Elektra Luxx (2011)

Bert Rodriguez (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a fast-talking self-styled porn commentator reporting on 90s porn star Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) from his mother's basement. She is famous for a porn with herself as twins but she actually has a twin in prison for real. She is pregnant and out of the business. She's teaching sex class in the community center. Cora (Marley Shelton) admits killing her baby daddy Nick while having sex with him. Cora gives her songs written by Nick about her. In return, Cora wants her to seduce her fiancée Ben (Justin Kirk) to even the score. She tries to accommodate but he wrongly mistakes robber Dellwood Butterworth (Timothy Olyphant) for him. Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki) is a former porn partner who is in love with her best friend Bambi Lindberg (Emmanuelle Chriqui).This is the sequel to 'Women in Trouble'. It tries to be campy with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It tries to be an irreverent take on porn. I'm willing to go with this weirdness for another Sebastian Gutierrez episode. However it becomes rambling messy story. It has no flow. Its quirkiness is not actually funny. The first movie has a certain charm which this one seems to struggle to maintain. I still like Adrianne Palicki and Emmanuelle Chriqui together. Carla Gugino starts out fine but goes downhill. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is too broad and I grow to hate his part of the movie.

The big charm of Elektra Luxx - as of its equally good predecessor Women In Trouble - lies in the matter-of-factness in the way the story lines are presented. Charlotte, one of the main characters in Women in Trouble, only appears for one scene here. Her mother, another prominent figure in WIT, is mentioned in this film, but doesn't appear at all. Just because she doesn't need to be. Virgin Mary, paying a visit to Elektra in her bathroom, is just a good, trustworthy friend, an understanding and caring human. No need to emphasize her holiness.There are flaws. The comical conversation skills of Adrianne Palicki are carried on a bit too much and evolve into a long-winded running gag. Also, living the life of a porn star is idealized too much; there's not much place for a critical or pitiful look at the adult industry. If this had been the case however, we wouldn't have had enjoyed the film so much. And it's refreshing to see these actors as normal persons, as intelligent individuals with real emotions and character. All in all, Elektra Luxx is a successful mix of comedy and drama with good acting, good dialogs and an attractive visual style. It's not a masterpiece, but it's a good and entertaining movie.

File this under "Wanted to Like This Movie But..," it's poor Sebastian Gutierrez attempt at a vanity piece. Maybe he can write, maybe he can direct, maybe he can produce, but he certainly can't do all three. The only redeeming thing here is the idea behind the plot, which could have been fun, sexy and touching...but instead it was given a bad 'caper' movie treatment. As a result his rich cast, including Carla Gugino, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Tim Olyphant, come off as having all the warmth of a bad SNL skit. The writing is so stiff that any attempts at humor fall flat, and the natural sexiness and charm of Gugino just disappears. I suppose trying to make Adrianne Palicki's charter ridiculously dumb was for comedic effect, but it's so unnatural that it ends up just being insulting. It's almost like Gutierrez couldn't make up his mind on this film, because the "quirky" bits (e.g. the Virgin Mary, and Levitt's roles) almost feel like they were bolted on as an afterthought. Too bad.

I saw Women in Trouble with no expectations and was blown away. I saw Elektra Luxx with high expectations and was not disappointed. There's simply no way to describe either film, except to say they're both funny, touching, thought-provoking, surprising, and, of course, extremely sexy.I particularly love Gutierrez' knack for creating conversations that never go where you'd expect, with participants talking at cross purposes, or simply flying off on wild tangents. (What do you get for $10? A yogurt... and a pony!) But it's always done without compromising the characters; always organic, never contrived.I also got a huge charge out of the opening credits, which do the 1960s pop-art thing better than 9 out of 10 recent James Bond films. And I'm totally enraptured by Gutierrez' use of Robyn Hitchcock for music. Women in Trouble made me a lifelong Hitchcock fan, and it's great to hear Elektra Luxx again making use of his talents.The story in this newer film is perhaps a little less focused than in the first one, but it's not a big deal. When every moment of the journey is a delight, who cares where you end up?