Well-made (if self-serving) Red Ezra pseudo-documentary

Red Ezra purports to give us an inside look at the porn industry in Chapter X, not referring to a Roman Numeral but to that rating that defines his business. I found the journey interesting, though unconvincing for the usual reasons.

Linda Roberts is Sam (a non-sex role this time for her), a journalist investigating the sex industry. In the opening, we see her watching a Kaja Kassin video and surprised by the storyline: "there's a reason for the sex?". I'm afraid this particular wrinkle has been rendered nearly moot in the decade since Red shot this feature.

Sam goes off to interview Ron Jeremy, fount of all wisdom, who hands her the expected b.s. and plenty of advice. His history of the Glory Days, when wood was wood and girls were hairy, has been repeated so many times (by him) it sounded to me like a Ted Cruz stump speech -all talking points and zero spontaneity.

Sam decides to focus on what motivates a porn starlet, choosing Gauge as her subject. There's a certain irony here in that Gauge's successful career was winding down rather than revving up at the time this video was made, but she's as good a test case as any, statistically speaking.

Gauge narrates a flashback about her work as a teenage stripper back in Texas (where director Ezra hails from). She became a lesbian: watching other strippers make love in the VIP room she joined in for a 3-some; at this point the video moves from documentary into what the old Men's magazines of the '50s used to call "semi-fiction".

She met a photographer, cuing nude photo shoots and from a magazine spread got a movie offer (video actually): we see Lee Stone humping an ultra-busty femme star in a video to illustrate,

In a flashback, a director takes her to L.A. to watch a porn shoot, a simple sex scene including anal of the gonzo persuasion. Then the director shoots Gauge's first scene: solo masturbation. Her first boy/girl scene for the same director has Gauge very matter-of-fact. We watch her perform with a tattooed guy on a couch, ho hum.

Gauge recommends porn as a career (I can't remember ever seeing a starlet interview where the girl didn't), and Sam's last question is "why porno?". Answer: "I'm good at it, that's what I do. Why do you write?" 

Sam summarizes that this generation is going to be the next chapter in the evolution of X, Chapter X. Less pompously, Gauge gets the last word: "X pays the bills, that's why". 

Not much meat on this fake-documentary's bones, but a good effort given the ground rules of an industry only slightly less self-serving than the Church of Scientology.

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