On True/Slant, I've posted a long essay about Max Hardcore, obscenity, and a new movie that depicts the tables being turned on this notorious, imprisoned pornographer.
I had seen Max’s movies. I found them terrifically depressing. To be clear, I have seen many, many (far too many, really, come to think of it) movies that fall into the explicit, depraved, and explicitly depraved category. I’ve seen cophrophagy porn, senior citizen porn, a porn in which Ron Jeremy appeared as a baby in an adult diaper and a bonnet, midget porn, world-record setting gangbang porn (I was present for one of those, and it’s hard to say which was worse), so-called “ready to drop” pregnancy porn, and a movie in which a series of young women had sex with men and then promptly threw up onto a black tarp spread over a sagging bed after taking what I assumed to be Ipecac. Suffice to say, it takes a lot to shock this reporter when it comes to porn movies. Max’s movies aren’t shocking — not most significantly. They are sad. Everyone suffers. No one is happy. If joy is located at one end of the spectrum, this is where its opposite resides. This is the monstrous mating of unfulfilled longing and untenable hate. Their progeny: an abomination.["Imprisoned Pornographer Max Hardcore Gets a Beat Down"]