Naked Ambition: An R Rated Look at an X Rated Industry

Where do I begin... I can't believe that I let my old lady talk me into watching this after we were ten minutes into Kansas City Confidential. The 10 minutes of nagging about Black and White, old 50's movies and Jack Elam's crazy eye made me give up and go to this newfangled color movie from 2009.

First off this is not a documentary on the Adult Video Awards. It is a documentary of a guy trying to photograph porn actresses at the convention and awards show. So right off the bat I am wondering about why I am watching this. Who cares about the travails of a photographer trying to shoot a coffee table book about the adult convention and awards show.

Next, who are these actresses? Notice that I didn't call 'em stars. Stars are people like Seka, Desiree Cousteau, Christy Canyon, not Sunny Lane, and some tatted out goth chick. Strike two. I don't care about his subjects.

Now on to strike three, the narrator/photographer Michael Grecco stinks from every angle. He is pretentious, arrogant, condescending and with no reason. His photography skills are weak. To make it more painful after every session with an actress he shows some stills with a fast moving Ken Burns effect and he gloats proudly over his sorry photos. He is no Joe McNally.

Strike four, his narration is sad. I mean dude, learn to describe peoples personality and the vibe from the AVN awards. This guy basically says the same thing about every actress, actor and the whole AVN awards show: "She is so Punk Rock, He is so Punk Rock, The AVN Awards show is like a Punk Rock Academy Awards." Get over it. It is 2011 not New York in 74 with the Dolls playing in the background.

The only quasi-interesting thing was that most of the Actors he had were actually old school guys like Peter North, Eric Edwards and of course The Hedgehog. Where are the old school actresses from the golden age? Nothing but the new chicks who sit in front of a webcam all day. Lame.

With all these strikes, this film needs to be removed from Netflix, the Library of Congress and quite possibly the face of the earth.

My recommendation is to stay away from this one like the plague. I wish I would've stuck to my guns last night and watched K.C. Confidential. Noir is way better that this "new" garbage.

Whether males and even females want to admit or not, there is a constant ambition by many for the X rated industry. It started with a deep throat (and most probably way before that) all the way to the present vivid realities that pornography is here to stay; accentuated by the accessibility of porn via the internet. Director Michael Grecco bares the facts on the present porn industry within his photographical experience at the AVN Awards & Convention in the documentary "Naked Ambition: an R Rated Look at an X Rated Industry". The AVN Awards is the equivalence of the Academy Awards to the porn industry. The AVN Awards & Convention is hosted each year in Las Vegas. At the AVN Convention, everything from vibrators to porn female stars who make you vibrate are displayed in its bare necessity form. Grecco takes the artistic photographical route in this porn documentary, and photographs several porn stars, entrepreneurs, and many other "movers, shakers, and fakers" of the adult industry. I commend Grecco for his efforts but artistic beauty and "the ooooo & aaaaaaas of sex on film" don't really go hand in hand, it's more right to hand. However, I did enjoy Grecco's interviews with several female porn stars including: Sunny Lane, Joanna Angel, and Janine Lindemulder (the other ex of Jesse James with no acting skills; I am kidding Sandra B., you rock!) The porn stars in their interviews reminded me of the surrogate-family seeking characters of Paul Thomas Anderson's classic movie "Boogie Nights". The strength of the documentary lies within its study of the porn industry, but I wanted to shoot at the screen when it focused on the analysis of the photo stills of its subjects. Not to sound like a certified pervert, but there is a place for art and a place for putang, and porn is more in the latter than in the former. It will not be an orgasmic movie experience (unless you take a peek at its porn stars in their own features), but "Naked Ambition: an R Rated Look at an X Rated Industry" is worth the look. *** Average

Photographer takes on a vanity project to document AVN-awards and whole porn subculture.

As a photo hobbyist, I was initially drawn by the idea of the film. However it soon became clear that this film has no message or point, other than to advertise the directors book. Michael Grecco's work is usually pretty solid but here his images lack that special something. He shoots his subjects almost like in porn shoots and the results are what you would expect. Also his methods and way he handles his subjects, make him seem like amateurish a-hole - at least as a filmmaker.

Semi-interesting movie for photo enthusiasts, others should not bother.

This could have been an interesting film if the filmmaker/photog had shut up about himself for more than five minutes. There are a lot of people in those photos who are semi/pretty famous, and more than half of them don't even get a name tag, let alone be allowed to introduce themselves so that the less informed might know who they are.

What you get a lot of is the following laid over (unflattering, not yet photoshopped) shots of people you end up not knowing: "When I took this picture, I thought about myself a lot, because my ego is huge and I'm a super important guy. In a minute, I'm going to start talking to you about me. But first, let's discuss me. I think that when I talk about myself it's great, because I'm interesting. I know I am. I mean, I'm me!" etc. on and on ad nauseum. It gets so tiresome that even if you're interested in the people who are in the doc you end up shutting it off because the filmmaker is a blowhard bore.

Dude, I didn't tune in to see YOUR baby pictures.

Watched movie and was an interesting look into the industry. I don't recall much of it as I only noticed I had already watched this after watching a 20 min rerun of it. From what I have noticed it appears they cover about the same topics and perspectives. There was a few familiar faces in there from what I noticed but not many that are in the mainstream now. Given it's mature topic I recommend this to 25 year olds or older. It does change your perspective on the industry so whether that is positive or negative will be based on individual experience. Informative, not super exciting to watch but you take away a few bits of knowledge/awareness.