Movie 588 – Moby Presents: Alien Sex Party

Moby Presents: Alien Sex Party – October 9th, 2011

Let’s just put this right up front: This movie takes place in a porn store. That is the basis of the vast majority of its plot and humor. And music. There are musical numbers. I don’t consider myself a prude by any means, but to be honest I’m a little leery of even trying to review this. There is simply no way to keep it clean. At all. So instead I’ll try to keep it short. And the reason this is bolded is because I want to make it really clear that this movie is about porn and sex and kink. And I don’t want anyone to claim they had no idea before they read any further.

There. With that out of the way, let’s talk about the movie. Except I honestly don’t even know where to begin. Even the basic description I gave my friends doesn’t really cover it but it’s a start. Picture Clerks (and it is heavily referential towards Clerks in the most self-aware way), but set in a porn store in Boston. Now imagine it has musical numbers and it’s set on Christmas eve. Now try and think of people who are more awkward at acting than anyone in Clerks. Toss in an actual porn actress and have Moby involved in producing it and you’ve got this movie.

While watching this movie I had to stop every so often and exclaim to one friend or another (often several in succession) about something that was happening on screen. And not in an ‘ew, gross’ sort of way, because the most graphic stuff that happens on screen is a couple of cats mating (someone’s trying to sell the video to the store owner). Okay, there are some naked breasts and some licking, but otherwise it’s all talk and dildos. And fully clothed pelvic thrusting. But there’s no actual sex on screen. Plenty of talk, but no action. It was more that this movie is full of the sort of bizarre stuff that just makes me squint at the screen and wonder who decided to actually film it.

Around the time three punk musicians (Moby being one of them, I believe) run into the store wearing only their boxers and proceed to play a number called “Fuck Christmas” before trashing the shelves while shouting “RICO’S ROUGHNECKS” I stopped any attempt to make sense of it. I just sort of let it happen and it played itself out, with KY-eating aliens and descriptions of sexual exploits and a porn star singing Feliz Navidad. Which is now stuck in my head. Do you really need more of a description than that? I mean, that should sum things up pretty well right there, one would hope. Except it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I can’t believe that t doesn’t, but it doesn’t. Because it doesn’t really explain how very low budget this whole operation truly is.

The main characters of the movie are the employees of Amazing Video, an adult video and adult toy store in Boston. There’s Joe, who inherited the store from his late sister. There’s Tina, a sexually adventurous woman who knows pretty much everything about everything the store sells (which is good, as she works there and Joe is totally clueless). There are two security guards who ignore the goings on in the store to crack dirty jokes to each other. And then there’s Adam, Tina’s ex who hangs around the store because they’re still friends. And there’s Grace, who is Joe’s niece. I have no idea why Adam calls Grace ‘Chloe’ several times through the course of the movie. My top two ideas are: Side plot that got cut out or script change after the actor playing Adam had already done his solo shots. I don’t know. I don’t care. The point is that Adam inexplicably calls Grace by another name several times, no one comments on it and it was never fixed in post. And all the main characters I mentioned (and a few I didn’t) are played by people with the same names.

There’s not much of a plot, really. Tina and Adam spend most of the movie arguing about how Tina’s “too overwhelming” for Adam to handle because the sexual things she’s done and sees as no big deal freak him out. Joe has no idea how to deal with anything remotely naughty (including his niece, who is now 18 and whose mother ran the store before, so she’s hardly naive about it all). And a number of customers are hanging out in the store waiting for Dyanna Lauren to show up. There are wacky encounters with customers, like the one who lost all the presents he’d bought for his family and needs “non-pornographic” replacements. And the customer who’s going to blow up the store because he’s never been aroused. The KY-obsessed alien(s) just add weirdness to it all. Oh, and in the beginning there’s a big KY spill, leading to a squishy patch of carpet in front of the counter for the rest of the night. That’s the movie. Plus a visit to the Quick Stop to buy some candy from Dante. Yes, Brian O’Halloran made a cameo.

I don’t think there’s anything else I can say about this movie. I thin I’ve probably already said more than enough. I don’t expect everyone will rush out to buy this and that’s okay. It’s probably mostly amusing to a small subset of the population anyhow. I don’t know if I’d ever want to watch it again. I don’t know if I could. I think once was probably enough. Granted, I did laugh at a good deal of it, but I think it broke me in the process. And I still have Feliz Navidad in my head. I suppose it could be worse.

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Alien Sex Party

Alien Sex Party

October 9, 2011

DISCLAIMER!!

This movie contains frank and casual discussion of sex. It takes place in a porn shop that has much in common with a video store Amanda and I once worked at. As a result I somewhat doubt that this review is appropriate for most audiences.

Here’s a movie that I’ll bet not too many people have in their collection. I bought it because it said “Moby Presents” on the box and I really like Moby – and because it was inexpensive and used. I had no idea what on Earth the movie was, but I bought it anyhow. I’m like that sometimes. In this case the results are a little… strange.

This movie wants to be “Clerks” in a porn store. Maybe with a little bit of Empire Records, but mostly it’s a straight take off of Clerks. To such a degree that the characters actually talk about “that movie in the convenience store where all those strange customers come in.” In fact, two of the characters visit the Quick Stop where they have a Kevin Smith style conversation, and where Brian O’Halloran cameos as a clerk whose girlfriend has sucked 37 cocks. At what point does a movie stop being homage and become simply a rip-off? This movie blatantly stomps all over that line. From the title cards to the writing style – there’s even a character named Kevin Smith.

The story takes place on Christmas Eve at Amazing Video at 1258 Boyleston St., which was an actual real place, although I’m not sure if it still exists. Manager Joe (played by Joe Smith, who seems to be trying to channel Rick Moranis, but who is not an actor) is keeping the place open until seven AM on Christmas day for any last minute shoppers, and because porn star Dyanna Lauren (played by herself) is going to be coming in for a signing. He’s inherited the store from his deceased sister and isn’t yet completely comfortable with the merchandise. He has the help of his very enthusiastic clerk Tina (played by Tina Carlucci) and a guy named Adam (played by Adam Sarner – and you may see a pattern forming here.) Throughout the night they have madcap encounters with a variety of wacky customers.

Now I worked for a while in the shipping department of TLA Video and both Amanda and I worked in one of their retail locations – which featured a room full of porn, porn in the sell-through section, and Adult Video News as bathroom reading. We’ve seen some of these wacky customers first hand, and this movie captures that strange sort of fringe of society feeling just perfectly. I took particular pleasure in reading the return policy displayed on the wall behind the Amazing Video counter. It was the same policy TLA had. Defective videos can only be exchanged for the same title, and only with valid receipt and only for legitimate defects. (i.e. you can’t get a replacement copy of your video if the old one won’t work because it is worn out or soaked with lube.) No cash refunds. Just the necessity for that sign brings back so many memories. The sales department at TLA was a small bank of cubicles next to the warehouse, and they had a wall pasted with the most amusing complaints letters they had received. You can imagine what they were like.

So, yeah, this movie and its locale gave me a strange sense of nostalgia. For that I appreciated it. Amazing seems quite well stocked. They have many of the products I remember from the TLA shelves, including the amazing five-inch-diameter butt plug that we in the shipping department just called “The Fire Plug.” That thing means business. The only product I remember from TLA that I didn’t see here is the sex-snorkel – a device that actually exists to allow for cunnilingus without the need to come up for air.

The movie itself is rough and low budget, but has a quirky charm that I quite enjoyed. At a couple points people burst into song, which was odd but still enjoyable. The aforementioned Clerks homage scene simply blew my mind. (How did they get Brian O’Halloran?) If I had made a movie while I was still working at TLA this is the movie I would have made. It’s not brilliantly filmed or well acted or particularly original, but it is funny and enjoyable and even a little heart-warming. And now I have the “You Can Have Sex With Anything” song stuck in my head.

I’m going to have to listen to the director’s commentary someday too.