The first gathering of the Dirty Movie Appreciation Society took place on a cold, rainy Chicago night in March 2011 at the beautiful Everleigh Social Club. The setting is perfect for appreciating all sorts of sensual delights – which, of course is the point. The space is sort of a cross between an urban loft and an early 20th century bordello. There are comfy velvet and brocade furnishings, low lights, erotic (but tasteful) art on the walls. Pretty much how I want my living room to look one of these days.
Curator Franky Vivid introduced a selection of short videos to help warm up the audience of approximately twenty people. Later on, Searah Deysach who owns Early to Bed, introduced the feature, “Hot Rackets”.
It was definitely an interesting evening. It’s been approximately a thousand years since I viewed porn in public. Most of the others also had no or limited experience with this. Considering how sophisticated we all like to think we are, there was a slight feeling of discomfort or embarrassment that was palpable. Nervous laughter broke the silence from time to time.
I’m going to just give some impressions of the films shown, so you may have to forgive a few incomplete sentences. The shorts were:
“Chore” The director said it was a love letter to the actress. She is wearing a series of lovely panties and doing housework, laundry, ironing. Ok, if you’re into that sort of thing.
“Geisha” – produced by Jacques Magazine. Beautiful geisha with porcelain skin fanning herself, intercut with b&w clips of a geisha - having sex? Pleasuring herself? Hard to tell what exactly is going on in these arty films.
“Handcuffs”. Directed by Erika Lust, known for writing and producing feminist porn. The site is Lustcinema.com. This film won Best Experimental Short Film at the Cinekink festival in New York in 2010. A woman is on a boring date in bar. Another couple walk in, the woman is wearing handcuffs. Now the boring date woman is finally interested in something. She goes to restroom and spies on the couple in hallway engaging in various forms of sexual recreation. The film cuts back and forth from the couple to the woman peeping. Eventually they discover her. The visuals are very nice in this one. There are pink and black stripes on the wall behind the peeping woman making it look as if she is - jailed? Enclosed? Trapped? It ends with both women handcuffed together in front of the man. Apparently, further adventures await the three. Probably no more boring dates at least.
“La Reve”. Has a cello, violin and rock music score . A woman is in bed, dreaming? Remembering? Elegant women posing, one playing a woman like a cello. Money changing hands. From/to whom and for what? Filmed at Chicago’s own Chopin Theater and features Chicago’s own burlesque diva, Michelle L’Amour. The dreaming woman is either playing solitaire under the blanket or masturbating; which come to think of it, is another form of solitaire. It ends with money on the bed. Very pretty but confusing.
Next was something called “Vintage”. It was a grainy, very basic porn which appeared to be from the 1930’s or thereabouts. Pretty dull, but kind of interesting if you believe that porn (and sex) was invented approximately five years after your birth. It is either genuinely antique and amateur or has a clever appearance of same. The guy even looks into the camera.
“Painful”. I really liked this one, even though I am not into the subject matter – but I probably wouldn’t tell you if I were. Two women are having a little BDSM session. One is spanking the other, using her hand, a riding crop, and a cat o’nine tails. There is absolutely no sound, no music and it was filmed in slow motion. The slow speed and the silence allows you to focus on the subtle changes in facial expressions – the sub and the Dom as she watches the sub’s reactions. Each blow makes the skin ripple outward like the surface of a pond as a pebble is dropped into it. Very beautiful. However, if it were running at regular speed the whole thing would be pretty “eh..so what.”
The feature of the evening was titled “Hot Rackets”. Oh my ears and whiskers! This film must have been made in the mid to late 1970’s, judging by the embarrassing clothes, the Farah Fawcett hair, the awful shag carpeting and the lame disco music. (The 70’s – ah yes, the good ole’ days of no condoms). One website lists it as 1979, another as 1980. And yes, I know it’s porn, so you expect bad acting, and a non-existent plot. The moments of character development or plot advancement (such as they are) are merely place-holders until the next sex scene.
I have to give the filmmakers credit. It appeared that they were trying to make something funny and light, and there were a few funny moments. But, I’m not sure I could sit through the whole thing again.
And now the best part - the sound effects! During each oral sex scene (and there were more than a couple of those), the sounds heard were….well,….words almost fail me - and anyone who knows me knows that doesn’t happen often. Try to imagine a really, really big dog, one who is really, really thirsty. Now, imagine the sound of this really big dog slurping at a really big bowl of water. It didn’t sound like that. But, imagine a DOZEN really, really big and thirsty dogs slurping at a DOZEN really big bowls of water. THAT’s what it sounded like. They either used exactly that sound effect or possibly they borrowed the sound track from a Three Stooges short about a soup eating contest. The messy slurping noises were completely absurd – NO ONE, and I mean NO ONE in the history of sex has EVER made noises like that. If you did ever hear someone making noises like that between your legs, you would stop them and ask what in the hell they were doing. It was definitely not erotic, but it did produce the biggest laughs of the evening.
It starred Candida Royalle now a well known and successful porn producer. Her company, Femme Productions, produce films which are woman empowering and sex positive. Right on, sister!
So kids, it was a lot of fun. I do hope this is a regular monthly event. A person can always learn something new, right?
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