Lovelace

I caught Amanda Seyfried's take on Linda Lovelace tonight and feel mixed about the movie. Based on the trailer I was expected to have a Valley of the Dolls lite experience, and for the first half the movie basically delivered. Things were fun, breezy, slightly if not overtly campy and it all ended with James Franco showing up in a cameo role as Hugh Hefner.

Then at the halfway point the movie jumped 6 years ahead to a framing device that went back and told the story of Deep Throat according to how it really happened in Lovelace's memoir, "Ordeal."

It was an interesting concept: show the porn world for the happy, sexy, fun product it delivers, and then show the seedy underbelly of drugs, abuse and rape that go on behind the scenes. The shift in tone is jarring though and the second half is such a downer after the silly first half that it just didn't work for me. I think they should have infused the two halves together and told the story straight from the start.

Seyfried does a nice job, but often looks so goofy in her assortment of wigs and costumes as her character hurtles through the years.

I admit that I've never actually seen Deep Throat, but Lovelace made me want to check it out. The dialogue was hilarious! She went to a doctor because her clit was in the back of her throat? LOL. Did anyone go see the movie when it first came out? Did people really go see it like they were going to a regular movie or did only play the porn houses? (Lovelace made it seem like everyone in America had seen the movie.)

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Updated On: 8/10/13 at 11:50 PM

Wow, Namo. Thanks for that. It was definitely NOT covered in Lovelace; there isn't a shred of doubt that everything in "Ordeal" isn't gospel.

Sarah Jessica Parker had filmed some scenes as Steinem, but they were all cut from the film. Linda goes from getting the book published, seemingly all on her own as a passion project to tell the truth, and then appearing on Donahue to vindicate herself.

It sounds like there was a more interesting story to tell here, but Lovelace was not the movie to tell it.

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Does Thora Birch play the nurse?

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That would be perfect but then her father would have wanted to play himself.

ETA: Yes, it was a HUGE sensation. It became THE thing to see among the hoi polloi. The title was so familiar in the popular vernacular that Bernstein and Woodward used it as their code name for their Watergate source. Deep Throat references were everywhere, and so it became a flashpoint for zealous prosecutors to go after anyone associated with it.

The documentary "Inside Deep Throat" goes into the whole phenomenon. Linda used the prosecution of Harry Reems, which set a really dangerous precedent before his conviction was overturned, to begin her "It wasn't my fault! I hated every minute of it! I didn't want to do any of it! Look at the bruises on my leg in Deep Throat!" to escape the glare of prosecution.

Then she rode THAT all the way to the bank, getting a pile of money for her victim tale which she somehow blew, and then told it all again for the second book.

The directors probably bought the rights to the book and thought they were telling a "balanced" story in the construction of the movie.

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Updated On: 8/10/13 at 01:06 AM

Sounds like it tells a complicated tale in a way that isn't particularly comprehensive.

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Yup, Lohan even made the publicity photos but I was not sure if it was for this Lovelace or the one Malin Akerman is now in that will be out at some point. Honestly, even if The Canyons will go down considered a trainwreck to watch for critics (though many did think she was good), I think that is a more interesting choice for Lohan to do (with a typically reliable director of scripted material- sounds like Epstein and Friedman should stick to docs) than do mimicry of a public figure considered widely tragic.

People all the way back at Sundance in the winter thought this was a dud and nothing to write home about with the exception of Sharon Stone's surprise appearance.

Oh, Dworkin and aMcKinnon. I took one WGS course in my life (in my defense, it was related movies and Molly Haskell was on the syllabus). That was enough to get the general gist. I had to read MacKinnon but one of my good college friends was a WGS major (She cool, she into Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler) and just always made fun of MacKinnon and ironically wore the Dworkin signature overalls to class after she was called a radical feminist. She thought Dworkin was definitely overboard, as Namo notes in passing. Basically Dworkin sort of set ablaze the 'femi-nazi' imagery that often puts off women from ever considering themselves feminist. Though my friend and I still came to conclusion that Camille Paglia annoyed us the most.

Updated On: 8/10/13 at 01:54 AM

It may shock people who weren't around then to know that there was once an adult culture in this country. Not saying the porno chic era was "grown up," in particular, but that there was once a sort of mysterious and enticing segment of life that a person couldn't access until adulthood.

ETA strummer: we have the same take on those writers. I once saw Dworkin sitting on a curb outside a NYC shop with a melting ice cream cone in both hands and the scowl on her face. Overalls, too, it goes without saying.

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Updated On: 8/10/13 at 10:52 AM

The 1970's saw the growth of suburban highway multi-screen cinemas and a huge decline in attendance at the old downtown movie houses, many of which resorted to showing porn. They were just about everywhere. I remember seeing Deep Throat and a few of those other classic, I think it was at the old Queen Ann Theatre in Teaneck, NJ. It was mostly guys in the audience, and a few couples as well.
Eventually, with the growth of home videos, and of course the internet, these places all closed down one by one.

It wasn't even Playboy. It was some down market mag called "Leg Show."

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I was just a kid when all of this happened, but I wouldn't mind seeing the movie just for entertainment reasons. Who plays her mom again? I read it but can't remember.

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Thank you! I knew it was someone famous, but completely blanked.

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Thanks Carlos. I don't want to besmearsh the good name of Teaneck, a nice town. Glad to know it was Bogota, Lonnegan's home town. Wonder if he was there too.

Again I don't think Stone was campy or her material was campy, maybe we have different definitions of campy. I thought Stone did a great job with the mother.

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