(2013, 80 min)
Country: Canada, U.S.
Director: Charlie David
Studio: Canteen Outlaws
Language: English
SYNOPSIS: I'm a Porn Star follows the lives of guys in the neighborhood who are likely a lot more famous than you – at least on the Internet. There are an estimated 370 million pornographic websites online. Porn is now a thirteen billion dollar business. So who’s doing all this moonlighting? Turns out — probably some people you know.
REVIEW:
Playful and wildly entertaining, I'm a Porn Star takes an in-depth look at the gay adult entertainment industry and four established stars (Brent Everett, Colby Jansen, Rocco Reed and Johnny Rapid) who speak candidly about their experiences as highly lusted-after sexual icons.
Prolific actor-director-producer-author Charlie David (I'm a Stripper, Positive Youth) starts out by offering a history of gay pornography. We get to see fascinating silent footage of some of the earliest homoerotic action staged on film, as well as the "men's physique" magazines and reels of the 1940s and '50s that provided spank-bank material under the guise of appreciating "male athleticism".
He takes us through the arthouse-appreciated flicks of the '70s, the home video boom of the 1980s, the AIDS crisis and it's effect on porn, the higher budgets of the '90s and the keywords, special interests and star-focused sites of the internet age. And that's all before the opening credits! Once we start getting to know our four delectable subjects, I'm a Porn Star really takes off.
Colby Jansen is a brawny, charmingly self-depricating, semi-straight former marine and defense contractor. He's working on getting his MBA and using his porn earnings to pay tuition. He's married to award-winning transsexual porn star Gia Darling.
Johnny Rapid is a cocky, Southern, twink-lover's wet dream come true. He has turned into a mega-star over the past year. Charlie David's camera catches his youthful charisma just as he's about to pop.
Rocco Reed is a veteran of both straight and gay porn who has an incredible amount of insight into those two separate worlds. A personal trainer by trade, he's already got his mind set on opening a gym after he retires from porn.
Finally... well... not much really needs to be said about Brent Everett, right? A one-man media empire, he's one of the most popular and successful gay adult performers working today.
These unabashed gents share their thoughts, experiences, aspirations and personal sexual interests. They talk about their fame, their fans, industry politics, what got them into gay porn, what turns them on and keeps them hard during scenes, what it's like to work with certain famous stars, how much money they make, how hard they have to work to stay fit and desirable, what hoops they need to jump through to stay compliant with government regulations, how their jobs have affected their off-screen relationships and much, much more.
Expertly edited and packed to the brim with footage both arousing and enlightening, I'm a Porn Star is relentlessly fun and frequently fascinating. It's a unique VIP pass behind-the-scenes and a welcome excuse to hang out casually with some the sweat-inducing guys who turn us on and help get us off on a regular basis.
-- Robert O'Neill, TLA Video (http://www.tlavideo.com)
