Customer Reviews

The Legend of Ron Jeremy (R-Rated Edition)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Ron Jeremy. You've got to wonder about the guy. Anyone who has had the misfortune to rent a porno and then you see this hairy fat guy getting get down and dirty with loads of beautiful women, it makes the average guy (!!ME!!) think "If only my Old Fella were as big as Ron's". No doubt about it, on the surface the Hedgehog looks like he is the luckiest man on God's green Earth.
PORN STAR is actually a highly enjoyable, light hearted look at the rise and rise of arguably the most successful male adult film star in history. Really, viewers will be amazed to learn that Ron really just wants to be taken seriously as an actor and most of the time according to SCREW editor Al Goldstein, he would rather eat copious amounts of food than what he is famed for (ahem!) eating. Hard to believe.
Unlike WADD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JOHN C HOLMES and SEX: THE ANNABEL CHONG STORY, PORN STAR features no sordid tales of drug abuse or degradation at the hands of sleazy porn merchants. It's basically the tale of a regular all round nice guy blessed with a mega sized schlong who gets to live out every guy's wildest fantasies, yet still finds time to do excruciatingly unfunny standup comedy routines and used to be a high school teacher!! Actually he only intended to do a handful (huh huh) of pornos until more meaty roles came along (huh huh again). PORN STAR is a must see for anyone who is even mildly interested in porn. Highly recommended

This movie (sort of) works because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Unlike "Sex: The Annabel Chong Story" (another documentary about a pornstar -- Ron Jeremy appears in it also) which was pretentious and self-indulgent, "Pornstar: The Legend of Ron Jeremy" is a light-hearted and funny chronicle of how an unattractive, fat, hairy guy became one of the most famous adult film stars in the world. The movie lacked a consistent flow and felt a little too scattered, however. It offers bits and pieces of Ron Jeremy's "life and career", but fails to provide the big picture. I didn't get much out of it other than some cheap laughs. The quality of filmmaking was rather amateurish too.

Guys (and girls too) you know Ron Jeremy. Chances are, if you have ever watched two [adult] videos, Ron Jeremy was in one of them. In fact, you probably fast-forwarded through his scene. However, as you were fast-forwarding (and laughing at how ridiculous sex looks at high speed) you were you thinking, wow, how did this guy end up in this video? Jeremy is short, hairy, and fat, and yet somehow is the world's most recognizable porn star. You just gotta wonder: how did he do it?

Well, ponder no longer, Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy has arrived. This 80 minute documentary follows a day in the life of Ron Jeremy while telling his life story. Interviews with his family, friends, and his, ahem, distiguished colleagues, keep it interesting as they discuss the man, the myth, and of course, the legend. Actually, Jeremy is a pretty regular guy, and dare I say, boring.

Seriously though, we all owe a little debt of gratitude to Ron Jeremy. Deep down in places not usually discussed at the dinner table, we all (generally speaking) admire Ron Jeremy: the ugly guy who gets the hot girls. Jememy was in the first porn I ever saw and I'll never forget it. This may not be the crowning achievement Jememy wanted, but it is his legacy. God bless him for it.

Adults Only! To some of us men, Ron Jeremy was our "Teacher". Through his films, he thought us how to make love and the art of sex. If there was something we do not know quite how to do well, Ron Jeremy could show us the professional way. He talks about his boyhood, growing up, one of his first times, and how he got into the adult film business. He will share with you many clips from some of his work and you will also get to see him "at work'. Much of the story is how Ron would like to be a legit actor in mainstream movies, but he has only been able to be an Extra or do small bit parts. In Hollywood, if you have been known to do porno films, your chances of being "an actor" working your way to an Academy Award is zero. (There have been a couple exceptions, mostly in the soap opear business). When "Hollywood" finds out you have done porn in the past, you're fired from your current acting job. Ron Jeremy is trying to break the conception. Now that Ron Jeremy is no longer the young stud of the 1970's and 1980's and has put on a few pounds, how is he still able to be wanted in the business and do more "adult" films? Ron and some of his friends tells you and shows you why at the age of 49. This DVD includes ADULTS ONLY material. Full Male Nudity and Full Female Nudity and Real Sex and Language. This DVD also includes many deleted scenes.

This film is unbelievable...

For many, Ron Jeremy is the ultimately identifiable yet most unlikely male porn star... after watching this film you'll be even more amazed as he's so... neurotic and Jewish.

The film offers a behind the scenes look at not only the porn industry, but Ron Jeremy himself... who despite being a superstar seems more like a guy who just wants to be accepted and loved (especially by the mainstream film industry who will barely give him a part now and then in a small flasher film.) - - I dare say that some of the scenes in this film will stick with you a long time - - and you'll definitely never look at a dirty movie the same way as before !

Ron Jeremy was not always the fat, slightly slovenly looking man he is today. When he entered the pornography business in the late 1970s he was reasonably if not uniquely attractive, determined to make a name for himself on stage and screen as a serious actor, and he saw pornography as a way to pay the bills and make contacts in the film industry.

The idea was not quite as far-out as it might seem. At the time, pornography was a big screen venue and films came with plots, dialogue, and reasonable budgets. As it happened, Jeremy had what it took to be a porn star and then some: a nine and three-quarters inch endowment and the amazing ability to control it on cue. But he failed to recognize a well-established show business fact that not even such legendary (and comparatively discreet) performers as Gypsy Rose Lee could overcome. Once a stripper, always a stripper. Once a porn star, always a porn star.

Twenty years after he made his adult film debut Ron Jeremy is still a porn star, only these days he is a chunky, sloppy one who commands a following largely due to his unlikely appearance and quasi-comic persona and who continues the career thanks to that near-inhuman control. And even as he takes a monthly AIDS test, scrambles for extra and bit work in mainstream film, and makes one porn flick after another he continues to dream of a "legitimate" acting career that will never come.

In theory, it is the stuff of both great comedy and great tragedy, but this fairly short documentary is neither; it has a touch of pathos, a touch of humor, but it never goes far enough in its exploration of Jeremy as a human being. I did laugh a little and I did feel a bit sorry for him, but the big questions were never asked and the big issues were never more than indicated. In the end, I feel like I met Jeremy at a party in passing--and when he left the room I knew little more about him than I did when he first came in.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer
In Memory of James & Shamsi Hyre, killed in Hurricane Katrina
29 August 2005

Porn Star is a documentary that tells the real life story of Ron Jeremy; a seventies blue movie icon who continues to gallivant with beauties beyond the imaginations of most men both off screen and on. The joys these women offer leave most of us speechless, but Jeremy, not so surprisingly, seems rather desensitized to it all by the time we meet him. His life certainly is not one big party. Oh, he does go to parties, practically every night, but it is not to engage in wild activities. The reason he attends is more due to the fear of being alone than for the purposes of finding sex and euphoria. He is a very ambitious man, yet, paradoxically, his ambitions are constantly thwarted by the stigma attached to the profession which has made him famous.

There is a certain childish naiveté that Jeremy has in regards to the outside world. He really doesn't know a whole lot about himself and seems to know even less about those around him. He is a sensitive man which is one of the reasons that the average viewer can so identify and like him. His ego is often hurt by the rejection of mainstream culture. Jeremy is so used to porn it's as if he cannot comprehend just how odious it is to some people. Even folks like this reviewer, who don't think there's anything wrong with his choosing such a lifestyle, are rather sickened by the sight of one of his costars have a pre-sex pow-pow with her "husband," wherein they begin excitedly exchanging high fives in anticipation of the anal sex she is about to receive from Ron. "What's our favorite kind of sex? Anal sex!" Yuck, such rah rah, "my wife is getting nailed," cheering is eerie indeed.

Jeremy brags about all the Hollywood movies he has appeared in until the production chiefs heard about it and cut his segments out. Their rejection wounds him deeply. He admits to flying all the way to Paris just so he could appear onscreen for five seconds before getting shot in the movie, Killing Zooey. He is so trusting that he even extends his good will to the person of the evil radical feminist, Susan Faludi (I couldn't believe it either), who, predictably, tears him to chubby shreds in print. Despite the mounds of cleavage and sultry femininity his body has enjoyed and probed, one cannot help but feel a little sorry for a man with so little preparation for the ways of the world.

Ultimately, Ron Jeremy is a very likable guy. This is not only because he is a "regular Joe," but because he's self-effacing and sensitive. He is hurt when female porn stars insist in their contracts that they should not have to sleep with him, which points to the best thing that can be said in his favor, he is an authentic man. The life that he has, even if it sometimes doesn't look it, is real.

Ron Jeremy is one of, if not the least, likely people to be a porn star. Ron is dying to break into mainstream movies. Ron is just your average, nice guy.

Throughout the film these three facts are somewhat repeated ENDLESSLY but through various friends, family, admirers and co-workers.

Its an entertaining, but short documentary that barely scratches the surface of what people really want to know about the world of porn. We learn all about Ron's amazing "talents" and his former loves...but the rest of the DVD is Ron trying to understand why no one from Hollywood will hire him.Yea, the AIDS test is scary....and should be....but that's really all there is on the serious side. The rest is Ron being a class clown. Fun and entertaining to watch...but what ISN'T said would be a heck of a lot more interesting.

This is a better documentary than I expected, but it has its problems. Ron Jeremy comes across as a nice and sympathetic man, whose ambitions outside of porn are simply larger than his talents. Yet you have to admire a guy who soldiers on anyway; in Hollywood, persistence is the key to success. We get to see the workmanlike manner in which porn is assembled (hardly erotic), which is fascinating. The clips of his white trashs fans are not, which is unfortunate because there is an entire story there about the kinds of straight men who are devoted fans of a male porn star.

But missed opportunities abound in this movie. Ron is a man on the cusp of several important life choices. How will he face being too old to do porn in a few years? He wants to do more mainstream film, but can he give up the porn lifestyle? He appears to have some kind of relationship with the woman Venice we see a few times, and he talks about wanting a real relationship; can he make it work? There are some great stories there that are barely explored. And his enormous phone binder with all those notes - what a launch pad for a documentary!

The movie never quite jells; we get a bunch of disparate things that are jammed together, without much narrative or plot as you would expect from the best documentaries. But at a minimum, this is worth a rent, even if you are not familiar with the Hedgehog's work, or a big fan of porn.

I would have NEVER watched this but my brother in law dropped it off & told me I needed to see it -- It was surprisingly better than I expected, more of a bio of Ron Jeremy than a behind-the-scenes look at the porn industry. Ron Jeremy comes off as a normal guy --funny, optimistic, a little insecure, who just happens to act in porn films. It's a job. He could just as easily be a car salesman, accountant, or (as he once was) a special-education teacher. He seems so normal. His father, a physicist, interviewed for the film, seems like such a normal dad. They have a normal father-son relationship. His sister, interviewed for the film, seems like a straight-laced professional, very fond of her brother. Ron Jeremy comes off as a slightly slovenly typical guy. Other persons from the porn industry are interviewed for the film -- they don't come off nearly as well as Jeremy. Particularly entertaining are the interviews of Grandpa (from the Munsters -- I don't know his real name).