Really Surprised!

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

brilliant actors, brilliant editing

Admirable film.

If you are old enough to remember the Playboy magazine's Golden Era, they used to run ad's in the magazine with that question, designed to show potential advertisers how cool, hip and sophisticated the readers were. Typically a very successful guy, maybe in his 30's, who drives a luxury sports car, has the best stereo equipment, drinks top shelf booze, dresses stylishly, takes vacations to exotic locations and is of course always surrounded by a beautiful woman. So in a National Lampoon parody of the early 70's they ran the "What Sort of Man Reads Playboy" ad that had a picture of a bathroom stall, with the magazine on the bathroom floor opened to the centerfold spread, in front of a pair of legs with their jeans and underwear pulled down by their ankles above their Converse tennis shoes, obviously belonging to an adolescent boy and you can obviously guess what he's doing.Which at the heart of it was what Playboy in its day was really about. For every reader who was the hip, good looking guy with plenty of disposable income who attracted gorgeous women, there were at least a dozen other readers who didn't fit into that peg. Teenage (and pre) boys who lived with their parents and kept their issues hidden from mom. College boys who had the centerfolds decorating the walls of their dorm or fraternity residence. GI's, sailors, prisoners. While Playboy did have some interesting articles, the superbly photographed pictorials of the semi-nude, drop dead beautiful women is what kept men buying the magazine at a time when any type of soft core erotica wasn't readily available."American Playboy" does a decent job of recapturing the history of the magazine and what was, at one time, truly a business empire and a delightfully hedonistic lifestyle Hugh Hefner indulged. It is done in a documentary style, with plenty of photos, rare film clips and cinematic reanactments. Matt Whelan does a good job of portraying Hef; he sounds exactly like him although their physical resemblance is slight as Whelan is a fairly big guy and Hef was a skinny runt. The story focuses heavily on the era of the 50's and 60's, the "Mad Men" period of Playboy and for the most part wraps up about 1980 after Playboy had its 25th anniversary. The final episode encompasses the past nearly 40 years as Hef handed over the reins of Playboy to his daughter, decided to get married and have kids (the marriage lasted 9 years) and then, in his 70's, deciding once again to self- indulge in the party lifestyle of his prime. Which brought us to the absolute silliness of the "Girls Next Door" reality TV series that lasted a few years in the 2000's decade.If you read Playboy during their golden era you will enjoy this. Snowflakes be warned, plenty of T&A and I'm sure you will offended by what you would consider to be sexism and exploitation of females. As a historical piece, not sure of the accuracy of everything because it is produced by Playboy and as a result if presented from their POV.

Playboy is that iconic brand that has always remained in my mind synonymous with porn. I have never read the magazine nor was it ever available at my home, I only had exposure to the brand through the internet and that too very rarely. So, I was surprised to find such an inspiring story of the life of Huge Hefner. I have to say that this series/documentary was an eye opener and well made, not revolutionary but still intriguing. Worth a watch just to understand the cultural impact playboy has had on society.

It's a little like the director watched a documentary once and said 'Yeah, like the idea but ya know what would make this better - less analysis and more boobs'. It is a docu-drama about Hugh Hefner, so there's no point getting upset by naked ladies or the objectification of women, that's sort of the point. But that's no excuse for the total lack of insight, cultural analysis or fresh perspectives. In fact, it's the flimsy content in the serious bits that makes the parade of girls feel skeezy. You can't help feeling they've been put in less because that was the reality of the situation (though I'm sure it was) and more because the writer/ director/ actors couldn't think of another way to fill screen time. If you're hoping for a documentary version of Madmen - sumptuously stylish but also searingly insightful about the mindset of the era - this isn't it. The snazzy suits and tasteful furniture is there, but none of the intelligent observation. It's a shame. This is a fascinating period in American cultural development and, love him or hate him, HH was at the heart of it; perhaps not driving things single handed in the way this documentary is desperate to suggest, but defiantly right there in the middle. If you love the Hef and already buy into his myth you'll probably like this. If you are expecting genuine insight, or even just halfway decent acting, then this falls flat on it's bunny-tailed behind.

This series would've been a 10/10 for me except for the last episode. I absolutely loved seeing the story of Hef's life--there was so much I didn't know about him. I just can't get past the fact that he never even named his girlfriends before Crystal--when Holly, Bridget, and Kendra were a huge part of his life (and revenue!) for years. The show makes it seem like Holly and company were just some of the random girls he was around, yet he didn't mind making a whole show about their lives. I get that he and Holly didn't end on good terms--but that should have been a part of the story. I have a hard time believing the other parts of it now. Such a shame, it was perfection before the BS of the last episode.