Rent it with someone you've rented....

I agree with Bill Maher - Elliot Spitzer wasn’t lashing out - he just wanted to get laid.

I believe this even after seeing Steven Solderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience which stars actual “adult film” star Sasha Grey. The film is pretty good, and if you’re feeling cheap you can watch it at home through Amazon.com and Tivo - which is where I had the experience, while I can go into a separate rant on video on demand two factors came into play: 1.- it was cheaper than paying $12.50 a ticket plus the $8 toll to see the flick at the Sunshine Theater in New York City, and 2.-I could watch it now, and I was bored.

I just watched Spitzer on Rachel Maddow who wasn’t all that aggressive on the one time New York governor and now journalist on Slate.com. Spitzer had some interesting points of view on the crisis and I agree - Wall Street really hasn’t paid for the damage they may have done. Regarding The Girlfriend Experience, and how much he paid a girl that was cute, sure, but not worth that much per hour (in fact I can say I’ve been out with cuter women, for free, well it’s never really free - it usually involves buying dinner and perhaps a movie - but that’s dating after all, not prostitution), Spitzer said he’s still gaining perspective essentially. Hey, none of my business what he’s going though or what he was actually in, perhaps it’s not so much his wife he wasn’t in to, but that it’s something different.

I hate to be cruel but if you were told you could only eat Peter Luger’s steak for the rest of your life and you could never say, go to Chick-Fil-A, for example - you’d get bored soon, even with the best steak known to man. This is why I don’t understand the rush to get married, not with Plato’s Retreat closed for good.

But back to The Girlfriend Experience - a decent enough movie with a good performance by Sasha Grey who plays a high end call girl who doesn’t always have sex with her clients, in fact she likes what she does, she’s selective. Her boyfriend, played by Chris Santos, feels the need to indulge her, they live in an awesome apartment in Manhattan of coarse, he’s a personal trainer. She is a trainer or healer of sorts as well.

The story is non-linear, in fact it may even lack a plot (Ercan tells me my films have no plots either, fair enough - I like to capture time and place, it’s why I’d be bound to fail out of Florida State University’s graduate film program). It’s the type of film that I didn’t mind watching at home, where you have probably watched the other performances of Ms. Grey. This is not to say it’s explicit, it’s the type of film that actually benefits I think from being relaxed at home for some odd reason. I rather enjoyed laying on the couch for The Girlfriend Experience, maybe I’m becoming boring.

With this said, please Magnolia and IFC, please - Video On Demand can’t become a reality. I’m with David Fenkel, who co-founded one of the most exciting new film distributers to come on the scene Oscilloscope Laboratories (the company behind Wendy & Lucy and most recently the beatiful yet simple Treeless Mountain). Mr. Fenkel’s belief, as recorded in the most recent issue of Filmmaker, is that there needs to be some sort of theatrical release first, before video and video on demand, and that theatrical has a certain value. I agree - why not release it first in theaters, and then two weeks or so later on demand. It’s sick when IFC and Magnolia are showing films on demand the same day they are playing at film festivals, no less. I knew things were going to hell when South by Southwest partnered with IFC Films, it’s great that you can build awareness for the festival but at what cost? 

Then again it’s unfair to slam IFC, they are picking up literally everything lately - there aren’t many distributers, and they are getting indie film out there. I just wish some, not just the better ones, but most would get a chance to prove themselves in theaters first. A movie like The Hunger should be seen on a big screen - it’d be boring to watch at home. What’s the incentive to play it outside of New York and LA when it’s on demand. I, for one, prefer Oscillosope’s model. But if you don’t - then you too can have The Girlfriend Experience in your apartment, with your girlfriend, or someone you’ve rented for the hour.