Almost As Real As Movie Reviews

“The same might have been said not only of Time itself but of most of the American popular press. All over the land of the free, hip little film critics were celebrating the exhibition of Mr. Ripploh’s lower orifices with the words and phrases they’d memorized while studying for their Master’s degrees. ‘The latest film to assault the barrier between pornography and art,’ giggled David Ansen of Newsweek, who figured it would be a damn ‘shame if the shock value blinded viewers to the film’s high-spirited, disarmingly honest soul.’ ‘A landmark in its unself-conscious and unretouched depiction of the fast-lane homosexual experience,’ sighed young David, who was all agog at ‘some of the more outré expressions of Sadomasochism,’ which were, oh goody, ‘presented graphically and with no psychological gloss.’ Sure, it was all ‘as explicit as any porn movie,’ but, ahem, ‘in this context,’ understand, ‘the sex is a form of honest reportage,’ almost as honest — and as Real — as movie reviewing. ‘The man’s a film-maker,’ sobbed Mr. Ansen, trying to hang onto what was left of his dignity without losing sight of the screen” [Bryan F. Griffin, Panic Among the Philistines (Chicago, Regnery Gateway, 1983), p. 183.]