Page 80 - AVN December 2019

MOPING AROUND
Mope, which made its debut at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival, is based
on a true story about two men who dream of making it big in the adult world.
“Mopes” are straight male performers who have just entered the porn biz and
are at the bottom rung of the talent ladder. Set in the late 2000s, the story
follows two hopefuls whose porn names are “Steve Driver” and “Tom Dong.”
The movie opens with a bukakke scene, where Steve and Tom’s dongs get
ready for their close-ups. The gripping film portrays the realities of breaking
into the adult business, and creates sympathy for the characters along the
way. “It’s easy to look down on people in porn,” Mope director Lucas Heyne
said during a Q&A after the film’s showing at Sundance, “but we visited some
professional porn sets and talked to people working there who were thrilled to
be working there.”
Heyne told us, “The beginning scene is a re-creation, but almost all the
actors in it are real adult talent. The entire opening sequence was inspired
by watching one of director Jim Powers’ shoots. He came out and hyped up
the male talent and I thought it was so intense and compelling that I wrote the
opening scene and cast Jim as himself. I also knew the real Steve and Tom,
so it was surreal to shoot that scene.”
The porn duo, who fancy themselves as the “Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker of
porn,” get their first gig at a low-level fetish studio, known for “ball busting” and
clown porn. The movie is funny at first, like the audition scene where the two
both have to get kicked in the balls, but the film gets serious and then touching,
as it chronicles the humiliation they endure on the way to stardom that never
happens. In this film, the mopes are
the ones you root for, whose innocent
desire for success in the porn biz will
make you cry.
The movie also features a scene
where the two men go to an AVN
Awards after party and excitedly meet
a famous porn director, played by
David Arquette, who was just picked
up by a European distributor.
Spoiler alert: The movie does not
end well (as suggested by the photo
at left, a still from the movie). Look for
links to watch the film online in early
2020, and check out the trailer at
MopeTheMovie.com.
TARNISH ON A GOLDEN AGE
The Deuce tells the story of the rise
of the porn industry in the 1970s and
’80s in New York City. The brilliant
series is gritty, beautifully shot, the
acting is killer, and the subject matter
is fascinating. If you haven’t seen it
yet, once you watch the first episode,
you can’t stop watching all 20.
Season 1 begins in 1971, season 2
jumps to 1977, and season 3 covers
1983-84. “The Deuce” is the one-
block strip of adult businesses that
popped up during the early ’70s. No
other television series has offered a
peep into the lives of street walkers
and their corrupt pimps, the rise of
peep shows and “massage parlors”
that were actually brothels, and the
beginnings of modern-day porn.
Maggie Gyllenhaal, one of the
show’s producers as well as a leading
character, plays a street hooker who
refuses to work with a pimp. She
gets herself out of the street-walking
business by moving into the world of
porn, where she feels she has more
control calling the shots. We call that
a happy ending.
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