I am hoping that “Malice in La La Land” makes its money back, because it cost a lot.
One of the most expensive porn movies undertaken in recent years, Miss Lucifer’s “Malice in La La Land” was shot over several months in 2009, during which time it flew its production team back and forth to Belgium, filmed in several locations around L.A. and in the desert, ran out of money, switched distributors, and finally released its finished product more than a year after production started.
I imagine it cost at least $175,000 which, considering that companies are spending around $25k per picture lately, gives you an idea of profit expectations.
The staff behind Miss Lucifer is a well-connected group of mainstream pros with European licensing deals, so the limited push being given the DVD by distributor Vivid might pale in comparison to softcore, hotel, and European set-top box revenues. I hope so, because the movie is worth watching.
Studio: Miss Lucifer
Director: Lew Xypher
Starring: Sasha Grey, Dirty Fred, Andy San Dimas, Keni Styles, Ron Jeremy, Kagney Linn Karter, Phoenix Marie, Chayse Evans, Billy Glide, Stephen Powers, Chris Johnson, Danny Mountain, Alan Stafford, Mackenzee Pierce, Alyssa Reece, Kristina Rose, Juelz Ventura, Sadie West, Tommy Gunn, Jenna Presley, Lew Xypher, Tanya Moon
“Malice in La La Land” is an ambitious Europorno shot with American talent and paying homage to great Americans like Hunter S. Thompson and Quentin Tarantino in its depictions of things people can get up to in the desert.
Malice (Grey) is rescued by a rabbit from incarceration in an asylum and, before she is recaptured, leads her stalwart pursuer, orderly Jabbowski (a former street clown named Dirty Fred in a non-sex role), on a chase through desert motels and Jumbo’s Clown Room. Along the way, she meets Keni Styles in a covertible and Hunter Thompson hat and Ron Jeremy, playing a sleazeball strip club kingpin.
The dialogue is economical, befitting the dusty dream Malice is having, and the movie benefits from an efficient and evocative soundtrack as well as bits of animation that takes us where costly real-life transitions can’t.
“Malice” is fun because we spend very little time in L.A. itself, despite the title; it’s a Belgian’s perception of California or, as Cahiers du Cinema calls it, a Waffle Porn. We are treated to a juicy scene with Kagney Linn Karter playing a hick, a la Juliette Lewis in “Natural Born Killers,” as well as what appears to be the asylum’s real function: as some kind of fellatio lab for Andy San Dimas.
Unlike some porn epics, “Malice” does not overburden the viewer with story over sex, but we never really see enough of the performers, just the same. It’s as if the production was erring on the side of artfulness and, because it wasn’t going for Rocco Siffredi-style clinicality, let the pendulum swing too far back into restraint.
“Malice” might well be Sasha Grey’s last big feature for a while, now that she’s all famous and stuff, so, if not for the chance to see a dwarf or actual nipples (courtesy of Jesse Capelli and Mackenzee Pierce) in Jumbo’s Clown Room, see it for Sasha.
- Buy “Malice in La La Land” here
Previously on Porn Valley Observed: Sasha Grey grooms a rabbit; Mackenzee Pierce and Jesse Capelli bring nipples back to Jumbo’s Clown Room
See also: Miss Lucifer
I was just thinking about Sasha’s porn career the other night, and found it… odd, I guess… that she’s distancing herself from porn, seeing as how she came down to the Land of Good and Porny with the expression purpose of doing porn. I guess money talks and bullshit walks, because I’m 100% sure her non-porn activities pay a lot more (and are a lot less stressful to the body) than her porn activities did.
I’m a fan of Sasha, as much as I can be a fan of any pornstar that’s NOT Nina Hartley, and while I’m not exactly happy that her porn career has been put on hiatus, I definitely wish her well in her newer career path.
(I DO hope, with all that’s porny within me, that she doesn’t come back in 15 years or so as a “MILF”, ’cause that would be tragic on way too many levels.)
I haven’t gotten the impression she’s distancing herself from porn at all–her non-porn public persona is predicated on the fact that she does porn.
“her non-porn public persona is predicated on the fact that she does porn” – that’s just it – I don’t believe she’s currently doing porn, and hasn’t for awhile (in Porn Land, I’d guess “awhile” would equate to longer than a month, if not shorter).
I guess your use of the phrase “distancing herself” threw me off–she might not be doing porn now, but nothing, absolutely nothing, gives me the impression she is trying to distance herself from her porn career, or even that she won’t maybe go back to hardcore at some juncture.
Oh well.
Anyway, I had a conversation with an 60-ish woman at my workplace last week which began when she asked me “Do you know who Sasha Grey is?” (it resumed after an awkward pause), so I guess she has indeed gone mainstream.