Product Description

(fluff.er, n): One who offers ego reinforcement; one who provides the necessary stimulation for a male porn star to perform.

THE FLUFFER is the first collaboration of directors Wash West and Richard Glatzer-- director of the 1994 hit independent film Grief. After years of research in the porn industry, West wrote the script and worked with Glatzer to bring it to the screen. With its memorable title, suggestive premise, and controversial themes, THE FLUFFER has stunned critics and delighted audiences all over America.

The sex industry provides the backdrop for this story of obsession, submission, money and sexuality. The story is centered around three adult industry staffers: Johnny Rebel--a hot-blooded, narcissistic, "gay for pay" porn star; Sean McGinnis--the young, naïve kid who moves to LA to pursue a career in the movies; and Johnny's long-time stripper girlfriend, Julie Disponzio, whose working name is "Babylon." When Sean accidentally rents a copy of a Johnny Rebel video, he becomes so obsessed with the beefy star that he gets a job as a cameraman at Johnny's production company. It doesn't take long before he steps beyond his job description to a more intimate role as Johnny's fluffer. While Babylon navigates her clients at the strip club and Sean negotiates the inhabitants of the porno underworld, both struggle to keep the man they love from falling into a world of drugs and despair.

The film stars Scott Gurney as Johnny Rebel, Michael Cunio as Sean McGinnis and Roxanne Day as Babylon. THE FLUFFER also features performances by Deborah Harry (lead singer of Blondie), Guinevere Turner (Go Fish, American Psycho), gay porn director Chi Chi LaRue, and adult film legend Ron Jeremy.

THE FLUFFER received its world premiere at the 2001 Berlin Film Festival and was enthusiastically received at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival, before having its theatrical premiere at New York's Quad Cinema in November 2001. The film broke the 29-year-old theater's house records for a single-screen opening weekend and for a full week. It went on to play major festivals such as Moscow, Stockholm, Thessaloniki, and Melbourne. Despite the taboo-breaking nature of the subject matter, THE FLUFFER has sold worldwide to countries including Great Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Taiwan.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #58362 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Review
A buried treasure. Who could have thought that a movie about a straight adonis working in gay porn would actually be an incisive look at dysfunctional romance? Gay audiences embraced the movie but there's plenty of laughs and great acting for people of any orientation. --Premiere Magazine

Review
A coming-of-age odyssey of substance and honesty... first-rate acting, writing and directing! --Los Angeles Times

Review
Bitterly funny, bracingly true, one of the best gay films in a long while! --Film Journal

Customer Reviews

Stranger in Paradise
Wash Westmoreland and Richard Glatzer's "The Fluffer" is an earnest, honest and humane attempt at exposing the Gay Porno scene through the eyes of a young gay man Sean (Michael Cunio), new to Hollywood who falls in love with a gay porno star after he rents a movie he thinks is "Citizen Kane" that turns out to be a gay porno starring Johnny Rebel (Scott Gurney).
(When the obviously oblivious Sean brings what he thinks is CK to the check out counter, the clerk winks and says: "Doing the Classics tonight, huh?) Sean proceeds to apply and get a job at Janus Films, maker of all of Johnny Rebel's films,as a cameraman and thus sets the film and his infatuation in full motion.
Westmoreland/Glatzer have the sense to steal from some of the best movies: isn't Sean really a palliative for the Phillip Seymour Hoffman character in "Boogie Nights," who is as over-the-top and overwrought in love with Dirk Diggler as Sean is laid back and introspective about his feelings for Johnny Rebel? And it's much harder for Sean to stay cool about Johnny in that, not only is he a cameraman he's also Johnny's designated "Fluffer."
There are some heavy-handed, though earnest attempts to delve into the psyches of Sean as well as Johnny but most of this falls flat as it merely upsets the equilibrium of the film: is this a psychological study or a light comedy? It is possible to be both, but the transitions need to be handled with more aplomb than they are here to be be meaningful and effective.
The final scenes of the film are a hoot though, with blatant references to Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird of Youth" with Sean standing in for Paul Newman and Johnny for Geraldine Page as Sean consoles Johnny in a cheap motel in Mexico. That scene also cannily references Michelangelo's Pieta!
They probably bite off more than they can chew in "The Fluffer," but Westmoreland/Glacker show a real sense of style, grace and directorial know-how; especially difficult with the obvious constaints of a small budget. Look for these two to do great things in the future.

Has some merit, but utimately dull
A lot less provocative than you might think, this one has some really good stuff going for it. The reality of the gay porn industry, some nice performances, well-made. But - and it's a big one -- I really hate these films that do the gay boy chasing the bad straight boy thing. It seems degrading and after a point in the plot, a little unrealistic. What ruined this film for me was the last half hour. I won't spoil it but it seemed forced, overly dramtic and ultimately a little dumb. Really, porn is porn and Boogie Nights did this 1000 times better. Rent, but I would not buy.

Terrific! Sort of a Low Budget, Gay Boogie Nights
It's hard to explain what a "fluffer" is on a family website. Suffice it to say that a fluffer is someone on the set of a porn movie who makes it possible for a male porn star to maintain the illusion that he is enjoying what he is doing on screen. Women can fake it. Men, obviously, cannot.

That said, *The Fluffer* is a realistic picture about the gay porn industry. It is also about how vanity, insecurity, helplessness, and ultimately, self-destruction, get expressed in the life of a man who appears to have everything: beauty, fame, people who love him and willingly sacrifice themselves and their own dignity - for a while anyway - to take care of him. In many more important ways, it is an almost perfectly realized cinematic exploration of the relationships between longing and fulfillment, fantasy and reality, love and obsession, the glitzy and the mundane. It's also about growing up and the deep sources of self-respect, how for some, as Blake said, "the road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom," while for others, it leads to spiralling self-destruction and, finally, to despair.

The movie treats all of its characters with respect almost bordering on tenderness. The porn superstar's self-destructive dive is not played as a stereotype. Some of the characters in this movie seem functional if not particularly happy with their lives. Others - the three main characters really - find themselves on a pathe to either imminent self-destruction or imminent self-discovery and transformation. The movie does present, for one thing, a morality tale. But the general morality of porn itself is not examined in this movie.

A final word: the excellent commentary track is revealing and deeply provocative, pointing out the places where the screenplay or the camera (or both) is communcating the film's dramatic insights as well as it's perfectly wrought structures.

Highest recommendation.