Things I’d like to have seen in the “Cherry” trailer

Ashley Hinshaw and James Franco in "Cherry"

Close Personal Friend^TM Lorelei Lee co-wrote and is featured in the Honest-to-God Hollywood movie “Cherry,” about a young woman who overcomes whatever young women need to overcome these days and finds solace and identity through porn.

Lee wrote the script with “Adderall Diaries” author Stephen Elliott, who also directed, and much of the action takes place in San Francisco, in and around Kink.com‘s Armory.

Hinshaw looks a lot like the diminutive Ashley Jane, whom I watched Lee and Maitresse Madeleine bind and electrocute back in ought-9.

Here’s the trailer.

Playing The Girl is Ashley Hinshaw opposite James Franco as her scumbag boyfriend. Heather Graham returns to porn-related movies (she was Rollergirl in “Boogie Nights”) as the performer-turned-director, and Lili Taylor plays Hinshaw’s hysterical, disapproving mom, who somehow manages to find fault with both porn and her daughter’s boyfriend.

But as much as I approve of any coming-of-age movie that involves porn (as porn is involved in most people’s actual coming-of-age), I felt there were a few things missing.

• How come there is not a scene in which Ashley Hinshaw dolphins her hand out the window to a minimalist Michael Nyman-style piano score, indicating her uneasy and fraught transition to adulthood? How come there isn’t that?
• Why doesn’t Franco sport a “Star 80″ t-shirt, symbolizing his spiritual link to Paul Snider (second Paul Snider reference in two days!)?
• Why doesn’t Lili Taylor break out her guitar to sing “[James Franco's character] lies!” or at least “Get ready for greatness, Cherry!”
• Why did producers choose this selection of images and dialogue, in this order, to sell the movie?
• Why did no one say, “This whole city kind of smells like urine, but it’s the only place where we feel we can truly express ourselves and be accepted by like-minded peers,” which is the motto of San Francisco?
• Why is there not more Lorelei Lee in it?

Previously on Porn Valley Observed: “Cherry”—Lorelei Lee writes about porn for a bigger screen; “An Open Invitation”—capturing the elusive swinger; The Upper Floor and underground of Kink.com
See also: Kink.com