A Star is Porn

Excerpt: Review: 'The Girlfriend Experience' -- Mick LaSalle
The smartest thing director Steven Soderbergh did in the making of "The Girlfriend Experience" was to cast Sasha Grey. For the role of a high-priced call girl, he went out and found a porn star, and the difference between Grey's essence - that porn star essence - and the milder essence he might have found in a pretty Hollywood starlet is the source of the movie's impact.
Grey has the look. She is a young woman, in her early 20s, but the porn star look is already coming into focus on her face. It's a hard look, but with a strange element of stupefaction. It's a look that can imitate innocence, until you look in the eyes. They're the eyes of someone who has figured out it's all a joke, but is beginning to wonder if she's the butt of it. It's the face of someone whose youthful exuberance seems about two or three shocks away from devolving into empty high spirits or bitter cynicism.
more HERE

Asia Argento has Screen Presence

Italian actress Asia Argento is the whole ballgame in "Boarding Gate," the story of a former prostitute caught in the midst of some international intrigue. Argento couldn't act her way through a paper towel, but whatever it is she has, it's unmistakable.
Whatever the spectacle of Argento as a screen entity - the amusement of noting, "There's Argento running down the street ... there's Argento firing a gun ... there's Argento snarling with her bottom lip like Judy Davis" - saves this movie from indifference. Director Olivier Assayas was shooting blanks with this one. He really had nothing to say. But at least he said it impressively, and by casting Argento, he took this empty film within breathing distance of being fun.
- Mick LaSalle
the entire review is HERE
podcast HERE
very nice fan site HERE