Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy

Ron Jeremy is the biggest (wink wink, nudge nudge) porn star in the world. With over 1600 adult films to his credit, Jeremy has been working in the adult film business for nearly a quarter of a century. One would expect a documentary about his life to be salacious sleazy stuff and while Porn Star does have elements of baseness (how could it not?) it chooses to focus on Ron Jeremy the man, not the movie stud. We learn that he holds a Master Degree in special education, and was once a teacher. All his friends talk about his legendary cheapness. Jeremy is very open in front of the camera, sometimes almost too much so. He can be a charming guy when he wants to, but there is an air of desperation that bleeds through his well constructed public persona. Director Scott J. Gill humanizes Jeremy and somehow makes you feel pity for a man who says he has slept with over 4000 women.

Porn Star: The Legend of Ron Jeremy proves my point that you can always learn something from a documentary. I started watching this on a lark and figured it would be pretty mindless entertainment; and it was, but it was still fairly enjoyable. Scott Gill's documentary style wasn't anything ground breaking, rather it was pretty standard with straight interviews and photos. It was the subject who actually made this film as enjoyable as it was – as notorious as he is, he is actually pretty engaging at times, and it was interesting to see how a Jewish kid from New York who received a teaching degree eventually became a very unlikely porn star. His following is pretty rabid, and that's a good thing since he is full of self-promotion. What I thought would be a film solely worthy of a couple of eye rolls turned out to not be fantastic, but interesting nonetheless.

--Shelly

A documentary looking into the up bringing, family, career and future dreams of porn star Ron Jeremy. It uses old footage, interviews and clips from his films to show a guy who wants to be centre of attention and be talked about.

This documentary is not one of the type I usually like to watch relating to porn. I usually like the ones that are done by people from outside – it tends to be less airbrushed! For example everyone should check out Channel 4's Hardcore (UK) it's an excellent documentary and will make it harder to get turned on next time you're watching porn. However this is more of a human interest story that a documentary – it's like those polished celeb features you see sometimes where a little bit of bad or unfortunate stuff is wheeled out, but not much. So we naturally have lots of porn celebs being interviewed as well as family and lots with Jeremy himself.

However this is all still interesting – after all, how can you not be interested in a man who is one of the most famous males in porn for decades despite looking like a slob! But it does go beyond just the surface – we start with the idea that Jeremy is a pretty nice guy (not anywhere near as arrogant as you'd expect for a guy who gets sex so much!). But during the film little things come out – he is insecure, he wants to be the centre of things and maybe has too much importance put on himself.

I did feel disappointed that it didn't push deeper when Jeremy was vulnerable. At times you can see sadness and hurt just behind his eyes but the director doesn't move at these times – instead the hurt is only really referred to in voiceovers by the narrator or by other people. It felt at times that the film was helping Jeremy to get exposure without actually letting us inside his character.

However overall I enjoyed it. There is some nudity but it doesn't use the porn footage for titillation – instead most of the porn footage is old dialogue scenes. If you hate porn then this will be too glossy for your taste – but if you like it or just leave it alone then you should get something out of this.

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

After John Holmes died of AIDS in the eighties, the Famous Male Porn Star slot was left open. Holmes had successfully managed to help make porn something more than just a thing for "excited" guys. His Johnny Wadd character has become semi-famous like any regular movie character - he was even referenced to in "Mystery Science Theater." He was around when porn became pretentious and tried to develop story lines, resulting in some really bad, bad porno - and some really cheesy stuff like "Pizza Girls." Ron Jeremy was overweight and not-too-good-looking but he had a long s*hl0ng and managed to fill John's position after he died. He instantly became famous for his, err, "attribute" and "penetrated" the world of porn like no other. (Okay, here end the none-too-subtle sexual innuendo on my behalf!) This revealing documentary (darn! There I go again!) follows Ron's life from childhood to porn - detailing how he became involved in X-rated films to begin with, and when exactly he became the most famous male porn star in the industry.

The documentary features interviews from Ron himself, as well as fellow porn stars and directors. There are also some celebrity interviews for good measure.

If you aren't interested in porn at all you may still find something worthwhile here because Ron's life is pretty interesting, just in terms of how successful he's been in his transition from porn to Hollywood (nabbing some roles in major films, including Trey Parker's "Orgazmo").

I'm not a big porn watcher (despite my knowledge of pretentious '70s porn, which I only know of - I swear - because of "Boogie Nights"...and a few I watched) but I found this fun and engaging. It works as a good documentary, a good comedy, and a good porno. Just kidding on the last one! Here ends my sickening sexual-innuendo.