Sex Sells: The Making of 'Touché'

Spinal Tap was funny because if you knew a little about heavy metal, you saw in-jokes all over the place. If you know anything about porn, this mock documentary will leave you cold. Everything in it rings false.

Spinal Tap was funny because it took a familiar world and pushed it over the top. This film is decidedly not funny because it paints a picture of how porn is made that bears no relationship to the real world.

The acting here is uniformly awful, but that would not matter much if the core idea of the movie were good. But it's not.

This is a neat little movie. My friend brought it back from a trip to England, along with another gem called Late Night Shopping. Sex Sells is the story of some porn actors living and working in California. There's not much of a story. It's more about getting to know the actors and the director. Everyone we meet is funny and weird and very likable. The basic message seems to be that everyone is the same, no matter what occupation you work in. About half way through the film I realized that the main actress is Terry from Three's Company! I guess she wanted to do something different from the goody-goody image from TV. She's great, but she talks and swears like a sailor in some parts. This isn't a movie for kids, but the sex isn't too nasty.

I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. My boyfriend picked it out, and I thought it was going to be an American Pie type raunchy comedy. But it's a lot more than that. Yeah, there's nudity and sex and penis jokes, but there's also a serious story, clever plot twists, and some really intelligent humor. You'd never know from the poster, but there's even a social message about the roles of sex and violence in our culture. I especially liked how women are portrayed as strong and smart. And I loved all the Terminator references! The writer is obviously a big sci-fi fan. (Terminator is one of my all-time favorite movies-- yeah, I know, pretty unusual for a chick!) Mostly though its just a fun comedy with a lot of laugh out loud jokes. I read the first review posted here, and it's right-- you need to like Kevin Smith/SouthPark kind of humor. If you can't laugh at porn, sex and a three and half foot penis, you probably won't like this film. Oh, one more thing... Adrian Zmed looks hot!! I never knew he was so well endowed!

First off, I've been a cameraman in both porn and mainstream films since the 70's. I've seen it all, so is Sex Sells an 'authentic' look at adult films? yes and no. It nails the ordinaryness of production and and people involved, and it's pepered with nice insider details, like the adult movie award on the director's desk and the porn lingo (gonzo, wall to wall, pop shot, etc). In one sex scene, there's even a bored grip eating a sandwich while holding a c-light! Now that's funny. (funny to a porn cameraman or grip, anyway. No one else would know wha the hell it was) A c-light, by the by, is used just to light up the 'crotch' area so it shows up on film. Obviously someone involved in the movie worked in porn to get these things right.

However, it's also loaded with absurd and unrealistic stuff: a guy with a 3 foot c@ck, sex scenes being shot on film with 2 cameras, a woman reading Shakespere at an audition, etc. That stuff just doesn't happen, so if your looking for a hard hitting and revealing expose on the adult industry, this isn't it. Instead what you get is a very funny and good natured lite harted comedy. The humor is tongue in cheek, the acting is good (especially for a low budget indie) and unlike most movies about this industry it manages to portray people in a positive light.

It wasn't something I was gonna see due to I like action movies that add sex to them. But cleverly this was a movie that had sex (making it sexy) that cleverly added a sword fight to it (action; sort of, kinda)! All in all, it was very well done, catches you off guard with realistic life humor not just slapstick. Each girl really looked great too, a diverse group of sex appeal from mature to the nubile. Yummy!

I grew up with threes company, and always wanted to see more of each of them. Well, I got to see more of Pricilla Barnes! Right from the beginning she set the mood with a right on way to go girl kind of thing. The rest of the movie kept up the pace. You were pleasantly looking around the corner for the next fun moment. Every movie I have see drags at some point, this movie didn't seem to have that problem. It had just enough depth to follow several characters around and keep you interested and giggling!

I give it 2 thumb up!