Jeff Bridges, Tim Blake Nelson, Lauren Graham
Porn World is inhabited by women who always seem to be wearing their Sunday best undergarments and high-heeled shoes, whether they are lounging around on their waterbed or running a marathon. These women have no psychological ticks or negative feelings when it comes to their bodies that 99 percent of the population has and seemingly find it pleasurable to reenacting Nadia Comaneci’s Olympic gold medal winning performance. It is a land were makeup never smears, noses never bump, there is nothing too demeaning that can be said to the ladies, and hair can never be too big. A Logan’s Run - type of existence, where every woman over 35 years of age has been roped up and taken away. This might be a good thing considering the population of this planet would probably have severe back problems. Body fat and stretch-marks have been outlawed by some act of Congress and no venereal disease has ever interrupted anyone’s insatiable Pon Far, and no one ever suggests just cuddling. While on the planet earth, men dream of being doctors, lawyers, and businessmen, on this plain of existence, the greatest job a male can have is being a pool cleaner, delivery boy, meter reader, or teacher. Men who cannot wearing swimming suits to the beach can make the most wack-a-doddle suggestion to a woman he has just met, and she will always be game. Cops are never called on voyeurs because women in this land far, far away enjoy this attention from the perv. Instead of grabbing a gun or speed dialing the number of their attorney, husbands and wives seem to enjoy walking in on their spouse cheating on them. Your best friend’s mom can greet you at the front door in a ratty old bathrobe, but strangely looks like she has been in the makeup chair for a couple of hours and has a very special 18th birthday present for you. No one, and I mean no one, has any visible children unless the kid’s measurements are 38-24-32 and she works as a stripper part-time while putting herself through topless massage school.
I am always thankful that I grew up in the pre-Internet world, a world where you had to deal with a cashier if you wanted to look at dirty pictures, and when I was a teenage boy, there always seemed to be a middle-aged female who looked like my mom working the counter. In turn, I am probably the un-hippest guy in the world when it comes to the adult industry, maybe because I think too much. I look at some girl who seems to be angling for gynecological spokes model of the year and wonder if her dad is at some lodge meeting somewhere, talking to a couple of other dads, saying, “Well, that’s a wonderful thing, Jim, your daughter being a missionary and feeding an entire South American village. But my Dawn. We are so proud. She is up for Best Spanking Scene at some award show for the work she did in King Don… Yeah, I’ll have another Beer, but getting back to my Dawn. She is making American Bi 15 this week. While I have never seen the first 14 parts, it must be a great story as she is working with a circus midget and some Mexican guy named Sanchez, who must need a bath or something.” Today, with a couple of clicks of the mouse, a person can dive into a human buffet of flesh and freakiness. The genie is out of the bottle, porn is as American as mom, apple pie, and… wait, I think there is a web site devoted to that. From a marginal trade in the 1960s, to a billion dollar industry now, it has grown to somewhere between $2.6 to $14 billion depending on what source one believes, in just 4 decades. Porn is big business. What is most amazing is not the size of the flesh trade, because a monkey is going to press that pleasure switch as often as they can, it is the democratization of the industry. What was once the domain of the mob and organized crime is now the land of thousands of mom and pop operations. Punch into Google the right words and you might be watching the web cam in your neighbor’s bedroom for $14.99 a month. Blue movies have become so mainstream that it is surprising that a movie like The Moguls has not come out before now.
The premise of the film is simple. Jeff Bridges (Starman, Seabiscuit, The Door in the Floor) plays Andy Sargentee, a down on his luck middle- aged man going through a mid-life crisis after getting fired from another job. He deeply loves his son (Alex D. Linz), but does not have the money to compete with the boy’s rich stepfather. Like a bolt of lighting, he figures out the solution. He decides to make a stag film and quickly ropes in his friends, Barney (Tim Blake Nelson), video clerk Emmet (Patrick Fugit), “Some Idiot” (Joe Pantoliano), the closeted Moose (Ted Danson), and church janitor Otis (William Fichtner) to join his venture. After pawning some family heirlooms, the gang gets down to the task of writing a script for the kind of film people want to see and finding some female talent in their town. Enter pornographic puns galore. The buddies soon discover that making a dirty movie is not as easy as they thought.
Now you would think that a comedy about porn would have a lot of nudity, but the only flesh you will remember are the canned hams of Ted Danson. Yet, this is a Hollywood, feel-good comedy, so you know that everything is going to be tied up into a nice neat happy ending where Andy discovers the real meaning of family, friends, and success. Lauren Graham, as Andy’s love interest, continues her push to get away from her wholesome Gilmore Girls image (Bad Santa, Seeing Other People).
This is a cast of actors that makes you smile like old personal friends. You keep finding yourself going, “Hey, that is the kid from Home Alone 3.” It’s the Dude.” “Hey, that is the guy Tony’s sister killed on the Sopranos.” “It’s Sam Malone.” “That’s the kid from Almost Famous.” “It’s that lady who was on Monk.” “There’s that Tom Cruise’s wife in The Firm, the one who got knocked off in Basic Instinct.” “It’s Delmar from O Brother, Where Art Thou?.” “That voice sounds like the guy on the Grand Theft Auto video game. You know the guy who liked fat chicks in Perfect Storm.” “It’s Raymond’s brother.” “Wait, that is the brother from Wings.” “Um, she’s Lex Luther’s wacky girlfriend in Superman. (On a side note, to show you what a different era we live in. I remember the date, August 1976 (originally aired in less conservative markets in 1973). Valerie Perrine (Lex’s girlfriend) showed her mommy parts on PBS television in Steambath, the first time in the history of Iowa one of the twins made an appearance on tv and strangely, every Iowa male wanted a little culture that evening. A month later, Beverly D'Angelo accidentally exposed herself on national television when NBC programmers did not realize that some televisions showed an extra inch at the bottom of the screen and as a compliment to Ms. D’Angelo, there was not one complaint to the FCC. A month later, October 20th, Farrah Fawcett on Charlie’s Angels shows why Lee Majors was the luckiest man in the world when censors failed to notice one of the angels making an appearance. Again, no one complained.) This is a band of actors, because you know them, that you like from the moment they open their mouths. It is funny, especially Bridges’ narration, which reminds one of the Dude. The film is a lot like your uncle telling a dirty joke. You forgive the filth because it is your uncle and just remember how funny it is.
Verdict: A B/B+ Comedy