Ron Jeremy: Life After the Buffet

Filmmaker Hedda Muskat avers upfront that she did not plan on making a film about veteran porn star/entrepreneur Ron Jeremy, whose dumpy, average-guy looks and sybaritic durability in the adult-film industry made him a cult icon. But when Jeremy, 59, suffered a near-fatal heart episode in 2013 (after Muskat met him while shooting a project in a Vegas sex club), it resulted in this technically ragged chronicle of the Queens native's road to physical and spiritual recovery. The good news: Jeremy, a humorous, well-educated, unashamed satyr, actor, musician, and juggler, never appears to be ornery or cynical, even at his most dissipated low points (a chronic night owl, he would fall asleep at random moments even before his hospitalization). The bad news: the film's dodgy scrapbook aesthetic never brings together the mixed ingredients of sub-TMZ celebrity spotting, cardiac-health PSAs, mondo porno, religious musings, outtakes, and disorganized interviews about Jeremy's offbeat circle (rabbis, evangelical Christians, big-breasted girls, and the late transgressive comic Sam Kinison). Authors appearing include Elie Spitz, Shmuley Boteach, and Jeff St. John in this documentary that features much nudity (Jeremy's legendary organ is fuzzed out; but women are shown full-frontal). Optional, at best. (C. Cassady)