This sort of manifesto movie by Buttman is clearly personal, and he also indicates with the final product that he doesn't care if anyone likes it. There's a heart on sleeve aspect as he casts himself wandering through an East Los Angeles neighborhood at night, talking to himself out loud in the role of a tourist guide with just the movie audience listening, as he waxes nostalgic about good old sleazy clubs that had all-nude stripping, the site of Kitten Natividad in 1975 getting down on stage and sleazy movie theaters.
His lament reminds me (I'm an East Coaster) of the endless laments about the loss of old 42nd Street of the '70s I used to hear from many an old hand, always sugarcoating memories. I traveled annually to New York throughout the '70s to attend the Fall New York Film Festival and enjoyed going to crappy 42nd St. Theaters showing action movies and sex movies, so I was able to put this bullshit in perspective..
Buttman tips his fetish early on with loving closeups of big butts in tight skirts or naked, as he spotlights very dingy, unappealing current strip clubs run by rivals Randy Spears and Sean Michaels. There's plenty of masochism in Sean handcuffing him and leaving John to sex with hot ladies like Kristarrah Knight. Both Spears and Michaels overact in a way they never would for a real porn director, and despite the film noir visual atmosphere Johnny Stag's storytelling ability is nonexistent here. A flashy flashback starring Lauren Brice as sort of his lost love has a fine depiction of the line between real dancing and exotic dancing with a nice silhouetting effect of shadow dancing.
The numerous threeseome sex scenes evoke his affection for gonzo porn -raw and lowdown rather than truly erotic. And the movie simply falls apart at the end with the unheralded arrival of cop Silvera to join the orgy on stage.
For me, the highlight was Sean Michaels doing an amusing Michael Jackson dance routine, replete with hat tipped to hide his face, just like those catchy ads recently for the Broadway Michael Jackson musical, only three decades early.
His lament reminds me (I'm an East Coaster) of the endless laments about the loss of old 42nd Street of the '70s I used to hear from many an old hand, always sugarcoating memories. I traveled annually to New York throughout the '70s to attend the Fall New York Film Festival and enjoyed going to crappy 42nd St. Theaters showing action movies and sex movies, so I was able to put this bullshit in perspective..
Buttman tips his fetish early on with loving closeups of big butts in tight skirts or naked, as he spotlights very dingy, unappealing current strip clubs run by rivals Randy Spears and Sean Michaels. There's plenty of masochism in Sean handcuffing him and leaving John to sex with hot ladies like Kristarrah Knight. Both Spears and Michaels overact in a way they never would for a real porn director, and despite the film noir visual atmosphere Johnny Stag's storytelling ability is nonexistent here. A flashy flashback starring Lauren Brice as sort of his lost love has a fine depiction of the line between real dancing and exotic dancing with a nice silhouetting effect of shadow dancing.
The numerous threeseome sex scenes evoke his affection for gonzo porn -raw and lowdown rather than truly erotic. And the movie simply falls apart at the end with the unheralded arrival of cop Silvera to join the orgy on stage.
For me, the highlight was Sean Michaels doing an amusing Michael Jackson dance routine, replete with hat tipped to hide his face, just like those catchy ads recently for the Broadway Michael Jackson musical, only three decades early.