Sex Film Project

January 18, 2003 11:13 PM

The Sex Film Project. Fans of John Cameron Mitchell and "Hedwig and the Angry Inch" can now audition via videotape for his next film: "The Sex Film Project." The catch? You must be willing to have full hardcore sex on film. Oh, and warning: once you click "Accept" prepare for a background pic featuring an act of autoeroticism. Enjoy!
posted by adrober (43 comments total)

Shit, they don't expect me to be able to do that do they? Why would I even leave the house, much less do a movie?

*starts stretching*
posted by Stan Chin at 11:25 PM on January 18, 2003

Sounds like an old Terry Southern novel, Blue Movie .
posted by herc at 11:36 PM on January 18, 2003

This is just damn goofy. I mean, no one would release this movie, no theaters would show it. Why bother making it? Seriously, why not just make super 8 mm footage of yourself having sex, and then craft a movie around that, and keep it in your basement, Bob Crane style, cause just as many people would end up seeing that as will end up seeing this. Goofy.
posted by jonson at 12:44 AM on January 19, 2003

I'm sure all under 18 year olds will dutifully select the "do not except' button therebye relieving the site of any responsibility for exposing their content to minors.
Indeed this is a real concern in the adult commnuity as the proliferation of free hardcore pornography abounds. Is it really enough to just toss up a simple choice page and feel as though you're relieved of any responsibility to the greater society? If you believe that sex is no big thing and should be available to anybody, then why not stand by that and NOT put up the choice page? And if you DON'T then why not implement a better restriction on minor access?
This might seem trivial right at this moment, but all of this is being recorded and will inevitably be dealt with in the future. Just as Pete Townshend today regrets a stupid choice he made eight years ago, you too might be called to answer for your choices today at some time in the future. How will YOU answer?
posted by HTuttle at 1:29 AM on January 19, 2003

are you serious?
you can get porn without clicking on accept links - they're just a symbolic genuflection towards people who get worked up about these things; so many people look at porn on the net that, even if everything was recorded (and it's not, as far as i know), they'd have to "deal with" too many people (and what for? it's not a crime to look at porn, whatever your age). i'll be answering "so what?"
posted by andrew cooke at 2:40 AM on January 19, 2003

so... the fact that i looked at porn before i turned 18 means i'm going to turn into a pedophile? crap.

i'll admit it, i like porn. i have for several years now (being 20 means i was oogling away before i was 18. *gasp!*). i'm a great fan of the female body. with my porn habits in mind, i do think i'm a fairly intelligent person. i don't touch/look at little kids in that way, nor do i have any desire to that i'm keeping under wraps.

there's nothing wrong with people being naked. there's nothing wrong with people having sex. it's a part of life that everyone will experience at some point. there's really no point in trying to keep those sorts of things hidden under cover until one reaches some arbitrary age.
posted by fore at 2:55 AM on January 19, 2003

I'm sure all under 18 year olds will dutifully select the "do not except' button therebye relieving the site of any responsibility for exposing their content to minors.

The function of the Internet - indeed the fundamental principle overseeing its entire design - is the propagation of information. Not the limitation and control thereof.

Say it with me now, folks: You will never, ever, EVER-EVER-EVER keep under-18-years-of-age males from seeing pornography on the Internet. Censorware misses countless websites and does nothing about P2P, IRC, and even AIM - any means by which information can go into a computer is a channel through which pornography can be successfully secreted - and as we can't teach software to recognize slightly-warped text yet (and are unlikely to do so within the next decade), we're certainly not going to be able to teach it to recognize pornography. It is simply not going to happen and there is absolutely nothing anybody can do about it short of ripping up every bit of fiber-optic cabling from here in Seattle on out to Zanzibar. And even then I wouldn't place any bets.

That's just the pragmatic side.

If you believe that sex is no big thing and should be available to anybody, then why not stand by that and NOT put up the choice page?

Because the site is hosted in a location which puts legal pressures via civil law or potential lawsuit on them? The way it's always been?

And if you DON'T then why not implement a better restriction on minor access?

Because nothing works for this purpose at all? Because all attempts at thwarting underage pornographic access are really just there to limit the legal liability of the hosts from angry fundamentalist parents upset about what they caught Johnny beating off to?

This might seem trivial right at this moment, but all of this is being recorded and will inevitably be dealt with in the future.

No, it isn't. Regardless of what the people at archive.org would have you think, vast swaths of the Internet vanish entirely from history forever each and every day due to lack of interest, lack of resources, or other environmental factors (changing local laws) and there is nothing anybody can do about it.

Just as Pete Townshend today regrets a stupid choice he made eight years ago, you too might be called to answer for your choices today at some time in the future. How will YOU answer?

Considering the outright ignorance of everything the Internet has been designed for from stage one (a military network seeking to propagate information even in the most absolute dire of circumstances) you demonstrated, not to mention the continued ignorance you demonstrated at each and every point thereafter - why should anyone listen to your meaningless attempt at sounding profound?
posted by Ryvar at 2:57 AM on January 19, 2003

Why is he even bothering with auditions? There must be hundreds of porn actors out there looking to make it into mainstream film.
posted by PenDevil at 3:06 AM on January 19, 2003

Agreed, PenDevil. Also, without the specific abdominal exercises male pornstars use, even fit men will look absolutely hideous on top from their gut hanging out.

Amateur pornography is (in my very limited experience) good for two things: females masturbating and lesbians.
posted by Ryvar at 3:12 AM on January 19, 2003

theyre gonna find out all about me and the dancing hamsters ?

*sticks head in gas oven*
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:48 AM on January 19, 2003

In other words, He-who-was-Hedwig is really horny and wants to make it a tax writeoff.
posted by Xkot at 6:08 AM on January 19, 2003

I want to find out more about these porn-star abdominal exercises. Got any links? They're, um, for a friend of mine.
posted by donkeymon at 6:30 AM on January 19, 2003

I think it's a great, great idea. I'm tried of the non sexual conservative sex scenes in movies, and are too often unable to illustrate how beautiful the act in itself can be.

Plus, Mitchell has this wonderful think about him...he can make *deep* controversy, meaningful controversy. His last movie was, imo, a masterful move. Daring yet subtle. (and full of Plato's philosophy wooww).

No seriously, if i lived in NY, i'd do it.
posted by Sijeka at 7:07 AM on January 19, 2003

Yeah, but Sijeka, you're French. The French are supposed to be enlightened about these things. That's why it was called Last Tango in Paris, not Last Tango in Muncie, Indiana.
posted by jonson at 7:48 AM on January 19, 2003

Hedwig was 'daring but subtle'? I must have blinked and missed it.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 8:11 AM on January 19, 2003

At my local film festival, I've often seen higher-brow films that feature hard-core sex in them (Romance springs to mind as the most recent); however, I remain skeptical as to whether it is possible to have an interesting plot, character development and hard-core sex in the same movie. The whole story seems to grind to a halt once the sex begins...

Perhaps the only film I can think of that has successfully married plot and character development with sex is Bertolucci's Last Tango In Paris...and the sex in that is not hard-core per se. Yet even with this film, I found my intellectual involvement being consistently distracted by the hirsuteness of Maria Schneider's privates.
posted by filmgoerjuan at 8:14 AM on January 19, 2003

I too thought "Hedwig" was masterful, but whereas that film sprung from genuine human emotion---loss, feelings of inadequacy, etc---this film seems to stem from a need to be sensational. Even the gimmick of hardcore porn in an "artsy" film can only go so far: at some point there has to be a story you want to tell. True, other improvised films pull it off ("Guffman," "Best In Show," "Topsy Turvy," etc) but those films don't have hardcore sex, unless you include the DVD Bonus outtake of Eugene Levy and Catherine O'Hara doing it doggie style.
posted by adrober at 8:24 AM on January 19, 2003

for art house erotica i don't think it gets any better than this :) (warning: glowing brassieres and codpieces!)
posted by kliuless at 9:15 AM on January 19, 2003

> why should anyone listen to your meaningless attempt at
> sounding profound?

A good question, ryvar. Why did you read it, and quote it, and comment on it?
posted by jfuller at 9:35 AM on January 19, 2003

i was a bit baffled by this project when i first heard of it. Mitchell's acting like it's a revelation that he thought of it when it's really not that unique. perhaps he shouldn't have asked himself "why hasn't anyone thought of this before?" but "why hasn't anyone done this before?"

the reason is that it's not really necessary. there are plenty of films that have simulated sex acts that are just as titilating as the real thing and, if the audience thinks it's real, it might as well be. there really is no difference from a cinematic pov. the aforementioned Romance comes to mind, as does Betty Blue, Bully, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Intimacy (which I think does have real sex).

I mean, no one would release this movie, no theaters would show it.

i totally disagree. it will be released. perhaps not theatrically (though it'll play festivals and alt-houses for sure), but if he's able to bring the same mastery of craft and story to it that he did Hedwig this will be a hugely popular DVD title and i'm betting it will receive a dvd release from a legitimate (ie, non-adult) label, maybe fox-lorber or criterion. it will easily make back its $1M budget.

probably the closest thing i can think of to this is Jacob Pander's hip porn Suck it & See, which was one of the more successful porns aimed at a young audience. Mitchell has a great ear for music (the soundtrack for suck it and see was a big reason many people checked it out) and I'm betting it'll be integral to the film.
posted by dobbs at 9:43 AM on January 19, 2003

A good question, ryvar. Why did you read it, and quote it, and comment on it?

To expose it for what it is.?
posted by Ryvar at 9:51 AM on January 19, 2003

Got any links?

cock pushups: you only need one (kegel for the gals :)

also baise-moi and chôjin densetsu urotsukidôji, "Typical demon. Losing all self-control at the first whiff of pussy!"
posted by kliuless at 10:16 AM on January 19, 2003

I mean, no one would release this movie, no theaters would show it.

Aside from the films mentioned in other comments here, Idioterne by Lars von Trier also had real sex in it.

On a side note, if this guy has trouble raising money for the film, he can just edit together the raunchier audition tapes and sell that.
posted by bobo123 at 10:56 AM on January 19, 2003

Some observations:
-though I can't locate the exact quotes, Stanley Kubrick, at one point of his awesome career, was reportedly interested in making a movie w/ major stars doing x-rated scenes; this was watered down to become his last opus, "Eyes Wide Shut";
-apparently, John Waters as well said something to the effect that "in ten years, Hollywood will show penetration" (or something like that);
-as mentioned above, several art/semi-mainstream movies already feature explicit scenes; Nagisa Oshima's "On the Realm of the Senses" and the entire output of Tinto Brass are some examples; more recently, flicks like "Baise-moi", "Pola-x" and "Guardami" all contain x-rated scenes; as to mainstream actresses and actors going all the way, Halle Berry and Billy Bob Thornton are ambiguous about "Monster's Ball", Maruschka Detmers did on "Le Diable au Corps" and Klaus Kinski is said to reveal on his autobiography that he did it in one of his movies, though the cam doesn't show any close-ups;
-most of you are now thinking "yeah dude, but you're basically talking about obscure/european stuff, what about the USA?" Well, there's "Ken Park", which I haven't seen but features, among others, Amanda Plummer and beautiful soap-opera star Maeve Quinlan;
-the fact that porn stars are being slowly absorbed into the mainstream (Jenna Jameson etc) also deserves mention as another aspect of the same trend;
-remember 10 years ago, just before "Philadelphia", when portraying gay characters meant end of story for most Hollywood careers? I think the same will happen w/ sex scenes. People will assimilate it.
posted by 111 at 11:18 AM on January 19, 2003

Ummm. Did you forget Kiss of the Spider Woman. William Hurt won a best actor Oscar for playing a gay guy eight years before Tom Hanks.
posted by Xoc at 11:59 AM on January 19, 2003

I've always wondered why almost anything remotely porn related in America comes off so low brow. Does it have to be? Would anyone buy it if it wasn't?

There isn't a site like Amazon.com for porn (straightforward interface, treating the customer well, etc -- instead it's all popups, popunders, and membership trickery), movies and magazines cater to a...let's say "pro-wrestling fan" demographic, and depictions of women are usually reprehensible.

I look forward to seeing how this movie turns out, and seeing if anyone can make something high brow, or at least respectful to the audience's intelligence.
posted by mathowie at 12:18 PM on January 19, 2003

A lot of the movies you guys listed---whether European or American---are still in a different category because it sounds like Mitchell isn't only going to show hardcore sex, he's going to show hardcore gay sex (the male on male kind) which, to my knowledge, hasn't been seen much even in the artsiest of films.
posted by adrober at 2:40 PM on January 19, 2003

I find it hard to believe that this isn't a wind up. It sounds like the web equivalent of a man coming up to you in a bar and asking if you'd like to pose for some photographs because he's a professional photographer (honest).

What makes me especially suspicious (or maybe they're just really stupid?) is that the release form that they ask to be sent with your video doesn't ask for any date of birth information!
posted by daveg at 3:00 PM on January 19, 2003

What makes me especially suspicious (or maybe they're just really stupid?) is that the release form that they ask to be sent with your video doesn't ask for any date of birth information!

from the site:
"Applicants must be at least 18 years old and proof of age must be submitted with the video and accompanying materials. This should be in the form of photocopies of two pieces of identification. Only the following will be accepted: driver's license, passport, birth certificate, Social Security card or identification issued by state of residence. One ID must have a current photograph and list your date of birth."
posted by goddam at 3:22 PM on January 19, 2003

adrober: there are instances of hard core gay sex in mainstream art house cinema...check out Canadian director Bruce La Bruce's oeuvre, in particular Huster White and Super 8-1/2.
posted by filmgoerjuan at 5:35 PM on January 19, 2003

Last year I got an idea for a big budget FX Sci-Fi Porn spectacular. I'll work on the script for it after I get a few other project out of the way. I'm pretty sure no one will ever make it, but what the heck. By the time it gets written it may well be passe.
posted by wobh at 6:01 PM on January 19, 2003

Right on, filmgoerjuan...Super 8-1/2 is the hardcore gay porn version of Waiting for Guffman (and it came along first). It's amazing.
posted by troybob at 6:53 PM on January 19, 2003

Obvious (and unanswered question):

Is that guy from Nantucket?
posted by arto at 9:15 PM on January 19, 2003

By the time it gets written it may well be passe.

It's certainly been done before (IMDB also has listings for parts 2 and 3...).
posted by monkey closet at 4:58 AM on January 20, 2003

Monkey Closet: I say Feh but it's a promising start anyway. When I say "big budget FX", I'm talking about James Cameron here. When I say "Sci-Fi Porn Spectacular" think Greg Egan meets Heavy Metal. Think John Varley[geocities], think Edgar Rice Burroughs, think Robert fucking Heinlein.

Everybody seems to be wondering how they can make porn sex in film into something arty and highbrow, when it's clear to me that the answer lies beyond these shores, out past Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings but just this side of De Laurentis' Barbarella
posted by wobh at 10:00 AM on January 20, 2003

Okay, so that last sentence isn't quite what I wanted to say. There's plenty of arty and highbrow sex and SF in movies. But are there any that are massively "acceptable"? There's a perception that porn and SF movies are highly specialized, limited in their expression and "depth". And certainly this is so. But when I'm looking out into a large frontier of yet unmade movies in the imagination I think I see something that could "redeem" both. We need a pioneer. I'm not thinking of anything that would be either "acceptable" or high-brow, but it would be pioneering.
posted by wobh at 10:18 AM on January 20, 2003

The difference between the clinical and the erotic is the absence of emotion. A "serious" movie with real sex requires a great deal more mastery than simply a movie of people copulating or whatever. In much the same way, the background photo in the post is sensational and attention grabbing and not the equivalent of great erotic photographs.

I am also struck by the need to have "real" sex in movies when alsmost everything else we are seeing is becoming more and more effects-driven.

And what mathowie said.
posted by newlydead at 10:38 AM on January 20, 2003

The difference between the clinical and the erotic is the absence of emotion. A "serious" movie with real sex requires a great deal more mastery than simply a movie of people copulating or whatever. In much the same way, the background photo in the post is sensational and attention grabbing and not the equivalent of great erotic photographs.

I am also struck by the need to have "real" sex in movies when almost everything else we are seeing is becoming more and more effects-driven.

And what mathowie said.
posted by newlydead at 10:40 AM on January 20, 2003

A "serious" movie with real sex requires a great deal more mastery than simply a movie of people copulating or whatever

I dunno, some of the sex on Queer as Folk is really hot but the only emotions involved are the same as those involved when I watch a good music video. Just sayin'.
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:49 AM on January 20, 2003

a site like Amazon.com for porn
posted by inpHilltr8r at 12:06 AM on January 21, 2003

I agree about the quality level, but since I don't actually pay for it, I figure I don't get a say in the matter.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 12:09 AM on January 21, 2003

Yeah, but Sijeka, you're French. The French are supposed to be enlightened about these things. That's why it was called Last Tango in Paris, not Last Tango in Muncie, Indiana

I suppose you got a point here, plus the comment is witty.
But what i'm trying to say is, the cinematographic industry really needs more people like Mitchell, who are willing to push the boundaries of independent movies without having to find excuses for it.
Art needs to be controversial, because too often it's the essence of Art itself. And Mitchell, is one who can manage to do it in an AMERICAN way, which is very important. Just reading his interview on nerve.com proved me i was right.

The only equivalent i can think of is actually European , w/ the movie Lucia y el Sexo.
posted by Sijeka at 7:53 AM on January 21, 2003

John Waters did predict that in 10 years a major hollywood actress would do the deed on screen, and not simulated. But John Waters had oral sex in Pink Flamingos. Granted, it was Divine giving it to a very soft costar, but contact was made and it's in the movie. It was so incredibly un-erotic though, which I'm quite sure was the point, especially because the characters were mother and son.
posted by archimago at 12:51 PM on January 22, 2003