Rape For Profit (2012)

Rape For Profit: Women and children are helpless victims and it's all men's fault.

At a glance:

Narrow and naive, to say the least.

Backed by executive producer Jada Pinkett Smith and her NGO Don't Sell Bodies, Eric Esau and Jason Pamer's Rape For Profit (2012) is a Mew Films documentary the Huffington Post apparently calls "disturbing and provocative", though of course the writer behind this randy movie review blog will dismiss as little more than a narrow and naive worldview of the world's oldest profession, based on a few prostitutes in downtown Seattle, or to use a more sympathetic term as advocated by the film's extremely one-sided take on the trade, "prostituted women". Culled from hundreds of hours of ridealong footage with Sea-Tac street crimes unit and the Seattle high-risk victims unit, this 86-minute film purports to take the audience undercover for an up-close look at the true nature of the sex trade. Hmm... surely a movie review on a documentary that is against the objectification of women does not belong on a blog that verily celebrates it such as mine?

Bad news on the doorstep:

Hmm... I wish I had a therapist who looks like this.

The only thing powerful about this documentary is how the supercharged cops shame and shout at pimps, not to mention how the filmmakers see fit to drive around ambushin customers in some sort of vigilante effort to administer guilt, to the extent of causin an accident. You see the pigs in made-for-camera Batman-type roles, brandishin their brand of law with healthy doses of morality lectures. Even more gung-ho are the filmmakers, who directly confront the johns and ask them how they could do it to their wives, why porn ain't enough and why they had to come out and act on it, with no intention of procurin a meaningful answer. Far from bein an insightful tell-all exposé, this is the moral catharsis of several well-intentioned individuals and their respective organisations whose hearts are no doubt in the right places, however the total demonisation of the johns and the total vindication of the girls reflect a painfully mainstream point of view. Footage of interviews with mayors, councillors, district attorneys and even industry experts who all endorse the same position seal this for me as a missed opportunity. If you truly believe people who say "very few women end up around the world in what we call prostitution without a history of prior sexual harm" and that porn is a dress rehearsal for men who look for hookers, then go ahead and watch it.

Kiddie porn?

Perennial wonderment:

Did you know that whores ask would-be customers to whip their dicks out so that they can filter out cops? Just about the only genuinely interestin thing I learned from this movie. Oh wait, I also learned that cops surf backpage.com and escort sites lookin for a lack of hip and waist development in under-aged girls that are advertised as barely legal. Haha!

Reminds me of:

All those we've lost along the way.

I can't remember if I cried:

Rape victim with a pretty sad general history of abuse.

Some of the horror stories shared by the victims are truly heartbreakin but the filmmakers' forceful handlin of the pimps and also the whores are so laughably didactic and deluded that I find the effort almost difficult to believe as an unstaged documentary. Among the include "Don't say sorry to me, say sorry to her", "Do you think she wanted to grow up to be in some alley to suck dick?" "You are happier here now! This is much better for you!" and "You're precious, you're a princess and you have value and worth and I'm sorry you didn't grow up hearing that." Bah.

Johns can't seem to spell right, can they?

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

The mention of Green River killer Gary Ridgway (a necrophiliac with a penchant for whores) and various other unhelpful content serve only to cloud the issue further, though I'm glad that cop did manage to get the 24-hour drop-in help centre open after so many years of tryin. Check out the official website and Facebook fan page for more info. However, if I were you, check out American Courtesans (2013), Whores' Glory (2011) or even I Am A Sex Addict (2005) for a less naive viewpoint, if not a more entertainin and fascinatin one.★★
Bonus material:

"It has been said that prostitution and rape are two sides of the same coin."

I saw this witty review on IMDb written by an American user called timlin-4. My sentiments on this film seem closest to this fella, so I'll publish it below verbatim, since I cannot better it.

Lovelace (2013)

Peter Sarsgaard tickles Amanda Seyfried's tonsils in Lovelace (2013).

At a glance:

The real Linda Lovelace.

How far does a girl have to go to untangle her tingle, asks the poster for Deep Throat (1972), the purported most profitable indie flick of all time at some $600m (not accordin to the mob who funded it), out of which tragic starlet Linda Lovelace received none of the US$1250 owed to her. I wish I were livin in those pre-Internet days to experience fuck flicks at standalone cinema wankathons, at least once in my life. If I did, I wish I got to know Linda Susan Boreman, the unassumin Florida schoolgirl turned world famous porn star, often credited as bringing adult entertainment into the forefront of mainstream attention. This very sympathetic and one-sided Andy Bellin / W. Merritt Johnson treatment is a biopic based on Eric Danville's 2001 book The Complete Linda Lovelace, focusin on how the lass escapes her religious mother (Sharon Stone) to meet and marry the charismatic hustler Chuck Traynor (Peter Sarsgaard) who would end up bein her papa pimp and punisher. Who would've thought that Linda's impressive capacity for fellatio would send her up the dizzyin heights of international superstardom and then down so far to the lowest levels of human depravity? Lovelace (2013) is a movie I was excited to read about and I wanted to like.

Bad news on the doorstep:

Juno Temple would've been my top choice for Linda.

Dirty beauties Juno Temple and Chloe Sevigny both have small roles in this and I wish either of them had landed the leadin part instead. Was Amanda Seyfried cast because of her freckles and her 60s style, upside-down heart-shaped tits? I read that Kate Hudson was first choice! What a disaster that would've been. Far more critical than that, of course, is how easily the picture goes down, when contrasted against the cultural significance of its characters. I'm talkin about how it "reduces an immensely disturbing, politically byzantine tale to a series of cartoonish vignettes" and how "this celeb-studded biopic squanders a gutsy performance by Amanda Seyfried while making '70s porn look scarcely more sleazy than a movie-of-the-week melodrama from the period", accordin to Rob Nelson for Variety. Sarsgaard and Adam Brody especially give some layered, highly watchable performances but the way all the characters enter and exit the proceedings, e.g. Playboy legend Hugh Hefner played by James Franco, simply devalues the explosive subject matter. Not only is the camerawork rather static, the characterisation makes caricatures out of everyone and many potentially powerful scenes lose their emotional gravitas, e.g. Dad (Robert Patrick) talkin to his little girl on the phone about how he had to walk out of the cinema, and Linda survivin a beatin in the streets only to be rescued by cops who were more interested in gettin her autograph.

Well, at least the retro typeset and production design was spot on.

James Franco's pipe-wielding Hugh Hefner!

Perennial wonderment:

Will we ever find out how much the movie actually made? Did Hugh Hefner really get a blowjob from Linda and was he really a sympathetic figure who wanted her to be a legitimate movie star? Was Linda actually a pathological liar and used everyone, just as much as they used her? It would've been nice to at least cover the other angle about how she felt the anti-porno movement also manipulated her durin her last days.

Reminds me of:

The wonderfully depressin biopics Auto Focus (2002) about Bob Crane and What's Love Got To Do With It (1993) about Tina Turner - both of which are vastly more resonant and wholly entertainin than this one.

I can't remember if I cried:

When it stopped at 92 minutes. What kind of self-respectin biopic has such a short runtime? No wonder everythin seems rushed!

Most memorable line:

Chuck says: "No, Linda, it's Shakespeare. I told them you do a great English accent, particularly with a cock down your throat."

Innit sad that a movie so big gave so little to Linda?

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

Total Film's Kate Sables notes that for a movie obsessed with truth-tellin, Lovelace "ignores the competing accounts of its heroine’s porno past, privileging only her own version". Another online comment dismisses Lovelace as "nothing more than a by-the-numbers, woman empowerment, Lifetime channel Movie Of The Week…with nudity". I do feel it's not very tender and disappointingly mediocre. For a more academic view on the topic, check out the 2005 documentary Inside Deep Throat. By the way, does anyone know what happened to that other Linda Lovelace story that was supposed to be out this year, Inferno: A Linda Lovelace Story (2013), starrin Malin Akerman and Sasha Grey? I read that Lindsay Lohan was supposed to be the lead. Oh well, meanwhile I'll have to check out Paul Schrader's The Canyons to see how LiLo is doin. ★★1/2
The day the music died:

R.I.P. Linda "Lovelace" Boreman (26 Jan 1949 - 22 Apr 2002)
and Charles Everett "Chuck" Traynor (21 Aug 1937 - 22 July 2002)

Bonus material:

Some of them like to use you, some of them like to be of use.

Lucky Bastard (2013)

Betsy Rue goes full frontal as porn primadonna Ashley Saint in Lucky Bastard.

Coming to shoot or shooting to come?

At a glance:

Here's a welcome break from your Fuck Team Five and Dorm Invasion downloads. Just when you thought there can't be any more variations of the over-saturated found footage subgenre, filmmaker Robert Nathan's unheralded Lucky Bastard (2013) scores in more ways than one. This little low-budget project had no right to be much better than the shyte I've been siftin through in recent months but it is. After a rather unnecessary prologue, we're let in on what we understand to be a video recordin of an adult shoot in an L.A. mansion gone wrong, involvin veteran porn producer Mike (Don McManus), his ditsy muse and porn star wannabe Casey (Catherine Annette), his bitchy top-liner Ashley Saint (Betsy Rue) and a rather unbalanced young stranger (Jay Paulson) whom they hired for one of those fan-fuck episodes. Movie title is in reference to the sleazy website that hosts them.

Not a comedy but Betsy Rue and Jay Paulson revisit American Pie shortcomings.

A nod to Silvia Saint?

Bad news on the doorstep:

Well, I don't reckon I have too much to complain about a well-conceived movie as indie as this. Lucky Bastard keeps it tight and enjoys a committed, believable cast with sound character exposition throughout, maintainin credible tension long after its sloppy contemporaries have fizzled out. I'd have preferred a little more emphasis on the darker themes but perhaps that would've made it a different movie.

Perennial wonderment:

Don't people keep cuttin and resubmittin until they can get an R ratin these days?
Reminds me of:
You don't wanna know.

Watch out for:

Too tied up to talk to me about the dangers of gay sex?

Don McManus as Mike hits all the right notes, a character that Abbie Bernstein for Assignment X describes as "a very recognizable Hollywood type, glib and proficient, with glints of pain and weariness peeking through the smooth exterior." Amusin that the last two items on his CV that I could recognise are both related to adult entertainment - Lovelace (2013) and For A Good Time, Call... (2012).

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?

An effective cheap story. This could be easily remade by a big studio as an R-rated wide release... or it could even be remade as a bona fide XXX movie by Reality Kings! Go check out the trailer. ★★1/2
Bonus material:
All photos taken from the Lucky Bastard official website and Facebook fan page.

Director & co-writer Robert Nathan, co-writer Lukas Kendall,
actors Don McManus & Betsy Rue. L.A. premiere. 5 Apr 2013.

About Cherry (2012)

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Daughter Of Darkness (1993) @ 滅門慘案之孽殺

At a glance: 
Memorable CAT III fare by Ivan Lai Kai Ming with that girl Lily Chung Suk Wai (Red To Kill 1994, Sexy And Dangerous 1996) where the vulnerable protagonist is an stepdaughter who gets blamed for everythin under the sun, eventually crackin under the slow-cook abuse and goin berserk Terminator-style on the whole family, especially the father, played by a positively pervy William Ho Ka Kui.
Bad news on the doorstep:
Anthony Wong's maverick China cop antiques render it too playful and the comic detracts from the flavour of the film to the point of nausea.
Perennial wonderment:
What are all these former soft porn actresses doin in Hong Kong now? 
I can't remember if I cried:
When Anthony Wong fondles a female corpse and correctly ascertains the time of death based purely on the sogginess of her breasts, passin it off as brilliant police work as a colleague gapes in admiration. 
Reminds me of: 
Red To Kill (1994) and all the other films in which Lily Chung (pic) gets raped.
Watch out for:
Violent end sequence that teaches you how to stab someone to death with a deity figurine.
Most memorable line:
Who needs lines with a DVD cover like that? 
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Two and a half.

The Band (2009)

At a glance:
Aussie rock n roll soft porn (or hard core if you landed yourself the longer 90min version). Here's one that won't make the Australian Film Festival lineup at GSC next month. You can expect dirty toilet sex, semen on speakers, lesbo lovin and the sinkin feelin of havin wasted a good hour of your life when the credits roll.
Bad news on the doorstep:
Women ain't beautiful nor compellin, mostly pierced and tattooed white trash. Almost had enough to tell a story but nope, it was decidedly sex and more sex. Don't remember the music. Distinct lack of humour. There also seems to be some misandry goin on, what with the number of lesbo scenes and how all the men are complete muppets.
Reminds me of:
You know that movie where they keep cuttin between a concert and a lovers' tryst, 9 Songs (2004)?
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Watch on fast forward. Who is this Anna Brownfield writer director anyway? The Band (2009) is probably not for you.
Bonus material:

I suppose this is director Anna Brownfield hard at work.

Cheeky (2000) @ Trasgredire

"I'm just like you!"

At a glance:

Yuliya Mayarchuk obliges.

One of the relatively more recent erotic comedies from softporn supremo Tinto Brass. In Cheeky (the Italian title card cleverly highlightin the tradire (to cheat) part in trasgredire (to transgress), we get a blonde with The Perfect Backside™ who leaves her boyfriend behind in Venice while she goes whorin herself all over London. By this, I mean she's a girl who has absolutely no demonstrable restraint towards every form of sexual contact. Worse, she also seems to suffer from an acute case of allergy towards textile. Ahhh... Tinto Brass. Truly he's a feminist because in all his films, female infidelity isn't only healthy but actually serves to strengthen the primary relationship! No wonder his films are important. Anti-misogyny in porno. What an idea. In this movie, the girl gets her boyfriend (Jarno Berardi) all jealous but he ends up bein turned on by it. They both love each other madly no matter who or how many they fuck. That's just great, guys.
Bad news on the doorstep:
Movies about free love (even dirty movies) are easy to watch but difficult to internalise. I mean, do you want your mum and dad to share such promiscuous notions?
Reminds me of:
Paprika - the first Tinto Brass movie I ever watched.
Watch out for:
Ukrainian beauty Yuliya Mayarchuk, now based in Italy. Deadringer for Julia Stiles, only shapelier. Here's her website, you pervos.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Three stars.

What a joy.

Gradiva (2006) @ C'est Gradiva Qui Vous Appelle

"My dear, what the fuck are you doin?"

At a glance:
Gradiva introduces an archaeologist (James Wilby) to us, then sets him off on a chase for mysterious titular girl (doubles up as Leila, played by gorgeous veteran French-American actress Arielle Dombastle) while beddin his slave girl Belkis (Dany Verissimo) at every other go. This pretty much forms the plot for a person watchin it on operational terms. Oh and there's plenty of artsy frontal nudity and S&M violence, which is why it's R21 in Singapore.
Bad news on the doorstep:
Difficult to review Surrealist films, especially when Dali paintings escape even the more curious of the non-commercial cinemagoers today in this region. How then do I make heads and tails of a movie so intentionally disjointed, confusin and artsy such as C'est Gradiva Qui Vous Appelle? Gradiva may be callin all right – but it's very difficult to answer. This octogenarian director apparently makes films that make sense to nobody but himself. Oh wait a minute - it's all over, he died last year.
I can't remember if I cried:

When I realised the story is told with little regard for audience understandin. Which bit is a dream allegory? Which bit is the true timeline? Only director Alain Robbe-Grillet and film students would know, I suppose. To others, Gradiva is a 110-minute long indulgence.
Reminds me of:
The dodgy stadium-style Singaporean cinema I watched it in. Reeked of spunk.
Watch out for:
Dany Verissimo (without which the movie would've been unbearable), the sultry actress you might recognise from District 13 @ Banlieue 13 as pistol-packin Lola. She took off her knickers and stuffed it into some bloke's mouth while pointin the gun at his face, I vaguely recall.

"Why, yes. You're quite right. This movie makes no fuckin sense."

Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
One? Perhaps a worthy piece for feminist academic study but even for art house fans, a production such as this is best confined to your collection of quirky DVDs or to the local grindhouse, assumin of course it's the R-rated kind. Can't decide which is the least rewardin watch - The Piano Tuner Of Earthquakes (2005), Gradiva or the paint dryin from my bedroom wall. Then again, Dany Verissimo isn't painted on my bedroom wall.

Diary Of A Sex Addict (2008) @ Diario De Una Ninfómana

At a glance:

Belén Fabra

Adapted from a sexy Euro chicklit book, Diario De Una Ninfómana (2008) is a 95-min story about a French lass who was fuckin any hard cock in Spain before fuckin an Italian/French cock who was to be her future boss. Havin been dumped too many times by too many fuck buddies, she falls in love and marries the cunt while he in turn abuses her to the brink of suicide. She responds by joinin a brothel. Is this a joke movie or what?
Bad news on the doorstep:
All the wrong ways of doin erotica is exhibited in this well-shot but totally misconceived piece. Contrived, self-important borgeouis bullshit. The 'redemption' music at the end is hilarious. This bit about a wheelchair-bound whoremonger is ridiculous and forced. Titless Belén Fabra (pic) who plays the nympho protagonist ain't even that hot to begin with.
Perennial wonderment:
How shitass films like these get greenlighted.
Reminds me of:

I give, you take.

Reckless cockass crapass bitchass nympho bitches I know who never admit they like sex as much as they do. Ironically, the stupidity of the main character's monologues help compound this fact, leadin me to the conclusion that girls genuinely really don't have the foggiest about how stupid they sound when they come up with these lines about how sex isn't everythin. Balls.
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
Mediocre ★★ for the effort. Wanna watch a really genuine and decent movie about sex addiction? Try I Am A Sex Addict (2005) instead.

Bonus material:

Women who only have themselves to blame.

Zombie Strippers! (2008)

At a glance:
You don't have a right to complain if you read the film title. Get over yourself and stop slaggin off intentionally bad movies because you're too damned sophisticated to enjoy well-constructed rubbish! This was 94mins of (mostly) fake tits and fancy G-strings sandwichin semi-brilliant, tongue-in-cheek philosophical discourse. Honest!
Perennial wonderment:
Jenna Jameson - I insist she can act. Really, she can. However, would you rather be a strugglin actress, a mediocre actress, a even a decent actress with a limited shelf-life OR would you rather be the most downloaded pornstar in the world? Also, ownin your own porno company isn't the kind of success any pornstar dares to dream of.
Watch out for:
The stripper (I forgot which) who held up a Nietzche book. Robert Englund (pic) is in this movie too! He's the bloke who was Freddy Kruger in Nightmare On Elm Street.
Most memorable line:
Announcer: Tired of that same old lap dance? Well pull up an extra seat, young fellas, and experience Rino's exclusive face dance! One of our lovely ladies will sit on your face and give birth to your head!
Amacam joker, berapa bintang lu mau kasi?
. Wouldda been a solid three if it were just a bit faster. That Mexican character was kinda fun.