with all of the different links in different territories, but trust me when I say that it should be there on your local Amazon.

Lucky Bastard (2014)

Sex. It can make you do funny things. And sex is everywhere nowadays, especially on the internet. Don't ever make a typo that puts the word "porn" into your search bar because it's guaranteed to leave you wide-eyed and red-faced. Or, I guess, breathless and horny, of course.

Lucky Bastard is all about sex. Set in the world of porn, it's a found footage movie all about a young man, Dave (played by Jay Paulson), who finds that he's about to have his dream come true. Thanks to the titular website, Dave is going to get up close and very personal with gorgeous porn star Ashley Saint (Betsy Rue). But will he be able to perform when it comes to the main act, bearing in mind that he's being filmed for Lucky Bastard?

An interesting look at the dynamics of the porn industry, and independent movie-making in general, Lucky Bastard has a few more interesting insights than you might expect. It's just a shame that the movie, despite being good, never seems to move into top gear.

That may be due to the inevitability, and predictability, of the events as they unfold, or it may point to a need for some sharper dialogue. Either way, it's the script, co-written by Lukas Kendall and director Robert Nathan, that proves to be the biggest hurdle. It's not terrible, and none of it rings untrue, but it just needs to be a bit tighter and sharper. And the structure would have been improved, in my opinion, if the guys had just gone from A to B, without a small prologue showing C and then moving back to A.

Nathan does fine with the direction, however, and he's helped by a decent selection of performers. Paulson does well as the man who seems a bit strange, but may just be too sweet and naive for the experience lined up for him. Rue is pretty convincing as a professional porn star. No, I don't mean that as a derisory comment. She's comfortable with the nudity that has to be part of the film, and manages to show that she's been around in the industry long enough to know a lot of the tricks of the trade, as well as whatever she finds acceptable and unacceptable. Don McManus is equally convincing as the man orchestrating the action. He may be a "porn baron" but he also just tries to make the best out of any bad situation, like anyone used to working in the independent movie business. Catherine Annette is a lot of fun as someone trying to break into the business, while Chris Wylde and Lanny Joon are both fine as the two guys working to capture enough footage to make into the next popular episode of Lucky Bastard.

Small niggles aside, Lucky Bastard is a solid piece of entertainment. It has some interesting points to make, it builds to a decent climax (no pun intended), and it stars Betsy Rue. What? I can choose to deem that fact a major bonus point if I like, and I do.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Lucky-Bastard-Don-McManus/dp/B00KGLN4BK/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1408908460&sr=1-3&keywords=lucky+bastard

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Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look At An X Rated Industry (2009)

Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look At An X Rated Industry is a slightly deceiving title for this documentary. It's correct, in some ways, but the focus isn't so much on the industry itself as it is on Michael Grecco's attempt to make a glossy, coffee table book of photography that shows many elements of that industry in a different light.

Grecco also directed this piece and the whole thing feels very much like an art installation on film. Which is, essentially, what it is. Yet in casting his eye over everything and showing it through his camera lens he removes something from it. Everything is put under intense bright lights, posed to show things off from the best possible angles and even sometimes made to look completely different from how it normally looks. Which is all well and good when it comes to what Grecco is setting out to do. He achieves his aims and well done to him for that, but he ends up showing viewers a lot of stuff that doesn't feel as if it even belongs in the world of porn.

Set during the AVN Awards and Convention (which is like the Oscars for the adult entertainment industry), Grecco focuses on a couple of stars - namely, Joanna Angel and Sunny Lane - who have happily decided to give him a fair bit of their time. He tries to follow their story as they discuss how they got started in the business and what they hope to get from it. Those moments are fine, they may not be the most revelatory discussions, but they serve as a reminder of how the people engaged in various sex acts for entertainment are very real and have very real ambitions. It's when Grecco looks elsewhere, when he tries to cover the broad and interesting spectrum of fans and stars at the AVN, that things start to become less interesting.

If you learn one thing coming away from this documentary, which IS diverting and enjoyable enough here and there, it's not anything about the world of porn. Nope. This documentary will remind you of how important context is because that's what is missing. Women who act in porn being shown photographed while posing in a sexy manner are just attractive women being photographed while posing in a sexy manner. Sex toys set on blank white backgrounds to look like strange pieces of sculpture are just strange pieces of sculpture. I could go on, but I'm sure you get the picture.

There ARE a number of scenes with Grecco finding out, and allowing the viewer to find out, a little bit about the unique subject he has decided to photograph. Sadly, there aren't enough of them. The documentary becomes more watchable whenever Sunny Lane or Joanna Angel appears (no, not for the obvious reasons so stop that childish sniggering now), but they're not onscreen enough to make the whole experience feel like more than a flick through an art book that only has one or two pages to make you stop and really take it in. That's all it is. Which, ironically, is probably an end result that Grecco is very pleased with.

5/10

http://www.amazon.com/Naked-Ambition-Rated-Look-Industry/dp/B0037EDIF0/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1363038219&sr=8-9&keywords=naked+ambition

Let's talk about sex.

The other evening I turned to my wife and I said the following, bizarre, sentence. "No, I'm not going to bother with A Wet Dream On Elm Street or The Human Sexipede as they are just full-on hardcore porn with nothing worth actually reviewing in them".
My wife laughed and said that I just gave her another reminder of why she loved me. I was the type of guy who DIDN'T watch porn, even when given the choice.

That's not strictly true and I wanted to take a moment to address the issue here. This blog, and most of my reviews at Flickfeast and on IMDb, covers almost every form of movie. You may dislike some of those films but I won't shy away from the likes of A Serbian Film or Slaughtered Vomit Dolls, to name just two of the more extreme examples. I think movies can entertain, can make us happy, can make us think, can scare us, can arouse us, can make us cry and can do many, many things. They can also push at the boundaries, sometimes being rejected by people and sometimes rearranging those boundaries thanks to some skill and good timing. A lot of those boundaries, nowadays and in the past, seem to want to keep us all away from sex. Why? It's NOT unhealthy to enjoy sex and an open attitude to sex. Indeed, my own interpretation of A Serbian Film was to view it as a warning that complete repression is just as bad as complete freedom. I have viewed, and occasionally still view, pornography. Of course, if asked while out and about in polite society most of us deny such things but we know it goes on. Behind closed doors. In privacy. Sometimes with a selection of moist towelettes. Or not. That last part was a joke. Honest, mum.

Yet the world of the adult movie, in the context of both the"skin flick" and the horror movie, has often helped to keep money coming in when other types of entertainment have failed. Which is why I will often make space and time here for something either as culturally impactful as Deep Throat or as cheap and cheerful as Cleavagefield. I really didn't enjoy sitting through An Erotic Werewolf In London (yeah, yeah, I know that you're rolling your eyes in disbelief now) but I wanted to see just how much parody would make up the final product - pretty much none, as it turned out - and also think that the filmography of Erin Brown AKA Misty Mundae is now of some significance to fans who have seen her move into the horror genre.

If I thought I could bring anything extra to the table, or if I had any specialist knowledge of the subject, then I would include the movies that I dismissed the other day. But I don't. So this post is just to reassure everyone that while I use my movie viewing and reviewing habit as an excuse to watch I just don't have the time or energy to watch pornography. Hopefully, you will still find the odd title reviewed here that many offend you (including the sensual but sick Singapore Sling - highly recommended) but I won't ever just talk about something that has sex and nothing more to it.*

Stay sexy, people.

*Fans of pornography will argue that some of it can be crafted with skill and artistry, I am speaking in a very general manner.

Oh, you might want to avoid this blog whenever I finally start to make my way through my Russ Meyer boxset though.