list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around The Girlfriend Experience on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/The_Girlfriend_Experience/371645/default.aspx Title: The Girlfriend Experience
Year: 2009
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Plot: The high-priced world of call girls are opened up in the Steven Soderbergh-helmed indie feature, returning the director to the low budget cross platform release ala: 2005's The Bubble. Brian Koppelman and David Levien provide the script for the 2929 Entertainment release. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 24
Number of Lists: 2
Number of blog posts: 8
SpoutRating: 3
]]>Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:01:02 GMTThe Girlfriend Experience2009Steven SoderberghThe high-priced world of call girls are opened up in the <a href="http://www.spout.com/players/P___112040/default.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>Steven Soderbergh</a>-helmed indie feature, returning the director to the low budget cross platform release ala: 2005's <a href="http://www.spout.com/films/289125/detail.aspx" style='text-decoration:underline'>The Bubble</a>. Brian Koppelman and David Levien provide the script for the 2929 Entertainment release. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide24Tag Target (>10)283http://www.spout.com/images/no_image.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/The_Girlfriend_Experience/371645/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/shaunhuston/archive/2009/7/27/43279.aspxPost By: ShaunHuston
Post To: ShaunHuston filmblog
Post Date: 7/27/2009 7:01:02 PM
Body: Picking up more pieces from this summer of non-blogging. Now, summer films. Star Trek. Like, well, pretty much everybody, I found the new Trek film to be well-cast and thoroughly entertaining. Structurally, I think that the intro for Kirk could have been tighter – the joyride scene in no way needs to be as drawn out as it is, especially not when followed by the bar fight. For me, the movie really gets started when Spock shows up. And yet, I do agree with Chris Wisniewski at Reverse Shot about the lack of philosophical ambition in JJ Abrams' reboot. Trek's creators have always strived to make the franchise about something, and while this hasn't always led to good film or TV, it does, I think, help explain the durability of the storyworld. The new movie is not only the first installment that seems to have been made purely for thrill and spectacle, but allows horrific genocide to go by with hardly more than a nod in the direction of the profundity of such an event. I still enjoyed the movie, but after the fact, I felt myself missing the typical moral and intellectual earnestness of the series. Sugar. An interesting and sometimes beautiful film, particularly in its handling of cultural juxtapositions and the deftness with which it wraps an immigration story in a sports movie. I need to watch it again though to fully develop my thoughts; my expectations were pretty high going in and sometimes it helps to see a movie like that once, with those burdens, and then again later, without them to gain some perspective. The Brothers Bloom. Another film I was looking forward to, and enjoyed, but need to see again. I mentally composed, but never wrote, a post on the movie's production design, which I think works well to shift the core cast into their own version of reality, one where Stephen's elaborate and literary cons might actually work. Motivated quirkiness of this kind, which is probably most often associated today with Wes Anderson's movies, works better for me than unmotivated oddness, as in Juno (2007), where the quirks are pretty much their own arguments, and not in the service of anything of consequence. The Girlfriend Experience. Not sure what to write here; a film I'm glad I saw, but can't say that it left much of a lasting impression. Public Enemies. This is a movie I like and appreciate more now than when I first saw it. I am compelled by the use of HD for a period piece like this, a device that clearly announces itself as a product of now, a movie about the 1930s, not of or from the period, which is the more conventional way of approaching historical material. Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince. As the film franchise has progressed, I am less enthused about seeing these movies. In part, this is because the films are becoming more what they should have been to begin with, which is directed at fans and readers of the books, which I am not. Moon. The best film I've seen this summer, easily. Beautiful, cool, provocative, anchored by a surprisingly understated lead, almost one-person show, performance from Sam Rockwell. Love the way the film quietly and cleverly plays with the memory of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Originally posted on:Short-Circuit Signs
]]>Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:01:02 GMTShaunHustonShaunHuston filmblog7/27/2009 7:01:02 PMPicking up more pieces from this summer of non-blogging. Now, summer films. Star Trek. Like, well, pretty much everybody, I found the new Trek film to be well-cast and thoroughly entertaining. Structurally, I think that the intro for Kirk could have been tighter – the joyride scene in no way needs to be as drawn out as it is, especially not when followed by the bar fight. For me, the movie really gets started when Spock shows up. And yet, I do agree with Chris Wisniewski at Reverse Shot about the lack of philosophical ambition in JJ Abrams' reboot. Trek's creators have always strived to make the franchise about something, and while this hasn't always led to good film or TV, it does, I think, help explain the durability of the storyworld. The new movie is not only the first installment that seems to have been made purely for thrill and spectacle, but allows horrific genocide to go by with hardly more than a nod in the direction of the profundity of such an event. I still enjoyed the movie, but after the fact, I felt myself missing the typical moral and intellectual earnestness of the series. Sugar. An interesting and sometimes beautiful film, particularly in its handling of cultural juxtapositions and the deftness with which it wraps an immigration story in a sports movie. I need to watch it again though to fully develop my thoughts; my expectations were pretty high going in and sometimes it helps to see a movie like that once, with those burdens, and then again later, without them to gain some perspective. The Brothers Bloom. Another film I was looking forward to, and enjoyed, but need to see again. I mentally composed, but never wrote, a post on the movie's production design, which I think works well to shift the core cast into their own version of reality, one where Stephen's elaborate and literary cons might actually work. Motivated quirkiness of this kind, which is probably most often associated today with Wes Anderson's movies, works better for me than unmotivated oddness, as in Juno (2007), where the quirks are pretty much their own arguments, and not in the service of anything of consequence. The Girlfriend Experience. Not sure what to write here; a film I'm glad I saw, but can't say that it left much of a lasting impression. Public Enemies. This is a movie I like and appreciate more now than when I first saw it. I am compelled by the use of HD for a period piece like this, a device that clearly announces itself as a product of now, a movie about the 1930s, not of or from the period, which is the more conventional way of approaching historical material. Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince. As the film franchise has progressed, I am less enthused about seeing these movies. In part, this is because the films are becoming more what they should have been to begin with, which is directed at fans and readers of the books, which I am not. Moon. The best film I've seen this summer, easily. Beautiful, cool, provocative, anchored by a surprisingly understated lead, almost one-person show, performance from Sam Rockwell. Love the way the film quietly and cleverly plays with the memory of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Originally posted on:Short-Circuit Signs http://www.spout.com/blogs/kevynknox/archive/2009/7/3/42908.aspxPost By: KevynKnox
Post To: KevynKnox Blog
Post Date: 7/3/2009 2:46:14 AM
Body: (This review was first published at www.thecinematheque.com) Before tackling this film, the twentieth of Steven Soderbergh’s quite eclectic career, perhaps one should know just what the titular girlfriend experience is. A GFE, as it is called in those circles that know of such things, is a service provided by the highest of high-end call girls in which, in lieu of the typical wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am of prostitution legend and lore, they essentially act as a proxy girlfriend for their rich, and most probably lonely clients. I must admit to having had no idea about the existence of such a service-provider before first hearing of the imminent release of the film and reading up on the subject. According to interviews, Soderbergh himself had never heard of such a thing either, before hitting upon the idea while sitting in a bar with a somewhat more knowledgeable buddy of his whom gave him the whole skinny. Well known or not, like it or not, this is what Soderbergh’s twentieth film is all about. And on top of such an unconventional movie idea, Soderbergh has done himself one better by casting an honest-to-goodness, flesh & blood, ass & tits porn star in the lead role. And then on top of all that, perhaps to keep us on our proverbial toes, he goes and chooses Sasha Grey, a twenty-one year old arthouse film fan who, according to her MySpace page, counts Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch, Gus van Sant, Gasper Noe, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, David Gordon Green, P.T. Anderson, Harmony Korine, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Monte Hellman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Agnès Varda, Terrence Malick, Louis Malle, William Klein and (appropriately enough) Steven Soderbergh, among her filmic idols. She even claims to have tossed around the idea of using Anna Karina as her stage name. Nicknamed the Erotic Enigma, Ms. Grey has stated that she considers what she does as something beyond mere porn, something akin to performance art. This quirky outlook on her career - a career that includes an Adult Video Award for best blow job in her resume (performance art or not) - combined with her arthouse desires, has made Ms. Grey the almost perfect host for this reality show-cum-experimental cinema piece that Soderbergh has concocted and put together after the aforementioned few drinks with his more "street-hip" pal. Here, playing a high end call girl or not, Ms. Grey finds herself in her first legitimate role, playing a GFE who goes by the name of Chelsea. Soderbergh, who has made such disparate films as the festival favorite sex, lies & videotape, the big budget, star-filled crime caper Danny Ocean films (11, 12 & 13), the Oscar winning Traffic and Erin Brockovich, the minuscule digital video experiment Bubble, the epic two part Che Guevara biopic from a few months, back as well as the upcoming Jazz age retelling of Cleopatra. The film is shot guerrilla style, mostly by Soderbergh himself, using a hand held digital camera precariously positioned and re-positioned and re-re-positioned to act as a voyeuristic eye for the unwittingly passive viewer. This peekaboo motif of Soderbergh's works to turn this already taboo-seeming subject matter into something that seems even dirtier by our being no more than a peeping tom on the unsuspecting, and surprisingly human, Chelsea. Showing five days in the life of Chelsea (as well as chronicling the days leading up to President Obama's glorious victory) and wavering back and forth in what it shows and how and when it shows it (the film is purposely non-linear) GFE swings effortlessly between Chelsea's $2000 an hour clients and her A-type personality boyfriend. Grey is perfect in the role. Not due to any great acting breakthrough (ala Meryl Streep emerging from a brothel) but due to her lack of such. Grey is a perfect stone cold dead fish in the role. Whether this is on purpose or just merely the girl can't act I am not sure. It could very well be a combination of both, after all she looks realistic enough for me in her porn poses on the internet! And I think she may very well have deserved that aforementioned AVN award. But I digress. The real casting coup though is also Soderbergh's own little in-joke about his relationship over the years with critics. It is the casting of one of our very own in the role of, what else, a critic. Real-life film critic Glenn Kenny portrays a sleazy escort critic, who playing his mostly ad-libbed part in the most Rabelais of fashions (seemingly wallowing in his own filth) is the dark comic relief of the film. It is Kenny's Erotic Connoisseur, and not Grey's Chelsea (ironically she only has one brief nude scene) that plays out the dirty sexual wordplay and innuendo. A sort of fuck you and fuck me to the critical profession. Kenny's casting, and that of Grey, is integral to the idea surrounding Soderbergh's film. A sort of fuck you and fuck me to his own profession and to the Hollywood landscape that surrounds him. Soderbergh peels away the veneer of Chelsea's profession but at the same time he reveals the fallacy around his own as well. Showing the corrupt world of the escort business, with its cutthroat necessities and back-stabbing realities, Soderbergh also shows, as thinly veiled allegory, the equally corrupt movie business, with its cutthroat necessities and back-stabbing realities. Soderbergh has always been the most passive of auteurs. Acting more as tour guide, or voyeur if you will, than director. Perhaps it is this very passiveness that gets the filmmaker through the nasty world that is Hollywood USA and allows him to make the movies he wants to make without much interference from the corporate world that has pretty much taken over the filmmaking industry. It is the same passiveness that we see in the stone cold dead fish eyes of Sasha/Chelsea. In the end, with all his wrangling of genres and styles, Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience has taken the filmmaker full circle. From his debut twenty years ago, sex, lies & videotape, where the participants were obsessed with the camera, to now, where the participants are seemingly unaware of the camera, almost as if it had always been there - and I suppose in this day and age, it has been. The Girlfriend Experience is part cinema verite, part reality television, part socio-political allegory and part performance piece. There you go Sasha. Above all else though, this is a unique spectacle of filmmaking and well worth being sought out wherever one can find it.
]]>Fri, 03 Jul 2009 06:46:14 GMTKevynKnoxKevynKnox Blog7/3/2009 2:46:14 AM(This review was first published at www.thecinematheque.com) Before tackling this film, the twentieth of Steven Soderbergh&rsquo;s quite eclectic career, perhaps one should know just what the titular girlfriend experience is. A GFE, as it is called in those circles that know of such things, is a service provided by the highest of high-end call girls in which, in lieu of the typical wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am of prostitution legend and lore, they essentially act as a proxy girlfriend for their rich, and most probably lonely clients. I must admit to having had no idea about the existence of such a service-provider before first hearing of the imminent release of the film and reading up on the subject. According to interviews, Soderbergh himself had never heard of such a thing either, before hitting upon the idea while sitting in a bar with a somewhat more knowledgeable buddy of his whom gave him the whole skinny. Well known or not, like it or not, this is what Soderbergh&rsquo;s twentieth film is all about. And on top of such an unconventional movie idea, Soderbergh has done himself one better by casting an honest-to-goodness, flesh &amp; blood, ass &amp; tits porn star in the lead role. And then on top of all that, perhaps to keep us on our proverbial toes, he goes and chooses Sasha Grey, a twenty-one year old arthouse film fan who, according to her MySpace page, counts Jean-Luc Godard, David Lynch, Gus van Sant, Gasper Noe, Catherine Breillat, Richard Linklater, David Gordon Green, P.T. Anderson, Harmony Korine, Hiroshi Teshigahara, Monte Hellman, Bernardo Bertolucci, Agn&egrave;s Varda, Terrence Malick, Louis Malle, William Klein and (appropriately enough) Steven Soderbergh, among her filmic idols. She even claims to have tossed around the idea of using Anna Karina as her stage name. Nicknamed the Erotic Enigma, Ms. Grey has stated that she considers what she does as something beyond mere porn, something akin to performance art. This quirky outlook on her career - a career that includes an Adult Video Award for best blow job in her resume (performance art or not) - combined with her arthouse desires, has made Ms. Grey the almost perfect host for this reality show-cum-experimental cinema piece that Soderbergh has concocted and put together after the aforementioned few drinks with his more "street-hip" pal. Here, playing a high end call girl or not, Ms. Grey finds herself in her first legitimate role, playing a GFE who goes by the name of Chelsea. Soderbergh, who has made such disparate films as the festival favorite sex, lies &amp; videotape, the big budget, star-filled crime caper Danny Ocean films (11, 12 &amp; 13), the Oscar winning Traffic and Erin Brockovich, the minuscule digital video experiment Bubble, the epic two part Che Guevara biopic from a few months, back as well as the upcoming Jazz age retelling of Cleopatra. The film is shot guerrilla style, mostly by Soderbergh himself, using a hand held digital camera precariously positioned and re-positioned and re-re-positioned to act as a voyeuristic eye for the unwittingly passive viewer. This peekaboo motif of Soderbergh's works to turn this already taboo-seeming subject matter into something that seems even dirtier by our being no more than a peeping tom on the unsuspecting, and surprisingly human, Chelsea. Showing five days in the life of Chelsea (as well as chronicling the days leading up to President Obama's glorious victory) and wavering back and forth in what it shows and how and when it shows it (the film is purposely non-linear) GFE swings effortlessly between Chelsea's $2000 an hour clients and her A-type personality boyfriend. Grey is perfect in the role. Not due to any great acting breakthrough (ala Meryl Streep emerging from a brothel) but due to her lack of such. Grey is a perfect stone cold dead fish in the role. Whether this is on purpose or just merely the girl can't act I am not sure. It could very well be a combination of both, after all she looks realistic enough for me in her porn poses on the internet! And I think she may very well have deserved that aforementioned AVN award. But I digress. The real casting coup though is also Soderbergh's own little in-joke about his relationship over the years with critics. It is the casting of one of our very own in the role of, what else, a critic. Real-life film critic Glenn Kenny portrays a sleazy escort critic, who playing his mostly ad-libbed part in the most Rabelais of fashions (seemingly wallowing in his own filth) is the dark comic relief of the film. It is Kenny's Erotic Connoisseur, and not Grey's Chelsea (ironically she only has one brief nude scene) that plays out the dirty sexual wordplay and innuendo. A sort of fuck you and fuck me to the critical profession. Kenny's casting, and that of Grey, is integral to the idea surrounding Soderbergh's film. A sort of fuck you and fuck me to his own profession and to the Hollywood landscape that surrounds him. Soderbergh peels away the veneer of Chelsea's profession but at the same time he reveals the fallacy around his own as well. Showing the corrupt world of the escort business, with its cutthroat necessities and back-stabbing realities, Soderbergh also shows, as thinly veiled allegory, the equally corrupt movie business, with its cutthroat necessities and back-stabbing realities. Soderbergh has always been the most passive of auteurs. Acting more as tour guide, or voyeur if you will, than director. Perhaps it is this very passiveness that gets the filmmaker through the nasty world that is Hollywood USA and allows him to make the movies he wants to make without much interference from the corporate world that has pretty much taken over the filmmaking industry. It is the same passiveness that we see in the stone cold dead fish eyes of Sasha/Chelsea. In the end, with all his wrangling of genres and styles, Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience has taken the filmmaker full circle. From his debut twenty years ago, sex, lies &amp; videotape, where the participants were obsessed with the camera, to now, where the participants are seemingly unaware of the camera, almost as if it had always been there - and I suppose in this day and age, it has been. The Girlfriend Experience is part cinema verite, part reality television, part socio-political allegory and part performance piece. There you go Sasha. Above all else though, this is a unique spectacle of filmmaking and well worth being sought out wherever one can find it. http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/2/27/40728.aspxPost By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 2/27/2009 6:02:31 PM
Body: The news that Greta Gerwig will star opposite Ben Stiller in Noah Baumbach’s upcoming Focus Features-financed Greenberg would seem to represent just the latest landmark in an evolution. As polemicists rush to reject mumblecore as an ill-defined concept and Joe Swanberg as an auteur, Noah Baumbach is borrowing both the Nights and Weekends director as a cameraman and Swanberg’s frequent ingenue as a star. Even Steven Soderbergh is adopting the production methods with which Swanberg has become associated –– shooting fast and cheap on digital, using acquaintances of the production in lieu of actors and asking them to improvise based on an outline, etc. Swanberg invented none of it, but neither did Soderbergh, and when you consider Bubble as a kind of experiment in exotica, the latter has never gone as far in a quest for contemporary naturalism as he does in The Girlfriend Experience. There’s something, at the very least, undeniably interesting about the fact that both filmmakers will release films in 2009 made roughly the same way. As a result, the m-word might cease to exist as a stand-alone concept –– and I think no one would be happier about that than some of the filmmakers who bristle at being lumped into a movement just because they made a movie about 25 year-olds shot on video –– but its stars and spirit are being assimilated into mainstream indie film. Are boundaries finally breakind down between Indiewood and, uh, DIYwood? Was this inevitable, or are we surprised? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Fri, 27 Feb 2009 23:02:31 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog2/27/2009 6:02:31 PMThe news that Greta Gerwig will star opposite Ben Stiller in Noah Baumbach’s upcoming Focus Features-financed Greenberg would seem to represent just the latest landmark in an evolution. As polemicists rush to reject mumblecore as an ill-defined concept and Joe Swanberg as an auteur, Noah Baumbach is borrowing both the Nights and Weekends director as a cameraman and Swanberg’s frequent ingenue as a star. Even Steven Soderbergh is adopting the production methods with which Swanberg has become associated –– shooting fast and cheap on digital, using acquaintances of the production in lieu of actors and asking them to improvise based on an outline, etc. Swanberg invented none of it, but neither did Soderbergh, and when you consider Bubble as a kind of experiment in exotica, the latter has never gone as far in a quest for contemporary naturalism as he does in The Girlfriend Experience. There’s something, at the very least, undeniably interesting about the fact that both filmmakers will release films in 2009 made roughly the same way. As a result, the m-word might cease to exist as a stand-alone concept –– and I think no one would be happier about that than some of the filmmakers who bristle at being lumped into a movement just because they made a movie about 25 year-olds shot on video –– but its stars and spirit are being assimilated into mainstream indie film. Are boundaries finally breakind down between Indiewood and, uh, DIYwood? Was this inevitable, or are we surprised? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/26/39912.aspxPost By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/26/2009 1:01:24 PM
Body: The advantage of seeing the Ashton Kutcher-starring Spread at Sundance, as opposed to in theaters down the road, isn’t just the fact that director David Mackenzie hasn’t yet been forced to neuter the film’s skintastic sex scenes (his 2003 Young Adam was shaved down for far less to get an R rating here in the States), but also the way it so nicely compliments a film that screened a few days later, Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience. Neither movie quite works on its own, but as a pair, they are the yin to one another’s yang — portraits of a Hollywood hustler and high-class escort that, taken together, give a well-rounded picture of that world. That’s the beauty of film festivals: Cramming thirty-odd films into a week’s time has a way of illuminating thematic connections between stories you’d almost certainly miss when screening them months apart at the megaplex. Autism, genocide, un-reciprocated love, sex-for-pay — all big themes at this year’s Sundance. And while neither Spread nor The Girlfriend Experience has much to say about those first few categories, they prove plenty revealing when it comes to understanding the realm of sex work. “I don’t want to be arrogant, but I’m a very attractive man. I can’t help it, I just am,” says Ashton Kutcher, giving us his very best Batman voice as he delivers Spread’s husky opening narration. “Nicki” goes on explain how easily he can seduce some middle-aged woman into putting a roof over his head and designer clothes on his back, while Anne Heche takes the bait before our eyes. He’s just the accessory her otherwise perfect Hollywood Hills house needs, and she … well, she’s his meal ticket. This is not the L.A. most Angelenos know, but some sort of fantasy version of it, the sort you might encounter in a Bret Easton Ellis novel or those Armani ads in which stylish ladies lounge among naked male models. When they have sex, it’s porn sex — every position imaginable, perfectly lit, with Heche crying out in “I’ve never had it this good” ecstasy. These montages might be laughable if they weren’t so frickin’ hot, and it’s not until Nicki’s inevitable turn for the worse that we find time to address important questions. Like, how is it that Kutcher can have no ass in jeans, and yet it can look so good scooching across the dining room table? (Heche, too, has never looked so scorching.) Hollywood hates it when characters succeed without earning it, so it’s no surprise that Nicki’s free ride must eventually end. But even here, real-world rules do not apply — nor do the conventions of Hollywood Icarus stories, for that matter. If this were Midnight Cowboy, he’d be blowing Bob Balaban in a bathroom, but Spread seems to be a first among hustler movies in that it doesn’t equate turning a male trick with rock bottom. Nicki’s exploits are strictly straight, and the karmic lesson the film has in mind involves watching this cool-hearted narcissist fall for a woman he can’t actually have, played by Adventureland’s Margarita Levieva. Spread is the very definition of a vanity project, one that allows Kutcher to demonstrate his acting chops and his chiseled abs at the same time (that cocky self-confidence is just a shield for the vulnerable child within, you see). Yet despite all its superficial pleasures, Spread never really reveals that inner soul. That’s what The Girlfriend Experience is for — sort of. Casting porn star Sasha Grey as a high-priced hooker, Soderbergh leaves the sex stuff out and focuses on the logistics of her world, from the business of improving her standing within that arena to maintaining a committed relationship. At the risk of sounding prurient, a little sex would have gone a long way in this film, which adheres to the prismatic editing style of Soderbergh’s more experimental projects but goes a good 40 minutes without giving us something to latch on to. And though Grey is just a notch above Paris Hilton in the acting department, her thespian shortcomings actually serve to reinforce the enigma of her persona, as she keeps her true self hidden from clients and the audience alike. What matters is that Soderbergh seems interested in exploring the identity behind that façade — unlike Mackenzie, who celebrates the superficiality of Spread. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. Speaking in purely technical terms, The Girlfriend Experience is something of a mess (granted, it was a work-in-progress that screened at Sundance), and Spread is remarkably well constructed. People may object to the shallowness of Mackenzie’s film, but it’s hard to fault the execution, which wraps with a poetic image: (spoiler alert) After returning to Heche’s house, this time as a delivery boy, Kutcher walks down the driveway as the electric gate swings closed behind him, shutting him out of that glamorous life. It’s an elegant metaphor, but not quite the end. Mackenzie has one more shot up his sleeve. This one we won’t spoil, except to say it expands the allegory well beyond Nicki’s situation to comment on L.A. at large — and for once, sex has nothing to do with it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Mon, 26 Jan 2009 18:01:24 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/26/2009 1:01:24 PMThe advantage of seeing the Ashton Kutcher-starring Spread at Sundance, as opposed to in theaters down the road, isn’t just the fact that director David Mackenzie hasn’t yet been forced to neuter the film’s skintastic sex scenes (his 2003 Young Adam was shaved down for far less to get an R rating here in the States), but also the way it so nicely compliments a film that screened a few days later, Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience. Neither movie quite works on its own, but as a pair, they are the yin to one another’s yang — portraits of a Hollywood hustler and high-class escort that, taken together, give a well-rounded picture of that world. That’s the beauty of film festivals: Cramming thirty-odd films into a week’s time has a way of illuminating thematic connections between stories you’d almost certainly miss when screening them months apart at the megaplex. Autism, genocide, un-reciprocated love, sex-for-pay — all big themes at this year’s Sundance. And while neither Spread nor The Girlfriend Experience has much to say about those first few categories, they prove plenty revealing when it comes to understanding the realm of sex work. “I don’t want to be arrogant, but I’m a very attractive man. I can’t help it, I just am,” says Ashton Kutcher, giving us his very best Batman voice as he delivers Spread’s husky opening narration. “Nicki” goes on explain how easily he can seduce some middle-aged woman into putting a roof over his head and designer clothes on his back, while Anne Heche takes the bait before our eyes. He’s just the accessory her otherwise perfect Hollywood Hills house needs, and she … well, she’s his meal ticket. This is not the L.A. most Angelenos know, but some sort of fantasy version of it, the sort you might encounter in a Bret Easton Ellis novel or those Armani ads in which stylish ladies lounge among naked male models. When they have sex, it’s porn sex — every position imaginable, perfectly lit, with Heche crying out in “I’ve never had it this good” ecstasy. These montages might be laughable if they weren’t so frickin’ hot, and it’s not until Nicki’s inevitable turn for the worse that we find time to address important questions. Like, how is it that Kutcher can have no ass in jeans, and yet it can look so good scooching across the dining room table? (Heche, too, has never looked so scorching.) Hollywood hates it when characters succeed without earning it, so it’s no surprise that Nicki’s free ride must eventually end. But even here, real-world rules do not apply — nor do the conventions of Hollywood Icarus stories, for that matter. If this were Midnight Cowboy, he’d be blowing Bob Balaban in a bathroom, but Spread seems to be a first among hustler movies in that it doesn’t equate turning a male trick with rock bottom. Nicki’s exploits are strictly straight, and the karmic lesson the film has in mind involves watching this cool-hearted narcissist fall for a woman he can’t actually have, played by Adventureland’s Margarita Levieva. Spread is the very definition of a vanity project, one that allows Kutcher to demonstrate his acting chops and his chiseled abs at the same time (that cocky self-confidence is just a shield for the vulnerable child within, you see). Yet despite all its superficial pleasures, Spread never really reveals that inner soul. That’s what The Girlfriend Experience is for — sort of. Casting porn star Sasha Grey as a high-priced hooker, Soderbergh leaves the sex stuff out and focuses on the logistics of her world, from the business of improving her standing within that arena to maintaining a committed relationship. At the risk of sounding prurient, a little sex would have gone a long way in this film, which adheres to the prismatic editing style of Soderbergh’s more experimental projects but goes a good 40 minutes without giving us something to latch on to. And though Grey is just a notch above Paris Hilton in the acting department, her thespian shortcomings actually serve to reinforce the enigma of her persona, as she keeps her true self hidden from clients and the audience alike. What matters is that Soderbergh seems interested in exploring the identity behind that façade — unlike Mackenzie, who celebrates the superficiality of Spread. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, by the way. Speaking in purely technical terms, The Girlfriend Experience is something of a mess (granted, it was a work-in-progress that screened at Sundance), and Spread is remarkably well constructed. People may object to the shallowness of Mackenzie’s film, but it’s hard to fault the execution, which wraps with a poetic image: (spoiler alert) After returning to Heche’s house, this time as a delivery boy, Kutcher walks down the driveway as the electric gate swings closed behind him, shutting him out of that glamorous life. It’s an elegant metaphor, but not quite the end. Mackenzie has one more shot up his sleeve. This one we won’t spoil, except to say it expands the allegory well beyond Nicki’s situation to comment on L.A. at large — and for once, sex has nothing to do with it. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2009/1/21/39740.aspxPost By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 1/21/2009 2:01:17 AM
Body: Steven Soderbergh was on hand at the Eccles Theater in Park City tonight to screen a “work-in-progress” cut of his latest low-budget digital picture for HDNet Films, The Girlfriend Experience. Starring porn star Sasha Grey as a high-end escort who alternately goes by the names Chelsea and Christine, the film is not the salacious, graphically sexual verite that fans of Grey’s previous filmography might have expected/hoped for. Instead, it’s a cold (although understandably, necessarily so), hands-off portrait of a certain New York City life about a month before the 2008 presidential election. With panic over the economic crisis inescapable even in the extremely moneyed circles in which she does business, our heroine sees clients, argues with her live-in personal trainer boyfriend, brunches with a call girl friend, lunches with a journalist (played by real-life prostitution expose writer Mark Jacobson) and meets with a variety of men who can stand to help her “expand [her] business.” Through it all, she maintains an impenetrable (no pun intended) facade, until a “connection” with a new client and the manipulations of an online hooker review writer (played by none other than film critic/blogger Glenn Kenny, apparently typecast for his talent at cracking even the toughest girl’s shell via his written word) combine to damage her armor. It’s probably not fair to offer a full review of a work-in-progress, but Experience fascinated me enough that I do want to throw out a few comments. With a tone and approach vaguely reminiscent of Hal Hartley’s The Book of Life, Experience (at least in the incarnation we saw tonight) feels like an extraordinarily up-to-the-minute slice-of-life, a sketch of the filmmaker’s current preoccupations and fascinations worked out in slick video images that are at once austere and seductive. Subjects are often presented in simple wide shots, with the camera far enough away to suggest surveillance. Close ups, especially of Grey, fail to function as the windows on internal life that Hollywood film trains us to look for. This is a movie about a woman whose sleepy eyes and slight smirk rarely betray the slightest worry or impression. She spends 98 percent of her waking (and sleeping) life strenuously avoiding letting anyone in, and Soderbergh sticks to her surface for about the same percentage of his film. Though improvised based on a linear outline and shot in sequence, as edited Experience constantly jumps back and forth in time to the extent that events and conversations alluded in fragments throughout, but can only be fully pieced together at the end. Citing his own The Limey as an inspiration for the new film’s construction, Soderbergh acknowledged after the screening that the severe non-linearity is challenging. “There are people who do not like stories told like this, and that’s fine,” he said. “The couple of times I’ve done this, I’ve tried to find that balance of interest and intrigue, but also playing fair. There is a line there, where if you don’t dole out information in the right way, people get pissed off.” By “people”, Soderbergh may mean “critics.” Whether it’s Jacobson’s prying reporter who admits that he’s only interested in information that will push Chelsea/Christine beyond her comfort zone, or Kenny’s internet critic/wannabe pimp who gives good reviews only to girls who are really willing to work for it, Experience weaves in a hostility to the media. Soderbergh echoed that subtext before and after the screening, first complaining that the details of this alleged “sneak preview” screening had been leaked online, then, in response to a question about how he felt watching the film with an audience for the first time, dryly snarked, “Read my blog.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:01:17 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog1/21/2009 2:01:17 AMSteven Soderbergh was on hand at the Eccles Theater in Park City tonight to screen a “work-in-progress” cut of his latest low-budget digital picture for HDNet Films, The Girlfriend Experience. Starring porn star Sasha Grey as a high-end escort who alternately goes by the names Chelsea and Christine, the film is not the salacious, graphically sexual verite that fans of Grey’s previous filmography might have expected/hoped for. Instead, it’s a cold (although understandably, necessarily so), hands-off portrait of a certain New York City life about a month before the 2008 presidential election. With panic over the economic crisis inescapable even in the extremely moneyed circles in which she does business, our heroine sees clients, argues with her live-in personal trainer boyfriend, brunches with a call girl friend, lunches with a journalist (played by real-life prostitution expose writer Mark Jacobson) and meets with a variety of men who can stand to help her “expand [her] business.” Through it all, she maintains an impenetrable (no pun intended) facade, until a “connection” with a new client and the manipulations of an online hooker review writer (played by none other than film critic/blogger Glenn Kenny, apparently typecast for his talent at cracking even the toughest girl’s shell via his written word) combine to damage her armor. It’s probably not fair to offer a full review of a work-in-progress, but Experience fascinated me enough that I do want to throw out a few comments. With a tone and approach vaguely reminiscent of Hal Hartley’s The Book of Life, Experience (at least in the incarnation we saw tonight) feels like an extraordinarily up-to-the-minute slice-of-life, a sketch of the filmmaker’s current preoccupations and fascinations worked out in slick video images that are at once austere and seductive. Subjects are often presented in simple wide shots, with the camera far enough away to suggest surveillance. Close ups, especially of Grey, fail to function as the windows on internal life that Hollywood film trains us to look for. This is a movie about a woman whose sleepy eyes and slight smirk rarely betray the slightest worry or impression. She spends 98 percent of her waking (and sleeping) life strenuously avoiding letting anyone in, and Soderbergh sticks to her surface for about the same percentage of his film. Though improvised based on a linear outline and shot in sequence, as edited Experience constantly jumps back and forth in time to the extent that events and conversations alluded in fragments throughout, but can only be fully pieced together at the end. Citing his own The Limey as an inspiration for the new film’s construction, Soderbergh acknowledged after the screening that the severe non-linearity is challenging. “There are people who do not like stories told like this, and that’s fine,” he said. “The couple of times I’ve done this, I’ve tried to find that balance of interest and intrigue, but also playing fair. There is a line there, where if you don’t dole out information in the right way, people get pissed off.” By “people”, Soderbergh may mean “critics.” Whether it’s Jacobson’s prying reporter who admits that he’s only interested in information that will push Chelsea/Christine beyond her comfort zone, or Kenny’s internet critic/wannabe pimp who gives good reviews only to girls who are really willing to work for it, Experience weaves in a hostility to the media. Soderbergh echoed that subtext before and after the screening, first complaining that the details of this alleged “sneak preview” screening had been leaked online, then, in response to a question about how he felt watching the film with an audience for the first time, dryly snarked, “Read my blog.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2009/1/21/39738.aspxPost By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 1/21/2009 2:01:02 AM
Body: Steven Soderbergh was on hand at the Eccles Theater in Park City tonight to screen a “work-in-progress” cut of his latest low-budget digital picture for HDNet Films, The Girlfriend Experience. Starring porn star Sasha Grey as a high-end escort who alternately goes by the names Chelsea and Christine, the film is not the salacious, graphically sexual verite that fans of Grey’s previous filmography might have expected/hoped for. Instead, it’s a cold (although understandably, necessarily so), hands-off portrait of a certain New York City life about a month before the 2008 presidential election. With panic over the economic crisis inescapable even in the extremely moneyed circles in which she does business, our heroine sees clients, argues with her live-in personal trainer boyfriend, brunches with a call girl friend, lunches with a journalist (played by real-life prostitution expose writer Mark Jacobson) and meets with a variety of men who can stand to help her “expand [her] business.” Through it all, she maintains an impenetrable (no pun intended) facade, until a “connection” with a new client and the manipulations of an online hooker review writer (played by none other than film critic/blogger Glenn Kenny, apparently typecast for his talent at cracking even the toughest girl’s shell via his written word) combine to damage her armor. It’s probably not fair to offer a full review of a work-in-progress, but Experience fascinated me enough that I do want to throw out a few comments. With a tone and approach vaguely reminiscent of Hal Hartley’s The Book of Life, Experience (at least in the incarnation we saw tonight) feels like an extraordinarily up-to-the-minute slice-of-life, a sketch of the filmmaker’s current preoccupations and fascinations worked out in slick video images that are at once austere and seductive. Subjects are often presented in simple wide shots, with the camera far enough away to suggest surveillance. Close ups, especially of Grey, fail to function as the windows on internal life that Hollywood film trains us to look for. This is a movie about a woman whose sleepy eyes and slight smirk rarely betray the slightest worry or impression. She spends 98 percent of her waking (and sleeping) life strenuously avoiding letting anyone in, and Soderbergh sticks to her surface for about the same percentage of his film. Though improvised based on a linear outline and shot in sequence, as edited Experience constantly jumps back and forth in time to the extent that events and conversations alluded in fragments throughout, but can only be fully pieced together at the end. Citing his own The Limey as an inspiration for the new film’s construction, Soderbergh acknowledged after the screening that the severe non-linearity is challenging. “There are people who do not like stories told like this, and that’s fine,” he said. “The couple of times I’ve done this, I’ve tried to find that balance of interest and intrigue, but also playing fair. There is a line there, where if you don’t dole out information in the right way, people get pissed off.” By “people”, Soderbergh may mean “critics.” Whether it’s Jacobson’s prying reporter who admits that he’s only interested in information that will push Chelsea/Christine beyond her comfort zone, or Kenny’s internet critic/wannabe pimp who gives good reviews only to girls who are really willing to work for it, Experience weaves in a hostility to the media. Soderbergh echoed that subtext before and after the screening, first complaining that the details of this alleged “sneak preview” screening had been leaked online, then, in response to a question about how he felt watching the film with an audience for the first time, dryly snarked, “Read my blog.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Wed, 21 Jan 2009 07:01:02 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com1/21/2009 2:01:02 AMSteven Soderbergh was on hand at the Eccles Theater in Park City tonight to screen a “work-in-progress” cut of his latest low-budget digital picture for HDNet Films, The Girlfriend Experience. Starring porn star Sasha Grey as a high-end escort who alternately goes by the names Chelsea and Christine, the film is not the salacious, graphically sexual verite that fans of Grey’s previous filmography might have expected/hoped for. Instead, it’s a cold (although understandably, necessarily so), hands-off portrait of a certain New York City life about a month before the 2008 presidential election. With panic over the economic crisis inescapable even in the extremely moneyed circles in which she does business, our heroine sees clients, argues with her live-in personal trainer boyfriend, brunches with a call girl friend, lunches with a journalist (played by real-life prostitution expose writer Mark Jacobson) and meets with a variety of men who can stand to help her “expand [her] business.” Through it all, she maintains an impenetrable (no pun intended) facade, until a “connection” with a new client and the manipulations of an online hooker review writer (played by none other than film critic/blogger Glenn Kenny, apparently typecast for his talent at cracking even the toughest girl’s shell via his written word) combine to damage her armor. It’s probably not fair to offer a full review of a work-in-progress, but Experience fascinated me enough that I do want to throw out a few comments. With a tone and approach vaguely reminiscent of Hal Hartley’s The Book of Life, Experience (at least in the incarnation we saw tonight) feels like an extraordinarily up-to-the-minute slice-of-life, a sketch of the filmmaker’s current preoccupations and fascinations worked out in slick video images that are at once austere and seductive. Subjects are often presented in simple wide shots, with the camera far enough away to suggest surveillance. Close ups, especially of Grey, fail to function as the windows on internal life that Hollywood film trains us to look for. This is a movie about a woman whose sleepy eyes and slight smirk rarely betray the slightest worry or impression. She spends 98 percent of her waking (and sleeping) life strenuously avoiding letting anyone in, and Soderbergh sticks to her surface for about the same percentage of his film. Though improvised based on a linear outline and shot in sequence, as edited Experience constantly jumps back and forth in time to the extent that events and conversations alluded in fragments throughout, but can only be fully pieced together at the end. Citing his own The Limey as an inspiration for the new film’s construction, Soderbergh acknowledged after the screening that the severe non-linearity is challenging. “There are people who do not like stories told like this, and that’s fine,” he said. “The couple of times I’ve done this, I’ve tried to find that balance of interest and intrigue, but also playing fair. There is a line there, where if you don’t dole out information in the right way, people get pissed off.” By “people”, Soderbergh may mean “critics.” Whether it’s Jacobson’s prying reporter who admits that he’s only interested in information that will push Chelsea/Christine beyond her comfort zone, or Kenny’s internet critic/wannabe pimp who gives good reviews only to girls who are really willing to work for it, Experience weaves in a hostility to the media. Soderbergh echoed that subtext before and after the screening, first complaining that the details of this alleged “sneak preview” screening had been leaked online, then, in response to a question about how he felt watching the film with an audience for the first time, dryly snarked, “Read my blog.” Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/karina/archive/2008/10/16/36405.aspxPost By: Karina
Post To: Karina on SpoutBlog
Post Date: 10/16/2008 3:01:28 PM
Body: I have a confession to make: I am really not up to date on the newest latest trends in contemporary porn. When I used to work in a video store, the culture of AVN and Vivid Video was impossible to ignore, but I guess I’ve gone respectable. So when I saw Chris’ post earlier today about the casting of Sasha Grey in Steven Soderbergh’s prostitute drama The Girlfriend Experience, I wondered if the part about Grey being a fan of “Godard, Bertolucci and Breillat” was a joke. But then I discovered Grey’s Wikipedia profile, which offers evidence that the 20 year-old (recently the youngest actress to be named AVN’s Female Performer of the Year) has actually made attempts to position herself as The Porn Star Who Likes Art Films. Some choice excerpts: “Originally she toyed with the name Anna Karina (the name of Jean-Luc Godard’s ex-wife) before deciding on her present name.” This tidbit is sourced from a Los Angeles Magazine story, which also notes, “For an 18-year-old porn star with a spotty high school education, she has tastes that would make Cumisha or Ms. Panther go blank. Besides Godard, she likes the directors Michelangelo Antonioni, Werner Herzog, and Lars von Trier.” After graduating high school a year early, she starred in, co-wrote and produced an “unreleased experimental film named Unknown Pleasures.” We’ll assume the reference was to Joy Division and not Jia Zhang Ke, but who knows? In other extracurricular activities, she’s part of an “experimental music/art project” called Telecine and she’s apparently making a documentary about her own life as a porn star. Quoted directly from Wikipedia, which atrributes no source to the information: “Sasha has expressed a strong interest in existentialism while posing the question ‘how many porn stars are existentialist?’” I can only imagine that Jean-Luc himself would disapprove of a creation like Grey, a literal embodiment of the pornographic endgame of mass media, aligning herself with his name and work — but I’d bet he’d get a laugh out of the idea that she tried to name herself Anna Karina before her porno agent talked her out of it. In any case, if there’s anything more mind-blowing than the fact that Grey exists (and has won awards for her work in films like Fuck Slaves, no less), it’s that Magnolia and Soderbergh stumbled on her at just the right time. Because if anything’s going to top the Diablo Cody mythos, why not a porn star with a working knowledge of auteur theory? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth
]]>Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:01:28 GMTKarinaKarina on SpoutBlog10/16/2008 3:01:28 PMI have a confession to make: I am really not up to date on the newest latest trends in contemporary porn. When I used to work in a video store, the culture of AVN and Vivid Video was impossible to ignore, but I guess I’ve gone respectable. So when I saw Chris’ post earlier today about the casting of Sasha Grey in Steven Soderbergh’s prostitute drama The Girlfriend Experience, I wondered if the part about Grey being a fan of “Godard, Bertolucci and Breillat” was a joke. But then I discovered Grey’s Wikipedia profile, which offers evidence that the 20 year-old (recently the youngest actress to be named AVN’s Female Performer of the Year) has actually made attempts to position herself as The Porn Star Who Likes Art Films. Some choice excerpts: “Originally she toyed with the name Anna Karina (the name of Jean-Luc Godard’s ex-wife) before deciding on her present name.” This tidbit is sourced from a Los Angeles Magazine story, which also notes, “For an 18-year-old porn star with a spotty high school education, she has tastes that would make Cumisha or Ms. Panther go blank. Besides Godard, she likes the directors Michelangelo Antonioni, Werner Herzog, and Lars von Trier.” After graduating high school a year early, she starred in, co-wrote and produced an “unreleased experimental film named Unknown Pleasures.” We’ll assume the reference was to Joy Division and not Jia Zhang Ke, but who knows? In other extracurricular activities, she’s part of an “experimental music/art project” called Telecine and she’s apparently making a documentary about her own life as a porn star. Quoted directly from Wikipedia, which atrributes no source to the information: “Sasha has expressed a strong interest in existentialism while posing the question ‘how many porn stars are existentialist?’” I can only imagine that Jean-Luc himself would disapprove of a creation like Grey, a literal embodiment of the pornographic endgame of mass media, aligning herself with his name and work — but I’d bet he’d get a laugh out of the idea that she tried to name herself Anna Karina before her porno agent talked her out of it. In any case, if there’s anything more mind-blowing than the fact that Grey exists (and has won awards for her work in films like Fuck Slaves, no less), it’s that Magnolia and Soderbergh stumbled on her at just the right time. Because if anything’s going to top the Diablo Cody mythos, why not a porn star with a working knowledge of auteur theory? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog » Karina Longworth http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/10/16/36404.aspxPost By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 10/16/2008 3:01:16 PM
Body: I have a confession to make: I am really not up to date on the newest latest trends in contemporary porn. When I used to work in a video store, the culture of AVN and Vivid Video was impossible to ignore, but I guess I’ve gone respectable. So when I saw Chris’ post earlier today about the casting of Sasha Grey in Steven Soderbergh’s prostitute drama The Girlfriend Experience, I wondered if the part about Grey being a fan of “Godard, Bertolucci and Breillat” was a joke. But then I discovered Grey’s Wikipedia profile, which offers evidence that the 20 year-old (recently the youngest actress to be named AVN’s Female Performer of the Year) has actually made attempts to position herself as The Porn Star Who Likes Art Films. Some choice excerpts: “Originally she toyed with the name Anna Karina (the name of Jean-Luc Godard’s ex-wife) before deciding on her present name.” This tidbit is sourced from a Los Angeles Magazine story, which also notes, “For an 18-year-old porn star with a spotty high school education, she has tastes that would make Cumisha or Ms. Panther go blank. Besides Godard, she likes the directors Michelangelo Antonioni, Werner Herzog, and Lars von Trier.” After graduating high school a year early, she starred in, co-wrote and produced an “unreleased experimental film named Unknown Pleasures.” We’ll assume the reference was to Joy Division and not Jia Zhang Ke, but who knows? In other extracurricular activities, she’s part of an “experimental music/art project” called Telecine and she’s apparently making a documentary about her own life as a porn star. Quoted directly from Wikipedia, which atrributes no source to the information: “Sasha has expressed a strong interest in existentialism while posing the question ‘how many porn stars are existentialist?’” I can only imagine that Jean-Luc himself would disapprove of a creation like Grey, a literal embodiment of the pornographic endgame of mass media, aligning herself with his name and work — but I’d bet he’d get a laugh out of the idea that she tried to name herself Anna Karina before her porno agent talked her out of it. In any case, if there’s anything more mind-blowing than the fact that Grey exists (and has won awards for her work in films like Fuck Slaves, no less), it’s that Magnolia and Soderbergh stumbled on her at just the right time. Because if anything’s going to top the Diablo Cody mythos, why not a porn star with a working knowledge of auteur theory? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 16 Oct 2008 19:01:16 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com10/16/2008 3:01:16 PMI have a confession to make: I am really not up to date on the newest latest trends in contemporary porn. When I used to work in a video store, the culture of AVN and Vivid Video was impossible to ignore, but I guess I’ve gone respectable. So when I saw Chris’ post earlier today about the casting of Sasha Grey in Steven Soderbergh’s prostitute drama The Girlfriend Experience, I wondered if the part about Grey being a fan of “Godard, Bertolucci and Breillat” was a joke. But then I discovered Grey’s Wikipedia profile, which offers evidence that the 20 year-old (recently the youngest actress to be named AVN’s Female Performer of the Year) has actually made attempts to position herself as The Porn Star Who Likes Art Films. Some choice excerpts: “Originally she toyed with the name Anna Karina (the name of Jean-Luc Godard’s ex-wife) before deciding on her present name.” This tidbit is sourced from a Los Angeles Magazine story, which also notes, “For an 18-year-old porn star with a spotty high school education, she has tastes that would make Cumisha or Ms. Panther go blank. Besides Godard, she likes the directors Michelangelo Antonioni, Werner Herzog, and Lars von Trier.” After graduating high school a year early, she starred in, co-wrote and produced an “unreleased experimental film named Unknown Pleasures.” We’ll assume the reference was to Joy Division and not Jia Zhang Ke, but who knows? In other extracurricular activities, she’s part of an “experimental music/art project” called Telecine and she’s apparently making a documentary about her own life as a porn star. Quoted directly from Wikipedia, which atrributes no source to the information: “Sasha has expressed a strong interest in existentialism while posing the question ‘how many porn stars are existentialist?’” I can only imagine that Jean-Luc himself would disapprove of a creation like Grey, a literal embodiment of the pornographic endgame of mass media, aligning herself with his name and work — but I’d bet he’d get a laugh out of the idea that she tried to name herself Anna Karina before her porno agent talked her out of it. In any case, if there’s anything more mind-blowing than the fact that Grey exists (and has won awards for her work in films like Fuck Slaves, no less), it’s that Magnolia and Soderbergh stumbled on her at just the right time. Because if anything’s going to top the Diablo Cody mythos, why not a porn star with a working knowledge of auteur theory? Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/romance/MemberTagFilms.aspxromance
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