Monday, February 18, 2019

The Amateurs (Usama Alshaibi, 2003)

 
I don't remember François Truffaut or Karen Finley being mentioned in any of Ed Powers' depressing Dirty Debutantes movies. But then again, I haven't seen all that many (THANK GOD!!!!!). I can see a wall of pornographic videotapes at one of the many adult video retailers I accidentally walked into over and over again back in the day. The innocent faces of the women peering back at me from the cover boxes. Sadness mixed with shame. A boatload of regret. If I remember correctly, the guy behind the counter reeked of hot dogs and rape.

I think there was a screening room at the back... there was a curtain... so, I couldn't see what was going on... but I recall hearing a lot of moaning.

People eat Ethiopian food at an Ethiopian restaurant in that location nowadays.

I wonder if they realize the walls are encrusted with at least twenty years worth of failure-tinged jizz as they make their order.

So, yeah, Usama Alshaibi's The Amateurs pays tribute to/mocks/ridicules/celebrates the pathetic hilariousness that is amateur porn.

 
It opens with two would be performers being interviewed by a director.

When Camilla Ha (as Mini Chang) name-drops Karen Finley (the mom from You Killed Me First), I relaxed immediately.

The conversation that follows is funny and stupid simultaneously. 

The guy in the wig won't perform unless a fish is produced... the director doesn't have any fish... he demands that the two potential performers get with "the suck and the fuck."

"We don't do kink."



The next interview is depressing. Uh, yeah. I don't want to talk about it.
 
 
Spoiler alert: "Princess" injured her eye with a pool cue while drinking moonshine. lol


Reluctant to perform with a woman with one eye... the director tries to convince his non-dashing male lead that it's okay by telling him that: "Not everyone has two eyes."

When the non-dashing male lead offers to warm up the speculum he's been instructed to insert into Princess' pussy, I nearly lost it. So romantic!


Next up is Echo and Coco... Um, the wide-eyed Echo needs to take a shit and Coco's filthy white t-shirt gave me a pseudo yeast infection.


Hi, Billy and Kalyx... thanks... bye! Worst annilingus ever!

Yay! Woo-hoo! I'm done with the Solar Anus Cinema collection. 🎉 I managed to type words about every single one of them. Of course, I didn't have to... but, in a way, I did. And I'm beaming with misguided pride. What I think I learned is that, um, porn is gay, and that Ukrainian women and sort of Ukrainian women need our support (now more than ever). Now, who wants to order Ethiopian, er, I mean, Thai food?



17 comments:

  1. Hello Yum Yum:
    Correct me if I’m wrong but I seem to recall that you are (like me) a bit of a Helen Mirren fan.

    If you are, then I think that you’ll be quite interested in this month’s release from Twilight Time movies, “Hussy” (1980)

    https://www.twilighttimemovies.com/hussy-blu-ray/



    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not even close to being a bit of a fan. But I remember Hussy airing on late night TV... I saw the side part of one of Helen's boobies. It was either the right one or left one.

      Delete
    2. I saw the side part of one of Helen's boobies. It was either the right one or left one.

      And yet, if you reviewed Hussy, you would most assuredly not include screencaps of said side-boob. Your blog is, sadly, sorely lacking in pictorial tributes to woman's greatest attributes. We may need to talk more about this someday.

      Delete
    3. Helen Mirren side-boob in Hussy review challenge.

      I'm sure if one were to poke around, and I mean, really poke around, you would stumble across something boob-like, or even cleavage adjacent.

      Delete
    4. Yums, buddy, the God-given glory of tits (I fucking abhor the word "boobs" — it's something your grandma would say) is to be presented to the spectator head-on and without apology. "Something boob-like, or even cleavage adjacent" is nowhere near good enough.

      Tighten up.

      Delete
  2. Yums.

    Believe it or not, I actually had a film class with Usama at Columbia College in Chicago, back in the mid-Nineties. (I'm pretty sure of it.) Based on the kind of insufferably pretentious, aggressively unlikable fella he was back then, I'm not the least bit surprised that he's "grown up" to make "films" such as these.

    Carry on.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A friend sent me all his short films via something called "dropbox." I decided to watch them all for some dumbass reason. Writing words about them was my desperate attempt to justify the time I had just squandered.

      Delete
  3. Also: "walls encrusted with failure-tinged jizz" has got to qualify you for some kind of honorable mention at some film bloggers' award ceremony. In Jersey or, say, Delaware, if nowhere else.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would like a modestly sized trophy of some kind, or, at the very least, a coupon for Red Lobster or some shit.

      Delete
  4. "Not everyone has two eyes."
    That pretty much sold the movie to me!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Gee. And people gave Richard Kern a hard time.

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  6. Yum-Yum,

    I don't remember exactly when I discovered your blog, and I don't even remember if my own (sad excuse for a) blog links to you, but I've read you for years and years. I forget if I've ever commented here. But I just wanted to tell you I wish you'd post again. Along with Mark Savage you were one of my fave bloggers. I'm not quite sure when or why it became untrendy to read blogs - or to blog. You're a good writer and very funny. Somebody ought to collect these posts and publish them on dead tree. Do you post somewhere else now?

    PS: Btw, the other day I watched DR. CALIGARY (1989) for the first time. And then I discover it's your very first post!
    PS.PS: I loved it!

    /Jack J (somewhere in Scandinavia)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the kind words.

      Yeah, Dr. Caligari was the reason I started writing reviews.

      I have an instagram "radioactivelingerie" but I mostly just post porn adjacent poetry set to industrial techno music "close friend" stories.


      Delete
  7. Hey there, LOVE your blog. It's so hard to explain my bizarre and quirky taste to people, and that makes it difficult to find new movies through word of mouth. Your blog is a goldmine of great movies!

    I have to know though... What is the movie in your main header/banner? The one on the top left?

    Hope all is well.
    Cheers!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for dropping by, Mike.

      The header/banner movie in question (top left) is Dr. Caligari (1989)

      Delete