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213070-afterpornends

After Porn Ends: doc that catches up with some porn superstars of yesteryear and sees what they’re doing having left the industry. This doesn’t feel much like a conventional documentary – there’s no narration, or much of a narrative for that matter, just feels like you’re listening in on people storytelling; which has some merits. The biggest surprise is how smart and pragmatic some pornstars are (one actress is in mensa!), but this feels short-lived as it’s quickly balanced out by the ridiculously vapid bimbo stereotypes that also show up. You have to be a unique person to enter this kind of work, and in a way that’s what keeps this watchable – these people have led quite fascinating, peculiar lives during their porn careers, then as an ex-porn star societal pariah. The most interesting – and telling – part of the film however is seeing what happened after the interviews in the pre-credit titles. In the same way that ‘Side by Side’ was about the transition in cinema, this feels a bit like old-timers reminiscing about the glory days / ‘golden age’ of porn. All in all, After Porn Ends is surprisingly watchable, yet it’s a little unforgivable that someone could stitch together a film this flat and ordinary when it features so many people with remarkable stories (like a world-record breakin’ gangbang featuring 500 men!), working in the world’s most taboo and sensational industry.

Score: 4/10

Easy A: A respectable girl’s social and financial situation improves as a little white lie snowballs out of control. Being Emma Stone’s (The chick from Superbad and Zombieland) first lead role, she holds the screen and story quite well – especially given that it’s a one-girl show. Sure every other character is a stereotype, and all the ‘school kids’ are in their 20s, but hey, at least they don’t need much developing – the eccentric family’s in there for nothing more than comedy value, and it works well. It doesn’t paint christians in a particularly good light, but what does these days? The soundtrack’s also spot on, and more generally, a lot of this film ticks the John Hughes boxes. For a modern comedy it got a pretty high number of chuckles from the audience. The story itself is a good idea but doesn’t stand up for much of the second half as it all turns a bit ridiculous – probably somewhere between Mean Girls and American Pie. There’s not that much more to say, it’s a quite entertaining, quite quirky teen comedy – girls can probably relate to more

Score: 6.5/10