Whether you like it or not, if you spend a lot of time on the internet, then you owe a big thanks to the porn business. We may all not count ourselves as customers, but if you've ever made an online purchase, then you have benefited from the adult entertainment industry. So I guess it was about time internet porn finally got its time in the spotlight, and what better way to do that than with a big, splashy movie? Variety reports that Gallo, the writer behind Bad Boys and Midnight Run, has signed to write and direct the internet porn comedy, Middle Men.

The story of Middle Men follows a straight and narrow type of guy who finds himself smack dab in the middle of the 'adult entertainment' business. Luckily, the film isn't just a Boogie Nights rip-off and instead will focus on the early days of online porn, including its rise to becoming the number one way most of us like to get our naughty fix. Gallo co-wrote the script with Andy Weiss (Punk'd), and the film will begin shooting on location in L.A. this September.

Unfortunately, us North Americans tend to get a little hung up on our Puritan past, and we don't always appreciate sex comedies that aren't written for teenagers (just ask Kevin Smith). But if you're a fan of dirty jokes, keep your fingers crossed that Gallo has a little more luck with the MPAA than Smith has so far.

The Amateurs (formerly The Moguls), the directorial debut of writer/director Michael Traeger, is an underdog comedy about a group of small-town losers who decide to raise money by making a porno film. It's got a wonderful supporting cast that includes Joe Pantoliano, William Fichtner, Tim Blake Nelson, and Lauren Graham. Cinematical recently attended a press junket with the film's stars -- Jeff Bridges and Ted Danson, who were interviewed separately. Needless to say, meeting The Dude and Sam Malone in the same day was kind of a big deal! First up was Mr. Bridges...

What attracted you to the The Amateurs and the role of Andy?

Jeff Bridges: Like most of the movies I get involved with, I resisted it as long as possible. I always try to figure out why I shouldn't do it, and with this one there were plenty of reasons not to do it. What attracted me to it in the first place is that it was so unusual. It put this porn aspect and this Frank Capra aspect together, and I thought that was really interesting, very ambitious. But I didn't know if this guy who had never directed a film would be able to pull it off. Also, I've done movies in the past that have a lot of characters, and I find them hard to follow and you wind up not caring about any of the people, and I thought that might be the case with this one. But my representatives kept telling me I should do it, so finally I said "Alright. I want you guys to organize a reading, and I want you to see that this thing's not going to work at all." So we had a table read, and it just flew, it was just great. I think it works very well.

When the release started to get delayed, did any of that old skepticism start to come back, like maybe something did go wrong?

JB: No, I didn't really get all the ins and outs of why it didn't get released, it's very convoluted and I haven't heard all the sides and the stories, but it wasn't because of the nature of the film or anything like that. I think it was more business type stuff.

Filmed in the summer of 2004, The Amateurs has been in the can for over three years. The movie's title has gone through several changes, and imdb still lists it as The Moguls. The film has had a whopping six release dates going back to 2005, but it finally sputters into theaters today -- in Los Angeles and Dallas, anyway. Movies often have distribution trouble (you can read more about the problems this one faced in the Los Angeles Times), but the struggle of The Amateurs surprised me because it had all the makings of a sleeper hit. It's got a killer premise (think The Full Monty with porno) and an amazing cast. The film's struggle surprised me...until I saw it.

A queasy mixture of Boogie Nights sleaze and Patch Adams sentimentality, The Amateurs takes place in the small town of Butterface Fields (ho-HO!). That's where you'll find Andy Sargentee (Jeff Bridges, in shaggy dog Lebowski mode), a divorced dad who is down on his luck. His son (Alex D. Linz) is now living with a wealthy stepfather (the typically solid Steven Weber), and this makes Sargentee insecure. He's got to make some money, and fast. So, naturally, he decides to enlist the help of his friends and make an amateur porno flick.

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means -- time for The Write Stuff! This week Cinematical spoke with screenwriter Captain Mauzner. Mauzner has an interesting perspective on screenwriting because he's written two major films based on true events and actual people. He co-wrote 2003's Wonderland -- the story of the infamous "Wonderland Murders," which starred Val Kilmer as legendary porn star John Holmes. And he wrote last year's Factory Girl, the tale of Edie Sedgwick (played by Sienna Miller), Andy Warhol (Guy Pearce), and a Dylanesque "Musician" played by Hayden Christensen. We spoke about Mauzner's scripts, process, and the trickiness of writing scripts based on fact.

Cinematical: Are you working on anything right now?

Captain Mauzner: I am working on something right now, yeah. I'm adapting a book. It's a small book, it's called The Food Chain, by Geoff Nicholson. A friend of mine runs a small company and I'm adapting it with the hopes of directing it. It's kind of about food, sex, and cannibalism. Revenge, food, sex, and cannibalism.

Cinematical: Well, alright!

CM: It's a little dark comedy. It's fun. And what was nice about it was -- I've written so many things and a lot of them are true life stories, and they all seem to be about kind of deplorable human beings. And I think that my comfort zone is really kind of in the dark side -- the drug addicts, the deviants. And I think that as I've kind of gotten older and left that world myself, I guess you could say I've become less and less interested in it. You see these movies like Wonderland and Factory Girl and you could say "oh, they're like an argument against doing drugs." But I know for myself, there's always a glamorizing element to it. And as much as you want to say this is the downfall of these people, which it is -- and obviously there's nothing glamorous about the drug lifestyle, or the party lifestyle because it does lead to bad things. But just the act of writing about it or making these the main characters or trying to explain these people, I feel like that somewhat glamorizes it, or at least in my mind it was very glamorous. I had a very romantic notion, at like 14-years-old I discovered Bukowski and I was kind of off to the races. So I think that as I get older I'm ready to move on to maybe something light and happy. My family's always like "Why can't you write something that we can take Grandma to?"

Cinematical: So do you find when you're writing about drugs and debauchery, that you're not looking to condemn it and point a finger, you're just looking to present it and let the audience decide?

CM: Absolutely. I'm not looking to condemn it at all. I'm not looking to be moral about it. I believe in experimentation. I believe in doing kind of what you want and not having anybody else tell you what to do. I think that my fascination with it is always the "why." Why do people do this? I think that's kind of the fun of being able to do those kind of things is that you can live kind of vicariously through these people, and try to figure out the "why" without being judgmental.

I know, I saw "Scarlett Johansson" and "Jenna Jameson" in the same sentence, and so much blood rushed away from my brain I nearly passed out. If Miss Jameson's name doesn't ring a bell, perhaps you've seen her...performances...in such films as I Love Lesbians 10 and Dirty Bob's Xcellent Adventures 35 (which I think we can all agree was a step down from the Hitchcockian #34). Monday, Erik reported that Jessica Simpson has turned down the opportunity to play a porn star, and now People is reporting that Scarlett Johansson has done the same. Porn queen Jameson is looking for an actress to portray her in the film adaptation of her autobiography How to Make Love Like a Porn Star (currently stuck together at a library near you). Jameson developed a fascination with Johansson after seeing the wonderful Lost in Translation, saying "I remember thinking to myself, this girl has such a sexuality without even really trying to be sexy. I was like, 'This girl could play me." Jameson met Johansson once, briefly, and thought "I love her. She's amazing. She's smart, she's funny...She's stunning."

She certainly is, but don't get too excited, fellas. A representative for Johansson says "Scarlett has never seen a script nor been approached about this project. She also has no interest in playing this role." In other news -- Christmas has been canceled! So Johansson is probably out, but Jameson is definitely set on a quality actress for the role, saying "I don't want someone who's going to go in there and be like bouncing around. I want someone who can bring some depth." (As opposed to her male co-stars, who don't need depth -- just length and girth. Hiyo!). If they're looking for an actress with some chops, I imagine the mystery porn star role offered to Jessica Simpson is for a different project. Jameson's biopic, said to be called Heartbreaker, promises to be extremely sexually explicit, and according to Jameson, "It has to be. Not because we want to draw male fans. Because I want to tell the true story." Oh Jenna. I don't think you need to worry about the male fans showing up!

Although they do not say which role she turned down, Jessica Simpson's father/manager says the actress turned down the chance to play a porn star in an upcoming movie because the role was just "too risque." The funniest part of this whole thing is that, apparently, the folks who offered her the role also promised her an Oscar. Says pops: "The last script that came to us was for Jessica to be a porn star. We were promised we would win an Oscar with that. I was like, 'We'll just buy a little man (Oscar) and keep our clothes on.'" Wait, did he just say he's going to buy his daughter an Oscar? And are the filmmakers that desperate to get a name -- any name -- for their film that they're promising Oscars? I hate to say it, but showing your big boobs on the big screen is not going to win this little lady a golden statue. It'll land her a spot on the front page of Mr. Skin -- and that's about it.

They don't say the role, but I imagine it might have something to do with that planned Jenna Jameson biopic. Keep in mind this is just me speculating, but word had it the folks behind that film (and Jenna herself) originally wanted Scarlett Johansson for the role. I imagine it has to be pretty embarrassing for Jenna that it's gone from Johansson to Simpson ... and the latter turned it down! If there was ever a point where you might begin re-thinking whether your life story was worthy of the big-screen treatment, I'd say offering the lead role to Jessica Simpson and having her turn it down might be a sign to quit while you're not ahead. As much as Papa Joe keeps trying to turn Simpson into a major movie star (coincidentally, that's also the name of her next movie), it's just not happening. Recently it was reported that Joe had a big hand in yanking Simpson's newest flick, Blonde Ambition, from the release schedule because the competition was too great and (to quote an insider) "Jessica gives a terrible performance." Hey, but according to some, she's just one nekked role away from an Oscar. So what do we know?

It seems a little strange that as current pop culture becomes more and more comfortable with adult films, a porn company in Australia is going to court this Thursday to fight the current system of film classification, as reported by Reuters. As it currently stands in Australia, film ratings fall into three major categories. G ratings are applied to a film that would be open to anyone, an R rating is given for films that contain violent or disturbing images, and finally an X rating is given to any sexually explicit film; which brings with it a heavily restricted distribution policy. So while it isn't illegal to watch or own pornographic films, only two territories (including the capital Canberra) can legally sell pornographic films.

Adult film company AdultShop.com Limited is asking the Federal Court to overturn the X category, arguing that "The Office of Film and Literature Classification is required to take into account current community standards in relation to explicit erotic films,". The company commissioned a survey back in September from ACNielsen that "found 70% of Australian adults were not offended by explicit erotic films and 76% thought they should be available on a restricted basis." Already, family groups are concerned that if the ban were lifted, porn could start appearing on the shelves of local video stores and shops. But until the court rules, Australians can get their porn the same way everybody else does -- the Internet.

In any war, real or started because of misleading or faulty information, there are usually two sides. The war between competing High Def DVD formats is no exception. The battle between HD DVD and Blu-Ray has raged since before either format was officially launched. More recently, there's been controversy and speculation as to what format of High Def DVD -- HD DVD or Blu-Ray -- is going to dominate a certain market. That market, of course, is porn.

As it did with the Beta vs VHS war of many years ago, porn's adoption of one High Def DVD format over another will most likely be a huge factor in whatever one eventually comes out on top. We've been covering this story here at Cinematical and as I recently wrote, it seemed as if High Def DVD was finally going to get the leg up it needed to dominate the porn market. The porn industry, it seemed, was poised to adopt HD DVD over Blu-Ray. The reason? Sony was purposely going to prevent adult content from being put onto Blu-Ray disks. But now, according to an article at EE Times, Sony is saying its not true and that they, in fact, are fine with porn producers releasing content on the Blu-Ray format.

In the "war" between competing DVD formats, the porn industry had apparently settled on Blu-Ray over HD DVD and was preparing to roll out some new Blu-Ray-based products. That is, until recently. According to an article at Memphis Rap, the porn industry may be changing its mind and switching to HD DVD instead. Why? Well, for several reasons. The biggest reason, according to the article, is that Sony is apparently going to be banning manufacturers from accepting adult content. So, that means adult producers will not be able to release their content on Blu-Ray even if they wanted to.

Also, according to Jackie Ramos, a rep for Wicked Pictures, one of the biggest adult producers: "It's a lot less expensive to use HD DVD." She didn't elaborate as to the exact economics of it but Wicked this week put its money where its mouth is by releasing the first HD DVD adult video, Camp Cuddly Pines Power Tool Massacre, at the AVN trade show is Las Vegas. Like I said, I don't know much about porn but now that the industry is apparently leaning towards HD DVD, I'm even more happy that I've chosen to embrace the format using the player attached to my XBox 360. Like the VHS vs Beta "war" before it, this new format war may also be settled by porn producers with HD DVD coming out on top and becoming the standard.

I'm not sure how one stumbles into the world of porn, though I imagine it happens a lot more than you would think. (Strange, how come no one has ever asked me to star in a porn? Wait -- strike that -- I think I know the answer.)

Looking to expand his horizons, Jeremiah Chechik (Benny and Joon) has signed on to direct The Pornographer's Poem, based off Michael Turner's cult novel. Though it appears the project has been set up for awhile now (with Justin Chatwin attached to star), Chechik's involvement has pushed it back into the picture. Set in the 1970s, story revolves around a boy who stumbles into pornography after being inspired by his naughty (and at times, disgusting) white, rich neighbors. I found something about two adults and a dog in the Amazon description, but I think I'll stop there. Karen Walton will pen the dark coming-of-age comedy and, so far, a production schedule has not been set.