It’s interesting what a difference a couple of years make, isn’t it.
I haven’t rented the flick. But as you say, this was supposed to be the vehicle that took Alisha mainstream and all she gets is a credit as a Random Stripper.
Yet when the film went public, the producers and distributors used Alisha’s presence to promote the film on the web. They had this video of what were probably all Alisha’s outtakes in some fairly explicit stripping.
It looks like about all Alisha’s done since then is happen to be hanging around when that poor little guy drowned in Tommy Lee’s swimming pool during a birthday party.
Jenna is still the exception to the cross-over rule. And even in mainstream, Jenna’s known as a porn star.
And she always will be, no matter how hard we try for mainstream acceptance (That I personally don’t think we really want anyhow) we will always be outlaws. The “other” side of Hollywood.
And lets face the truth here while we are at it…who in porn can act? direct? write a real book? remember Jenna didn’t write her book, it was done by someone who can write, she just related the stories in it. If anyone in Porn Valley were capable of doing mainstream Hollywood, they would be.
The Center Of The World
I saw this in the video store and vaguely remembered some hoopla in the biz about it so i figured I’d give it a rent.
Interesting movie.
The Premise is pretty straight forward, a successful but lonely computer geek (Peter Sarsgaard) befriends a stripper (Molly Parker). Knowing he isn’t going to spend time with her in any other way he offers her ten thousand dollars to spend a weekend with him in Las Vegas. It’s subtle but you can tell that in his eyes he expects that she will see him for who he really is and fall in love. In her eyes she isn’t a hooker but ten grand is a lot of money and she kind of likes the guy so she sets some rules that he agrees to and its off to Vegas.
I’m not going to give any more info really because this is actually worth a view. The thing that makes this story so compelling is how brutally honest the character portrayals are. You will see yourself and your past experiences in these characters. If you are looking for an escape from reality this movie isn’t where you are going to find it. The dialogue isn’t contrived, it’s honest, you have said this stuff before, you have felt these feelings. Director Wayne Wang did a good job of puncuating the story with visuals and situations that underscore the psychological game that’s unfolding.
When I saw the closing credits I remembered why I remembered the title. This was supposed to be Alisha Klass’s big break into mainstream, she quit porn to pursue a mainstream career and she was busy telling everyone what a major part she had in “The Center of the World”
In the credits she is billed as “Random Stripper”, she had not even 2 seconds of screen time and any dialogue she may have had ended up on the cutting room floor. Oddly enough this seems to fit perfectly with the movie.
It’s a good movie and it’s treatment of both strippers and dot com’ers is intelligent and spot on.
