Why so much hype?

Good concept, poorly executed.

a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

i found this look inside the life of one woman in the adult film business interesting.for whatever reason,she allowed a camera crew to to follow her around,not just while working but also during her personal life.she seemed very candid and opened her self up.and allowed herself to be very vulnerable.or at least it appears that way.but it's clear she's also a tragic figure.regardless,the film is an entertaining piece and somewhat revealing.you see someone as a human being,and not just as a sex object.as interesting as the film is,there are no real revelations.and,when you get right down to it,it's still a sad subject.for me,The Girl Next Door is a 7/10

The concept behind this documentary, while presumably having been extremely difficult to implement, is simple as pie: it follows porn actress Stacy Valentine over a course of roughly two years (a hell of a long period for a documentary, and about several eons by porn standards) through her ups and downs, as she rises from mere talent to a "signed", award-winning star. Stacy enjoys being before a camera and at the center of attention , and she is as uninhibited talking about her private life as she is ... erm, I haven't actually seen any of her videos, but getting porked before an audience of millions, I guess.The documentary doesn't vie towards any extremes, Stacy likes what she does and is pretty successful at her job. It doesn't deal with, say, burned-out, drug-addled talent who have to do freak scenes to get by, or just plain sick stuff such as "Showgirls". Therefore you expect a fluffpiece that complements the title: hey, sex is natural, that Stacy is just a small-town girl with a wild streak, and hasn't she done well for herself? Luckily for the viewer, the documentary is thorough, unblinking and lucid, mainly because it follows Stacy for so long, and documents so many aspects of her life. At first you'd swear that she is just as wholesome as shredded wheat, and feel sorry for any hardships that she has to encounter. But this carefully constructed image gradually unfolds: Stacy visits the cosmetic surgeon more often than I see my dentist, and she occasionally comes off as incredibly callous, such as when she prostitutes herself to a wealthy fan (not too long after gushing about how frightened she is of losing her boyfriend because he might find someone better), or when she gets very cross at her boyfriend because he can't handle doing a double-teamed scene with her (she actually services the other guy first -- that's showbusiness).Overall this movie is less about the porn industry (it shows only a thin and fairly respectable slice -- where a girl can actually earn a living) but more about the psychology of a porn starlet -- and all about Stacy Valentine.And here's what I came away with from this movie: Stacy Valentine isn't the girl next door. Or at least she isn't the girl next door as we like to imagine the girl next door to be like. This movie penetrates the candy-coating.

Hmmm. Posted this one about a week ago, but it still has not appeared, so I will try once again...Pornography is big business: while Amazon.com continues to hemorrhage red ink after four years, the average internet porn site is profitable within six months, and the industry as a whole raked in over a billion dollars last year alone. No longer the domain of the dirty old man in a trench coat, "adult movies" are available at most video outlets, and rented by men, women and couples of every social status. Strangely, these same people are quick to judge the performers - they must be drugged out losers, and ex-hookers whose past is rife with sexual abuse. Life is never that simple. Adopted at birth, Stacey Baker had a normal upbringing, had never been abused and was an average young woman - pretty, amiable and somewhat lacking in self-esteem. Not exactly a Rhodes scholar, she had a simple goal in life - get married and be a good wife, because that's what's expected of proper girls from Tulsa. Her husband's Madonna/whore fascination would soon change all that. After pressuring her to get breast implants and pose for nude photos, he submitted the pictures to a men's magazine. To both their amazement Stacey was chosen as "Girl Next Door" and "Hustler" magazine swept her off to do a shoot with a male model on the Mexican Riviera. Loving the attention and surprised at her disappearing inhibitions, she had an epiphany - the woman who previously felt she had no talents, realized that she did have one undeniable skill - she could "f*** great". She had discovered her niche. Stacey soon ditched her overbearing husband, and moved to Los Angeles, adopting the stage name Stacey Victoria. She gives herself two years to become the best in the business and quickly becomes the "it" girl of the porn set. A consummate professional, Stacey is there to get the scene, and nothing - not stinging ants or fake smoke that almost cause her to cough up a lung - is going to get in the way. While she notes cavalierly that "When I'm horny, I go to work, and if I want affection I have my cat…" it is soon apparent that the broad smile pasted on her face is part of her carefully manufactured screen persona. Although there is ample nudity and several sex scenes (carefully filmed to avoid being explicit), it is the unflinching look at Stacey's life that makes you feel like a voyeur. In her world a relationship is threatened not by sex with strangers but rather something as seemingly innocuous as holding hands with another person. We watch as Stacey, driven by ambition, sabotages her relationship with Julian, a fellow "actor" and nice guy who sincerely cares about her. Midway through the film her chirpy optimism has been replaced by a sad cynicism echoed by her new tattoo - "trust no one". Stacey comes to realize that engaging in sex on command has stripped her of the one thing she needs - intimacy. Unable to find it she concentrates on her career, ultimately winning the H'ot Dor, the Oscar of the adult film industry, and you expect her to give the "You like me, you really like me" speech. Stacey's changes are not limited to the emotional. In order to maintain the illusion of living Barbie doll Stacey undergoes numerous plastic surgeries, brought to you in living color. No horror movie can hold a candle to the violence of a silicone implant the size of a throw pillow being yarded through a gaping hole in a women's breast, then replaced with another only marginally smaller implant. If this isn't enough to make you squeamish, they also serve up a liposuction and an operation to give Stacey come-hither lips. Some of the best scenes in the movie come in the exchanges between Stacey and her mother, an amazingly nonjudgmental, supportive woman who lavishes her daughter with unconditional love. Her only worry is that when she is gone, Stacey will spend the rest of her life alone. It is obvious that Stacey had not, until that very moment, contemplated this thought, and both women burst into tears. It is a touching moment that avoids being gooey. The most remarkable thing about Stacey Valentine that there is nothing remarkable about her - she truly could be anyone's neighbor, daughter or sister. If you have the opportunity to see this film seize it.

Sorry I couldn't think of a snappier summary title, but this movie really (forgive the pun) got under my skin. An excellent, intelligent documentary about Stacey Valentine, a porn star in her mid-20's,how she ended up doing what she does, but more importantly, what it has done to her.Any female (especially the younger ones) who is even remotely tempted to go into the industry should see this movie. I respected the fact that it doesn't have an obvious agenda, other than to entertain and give you a 90 minute glimpse of what a porn star's life is really like. It manages to show the unglamourous (at best) day-to-day realities of the business, how it can ruin lives and destroy self-esteem, without being the least bit preachy. If there was any voice-over, I don't remember it. Most of the story is told by Stacey herself, in interviews with the filmmakers, or through her interactions with other people including her parents, boyfriend, directors, fans, and friends. My husband said that when it started out, SV "seemed happy and pretty much OK for a while", but from almost the first shot of SV talking about how this is a great job for her because she loves sex and how the porn industry "is the only job where she would get people telling her she's sexy and beautiful", it was obvious that though she is smiling and sounding positive, but really just trying deep down to convince herself that she's happy. In the first few minutes of the movie she reveals that there is only one thing she has any sort of talent for that she could make a living from-sex. She tries to sound proud, but that's a tip off right there that her self-esteem is in the dumpster.This movie is just incredible on so many levels, there's not enough room for me to go into it. It was so riveting, I didn't want it to end. Let's face it-most people (whether they will admit to it or not) would love to be behind the scenes for the filming of a porno movie, just to see what really happens behind the camera (and when the camera is off) and I was no exception. You get to see several scenes of that, and I think anyone who sits through the movie will agree that $1000-$2000 a day (the performers get paid more for the "kinky"-or, more realistically, the extremely uncomfortable, unpleasant stuff that most performers prefer not to do)doesn't even begin to approach the amount of money that women in the industry deserve to make. For one thing, it is not as easy as it looks, to say the least-an image that stuck with me was the ants swarming in a puddle of...( well, you can imagine what liquid needs to be cleaned up on a porn shoot), some of them crawling on SV and even biting her. Keep in mind, these are the high-end, high profile porn films she works in. There's actually some pretty funny scenes, too (especially the driving scene another reviewer mentioned). The film shows in extremely graphic detail what breast implant, collagen injection and liposuction surgery looks like-I would not recommend hitting the concession stand beforehand. For anyone who regards porn stars as less than human, you see that they go to the drycleaners, have trouble meeting decent men, get cut off in traffic, feel insecure about their bodies, get jealous, and visit with their friends just like anyone else.Some of the most poignant scenes involve SV visiting her mother and having an honest talk about her settling down (both of them end up teary), visiting a hypnotist to try to improve her self-esteem, talking about her on-again, off-again relationship with her boyfriend (also in the industry), leaving an Adult Entertainment Awards ceremony by herself, with no award, in the dress she was so excitied about wearing earlier that day, and petting her cat, saying since she doesn't have a special man in her life, there's always her cat for affection. In one of the saddest, she tearily talks about how nice it would be to have someone in her life who would touch her out of love and companionship, instead of for sex. In another, she's shooting some scenes for a movie with her boyfriend, and you can see the hurt on both their faces as he starts to slowly pull farther and farther away -especially after he's 3 feet away from watching the woman he loves perform oral sex on another man, even if it's "just acting".It sounds cliche (it would to me, reading about it) but when you actually see the movie and watch her talking, looking young enough to get carded with her clean-scrubbed face and baggy casual clothes, you can't help but feel for her. I doubt that any woman, after seeing the movie, would trade places with SV for any amount of money. God, I just wanted to go up and give her a hug or something.Having done plenty of research on the 'adult entertainment industry' (for a thesis in college-really!)and also talking and being friends with a few women in the industry, I can say the movie presents a very realistic portrait. Her life isn't a complete living hell- you do see her happy at times, talking about what she wants to do when she retires, laughing with her co-stars, looking like she's having fun doing a photo shoot dressed as Marilyn Monroe and even seeming to genuinely enjoy a scene with a female actress interacted on a live porn web-cam. But the sadness on her face and in her words speaks for itself. What's even sadder to consider is the subject of the film is one of the rarer, more "together" women in the business- SV is mentally and physically healthy, doesn't do drugs, didn't get molested as a child, is reasonably intelligent and has a good sense of humor, and her parents even approve (as much as a parent could, anyway) of her career. Imagine what happens to women who don't have it together as well. I was happy, however, to read that SV has retired and started her own business-hopefully she'll be one of the lucky ones. One side note:not a good date movie if you are hoping to, er, get lucky afterwards, because after watching it, having sex will be the last thing you feel like doing. Trust me, you will NOT be in the mood and end up just playing Monopoly or something. About as un-erotic as you can get. Unless you're easily offended, I can't recommend this fascinating, haunting documentary enough. 10/10 stars.