Archives for December 2009

YEAR IN FILM In this economy, you can't turn on the television without hearing the phrase "in this economy." The entertainment industry is eager to capitalize on national misfortunes, and we're just as anxious to escape into a fantasy or to find sad sacks we can relate to. We've yet to see full extent of the economic crisis played out on film, but 2009 offered at least a few astute reflections.

The most obvious is Capitalism: A Love Story, in which Michael Moore takes on the culture of greed and corruption that he argues got us into this mess. As usual, Moore has his finger on the country's trembling pulse, capturing the cause and effect of our fears in his inimitable style. It's not the definitive film about our economic meltdown, but it's an ambitious start. In this case, however, I'd argue that fiction is more compelling than truth. This year's two most effective films about the economy used it as a backdrop. In fact, they were all about the economy, but by playing it subtly, they left more lasting impressions.

To state that hardcore porn nymphet Sasha Grey has mainstream appeal is like arguing a truism. Thrust onto billboards and magazine covers, written into highly publicized Hollywood movies, integrated into our cultural vernacular, Sasha Grey didn't just cross over into mainstream territory; we brought her here.

It's easy to see why, among the many female performers in adult entertainment, Sasha Gray has become the unwitting locus of the public's gaze and speculation. Next to those flaxen, suprafemale Barbies who dominated porn in the 90s, Grey's handsome brunette naturalism seems somehow transgressive. Grey's bosoms are not big enough to generate their own gravity, and her smooth, skin-colored skin and svelte muscularity are the products of youth and genetics rather than of dubious cosmetic procedure. With her placid, heavy-lidded eyes, broad forehead, and insistent jawline, Grey's face looks real rather than representational. She looks like the pretty 21-year-old that she is -- with an age appropriate penchant for darkening her already dark Mediterranean eyebrows -- and it's this sense of the familiar that makes Grey, a real girl among a valley of dolls, so erotically appealing.

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Hey guys, I know Christmas shopping is hard and all but if you're after a joke present that dovetails nicely with Australian culture the promotional teaser for "Sexpo Australia", a two hour exploration of the world's largest sex convention, should convince you to put that Kangaroo bong back on the rack.

Hosted by recent Pedestrian interviewee and "Girlfriend Experience" actress Sasha Gray the film features "Carnal Carnival, Naked Surfing, Amateur Strip Competitions and SEXPO Showgirls" and promises to "takes viewers on an adventure outside the convention walls to explore Australian culture firsthand with Sasha."Logically the film's teaser features a sheepish Gray asking the viewer "Wanna go...down under with me?" which is witty because, geographically, Australia is known as the "Land Down Under" AND "going down" on someone is common slang for a sexual act.

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Hugh Hefner's company, which has become increasingly flaccid in the last year due to shrinkage of finances and investors, just got a huge shot of Viagra in the form of one of the adult industry's biggest names. No, not Sasha Grey, but Bill Asher, co-CEO of Vivid Entertainment Group, the largest porn video producers in the world.

According to AOL's Daily Finance, Asher just bought one million shares of Playboy Enterprises Inc., certainly a boon to the company ever since its $300 million deal with London Fog owner Iconix Brand Group Inc. fell apart last month. Vivid may or may not be buying Playboy full-out at this point, but as Asher told the press, "Certainly, anybody who has a brain would be interested." Well, a brain or a hard-on.

Sasha Grey's persistent transition from porn to feature films (well, those not in the realm of pornography) continues, from The Girlfriend Experience to the upcoming Smash Cut directed by Lee Demarbre.

This horror-comedy finds David Hess (The Last House on the Left) playing filmmaker Able Whitman, who sets out to prove his critics wrong by finding inspiration in his cast and crew. As the plot synopsis goes, "sometimes great art requires great sacrifice - and the director always gets final cut." Zing! Two hi-res pics floated our way this afternoon. Click below to see them both along with some poster art. Shock Till You Drop has learned Media Blasters picked the film up for distribution. If all goes according to plan, they intend to release it in February.

More known for her string of adult movies, 22-year-old Sasha Grey is getting a taste of arthouse in her new film The Girlfriend Experience. Grey stars as a high-end Manhattan call girl who's trying to balance the pressures of her job with those from her boyfriend.

The drama is set in the days leading up to the 2008 Presidential election and is directed by Stephen Soderburgh. It's a far cry from her back catalogue of films that include the likes of Seinfeld: A XXX Parody and This Ain't Star Trek XXX. And Grey admits her first few days on a non adult movie set were highly challenging.

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He's not a Hollywood director per se, but a filmmaker who shifts templates and styles when it suits him. At the Slamdance Film Festival in Park City, Utah on January 23, Steven Soderbergh will unveil the world premiere of his new film "And Everything Is Fine", a documentary about the artist-writer-performer Spalding Gray, who committed suicide in New York City in 2004 after suffering for years from severe depression.

Slamdance, which runs from January 21-28 in 2010, is the festival for experimental, avant-garde and even more stridently independent films than its elder, the Sundance Film Festival (Jan. 21-31, 2010). Mr. Soderbergh was at the more established Sundance Film Festival this year debuting "The Girlfriend Experience", which starred adult film star Sasha Grey in her feature film acting debut. The Atlanta-born, New York-based director also debuted his first film "sex, lies and videotape" at Sundance in 1989.

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This bleak drama about a high-class New York hooker stars real-life rut flick legend Sasha Grey as call girl Chelsea. But it's impossible to tell if she's a great actress pretending to be a dead-eyed, monotoned fleshbot... or if she just IS one.

And she's got a less glamorous job than whoever washes the kangaroo anuses backstage on I'm A Celeb. Director Steven Soderbergh manages to dodge the happy hooker clichés and not stretch the material past a lean 77 minutes. But it's so slice-yer-arteries depressing. Plus, it's a bit unrealistic. I mean, this is supposed to be an entire week in the life of a high-class hooker and she doesn't meet a SINGLE Premiership footballer.

With a film-maker as prolific and fluent as Steven Soderbergh, there are bound to be some misses to go with the hits. But I don't think Soderbergh has ever missed quite as badly as this: a shallow, negligent piece of work, badly acted and casually put together.

The Girlfriend Experience is a digital video picture about a high-class prostitute called Chelsea, played by real-life porn star Sasha Grey. Chelsea is in a committed relationship with Chris (Chris Santos), a personal trainer who doesn't mind what she does, but is one day horrified when Chelsea announces that she has formed an attachment to one of her clients, and is going away with him for a few days. Is it love? Or is it an extended engagement, a kind of "girlfriend experience", à la Richard Gere and Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman? Who knows? Certainly, the droningly wooden Grey doesn't have the acting ability to suggest anything as interesting as an interior conflict, and the persistent, desultory dialogue with her various clients about the credit crunch is never convincing.

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Directed by Steven Soderbergh. Starring Sasha Grey, Chris Santos 16 cert, Queen’s, Belfast; IFI/Light House, Dublin, 77 min. THERE IS any number of reasons – among them Full Frontal and Bubble – to approach Steven Soderbergh’s more experimental projects with deepest suspicion. Too often the structures employed in developing the films are more interesting than the entities themselves.

Indeed, most of the writing on Bubble focused on how the film was being distributed.

If you know anything about The Girlfriend Experience , you probably know that it stars an actor who, to date, has worked only in pornographic films. In one of Soderbergh’s trademark ironies, Sasha Grey remains the most experienced performer in the cast.

Grey plays a high-class call girl who, for that extra bit of cash, offers the full relationship package: the Girlfriend Experience of the title. Only she can know if this constitutes a step up or a step down in prestige.

Further cleverness greets us when we consider the plot. Grey’s character, Chelsea, lives with a chap who works as a personal trainer at an upmarket gym. So, in a sense, both people make a living by servicing the bodies of rich Manhattanites.

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