The "Thin Line Between Art And Sex" (is not the taint)

Studio: Good Releasing
Director: Madison Young
Starring: Madison Young, Tyler Knight, Jiz Lee, Bella Rossi, Danny Wylde, Carl Hungus, Naga

If you are like me and Madison Young, you know that there is nothing truer than the concept of a “Thin Line Between Art And Sex.” But, whereas I sexually inspire the horrors of Egon Schiele or Edvard Munch, Ms. Young is like a rich photo-negative Vermeer, with the dark browns replaced by her glowing reds.

Young wants nothing more than for you to know that she is an artist but, unlike other pornographers wishing the same for themselves, she is not an asshole about it. Instead, she assembles a group of downright personable and attractive people to share their views on art just before they have sex.

So we’ve got the delightful Jiz Lee telling us about her training as a dancer and her moonlighting as an arts administrator before she gives the business to the juicy Bella Rossi, then there’s Tyler Knight, who talks engagingly and self-deprecatingly about the trials of being a writer.

We don’t feel too bad for him, because he goes on to fuck Young in a greenhouse.

You’re saying, “Grams, we’ve seen this over-earnest sort of pornography before.”

No, you haven’t. I’m just not describing it the right way.

Whereas those vaseline-lensed couples’ instructional pornos will be heavy on the interviews and light on the sex, and more often than not tinged with the boorish presence of the host or, on the other hand, a JM Productions-style video will feature interviews that are meant to ridicule the star before she is gangbanged, “Thin Line” avoids both pitfalls and somehow gets its stars to say something interesting about themselves – enough for us to want to have them over for a barbecue – before launching into vigorous sex scenes, which helps us remember why they’re paid for this sort of thing.

The vignettes that begin and end the movie are either a little over-or-undercooked, however, with an extended Dutch angle interview with Danny Wylde over a candle pentagram that opens the movie (the earnest Wylde gets to redeem himself with Rossi and Young) and a less-than-stellar bathroom performance by a Butoh dancer named Naga and her pre-“Lovely Bones” Peter Jackson-looking boyfriend.

But even he redeems himself, having adopted the “Big Lebowski” porn name Carl Hungus and claiming to be a “fifth-generation elephant painter.” A full 40 seconds after having turned off the movie, I still can’t decide if Hungus was kidding. That’s Art.

So really, there is a lot going on in this movie, which can’t be said for all of them. and to top it off, “Thin Line Between Art And Sex” is really good-natured, which always makes people look sexy.