Fluffer

A bisexual young man (Michael Cunio) gets a job at a porno company to get close to a porn star (Scott Gurney) that he's in love with. Unfortunately, the star is straight and living with his girlfriend.

This film got some savage reviews in the gay press so I expected the worst. But it was pretty good. It starts off as a mild but very funny comedy and suddenly veers off into depressing drama at the end. It's jarring but it does end up working. Still, the ending was pretty bad and very negative. All in all, it's an OK film with a funny view of the gay porn industry.

The acting is good--especially by Gurney. He absolutely gorgeous with an incredible body...and he can act! He's VERY pleasing to the eyes. Cunio is just OK as the kid. Not bad, not good, just OK. Also Deborah Harry (Blondie) turns in a strong performance as a strip club owner.

One big problem: Despite the subject matter, there is no frontal male nudity!!!! Whose idea was that?

I just recently saw "the Fluffer" this weekend. I'd read many positive reviews of the film but came to gather a different feeling from watching it. Most movies with the words "coming of age story" on the back are usually hints that the lead character will go through many situations and we'll see them develope into their "new self" by the end. However, by the end of this movie i didn't feel like i knew anything more about the main character Sean. The movie starts off well, as we see Sean become more and more obsessed with gay-for-pay porn star Johnny Rebel, but somewhere in the near middle it begins to spiral into too many directions. I had a hard time figuring out who was the main character after a while, Johnny or Sean?

Writer Wash West(moreland), better known for adult titles, begins to lose track also. It's not a bad debut for an adult writer and those of us who have been through the same situation as Sean will see a good portrayal of how it feels to love someone who doesn't love you back. The main problem is that Sean is as ambiguous of a character as Rebel, and it soon seems that his whole problem is in him and not his situation with Johnny. If this film was about that, it would be great...but it's not. The character depth and film direction is lacking, just as how commonly it lacks in adult films,which is a kind of an ironic trait to the film.

Bottom line: performances are very good, the movie is entertaining but the writing lacks some direction. If it were an actual adult film, it would be the most dramatic one i've ever seen.

There were some big...innuendos in this film.

Was that Debbie Harry? Well, the pregnant dancer did make an effort.

Beefacake, too. An effort in an outrageous caricature of Brando's Kowalski.

The rest is blown, blown high in the sky.

No, thanks.

P.S. Why not try the contrary: portray life of porn actors as dreary civil servants, and the way through bureaucracy they come to fall in love with each other, and save the American Cream.

P.S.2 This is unbelievable. One has to write ten lines at least. Since it is so, then, to paraphrase Dali: mediocre directors (and writers), no matter how much you strive to be bad, you will always remain mediocre. Little tough, that Dali? Well, he doesn't chew his premise.

I don't care about a premise if the execution (no pun intended) does not respect it. Why should I?

What a fun romp behind the scenes of the porn industry..with a love story thrown in...Lots of laughs, lots of drama, selling out at the QUAD theatre in NY's Greenwich village. And for once, the lines for the ladies' room are SHORTER than those for the men's room. Let us hear it for long lost Robert Walden of "LOU GRANT" fame.. Where has he been? He really hams it up as a sleazy porn producer...What's a guy to do when the guy he loves is only gay for pay!!! Heartache is a definite!

The Fluffer was a great story with some terrific performances. Roxanne Day as "Babylon" and Michael Cunio as "Sean" were both outstanding in their character portrayals of two people obsessed with something they couldn't have. What makes them even more impressive was the fact that the object of their passion was the one major flaw in the film. "Rebel" was as lifeless and uninteresting a character as I've ever seen on film.

So, while Cunio and Day were working so convincingly at wrestling with their pain, Scott Gurney's "Rebel" made their job nearly impossible. It also made it nearly impossible for the audience to care. But somehow, Cunio and Day did make us care, and that is the art of acting at its best. The supporting cast was very good, the script was very good, the direction just so-so.