Hardcore Porn Action at the Local Video Store!
Cole Haddon December 6, 2007

With The Amateurs slipping into theaters this week, a movie about a small town that bands together to make a low-budget porno, I thought it might be a swell time to look back at all the non-pornographic movies that have dealt tastefully and un-tastefully with the adult film industry. Amazingly, though, there aren’t as many as you’d expect. Or at least as many as I’d expect. It seems porn is still taboo and unpopular with wholesome American family-types. Go figure. Anyways, I went deep, soooo deep, that’s right, and came up with these five movies about the fantastic, bodily-fluid-filled world of porn that are, at least in my opinion, worth their load.
The Girl Next Door (2004)
The Girl Next Door is the best romantic comedy ever made about falling in love with a porn star. When Emile Hirsch, who kind of plays the role Tom Cruise played in Risky Business, discovers his new neighbor (Elisha Cuthbert), who seems like the titular girl next door, is actually a famous adult film actress, he sets about trying to rehabilitate her while she, in turns, does her best to liberate his grade-obsessed soul by teaching him how to live a little. The scene in which Hirsch’s nerd loses his virginity to Cuthbert in the back seat of a limo on prom night as David Grey sings “This Year’s Love” is one of the best sex scenes ever put on film.
Orgazmo (1998)
Generally dismissed as a ridiculously stupid movie, Orgazmo is, in fact (okay, yes), a ridiculously stupid movie. Still, it’s plenty of fun. Trey Parker (of South Park fame) stars as a Mormon missionary with ninja-like martial arts skills who ends up a porn star in the Valley. The best part is, his director uses a “stunt cock” to preserve the young Mormon’s holiness.
Wonderland (2003)
Wonderland is a wonderfully convoluted mess about John Holmes, a porn star most famous for his 13.5-inch member, and his involvement with the adult film industry, cops, gangsters, cocaine, and four bloody murders he may or may not have had a hand in. The movie remains interesting for one reason: Val Kilmer as Holmes.
Inside Deep Throat (2005)
This, um, probing documentary casts light on the societal fallout from the 1972 porn classic that helped name the most infamous informant in US political history. Everybody from Hugh Hefner, Larry Flynt, and star Linda Lovelace offer up their insight, though the most shocking revelation for me was that Lovelace went on to find God and testify in Congress against her profession, but then, when times got rough, abandoned God and returned to her old tricks. That sucks. You know, what she did. Not her.
Boogie Nights (1997)
Writer-director P.T. Anderson’s Boogie Nights chronicles the demise of the celluloid porn industry amidst the advent of cheaper video. More specifically, it’s about a well-endowed kid re-named Dirk Diggler (Mark Wahlberg), his quick, hard rise to superstardom, and, of course, his eventual demise with the help of ego, cocaine, and delusions of musical grandeur (his take of “You’ve Got the Touch” is woefully bad in a good way). There were plenty of other faces in this ensemble drama, including Burt Reynolds as a porn impresario and John C. Reilly as Diggler’s sidekick, but, if you’re not talking about Diggler, the only other character worthy of lengthy discourse is Roller Girl (Heather Graham), a barely-legal actress who screws in her roller skates and, if you cross her, stomps on you with them. It’s no surprise Anderson has long hinted at a sequel focusing on her.
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