Two quick points before I hit the hay . The scenes don't have to be all that long for me to enjoy them . In fact short and sweet is often better , not just for the pacing of the movie but because the repetative action is , frankly , boring . I'd recommend checking out some mid 90's Marc Dorcel releases to see shorter sex scenes drawn more skillfully from the plot . In these movies the sex often drives the plot forward instead of just being an awkward adjunct to it .

The other point is to do with the type of story I think plays best with porn . Power games . Could be in any setting : an office , the beach , the invasion of Normandy - doesn't matter , just so long as the protagonists are in some form of emotional conflict . Crazy angry sex , manipulative "I want something" fuckathons , dominant "now you're mine" shagging , it's all good . In fact the participants don't haveto be in conflict with each other , they could be cuckolding someone else . The long winded point I'm trying to make is that none of these situations requires great storylines , high production values , expensive sets , or even wonderful actors . If you strip them down to their bare essentials these could easily be virtually wordless vignette scenarios . Actually they might be more interesting that way .

BTW , sorry I've not replied to your mail yet . I've been away for a while and by now there's an awkward sense of having left it too long - an embarrasment barrier if you will - that's making me hold off . Don't worry , I'll overcome my silly concerns soon .

Edited by - Lee O on 1/20/2005 3:53:46 PM

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I was about ready to jump on this one too. For me, seeing two people fuck on camera who fuck all the time in real-life doesn't do a whole lot for me.
Like MLyons said, I have pretty awesome sex in my own bedroom - I want to see some stuff that I can fantasize about, not only stuff I already do. (notice I added only - a real element is nice, but just not the only thing I want to see).

As a producer, I love listening to talent talk about people they haven't worked with yet that they really want to get a chance to fuck. Seeing the anticipation on their faces before a scene is lots of fun. Maybe I'm just demented, but I loved working with new people in scenes - people that I wouldn't have fucked off-camera, but the fantasy element of sex on camera made it exciting. I did a couple of amazing scenes on camera with boyfriends/my husband, but I did well over 100 sex scenes - do you think all 100 would have been interesting for me if they were all with my boyfriend? I don't.

And I get bored seeing the same two people have sex together all the time, too. As interesting as they were, I was bored seeing Nacho and Belladonna fuck each other by the time I had seen it a dozen times.

Anyway, I could agree with MLyons about another point or two and maybe disagree on a point or two, but this is the part that really grabbed me.

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Furthermore, there is a peculiar issue to all of this, which hasn't been discussed yet and which might ultimately change the whole discussion. It's the problematic concept of genre and how it can be defined — if it can be defined at all. A pragmatic approach instead of a text based approach might in fact lead to a whole different — and equally as important — discussion. Maybe we don't agree in this discussion, because we don't agree on what is to be understood by 'porn'?

In short, if I am looking at the problem of what porn 'promises' vs what it 'delivers', I have very little interest in the first. I am not interested much in trying to figure out what it promises. That can only lead to the formation of yet another standard or aesthetic norm and will eventually be an obstacle for further 'aesthetic' growth. Instead, I focus on what porn 'delivers' right here and now and I try to see or find out what works for me and what doesn't. And like I said in another thread, I am not lazy while doing this: when hunting for 'truffles', I have to pay a lot of attention to details.




Mr_White said:
"garbage is not to be quoted."
(Too late?)

Edited by - Walter Burns on 1/20/2005 7:07:30 PM

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Yes, it's unheard of to find someone who has studied acting and mastered the craft on a professional level who would take that craft into an arena where it is generally not needed, not prized and not rewarded, but the fact is that simply being in front of the camera, and certainly performing the most intimate of act, grants many performers the gift of being unself-conscious before a camera and crew, and able to react naturally to the controlled situation in which they are placed.

This is something that a director interested in utilizing can pretty easily use to bring out a convincing performance -- and not just sexually -- from the performer. Yes, the performer is not suddenly able to do King Lear, but how many "actors" are there are movie marquees around the world whose only real talent is in portraying themselves over and over? "Acting" is not simply delivering dialog, and in fact doesn't have to include dialog at all -- or weren't Lon Chaney Sr., Mary Pickford, Anna May Wong (yeah, I had to work an Asian gal into this somewhere!) "actors"?

Tony and I have almost always been on the same page in ADT discussions, but do I detect a strain of elitism here in making such a broad, sweeping statement? To say that porn has no, and has never had any, talented actors does no small disservice to John Leslie, Joey Silvera, Georgina Spelvin and many other glaringly obvious examples.

To say that there are no good actors TODAY is also unfair to Tom Byron, Brian Surewood, etc. As anyone who has watched a shot-on-video BTS of actors being filmed in mainstream immediately knows, cinematography, editing, and of course good directing are all inescapable elements in creating the illusion and suspension of disbelief necessary for an audience to accept a performance as "real."

Shame on you, Tony.

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But I'll weigh in here eventually

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Or, alternately, "All you damn ADT cynics look alike -- in the dark --upside down ..."

My sincere apologies, sir. I hope when you do check in on this one you entertain the conceit of the debate, cuz like I said in Vegas, you're far too smart and cultured to just shrug and point to Sturgeon's Law.

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Now doubt there are lots of performer that do a passible job of acting if they had all the other advantage of time and craft that mainstream actors have in big productions. But when your resources are stretched thin, one of the best investments you can make is in SAG actors. They will hit their marks and remember their lines the first time and everytime. Acting is a craft like anything else, and experiene counts.

It's also a bit of a cheap shot dac. These were never presented as hard and fast rules, nor were they intended to disparage anyone who's ever created the illusion of charactor in a porn movie. They were assumptions used to guide the development of an approach. Sure, you might end up with the next Jamie Gillis on your set, but the odds are against you, and even if you could given the other (fairly reasonable) asumptions an self-financed producer has to make (not the least of which being my complete lack of directing talent or experience,) building your entire creative approach on the thin hope of getting a whole gang of porn performers with some acting chops seems (to me, at least) like a recipe for failure.

-T.C.

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Porn can also play with effects from 20th century theater to great success, I think. (Hmmmm, what if Jacques Rivette, whose movies often fuss with the process of stage actors in the midst of productions that blur the lines between art/life and "real" sex/acting) were to tackle a story about a day on a porn set? What if you got all postmodernist with it? An interesting porn flick could develop as a commentary on porn itself, a little essay that finally doubles back.

Well, I'm just rambling ... I'll come back and add to this later ...

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A well known actor, whose name I don't recall, was talking about doing a western with Gregory Peck (I believe that's right). He related how Peck would do nothing in a scene besides deliver his lines and so this actor felt compelled to really carry on in his role for fear of the scene being lifeless. Then he watched the rushes and discovered that Peck's "non-acting" looked natural and conveyed real emotion while his acting looked like, well, acting.

Perhaps it isn't so much that most porn isn't good enough, but that so much of porn requires the women to ham it up, oohing and aahing even when they're just sitting there being the third wheel, or proclaiming their love for some act that's obviously causing them discomfort. As we both remarked, Shayna Knight's enjoyment of her scene in Tales from the Crack stood out like a house on fire. If the actress can't be natural or have fun in her scene, then we can't expect her personality or sensuality to be what we carry away from it.

Yeah, I know, I'm going on forever.

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As far as musicals are concerned, I think the danger is to oversimplify the narrative tropes in the musical form. Song, dance, and music inevitably produce character and narrative development in good musicals--sex scenes do not in porn--with few exceptions.

Another thing I would suggest is that there is no necessary relationship between actual lust between on-screen performers and hot erotic action on screen. There seems to be an assumption in most gonzo (hell, all porn) production these days that the best way to get hot sex is to put two or more strangers on a couch and let them do what they want, with as little obstruction or motivation or direction as possible. Thus you will get "real" sex. I don't believe it. It could work, if there is real chemistry between the partners, and a little of Walter's "rupture" takes place. But usually you get something a lot more tedious. I would say what separates the handful of directors that make interesting sex films from everyone else--and this has always been true--is that they create some structure to what they want the performers to do, and what they choose to show the audience. They are very specific.

I don't think I have explained this very well, and I'm out of time--but I will try again latter. It's nice to see some of the old-timers here commune for a "serious" discussion--if that's possible about fucking. Where's Renee?

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i'm sorry. this sort of discussion is admirable. carry on.

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And Tony, very sorry if I misunderstood your context -- though I still don't agree with what you're saying. Stagliano has proven otherwise, and I think any like-minded director who had the kind of resources wasted by vivid, wicked, etc in their features could use them to buy the time and space needed to pull credible performances from the right ensemble of porn actors. Larry Clark pulls off a similar feat with every other movie .... though I now brace myself for your attack on Larry Clark .... ;)

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But dac, you really need to learn to read more carefully. As stated and restated, the production premise (based on my flawed and dehumanizing assumptions) is for a self-financed producer. In fact it is for a very particular self-financed producer – me. It's not a screed or a mantra or a list of the seven reason porn sucks. It's set of parameters used as a guide to develop an approach, a way to decide what challanges to take on, and what challanges to leave to those with real talent.

Also, the $50K-$250K I understand is spent on a typical porn feature might not be enough. The producer would have to be very careful to come up with a concept that did not over reach, to find a director who could stay on schedule, and would probably need to find actors who could let go of their by-the-sex act pay schedule and work for a (much reduced) dayrate. The producer would have to ellicit a lot of good will from all parts of the trade, and then work very hard to not take advantage of anyone's willingness to work a day rate (no sneaking in an extra BJ; and make sure their hard work paid off with something that everyone could be proud to have participated in making.

-T.C.

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His book unfortunately for me, is only available in German, however he was kind enough to supply me with a good deal of his notes and answer my many naïve questions.

"Erotic Home Entertainment and the Civilizing Process. Analysis of the
Postindustrial Phenomenon Hardcore Pornography." [Erotic Home Entertainment
und Zivilisationsprozess. Analyse des postindustriellen Phenomens Hardcore
Pornographie] Wiesbaden: Deutscher Universitäts-Verlag 2003, pp. 96-118

In his book he argues that porn fulfils more than just the fantasy function or role that Mlyons mentions in his first post on this thread.

He proposes that Erotic Home Entertainment serves a number of functions. I found his simplified distillation useful when thinking about why porn does or doesn't work for me personally and often when reading about expressed dissatisfaction on this board. His ideas may or may not be useful in considering this question of promise and problems.

His overheads from a paper on the topic can be found here, they make interesting reading.
Kinsey

From Slide 4.
Pornographic movies do not only show sex - they are also a narration about/with sex. Whenever a story is told (and every movie tells a story however crude it may be), a whole system of different psychological effects is started, different emotions are stirred, different interests are aroused, different values are transferred.

In particular six sexual and non sexual functions can be evaluated.

From Slide 5 Functions of Erotic Home Entertainment

Sexual Functions

1. Function of Identification -- the action must meet the "Love Map" of the consumer.

2. Dream Function -- Creates a "hallucinatory effect" or a "sonorous envelope" creates a fiction of presence between the spectator and the "phantasmatic" text body.

3. Arousing Function -- only if the function of Identification and the Dream function affect the viewer, will he or she become aroused.

Non Sexual Functions
1. Function of Exoneration -- Through watching desired or rejected (sexual) actions.

2. Education Function -- Through watching certain types of stimulation.

3. The Function of Entertainment -- The joy of watching; the bizarre, the acrobatic, the never seen before, the ugly etc.

The application of Jakob's ideas have helped me to understand my own response to films and why three reviewers can watch the same film and have entirely different responses. (I think you need to find reviewers with a similar Love Map to yours).

I've mentioned a couple of times lately a scene with Friday and Joel Lawrence from Bryan Xin's, Truly Nice Ass 6. I mention it a bit because it a rare scene that actually turns me on. It may well not be special to anyone else of course. Because it is rare for me to find something that does turn me on, when I do, I tend to dissect it to establish what it is that makes it so. My theory is I'll be able to apply that knowledge and make better choices, as advised by Walter elsewhere on this board.

The scene in question fits reasonably closely with my own real life desires in a sexual encounter, with elements I enjoy in my real life,( ie meets my Love Map-- Function of Identification) and has some moments that match reasonably with some of my fantasy desires,(Dream Function). Identification + Dream = Arousal

It also entertains me (Education function), in that I like to watch attractive people fuck with enthusiasm, with demonstrated appreciation of each other and for the most part with a smile on their faces.

I think Jakob's work also elegantly helps to explain why some porn is entertaining, educational, or exonerating but not arousing, and why is serves some these functions or none of them depending on the response of the individual.

It may go some way to addressing the questions posed by Lazerus.

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First, I need to draw everyone's attention to this little nibblet of my initial post:

I don't know. I'm SOOO talking out of my ass...

That right there should go a long way to answering the many questions about the inconsistancies in my half-baked thoughts.

This wasn't meant to be the formation of some cohesive, all encompassing theory, and everyone should know by now that pretty much everything I write on this forum is inherently idiosyncratic, and not an attempt to explain universal truths. That said, then, I can't really answer most of Walter's questions accept to say, "yep... your right, that was me bein' short sighted." That is especially true of my sort of half-baked ideas on "porn as fantasy" which was, I'm afraid born out of the mood I was in at the time, and I'd appreciate if you'd all just forget about.

I must apologize to Tony for quoting him out of context. I did provide a link to the original thread, but I know that's not enough. I'd prefer that if people are going to say, "shame on you", please say it to me, not him. I thought some of his thoughts about how he approached M&J were interesting discussion points, and that's where I started. This was not meant as a thread to question Tony's approach, but more as just a sounding board for discussing these issues. I'd rather we talk about the ideas (flawed as mine inevitably are) and not disparage those who are presenting them.

I have no doubt that there are other ways of producing good porn, as well, that take advantage of the inate personality traits of the performers while simultaneously putting it in to a narrative context. Fashionistas managed to achieve this magical balance to a certain degree, as does some of Mason's work. I can't imagine it's easy to do, and it takes time and effort. The principle reason I started this thread, I suppose was to encourage Tony with... ideas--with the idea that what he does during his shoot this weekend, or any shoot, doesn't have to be PERFECT. That what he might attempt doesn't have to have the sheen and polish of a Paul Thomas Anderson or a David Fincher to be engrossingly effective porn.

Anyway... I fear I'm just digging myself into a bigger hole with my lengthy response here. I do want to reiterate that I'll be the first to admit that I don't know what the hell I'm talking about--and despite how my post might have been interpretted (along with it's unforunate title), I'm not attempting to explain what's wrong with porn, and I'm definitely not attempting to define any rules. Ultimately, whatever works, works--no matter how it gets achieved. It's just that for ME... a lot of porn out there today just.... doesn't work. It's the diamonds in the rough that I enjoy scrutinizing more closely, because their success is absolutely worth the scrutiny.

Edited by - MLyons on 1/21/2005 10:39:57 AM

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I think part of the 'problem' however, is that it pales in comparison to my imagination.

One poster put it best in another thread when he said that most porn now is just 'stunt fuckin' with no emotional component.

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However, I don't just want to see a dick pounding in and out in an Eric Everhard way, or the tongue of some non-intersted babe going up and down over a pussy. I want to see the performers rolling around and getting into it, fast alternated with slow. Some sexual appetite on the part of the actors would be worth it's weight in gold.

For me, this is where gonzo falls down - even the best gonzo (ie Jules). More passion and less stunt fucking I say!

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Something's wrong when I can get more aroused from a fully clothed scene in mainstream cinema than from all the in-your-face porn sex, but maybe it's just me.

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What is "good" is open to debate, but the point is that the end product that ends up holding some value, to some viewers, is almost always made with a degree of care (in at least some of its aspects). Product made as quickly and cheaply as possible, with financial reward as the ONLY concern, may well meet its goal, but isn't likely to be valued by any viewers.

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Lastly, passion. Is it lacking in most porn? Probably is. But funnily, I see enough of it in places others will describe as merely stunt fucking, while I have seen others claim they saw it in places where I saw nothing but, if not stunt fucking, then just plain boredom. Is it that we have different "lovemaps" and are thus looking at different details of performance?
Another question, is if (sexual) passion can be (succesfully) created. I think it can, to a point, especially if you believe that the passion doesn't have to be real, it just has to convincing enough. There is a pretty simple 'trick' I have seen some performers/director use regularly to achieve some passion (or at least some 'rupture'): the 'head-to-head gaze' between performers.




DavidK126 said:
"It is very easy to sexualize everything about a pornstar girl's body, including the various substances that she produces. One can readily fantasize that every single thing about her is sexual and to groove on that."

Edited by - Walter Burns on 1/21/2005 2:16:47 PM

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That all said, though, yes, I can cite examples of success just like anyone else can, my examples may not be your examples but that's the beauty of it. I think Speelie has pretty well culled it down to it's essence though--as usual. :)

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Personally I like comedy porn features. Story types other than pure comedy can work too, but they have to be somewhat tongue in cheek to work for me.
Any story that takes itself seriously and isn't itself based around sex, doesn't fit well with being put on hold while a 10-15 minute sex scene plays out, and few porn stars have the non-sex acting capability to pull it off.

Porn stories with a deeply serious or even tragic theme would never work for me, as the sex scenes would never be able to achieve their intended purpose.

But fun story lines are IMHO completely compatible with serious fucking. They can help create the positive atmosphere to the sex, that I find lacking in most gonzo these days.

Silly 80's comedies like Sexually Altered States and Debbie Duz Dishes had a simple story that worked well in setting up the sex scenes.
And I even remember them as featuring some, by porn standards, quite passable acting.
I don't expect the same quality of writing or non-sex acting as I do from Hollywood movies.
Just as I don't expect the same level of acting from most Hollywood stars that I do from British actors (yes I'm a snob), or the same solid story lines from most movies I do from books.

The gonzo I like best also contain some sort of setup for the sex scenes.
Examples would include some of Stagliano's early Buttman movies and road trip movies like Sex Across America .
Their 'stories' are just the simplest of setups, but there is some non-sex playing up to the camera, whether it's 100% acting or just the performers being themselves.

Oh, and another vote for less stunt-fucking.
Getting all worked up just watching Amber Hunt snuggling up to Joey Silvera while they're still mostly covered by the sheet, in the old Candy Stripers , made me realize I really am getting desensitised. DAPs are no longer enough. I need hardcore cuddling!

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What about thoughtprovoking movies?
Well, when I say 'movie' I generally mean fictional movie.
Fictional movies are for entertainment.
If I want thoughtful stuff of the moving pictures variety, I'll watch current events programmes or documentaries (most likely from Auntie BBC).
Fictional movies with a 'message' I no longer bother with, as I invariably find them mindnumbingly dull, and often naively preachy from a point of view I don't necessarily agree with.
Why should I bother sitting through a couple of hours of shoddilly written and worse acted dreck, to decipher some jumped up writer/director's message?
Movie makers are rarely significantly more qualified to decide what's right or wrong, than the average person.
That movie critics and culture nobs find them and their opinions ever so fascinating is of no consequence to me. I never pay attention to their annual selfcongratulatory circle-jerks in Cannes either.
And don't get me started on Von Trier and the other waste-of-time-space-and-my-taxes-dogme directors.

Ahem. Back to fictional entertainment.

When a movie or a TV series is either terminally boring and/or has a shallow and predictable story and some glaring plot holes, I've reluctantly come to accept that as inevitable.
Hollywood acting I expect to be embarrassingly bad by default. That way I'm sometimes positively surprised.
British actors, I expect better performances from. Even in Hollywood movies.

When it's really bad, I'll stay away from any further works of that writer/director/producer/actor/other_guilty_party.

With books, I expect a more solid (thought out) story.
Partly because the author wont be limited by the constraints of the movie media. Budgetary as well as technical.
But also simply because, even though I'm a pretty fast reader, it'll take me longer to read a book than the length of a movie.

Because a book is a considerably less expensive medium, the author is (I think but could be mistaken) more free to pursue his own vision of how the final product should be, with less interference from investors. This should decrease the risk of externally forced compromises ruining the story.
Sometimes it also seems to me like book authors put more care into their novels, than TV and movie authors do with their work. This could be because with books the author gets the credit. With movies, the director tends to steal the glory.

Because of those higher expectations, I do get a bit pissed when I've wasted my time on a disappointing book.
The last time that happened was with the latest Dune trilogy. Yeah, I know, Kevin J. Anderson. What did I expect?

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Edited by - Walter Burns on 1/21/2005 8:21:12 PM

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For example, the movie "Dune", while it tries hard, at three hours long depicts only about ten percent of the novel that inspired it. It is a pale ghost of the book.

Apologies for off topic.

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+1 David Lynch and the Eraserhead argument that first got ultradamno to argue with me.

Apologies for off-topic.

And .. porn need be nothing more than chicks I can't get my hands on doing or having done to them the thing I want / can't do with / to them. Any more questions? Shit, too much beer.

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It pisses me off because it points to a hierarchy in the arts based on a selection of qualities/norms which favors/belong to one of the two. It's just too silly for words, imo. And old-fashioned too.

Is it really bad to be the third poster in a row to apologize for being off-topic?




BIGmike said:
"we're all weirdos in some way"

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A book wont be able to give quite the same action rush that a big screen movie can.
I remember greatly enjoying Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when I first watched it in a cinema.
When I later saw it on TV, it bored the pants off me.
The large scale vistas and action sequences that kept the movie flowing on the big screen translated poorly to television.
As a book or comic adaptation I would expect it to be much worse.

It's got to do with what I want from a particular experience.

Take Von Trier's (yes, him again) Dogville as an example of something I'm not even remotely willing to give a chance.
Already because of my previous experiences watching his noxious outpourings, I have a firm expectation I would hate it.
But even if it was by someone else, the lack of sets would put a serious damper on my expectations.
I'm supposed to use my imagination to fill in the blanks? All right, I'll go read a book instead.
I don't want to go to a cinema to watch a movie that doesn't provide me with the lush sets and impressive visuals I expect from a cinematic movie.

Partly for the same reason I don't bother with theatre. It's pretty much just a low budget movie to me.

We just have different expectations from the different arts. It doesn't mean that I consider a book superior in every way and all visual entertainment not worth my time.
The size of my DVD collection would suggest otherwise.

To quote your own good self:

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Ten or fifteen years ago I would have had to settle for a FJ Lincoln movie with 78 minutes of FFing and two minutes of strokable material.

Girls are nastier and more beautiful today than ever. Granted the scenes can be repetitive, and if you are not into the starlet, rather dispiriting. But today, more than ever, I think porn delivers the goods to its primary target audience, lonely men in search of some comfort and release. After a tough, stressful work week on the road, getting Keri last night, and Katja and Katin tonight, kinda perks up my existence.

What more can it do? I really have no idea. If I want eroticism and intellectual stimulation I'll watch mainstream. Whenever I spend time analyzing porn, I tend to not want to watch it. It's a primal urge, and I like it like that.

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I tend to agree with one of MLyons initial premises regarding the importance of female performers and their attractiveness/appeal being a subjective thing. Look at the preponderance of polls, star-based threads, and virtual mini-shrines to various actresses that are "erected" on a regular basis here in the forums. And each fan has their own unique group of favorites that they vehemently promote as the "best ever", etc..

Some of Tricia's commentary on the need for newness and variety is reminiscent to me of other discussions about the "newness" factor. The anticipation and intensity (hopefully) of watching a scene for the first time is certainly what drives my porn rental and purchasing habits. I've got quite the collection of DVDs that have killer scenes by favorite performers, and yet I often (about 75% of the time) prefer to get the latest release of, say, No Cum Dodging Allowed because it's "new". I notice this is a big driver in mainstream marketing of almost any product: Make a new product that isn't too different to be frightening or risky, and hammer it home that it's main feature is that it's "new!". It taps into people's desire to be different and "shake things up" even if the difference of the new product is so slight as to be virtually non-existent

It is fascinating to me how different girls push different buttons. For me it's true that the desire to see certain favorite actresses doing various "nasty" acts with relative strangers is what makes me want to watch porn. Seeing one of my latest favorites, Jasmine Byrne, doing a blow-bang and cumswallow scene in the latest Feeding Frenzy (#6) was one of the highlights of my week!

I think rjk13 said it well...

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That said, I would certainly welcome more intriguing concepts in porn, but have since resigned any expectations, to simply relishing the subtle inferences, and uniquely individual mannerisms revealed from our performers as they naturally happen.
Although some may express emotion and feeling more instinctively than others, I've grown content with the idea that at least all are focused on delivering in the thoughtful, profound aspects of crude.

Edited by - Endless Loop on 1/22/2005 8:35:56 PM

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But, you said specifically that you don't expect films to tell a story as soldily as books. In fact, that to keep your "last shred of sanity", you "just disconnect whatever tiny bit of critical thought processes I've got, for the duration" of watching a movie.
The comparison you make between movies and books, makes me believe that your expectations about films failing to tell stories as 'solidly' as books, is based on some 'universal' (meaning, not depended on a specific art form/medium) standard of good storytelling, which in your case is clearly literary in nature. I have two comments on this.
1) Of all the differences between movies and literature, the success in which both are able to tell stories, is the least interesting for making a distinction between them. Sure, they tell stories in sometimes vastly different ways , but with equal ease. In fact, there are some theorists who believe that film is a natural medium/art form for telling stories, because its material norms include the 3 major narratological components: development through space and time .
2) It seems to me — and I may very well be wrong — that you apply practical and technical norms of literature and literary narration to judge cinematic storytelling. That was a quite common thing to do not so long ago, especially in normative adaptation studies, but I don't think that at this point it makes much sense OUTSIDE your own personal expectations of both art forms. Do you have the right to have those expectations? Of course, you have. Do they make sense for you? Of course they do; otherwise you wouldn't have them.

But, do they make much sense to me? Hell no. You quoted me saying this: "In conclusion, yes I use a different set of standards to judge porn than I do mainstream cinema. But it's a different set of standards, not necessarily a lower one."
The way I understand you at this point — and I may very well have misinterpreted you — I dispute that you do the same for the discussion between cinema and literature. Your expectations may be different, but your standards seem not to be. That is why you have to "just disconnect whatever tiny bit of critical thought processes I've got", while watching a movie. And that is what pisses me off. You do have lower expectations (at least, you are not willing to invest as much thought and care in watching movies as in reading books; and you said yourself: "Because of those higher expectations , I do get a bit pissed when I've wasted my time on a disappointing book.") because your different expectations are based on standards belonging to/favoring one art form over another.

Of course, I may very well have misunderdstood you, because I still have no idea of what you mean with "solid story lines". It may very well be that my interpretation that this means 'solid story telling' is completely wrong, and that you simply don't like specific stories cinema is telling in comparison with literature. That doesn't make much sense either, on completely other grounds, and it will indirectly lead us back to the discussion outlined above.

Brandon Iron said:
"I have suffered abuse of the worst kind! I have repeatedly abused myself since around the age of 13 or so. My dick has endured thousands upon thousands of beatings."

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That's not to say that movies with original story lines around thoughtprovoking subject definitely aren't possible.
I just haven't come across one that tried this and didn't bore me senseless. And when I find a movie that bores me, I'm not likely to give it much chance to 'put my mind back into gear'. I'll most likely not bother watching it to the end.

Actually it's come to the point, that it's been years since I last tried watching any movie that came recommended by any movie critic that I'd come to regard as having a preference for French niche productions . Yes, I'm afraid I did mean that in a derogatory sense. Sorry if it pisses you off even more. Not my intent.
The term refers to an actual Danish film critic and his skewed ratings. A (genuinely funny IMHO) TV commercial for pay-TV even caricatured his views: "With this decoder you can watch whatever French niche production you're in the mood for. But be warned that it can also be abused for things like football and pointless American clicheed serials."

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