Throat: A Cautionary Tale

Studio: Vivid
Director: Paul Thomas
Cast: Sasha Grey, Penny Flame, Tom Byron, Evan Stone, Aliana Love, Trent Tesoro, Herschel Savage, Lee Stone

Review by: Gram Ponante

"I didn't mean for this to happen," intones Julie (Sasha Grey), commenting on her (naked, of course - are you kidding?) corpse a la "Sunset Boulevard" via its Porn Valley counterpart, Sherman Way. "Things just got out of hand."

Out of hand and into throat, you mean. Thus begins "Throat: A Cautionary Tale," Vivid's biggest movie this year, an ambitious project that has already had a six-episode paid infomercial playing on Showtime to support it.

Veteran porn scribe Raven Touchstone's script is the best this year, convincingly effecting a B story of the cops (Tom Byron and train wreck Penny Flame) tracking down Julie's killer as well as presenting several possible culprits. And, in a movie that is dark but not too dark for its own good, Touchstone gives a ditzy stripper the line "I heard he fucked an elephant and made it scream."

That Grey - and not a Vivid contract girl - leads the cast is not surprising, considering director Paul ("PT") Thomas' other big movie this year, "Faithless," starring Miss America-turned-soap opera actress-turned-full-throated cougar harridan Kelli McCarty.

"Throat" is also a great example of a post-modern porn movie. At two hours it is a throwback to features of yore, but it also takes as its source material "Deep Throat," porn's most famous film and a cultural phenomenon that even found its way into the Watergate scandal.

"What's a 'Deep Throat'?" asks Julie, who lets us know that her "pussy was her enemy" and her "clit like a wart."

Julie is being schooled by Lane (Aliana Love), a fellow stripper at the peep show at which Julie has been forced to work to pay for college. The movie takes its time breaking down Julie's stripperesque misanthropy ("I was sickened by their pathetic neediness," she says. (You and me both, sister!) "But I felt sorry for them, too. If they had someone to love them, they wouldn't be here") and provides a few indulgences not often thrown to porn consumers: a slow burn.

Julie, you see, cannot experience pleasure in her vagina. At first we think it's just because her loser trust-fund boyfriend Eddie (Trent Tesoro) only cares about himself. This is partly true. But the real reason is that Julie's functioning clitoris is in her throat. Once Lane shows Julie how to "deep throat" a dildo (if the characters Lane and Julie know about Linda Lovelace and the origin of that term, they never let on), Julie is hooked on the feeling of finally, finally getting the stimulation she needs.

But even as Eddie becomes the lucky beneficiary of Julie's newfound throat-acumen, he becomes enraged by the thought of how she might have developed it. He gets over it and, like Evan Stone's mercenary gentlemen's club manager later in the movie, pimps her out for cash.

Where "Throat" differs from other porn versions of the Boulevard of Broken Dreams story is the time it takes to set up Julie's betrayals. Before these guys reveal themselves for the sleazebags they are, Julie trusts them.

Similarly does Joe (Tom Byron) trust his partner Byrd (Penny Flame). As you can imagine, Byrd gets drawn in to the sex club scene while investigating the death of Julie, but Byrd is given even more of a past: she's a pill popper and drunk! Not only that, she trades on her shame. In another of "Throat"'s memorable lines she says, "Punish me. I deserve it. I'm no good. Punish me."

The movie gives the audience so much credit throughout that its occasional porny missteps - at the beginning and end - are jarring. Do we really need to see a textbook overlay of the female reproductive system above Grey's pleasing flesh-and-blood parts? Isn't this explained elsewhere? What kind of coroner leaves a patient lying naked and uncovered on a gurney after declaring that her dead (and hot!) little throat "will make history"? Do we need to see what we are already pretty sure is her famous vagina labeled "Vagina"? Perhaps so. Like the coroner is the first to find - long after the detectives are through with her - the condom sticking half out of that "Vagina," maybe the filmmakers believe the audience is likely to miss something.

Similarly, for someone who has clearly stated that she only gets off with her throat, Julie sure spends a lot of time post-epiphany getting it everywhere else. (I'm only complaining about this as a writer, you understand.)

The performances of Grey and Flame are right on the money. The sex is integral to both their stories, and everything their characters say within that context makes sense, and is delivered more convincingly than anything else. We cannot help infer the plight of the millennial 21-year-old porn star Sasha Grey in Julie's "I'm a person!" speech, and we are all too familiar with the upside of bad behavior: sometimes Penny Flame just wants to be punished.

But the deftest touch in "Throat: A Cautionary Tale" comes from Herschel Savage, who plays a Hasid with a crush. He delivers a line from the New Testament (go figure) that is as appropriate to porn as, I don't know, using the word "Children" (as in "Not Married with...XXX") wasn't.

But you owe it to yourself to see the movie. Even if you are no good and need to be punished.

· Vivid (vivid.com)
· Buy "Throat: A Cautionary Tale" (gamelink.com)

Faithless

Studio: Vivid
Director: Paul Thomas
Cast: Kelli McCarty, Daisy Marie, Voodoo, Kelly Leigh, Steven St. Croix, Jennifer Dark, James Deen, Herschel Savage

Review by: Gram Ponante

"Faithless" is not a feel-good movie, unless movies like "In the Bedroom" were fun for you. But it is full of uncomfortable situations and vigorous sex that you know meant something for the performers.

"Faithless" opens with Calli (McCarty) primping for a performance; the performance is makeup sex with poor, muddled Nico (Voodoo). Turning on the waterworks (as this is not a squirting movie, it must be pointed out that the waterworks are from her eyes), Calli gets Nico right where she wants him, which is to be discovered by her husband, Danny (Steven St. Croix), and Nico's girlfriend in her carnal embrace. Was it worth it, Voodoo?

It all started innocently enough. Calli is Danny's trophy wife, hated by his daughter, Sarah, played by Daisy Marie. Nico comes up to the cabin in the mountains to be with Sarah but her dad, proud of his hot new wife, shows her off to his daughter's beau. It proves to be Danny's undoing.

Already there are more elements to this porn movie, more setup and plot, more credible situations, than others. Naturally Sarah hates her stepmom, naturally Nico's buddy, James Deen, wants in on Sarah, naturally Sarah overhears all this exposition.

And then there are Danny's best friend Simon (Herschel Savage) and his own trophy wife Terry (Kelly Leigh). Simon is a sad sack whose wife and best friend waste no time availing each other of her fellatio skills.

But despite the family tension and Simon's dire warning to Nico that he hopes Danny doesn't own a shotgun, Nico and Sarah do manage to steal away to a bucolic spot and go fishing. Ass fishing.

But the idyll doesn't last. Calli has captured Nico's heart, you see, and back in L.A. she calls him, having stolen his number from her stepdaughter's phone. The cad, he comes right over. But she is playing mind games with him.

"I just wanted to see if you'd come," she says, leaving.

But lest you think Calli is the fly in the ointment, Sarah, too, seems particularly prone to unhingement. We end up feeling sorry for Danny, even though we know that he, too, is a filthy adulterer. Of particular resonance is a scene where Danny and Calli try to get their groove on but daughter Sarah keeps interrupting, asking for cash. The viewer is left wondering who he wants to hate or fuck more.

Until finally we are left with a portrait of Danny as a guy who finds crazy women comforting (at least that's what I got out of it). After a landmark rape-in-so-many-words scene that stands in for an argument between the married couple, Danny then goes to his old standby, Terry, for a top-off. By this point we're rooting for no one.

And when, loopy as she is, Calli ties all the loose ends together, we see her scorched-earth logic. You're looking at the generic boxcover and thinking, "Are we talking about the same movie?"

In Hollywood, February is traditionally the month in which all the also-ran movies are released. But, much as I am loathe to say it so soon after January's AVN awards, "Faithless" is my choice to clean up next year; its themes of Women Are Unstable, Men Are Assholes really looks like America these days. And I would give Kelli McCarty and Steven St. Croix acting trophies, because it's hard to focus during a rape.

· Vivid (Vivid.com)
· Buy "Faithless" (gamelink.com)

What kind of drama, you ask? Well, for one thing, "Throat" is actually a (very, very loose) remake of porn classic "Deep Throat," so in order to even make the film, Vivid had to secure permission from franchise owners Ray Pistol and Arrow Productions... who had their own ideas for a "Deep Throat" remake. Old school vs. new school! Pornographer vs. pornographer! Amazing!

Not surprisingly, the media-savvy Grey wasn't too thrilled with her turn on reality TV: "I wasn't really happy with the creative direction and how I will inevitably be portrayed... It felt more like very poor acting from both my fiance and me, and less like a reality show. As far as my performance in the film, they didn't affect that too much, as I stayed focused on the movie not the faux reality. I felt that they were trying to turn Sasha Grey into Linda Lovelace."

We much prefer Sasha Grey as Sasha Grey.

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Showtime to Premiere 'Throat' Reality Series Feb. 14 (avn.com)

Even for a "big budget film" (just like it says on the box cover!), "Cry Wolf" stars an unusually large cast: in addition to Monique Alexander's star turn, the film features Stefani Morgan, Tyla Wynn, Staci Thorn, Riley Mason, Marlie Moore, Lexxi Tyler, Tory Lane, Carly Parker, Holly Wellen, Devon Lee, and Jayna Oso. (Fun fact: "Oso" means "bear" in Spanish, in case you were wondering. We don’t know if Jayna means horny or not, but we like to think that it does.)

While Stefani Morgan shines, it’s Monique Alexander’s amazing anal performance (with fantastic doggy style action) that left us totally mesmerized. Mmmm: Monique Alexander Doggy Anal. We promise we're not crying wolf about that.

· Vivid (vivid.com)
· Order: "Cry Wolf" (Adult DVD Empire)

· Hustler World (hustlerworld.com)
· Hustler Hollywood (hustlerhollywood.com)

Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch Archive

Had we not squandered all our savings on making sure we had a limitless supply of phat tacos here at Fleshbot Central, we might have been able to afford adding Showtime to our basic cable lineup this month and therefore would have been able to catch the premiere episode last week of "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again", World Of Wonder's new seven part documentareality show about Vivid's latest remake of the 1978 porn classic (which has already spawned nearly two dozen sequels and ripspinoffs, but that's perhaps the subject for another post). Fortunately, we can still catch up with the goings-on via producer Chris May's updates on the WOW Report blog, which include on-the-set reports and video clips—though we might have to find a friend who's more flush than we are and tune in tomorrow night to witness the introduction of new character Eon McKai into the mix, who one adult industry publication has called "one of the most influential porn directors of all time" and who we really should start paying more attention to around these parts. Who knows—this kid might be going places!

· "Separate But Sequel" ("Debbie Does Dallas ... Again" @ WOW Report) (worldofwonder.net)
· ""Debbie Does Dallas ... Again" (official series site @ sho.com)
· "Debbie Does Dallas ... Again: Pilot (series premiere)" (recap @ tvsquad.com)
· Order: "Debbie Does Dallas" (1978) and ""Debbie Does Dallas ... Again" (2007) (Adult DVD Empire)
· Eon McKai (eonmckai.com)
· Vivid (vivid.com)

Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch: Debbie Dies (Dallas), Eon McKai Goes Vivid, "the Swinging Cheerleaders", Sunrise Adams in "Debbie Does Dallas": The Revenge, Texas Cheerleading Ban