The Story of Ramb O at Pornfilmfestival Berlin

World premiere Sunday, October 31!






"A soldier is forever the government's bitch."

August 5 – Well Seasoned: Stories from Pros with Some Experience Under Their Belts

Hot in the city? Join me for the next Red Umbrella Diaries (“stories of sex and money” series) where I’ll be reading an excerpt from Under My Master’s Wings.

Summer of '85: The Strongest Femme In The World: Pumping Iron II: The Women

It's a shame I had to trek downtown to Tribeca to experience “Pumping Iron II: The Women,” which played as part of the 92nd Street Y's "Outsider Sports" series (on a double bill with “Afghan Muscles”— kudos to the creative programmer!). Not that I have anything against attending a free screening of a 16mm print courtesy of the New York Public Library. It's just that George Butler's follow-up to his Schwarzenegger-starring “Pumping Iron” needs to be disseminated on DVD in a 25th-anniversary edition complete with all the bells and whistles. Yes, this semi-doc is a film geek's dream, one that leaves you thinking about things beyond its bodybuilding theme and hungering to learn more.

To read the rest visit The House Next Door at Slant Magazine.

Considering “The Big Lebowski: An XXX Parody”

In retrospect it seems inevitable that some enterprising pornographers in Hollywood’s shadow industry would look to the Coen brothers’ quintessential Venice Beach bum The Dude for inspiration. Not only is southern California the hub of the sex biz, The Dude is SoCal made flesh. And now a company called New Sensations has done just this with “The Big Lebowski: A XXX Parody,” a passionate, nearly shot-for-shot recreation that shows that cute porn is not an oxymoron. Sure, New Sensations has already tackled pop culture with “30 Rock: A XXX Parody” and “Seinfeld: A XXX Parody,” but “The Big Lebowski: A XXX Parody” really does feel like something different. This isn’t some mainstream TV touchstone the company is tackling, but a cult film from bona fide indie auteurs. A few years back Lucas Entertainment was the darling of the GAYVN Awards with its serious porn remakes of Fellini’s “La Dolce Vita” (and “Dangerous Liaisons” prior to that). In its own way “The Big Lebowski: A XXX Parody” feels closer to those earnest gay versions, more tributes birthed from true movie geek love than of-the-moment knock-offs.

To read the rest visit Filmmaker magazine.

New York Asian Film Festival 2010: Dispatch Two

“Annyong Yumika,” making its North American premiere at this year's New York Asian Film Festival, takes its name from legendary Japanese porn starlet Yumika Hayashi, who also had a big career in Korea. But perhaps most intriguing about this odd nonfiction look at the woman who took top honors at the Pink Grand Prix for the softcore Japanese flick “Lunchbox”—and who met an untimely death in 2005—is that it's truly not made for Western eyes. Practically experimental in his whimsical collage approach, director Tetsuaki Matsue takes as his jumping off point the discovery of his subject's previously lost film, “Junko: The Tokyo Housewife.” That softcore Korean production, which cast Korean actors speaking Japanese, becomes the catalyst for not only retracing Yumika's life (through old home movie footage and bizarre reenactments at actual locations), but also for exploring, to use the title of one talking head professor's book, "the Japanese as seen in Korea."

To read the rest visit The House Next Door at Slant Magazine.

Get Mad at Sin!

Andrew Dinwiddie's "Get Mad at Sin!," directed by Jeff Larson and running at the Obie Award-winning Chocolate Factory Theater in Long Island City, Queens, takes as its starting point a delightfully ripe concept - to craft a one-man show from an out-of-print vinyl record of a sermon Jimmy Swaggart gave at an Arkansas church in 1971 (over a decade before sex scandals brought about his downfall in the late 80s). And a hell of a sermon it is! Smartly, Dinwiddie, wearing a cheap polyester suit and JC Penney-style loafers, dispenses with any irony and simply channels the fire and brimstone preacher at his Sunday best. Stalking a worn red carpet, that divides the audience seated in folding chairs on raised platforms with rec room-type wood paneling, Dinwiddie orates and shimmies with abundant sincerity, letting Swaggart's own incredible words ring out loud and clear.

To read the rest of my review visit Theater Online.

The All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret

As its bold and sprawling title implies Rapscallion Theatre Collective's "All-American Genderf*ck Cabaret" is out to push both buttons and boundaries. Directed by Krystal Banzon from a script by Mariah MacCarthy the show tackles gender stereotypes through an array of can't-judge-a-book-by-its-cover characters, from a hetero tomboy to a femme straight guy, from a feminist lesbian with a knee-jerk hatred of men, to a gay hairdresser who becomes a straight-basher. Guiding them on their journey to self-awareness and the shedding of black-and-white categories is an androgynous emcee named Taylor played by Becca Blackwell whose natural, easygoing stage presence is perfectly suited to the enlightened character.

To read the rest visit Theater Online.