DVD Review: “Girls Lie”

Eon McKai's depiction of no-way-out Antelope Valley teens whose only remedy for listlessness is sex, poseur punks in L.A., and Hollywood cheating trophy wives is a fully-integrated porn movie that owes more to early 70's (and then, early 80's) moviemaking and teen narrative sensibility than to anything seen in the adult world recently.

Sure, "Girls Lie" is a little bleak, but in a "you're pretty when you're sad" kind of way. Memorable where many other porn movies are not, "Girls Lie" is a character study masquerading as a porn movie, and it seems a little like it was made about America by a foreign director—like "Paris, Texas" but with boobies.

Read our review of "Girls Lie" after the gap. - GP

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Girls Lie

Studio: Vivid-Alt
Director: Eon McKai
Cast: Charlotte Stokely, Dana DeArmond, Pixie Pearl, Riley Mason

Review by Gram Ponante

Charlotte Stokely channels Anna Nicole Smith as a pouty Lancaster teen; older Joey Ray wears an expression of "Who is this person?" as he watches young wife Dana DeArmond getting into her altporn ensemble; Riley Mason tells her boyfriend she's a model, but really makes her living by jetting off to L.A. to work in porn; and Pixie Pearl learns that all one finds in the L.A. club scene are empty promises and pregnancy.

"I'm an artist so I take mannequins and I turn them into abstract art that show personal and social issues that are real important," she says.

"Girls Lie" isn't a joyful romp, but it doesn't make the mistake of allowing the sex to become depressing, or the movie to not be entertaining. Instead—the horror!—we become invested in each of the characters. Charlotte Stokely, a hooker on a bicycle, pedals around her northern Los Angeles suburb. Her meth-y, drawling interactions with people are priceless.

"My boyfriend? If he was a popsicle? He'd be a melted popsicle."

Many feature porn directors aim to make "real" movies that just happen to have sex in them. "Girls Lie" achieves this, with the added bonus of throwing some light on a Los Angeles-adjacent neighborhood viewers rarely see in movies.

Each of the four stars has a vignette of her own. Stokely's is the most fully realized, but Pearl's tragedy, Mason's second job, and DeArmond's unrequited love are all believably tinged with sadness.

Oh, and feet. The movie is also tinged with feet.

I asked McKai about this.

"I didn't really go for the feet, particularly," he said.

"Oh yes, you did," I said.

The three-disc "Girls Lie" set comes with behind the scenes footage as well as an excellent soundtrack CD compiled by Sean Carnage. Eschewing bulky packaging with myriad cum-laden thumbnails, "Girls Lie"'s packaging instead boasts an elegant three-fold motif that is more reminiscent of a sexy Peter Gabriel DVD than porn.

· Vivid-Alt (vivdalt.com)
· Eon McKai (eonmckai.com)
· Buy "Girls Lie" (gamelink.com)

Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch Archive