In Garbo Talks<\/strong> (1984), director Sidney Lumet played with Garbo\u2019s myth in a story where a dying woman desperately wants to meet her idol \u2013 again following the theme of fans wanting a personal encounter and emotional connection with a celluloid idol.<\/p>\n Hardcore porn being taboo in mainstream Hollywood product means a story involving a real porn star was also taboo if a filmmaker wants to be graphically faithful to the subject\u2019s world (i.e.: pickles & beavers in locomotion).<\/p>\n When P.T. Anderson focused on the lives of seventies adult film stars in\u00a0Boogie Nights <\/strong>(1997), that epic (a sometimes meandering, indulgent, but brilliantly rendered) drama followed the rise and fall of John Holmes-inspired Dirk Diggler, going from a well-hung schlub to porn star, drug dealer, has-been, and pre-credit redemption.<\/p>\n For the lead and some supporting characters, most things turned out pretty good, whereas in the 2003 (unofficial) follow-up drama, Wonderland<\/strong>, the focus was the messy decline into drugs and murder trial which thoroughly destroyed the real John Holmes\u2019 reputation prior to his death from complications due to AIDS.<\/p>\n The comedy The Girl Next Door<\/strong> (2004) contemporized pop culture\u2019s fascination with porn by having a teen\u2019s obsession with his pretty neighbour blossom into a pubescent fantasy of dating a porn star and getting laid by a pro, with villains trying to muck up a good thing; and in Zack and Miri Make a Porno<\/strong> (2008), the goofy decision of amateurs to make a porno allowed Kevin Smith to play with various levels of morality.<\/p>\n 'Meet Princess Lay-Me'<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Keith Bearden\u2019s film Meet Monica Velour<\/strong> (originally titled Miss January 1978<\/strong>) kind of bridges the gap between the Wilder films, in which a character seeks out a mythical figure, and coming of age tales.<\/p>\n In Velour<\/strong>, the central character is a freshly minted high school graduate who\u2019s compelled to take advantage of a one-time chance to see his idol in person – a classic collision of fantasy and reality.<\/p>\n Sort of.<\/p>\n Velour<\/strong> is an odd film with a highly unusual conceit: when Tobe attends the stripping debut of his idol, he\u2019s enamored <\/em>by her, and utterly blind to age, let alone the tragedy of a working single mom hitting a low point to get full custody of her daughter from a scumbag ex-husband.<\/p>\n Both the title and campaign art of Meet Monic Velour<\/strong> are disingenuous to Bearden\u2019s film because they play up Kim Cattrall\u2019s Sex & the City<\/strong> persona, which misleads audiences into thinking it\u2019s a vanity piece in which the actress \u2018gets serious\u2019 for Oscar bait.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a small, smartly written film that\u2019s beautifully produced, and boasts strong performances by uber-dork Dustin Ingram, Keith David and his magical voice, and Brian Dennehy doing a half-Keitel.<\/p>\n Bearden\u2019s background is as a film writer & interviewer, and it\u2019s a fine feature debut from a mature writer who decided a career change was due, and it was time to move into long-form filmmaking after directing a pair of successful short films.<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Review Link + Brian Dennehy in Toronto<\/strong><\/p>\n The review <\/a>[M<\/a>] of Anchor Bay\u2019s gorgeous Blu-ray is up, and those in Toronto can also see Dennehy (fully clothed) at the Appel Salon at the Toronto Reference Library Tues. September 27 in a Q&A with writer Richard Ouzounian, where he\u2019ll discuss his return to the stage, including his recent run at Stratford<\/a>. (Note: while the Appel Q&A is now sold out, the website <\/a>states there will be video of Dennehy\u2019s appearance online soon. Presumably clothed.)<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Recent Compatibility Issues with Anchor Bay Titles & LG Blu-ray Players<\/strong><\/p>\n Lastly: there have been reports of some new Anchor Bay Blu-rays that have been unplayable on some LG units, particularly the BD-370, which I have.<\/p>\n LG has made available a new flash update on their website, under the Drivers & Software tab<\/a> (you have to download it, unzip it, and install it via USB or burned disc), but it doesn\u2019t solve the problem of the player spitting out the BR disc after a few loud spins and a \u201cDisc Error\u201d warning.<\/p>\n My workaround is a weird one.<\/p>\n The 370 model will retain memory of where you left off on a disc if you turned off the machine or ejected a disc. It seems to do this for 3-4 titles before the memory is replaced with the next title.<\/p>\n Long story short: put in & play the first seconds of a disc before ejecting it. Do this 4 times using different BRs or DVDs, and then try the Anchor Bay disc.<\/p>\n I find that on average the player will eventually see the disc after a slight delay, and will load the disc without error. (It may <\/em>also start the disc correctly if you turn off the player with the disc inside during a successful playback, and turn it on again when you want to continue.)<\/p>\n My guess is the bug has to do with an existing compatibility between Anchor Bay BR discs; it may play them fine once, but a second, third and fourth try stores memory of a \u2018bad disc\u2019 \/ failed reading error, instead of where you left off, which is why it can\u2019t find the last clean point to reload a disc.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a BD live issue where you have to have a thumb in the player’s USB port when you start a disc. Tried that, and it did nothing. Hope the workaround helps others, as some have reported a similar issue with Lionsgate titles in the U.S.<\/p>\n * * *<\/p>\n Coming next<\/strong>: by a brilliant coincidence of release schedules, there are 3 films now out by forgotten scribe William Rose.<\/p>\n In the first part, I’ll have reviews of the wonderful British comedy Genevieve<\/strong> (VCI) and the giddy The Flim-Flam Man<\/strong> (Twilight Time), followed by It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World <\/strong>(MGM) – released on Blu-ray in one of those dumb exclusive deals – and a review of La-La Land’s deluxe 2-disc soundtrack set which makes available most of the original score.<\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n .<\/span><\/p>\n Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor Editor’s Blog on Meet Monica Velour (Anchor Bay), and vanilla filmmaker fascination with porn figures in American film, plus Brian Dennehy in Toronto this month, and compatibility issues with Anchor Bay Blu-rays + LG players.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6,4],"tags":[731,732,726,724,733,725,734,275],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-Vs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3562\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"http:\/\/mondomark.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/MeetMonicaVelour_still_s.gif\" "\\"MeetMonicaVelour_still_s\\"")
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