Sex Sells: The Making of 'Touché'

Funny and flawed is the best way I can describe this film. Most of the acting was really good (especially Chuck the director and Roxy the porn star), but a couple of the parts seemed just a little flat. The humor was hilarious and clever sometimes, although hit or miss at others. I had a pretty good grin on my face for most of the movie, so that puts it above most of the comedies I see these days. I really liked the story about these porn professionals making their last movie together, and some of the plot twists are pretty slick. I didn't really buy the relationship between the documentary guy and the hot actress, but that seemed to be a pretty minor part of the story. I saw "Inside Deep Throat" just before this (another great movie) and liked it for some of the same reasons: it's different. It's entertaining, and something you don't see everyday, and well, dammit, I just like movies about porn!

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.

This is a bad B movie masquerading as a mockumentary. The porn documentary filmmaker in the movie has almost as much screen time and dialog as any other character. That completely destroyed any "documentary feel" that they may have wanted to create.

The fact that the film is not actually a mockumentary is the least of it's problems. The film is not funny. The film is not sexy. The film doesn't have anything insightful to say about the porn business. It's not even particularly salacious. While there's simulated sex, the amount of nudity is mild for an R rated film.

Someday, someone will make a good mockumentary about the porn industry. This is not it.

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!

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.