Legends: What a great word! Many legends are dead, something I rather like not be! Some legends are middle aged, something I'd rather not be! Some legends are fat, something I'd rather not be! Some legends work in the pits of show-biz, something I'm proud of not doing!
Ron Jeremy isn't dead - as I write anyway! - but all the others apply to him. While RJ may have slept with a lot of women - if only by way of work - I believe that the only thing that counts in sex is quality. So no points on my card!
I have problems with porn because I am intrigued by it, but quickly become bored by it. Maybe it is my age, maybe it is liberal background, but very little of it doesn't leave me cold. Certainly the humping-in-a-motel-room porn - that is the RJ mainstay - has no interest to me."The business" is just that: A business. Nothing more, nothing less.
Certainly the history of porn is interesting as it is the underworld of show-biz. Illegal and therefore dangerous - until more recent times - it formed a intriguing backdrop to the fake tinsel of mainstream Hollywood. The actor/actress that didn't make it and fell in to porn is a cliché, but that doesn't mean it is not the frequent truth. As clichés often are. RJ has seen that history and it is the one pity of this movie that he only makes passing references to it. A witness to (show-biz) history who is not being properly probed.
It is hard to know the appeal of the central character. Uni educated, and even a special needs teacher for a while, he wanted to be part of show-biz because most bored people think that is where the drugs, fun and sex are. In this they are right - for a chosen few. Ron wasn't one of the chosen few, but god bless him for flying half way around the world to do two minutes of mainstream film. These show-biz types hang on to their dreams until the very end.
The lowering of the porn budget (not extensive to begin with) has destroyed even the slightest pretence of "telling a story" merely quickly linking one sex scene to another. Paradoxically the mainstream has learnt how to respectablise sex through documentary, men in white coats (so called "adult sex education") and daring sex scenes ALA Basic Instinct and Showgirls.
So how does RJ fit in to this over ground/underground Hollywood world? Well he doesn't. He performs sex well on cue and tells a lot of second rate jokes but who is he inside?
Here we never get down more than one skin of the onion, he is performing all the time. We don't see him at home or expressing his doubts of frustrations to camera - this is done by others. Food and sex are his drug, but what else is there for him?
He is single and talks of his past conquests with pride, but there is a little sadness beneath the surface. He talks of marriage to a woman who has yet to appear on the horizon and might never do so.
We meet the usual crew of industry names and they give their little bit-to-camera about his large penis, party habits, personal hygiene (fat guys often look smelly even freshly showered), spending habits, but I was not bothered. I doubt anybody is, apart from the college jocks that think along the lines of "the more sex you get the better." Don't worry they will learn the truth later.
No one can make a good documentary about Ron Jeremy simply because I am not that interested in Ron Jeremy. He is on the run from the 9-2-5 - something that I am as well incidentally - but eventually it pulls us all back in. He has become institutionalised to porn - something that doesn't happen to female "talent" who usually burnout after about three years - and thinks that this is his natural home.
He can't go on forever, but I am sure he will find some niche as a producer, director or even a prop shifter. While I didn't feel sorry for him because he is in the sex business, I feel sorry for him because there is nothing in life that really makes him happy. The best he can come up with is cheap thrills - which are no substitute.
This film left me with a giant feeling of "so what." There is too much happening in the big wide world to care about one little man's struggle in his self-chosen little show-biz niche.
Ron is not a bad guy and he shows good manners, but he lives in a world where anyone will say or do anything for money - a world where even blonde teenage girls will say that they enjoy having sex with fat, sweaty, middle aged men on camera...
Ron Jeremy isn't dead - as I write anyway! - but all the others apply to him. While RJ may have slept with a lot of women - if only by way of work - I believe that the only thing that counts in sex is quality. So no points on my card!
I have problems with porn because I am intrigued by it, but quickly become bored by it. Maybe it is my age, maybe it is liberal background, but very little of it doesn't leave me cold. Certainly the humping-in-a-motel-room porn - that is the RJ mainstay - has no interest to me."The business" is just that: A business. Nothing more, nothing less.
Certainly the history of porn is interesting as it is the underworld of show-biz. Illegal and therefore dangerous - until more recent times - it formed a intriguing backdrop to the fake tinsel of mainstream Hollywood. The actor/actress that didn't make it and fell in to porn is a cliché, but that doesn't mean it is not the frequent truth. As clichés often are. RJ has seen that history and it is the one pity of this movie that he only makes passing references to it. A witness to (show-biz) history who is not being properly probed.
It is hard to know the appeal of the central character. Uni educated, and even a special needs teacher for a while, he wanted to be part of show-biz because most bored people think that is where the drugs, fun and sex are. In this they are right - for a chosen few. Ron wasn't one of the chosen few, but god bless him for flying half way around the world to do two minutes of mainstream film. These show-biz types hang on to their dreams until the very end.
The lowering of the porn budget (not extensive to begin with) has destroyed even the slightest pretence of "telling a story" merely quickly linking one sex scene to another. Paradoxically the mainstream has learnt how to respectablise sex through documentary, men in white coats (so called "adult sex education") and daring sex scenes ALA Basic Instinct and Showgirls.
So how does RJ fit in to this over ground/underground Hollywood world? Well he doesn't. He performs sex well on cue and tells a lot of second rate jokes but who is he inside?
Here we never get down more than one skin of the onion, he is performing all the time. We don't see him at home or expressing his doubts of frustrations to camera - this is done by others. Food and sex are his drug, but what else is there for him?
He is single and talks of his past conquests with pride, but there is a little sadness beneath the surface. He talks of marriage to a woman who has yet to appear on the horizon and might never do so.
We meet the usual crew of industry names and they give their little bit-to-camera about his large penis, party habits, personal hygiene (fat guys often look smelly even freshly showered), spending habits, but I was not bothered. I doubt anybody is, apart from the college jocks that think along the lines of "the more sex you get the better." Don't worry they will learn the truth later.
No one can make a good documentary about Ron Jeremy simply because I am not that interested in Ron Jeremy. He is on the run from the 9-2-5 - something that I am as well incidentally - but eventually it pulls us all back in. He has become institutionalised to porn - something that doesn't happen to female "talent" who usually burnout after about three years - and thinks that this is his natural home.
He can't go on forever, but I am sure he will find some niche as a producer, director or even a prop shifter. While I didn't feel sorry for him because he is in the sex business, I feel sorry for him because there is nothing in life that really makes him happy. The best he can come up with is cheap thrills - which are no substitute.
This film left me with a giant feeling of "so what." There is too much happening in the big wide world to care about one little man's struggle in his self-chosen little show-biz niche.
Ron is not a bad guy and he shows good manners, but he lives in a world where anyone will say or do anything for money - a world where even blonde teenage girls will say that they enjoy having sex with fat, sweaty, middle aged men on camera...