Archives for August 2009

Sasha Grey is having one hell of a year, adding mainstream modelling gigs and the starring role in Steven Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience to a resume that also includes a spectacularly raunchy and prolific career in hardcore porn. With her newest endeavor, Grey Art Productions, she's adding entrepreneur to the resume – and in a big way.

Today her brand new Grey Art Productions company announced a major multi-year "first-look" broadcast deal with Spice Digital Networks Los Angeles, the leading adult content provider in the broadcast market.
As part of the deal, films from Grey Art Productions will now air on the Spice Networks' channels Spice Xcess and Fresh. Grey, who from early on has been dubbed the first "Existentialist porn star," might also be the most business savvy and most diversely multitalented porn star.

What's the most compelling element of a high-class call girl's life? Don't answer that. Besides, the obvious may not be true, if "The Girlfriend Experience" is any indication -- the voyeuristic cameras focus not on the bedroom, but rather, conversations surrounding the inevitable act, and topics range from business deals to customer service and interpersonal relationships.

Of course, the latter is referenced in the title. Christine (Sasha Grey) is an expensive Manhattanite escort with the "stage name" Chelsea and an obviously liberal live-in boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos), a personal trainer.

Using docudrama techniques, director Steven Soderbergh and screenwriters David Levien and Brian Koppelman draw parallels between their professions; both charge by the hour, are building a client base and attempt to take steps forward in their careers.

But these are difficult challenges, for the film is set in 2008 before the Presidential election and amid the Wall Street collapse. In a revelatory moment, one of her customers admits he's losing everything, but that doesn't stop him from shelling out $2,000 an hour for Chelsea's services.

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With The Girlfriend Experience, the recent film by Steven Soderbergh that screens today at the Gene Siskel, adult film star Sasha Grey attempts one of the trickiest maneuvers in show business—the move from porn movie trashiness to art film respectability.

(Then again, Grey already knows more than a few tricky maneuvers. Hey-o!) You can judge for yourself whether Grey’s acting chops will warrant future roles in mainstream films, but history shows that porn stars often have the odds stacked against them when they try spending more than five minutes on screen without doinking somebody. Decider looks back on how six other porn stars fared.