With Conan getting the shaft from NBC, he's recently been considering a turn from television to hard-core porn--"a classier business with better people."
Here he announces some of the titles we can expect from his new venture:
Alright, you're hearing it here... we're calling dibs on NBC Lawyer Gang Bang: The Backend Deal for CineKink 2011!
...have we been hiding? For the past week, at least, it's been off to Germany, where we had the pleasure of attending the Pornfilmfestival Berlin!
A wonderful event with a familiar merging of independent cinema and sex-positivity, it felt quite a bit like old-home week, even if we were on unfamiliar terrain. We came across many new films and directors we'll hope to feature at the next edition of CineKink NYC. And, in a historic gathering--we finally have enough erotic/sex/porn film festivals to call a meeting!--chatted with other curators and presenters whom we'll look forward to collaborating with in the future.
Alas, after their brilliant performance at the Pornfilmfestival Berlin party, we found ourselves too star-struck to finally say hello to the rest of the notorious Norwegian singing sensation, The Hungry Hearts, even though their piece In the Closet screened at CineKink NYC 2009.
We'll hope to resolve our shyness someday. Meanwhile, we'll continue to admire from afar. And play In Your Face (The International Lesbian Anthem), over and over and over again. (It's stuck in my head... might as well be in yours, too!)
Here, in a 1977 interview on Al Goldstein's cable series, Midnight Blue, Marilyn discusses her break into movies, her projects of the time and a forthright enjoyment of kinky sex and S/M...
As we continue to tinker behind the scenes on CineKink NYC, coming up February 24th to March 1st, let us whet your appetite with this tasty morsel, a glimpse at The Auteur, a mélange of romantic comedy and raunchy satire that tells the story of renowned porn director Arturo Domingo, creative genius behind such classics as Five Easy Nieces and Requiem for a Wet Dream:
We've been admiring The Auteur from afar for quite awhile now and we're delighted to give this sweetly smutty film a stellar CineKink showcase slot--Saturday, February 28 @ 9 PM.
Quoting from a Focus on the Family screed obstensibly written in the future, the as-yet hypothetical Letter from 2012 in Obama's America, the many potential dangers awaiting us down the road include a new, liberal Supreme Court that has :
... applied more broadly the “Miller test” from the 1973 decision in Miller v. California, by which a work could not be found obscene unless “the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, and scientific value.” In the 2011 decision, the court essentially found that any pornographic work had some measure of “serious artistic value,” at least according to some observers, and thus any censorship of pornographic material was an unconstitutional restriction on the First Amendment.
But wait--there's more! As "...all city and county laws restricting pornography were struck down by this decision ...pornographic magazines are openly displayed in gas stations, grocery stores and on newsstands (as they have been in some European countries for several years)."
And, natch, the court also eliminated all FCC restrictions and, thusly, "...television programs at all hours of the day contain explicit portrayals of sexual acts."
We might observe that a mere "D" by a leader's name doesn't necessarily translate into a laissez faire approach to the exchange of ideas--President Clinton was the one who signed the Communications Decency Act into law back in 1996, afterall. But if we listen to those with a proclaimed relationship to the powers on high, free speech advocates need just kick back a bit and wait for the flood-gates to open.
And likely a somewhat noxious smoke at that, as the good Reverend Eldredge--in a ceremonial burning and "holy hose-down"-- recently set flame to a cache of pornographic celluloid that was discovered in the old drive-in theater his church had recently purchased. The ritual was intended to purify the property and "make it holy" before taking full possession.
According to a Jacksonville, Florida newspaper: Members of Christ Church Anglican discovered reel upon reel of '70s- and '80s-vintage X-rated movies recently when they took over the old Playtime Drive-In on Blanding Boulevard a few weeks ago. The Playtime showed X-rated movies in the '70s and early '80s, prompting police raids and protests, before switching to more traditional fare.
A church member, the story continues, estimated the destroyed stash at over a 100 films, with such titles as Kinky Business and Private Teacher giving pretty broad clues as to their contents. Both cited examples are from the era when the VCR was bringing about the demise of the pornographic film business--the first an obvious nod to the '80s mainstream classic Risky Business and featuring another icon of the era, Traci Lords.
But, while no one is likely to know for sure what reels were tucked away on the premises, the vintage ads posted at the Playtime Drive-In blog indicate a rich history of exploitation and other cheap, smutty fun stretching back a couple of decades.
"Excuse me, Madame Vice President. Could you take a quick look at these briefs?"
In the interest of the fair and the balanced, we also did a quick search for any upcoming Joe Biden porn--remember, we like men in suits--but turned up mainly an obscure reference to the long-ago Clarence Thomas hearings and some legislative, law-making stuff.
So, via just every other blog in the nation, on this morn of the great Vice Presidential showdown, we bring you this casting call for what's being widely dubbed as "the inevitable" Sarah Palin porn adult movie.
While we generally prefer to think of Sundance as the PG-13 rated CineKink, we're always a sucker for the sight of our name in print, plus an opportunity to wax rhapasodic about our favorite subject... kinky cinema!
Have Highbrow Porn, Will Travel Violet Blue investigates CineKink, the X-rated Sundance - SF Gate ... they do make good porn; it's just not terribly easy to find amid all the noise and hype, online and off -- let alone the kind of erotic cinema that film fans would dig (or get off to). That's where Lisa Vandever comes in. A producer and consultant with more than fifteen years' experience in film and television, Vandever founded the nationally touring, sexually explicit (and very popular) film festival CineKink in 2002. The festival selects, awards and tours sex-positive, edgy and, especially, arousing film and television selections from mainstream porn to indies, Hollywood and beyond.
"Radical feminists claim porn leads to violence; rabid right-wingers claim it leads to addiction; and even former boy toy Donna Rice claims it’s hurting the children. None of these groups have any proof to back up their claims, but they’ve convinced the government to waste your money and invade your privacy while going after something that should be perfectly legal."
The episode debuts tonight at 10 pm, with multiple repeats.
What do you get when you mix madcap Jewish humor with the Superstars of Seventies porn?
Find out when CineKink proudly sponsors a Kinky Jews presentation of A Touch of Genie, director Joe Sarno's long-lost tribute to a boyhood spent at raucous Lower East Side comedies (and an adulthood spent writing and directing some of the finest adult films to ever grace a grindhouse screen).
From the After Hours Cinema description of their recently restored classic: "Poor Melvin! His meddling mother is making him nutz. His only relief is the covert afternoons he spends at New York's notorious Times Square porn theaters. One day, Melvin discovers a genie in a bottle. What does he wish? To become his favorite porno superstars and indulge in wild sexual adventures with the sexiest women in sex film."
Starring Doug Stone as Melvin Finkelfarb and Ultramax - the First Lady of New York Porn! - as his yiddishe mama, along with over-the-top performances by porno greats Harry Reems, Tina Russell and Eric Edwards!
A stand-out at the recent Tribeca Film Festival, we've got our eyes on The Auteur, the sweet and raucous story of Arturo Domingo, the one-time leading director of art-porn cinema (Five Easy Nieces, Requiem for a Wet Dream, Full Metal Jack-Off), who finds himself at an all-time low in both career and romance.
The movie is a perfect fit for CineKink and we'll naturally be looking to include it in our next fest. But that's still a ways off - approximately 291 days as of right now, but who's counting? - and we'd love for it to find the audience it deserves in the meantime.
And you can help! Currently in the running for a slot in From Here to Awesome, a new festival that strives to cut through a lot of distribution mumbo-jumbo and make films more widely and directly available, you can take a gander at the submission trailer for The Auteur below and then make your desires known right here:
(It plays a much larger role in the actual movie, but watch for a few cameo appearances of the Clinton Street Theater, past and possibly future home to CineKink: PDX!)
First tracing the history of federal 2257 record-keeping regulations and its recent judicial back-and-forths, the article then goes into the implications that they present to all filmmakers, including those working with actual and with simulated depictions of sexual conduct.
Mainstream filmmakers should be especially concerned with the language of the most recent published § 2257 regulations, in which Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote, “Section 2257A requires that producers of visual depictions of simulated sexually explicit conduct maintain records documenting that performers in those depictions not be minors.” Does this mean that a noted film such as Taxi Driver, in which a twelve-year-old Jodi Foster portrays a thirteen-year-old prostitute, is unlawful? What about the more recent controversial film Hounddog, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and portrayed twelve-year-old Dakota Fanning as a rape victim? Even a film nominated for Best Picture at the 2008 Academy Awards may be affected by § 2257A. Atonement has one scene of explicit simulated sexual conduct involving actress Juno Temple, who was seventeen years of age at the time of filming.
While filmmakers working in the adult arena are, for the most part, all too aware of the regulations, their existence seems to escape notice of documentarians who occasionally stumble into the realm of actual sexual conduct. (And again, we ask, what the hell does that mean?) And with the expansions presented by 2257A, a huge new class of fiction filmmakers is folded into the mix.
For all, it is critical to know both the rules and the risks - and to work together in protesting their chilling presence.
Last year when we reported on these awards, it was our mother's birthday. And this year, appropriately enough, we're actually home visiting her - in our mind, the proto-uber feminist.
So, while we're still working on making the world a place where a woman’s right to determine and enjoy her own sexual pleasure is a taken-for-granted aspect of daily life, we take a few more big steps forward with the recently announced "2008 Feminist Porn Awards" presented by the folks at Good for Her:
Smutty Schoolteacher of the Year: Tristan Taormino’s Expert Guide to Oral Sex Part 1 Cunnilingus and Part 2 Fellatio | Tristan Taormino; Vivid Ed
Hottest Dyke Film: Crash Pad Series Volume 1 | Shine Louise Houston; Pink and White Productions Blowfish Video (Alum CineKink 2008)
Sexiest Straight Film: My Sex Therapist.com: The First Sessions | Kelly Holland; Chick Media
Golden Beaver Award for Canadian Content: Bren Ryder | www.gooddykeporn.com
From what Erika recounts, upon bestowing the final award, the presenters said: “Every so often, a film comes along that reinvents what is possible within porn. This year’s winner has taken stock subjects and turned them on their head, making women and their desires the focus of the film..."
We couldn't have said it better ourselves - though we wish we had!
Congratulations to Erika and all of this year's winners, with many thanks for forging ahead.
Many congratulations to CineKink alum Audacia Ray, whose new sexuality blog, Naked City, debuted this week at The Village Voice. While Audacia predicts that the blog will evolve over time, one feature that's already up and running is Naked City TV, a weekly video show intended to "document and explore the personal and professional lives of people for whom sexuality is central."
This week's episode, a profile of Porno Jim (CineKink '08/Hookin' Up) and his live, porn-clip show, manages to capture both the engaging frenetics of Jim's evangelistic presentations - and a few graphic moments of live-action Smurf-on-Smurf pornography:
Going from CineKink to SXSW to Dark Odyssey has been a bit of a gauntlet - a gauntlet of pleasure, to be sure, but now that we're at the end of it, our body, sensing a respite, seems to be flirting heavily with what is generally known as the common cold. But, dammit, not before we get out this too-long-delayed SXSW recap, even through a Nyquil haze...
You can take a listen to the podcast here, but our panel, The Porn Police: Know The Rules, went off well and we managed to cram a ridiculous amount of somewhat tedious 2257 detail into our alloted hour. In addition toyours truly, the speakers included Violet Blue, deftly illustrating how the regulations play out in the real world and the problems they present for artists on both sides of the camera, attorney Alan Levy, keeping us on track with which part of the law stipulates what - and what that might actually mean in the day-to-day - and director Joe Swanberg seeming to grow increasingly consternated with the realization of how the rules could well apply to his own, er, body of work. (Lascivious display of nudity, anyone?!)
Bottom line - for all media makers working with depictions of sexual conduct, both actual and simulated (what's that?), it represents another area of calculated risk - one that will warrant further discussion in the months ahead. While the danger is probably slim for most, it's still critical to know the rules rather than blithely plowing ahead and hoping for the best.
Film offerings we managed to catch included Bi The Way, a look at the sexual inclinations of the so-called "whatever generation," Obscene, a documentary profile of the colorful Grove Press publisher, Barney Rosset, and the superb Sex Positive, exploring the life of activist Richard Berkowitz and his critical role in the now taken-for-granted concept of safe sex.
And, not quite sex, but about as close as you can get armed only with a Handywipe, we enjoyed reprised BBQ revelations at Iron Works and - well worth the trek out to Driftwood - Salt Lick!
As part of SXSW, CineKink’s co-founder and director, Lisa Vandever, will moderate a panel about the various regulations on sexually explicit content and how they may apply to all types of media producers.
It may seem like sex is everywhere in film, television and online, but sexual portrayals are surprisingly restricted - and getting more so everyday. Already draconian federal regulations on the depiction of sexually explicit conduct were recently expanded and signed into law by President Bush, and now apply to an even wider class of media makers. Not just pornographers, but anyone creating and working with explicit imagery of even simulated sexual conduct - bloggers, webmasters, narrative filmmakers, documentarians - needs to know the rules and the risks. This session will touch upon: * Overview of 18 U.S.C. 2257 & 2257A record-keeping requirements for actual and simulated sexually explicit material * New wrinkles introduced by online access/distribution of materials * Resources for additional information and advocacy support
Overwhelmed by indecision in the face of so many kinky cinematic possibilties? Give yourself over to our CineKink NYC All-Access Pass and prepare to submit completely!
(Because the "*" in f*ck totally makes it work-safe, right?)
Well, anyway... busily pulling together next month's presentation of CineKinky wonderfulness, we realized this weekend that two major award shows were suddenly descending.
And maybe next year you can be among them? Pondering how, with so many possible categories and sub-categories, we're unfamilar with so many of the winners - Best Sex Scene in a Foreign-Shot Production? Seriously?!? - we point you next to Violet Blue's recent column, "How to have sex like a porn star," including a few techniques from the pros:
Porn performers occupy the small end of the gene pool: They don't look anything like you or me, and that's why they got the job. They don't need to cuddle before or after sex, they are extremely limber and can withstand holding difficult positions under hot lights for extended periods of time. They wax their balls, asses, vulvas, chests and backs. They get surgeries you've never even heard of to plump or sculpt everything from labia to breasts to calves. They have sex with total strangers every day, and the successful ones make it look like it's not a job.
More of Violet's illuminations on the subject are found here.
But you'd better get cracking. Just 363 days to go, now!
