Ed-Shullivan This review is written from an open minded male father's perspective. The film was difficult to watch as a father who would not want his own daughter having to earn her university tuition making adult films, nor being harassed by both male and female college students insulting her for her choice of employment and propositioning her to have group sex. Funny hah hah? No! Funny nah nah! People make personal choices in their life but they should not be openly criticized just because we may not agree with what we may consider to be a poor choice.On the other hand I would be even more uncomfortable if my daughter earned her income working the grave shift at a gas bar where she could get robbed and/or raped by gunpoint with no one around to stop the crime. I would also not want my daughter operating a crane 50 stories up in the air, or excavating coal 200 feet under the earth surface all considered to be dangerous but acceptable employment from the mass perspective.The message I absorbed from this made for TV film loosely based on the true story of the life of Miriam Week's using the stage name Belle Knox while performing in adult films and attending Duke University where her annual tuition fees were $60K a year Miriam relieved herself from the financial stress of her choice of school's expensive tuition and unfortunately replaced that with even a greater stress by attempting to maintain a secretive life in the adult porn industry from her family and school friends. One would ask why didn't she just apply for government loans? Miriam did apply to the government for financial assistance but she was turned down by the government.Yes, there is a seedy side to working in the adult film industry where women appear to be the subject of pay for play but ask yourself this question. How many men in adult films make as much money as their female co-stars do? Although I did not agree with Miriam Week's choice of employment she appears to have come out of the experience all in one piece and she has a message for the rest of the world. University tuition is very expensive and maybe Bernie Sanders should run again for the U.S. presidency in 2020 to have his platform succeed, free tuition for all students and free health care. Even the adult film actors would be in favor of that platform. It appears that Miriam Weeks may take up the stand in her future political career if Bernie would only agree to support her.I give this made for TV film a decent 6 out of 10 rating.

conradgore This movie is an absolute novelty in film being a live broadcast of events in life of the young Miriam Weeks. I think this wonderful young is actually kind of future adolescents and young people who will form the majority of this age in a few decades, will think and act only as dictating their own reason without alteration dogmas of any kind (social,scientific, religious, political, racial, etc.) and will contribute to the acceleration in evolution of human beings. Unfortunately today many who watched this movie can not or will not recognize that this way of thinking of some of young people as Miriam Weeks is actually a new phase of human evolution and the way the man will understand better what he is as an individual and how can he contribute to the evolution of civilization to which it belongs. We can not understand the typology of such people unless we understand that some people may have along their existence some experiments of any kind which are actually facets of the many forms in which imagination exercise its role as the main virtual instrument of knowledge . This however can not happen only when imagination is not influenced in any way by the many dogmas that accompanied human existence in various of increasingly sophisticated forms. Such people are likely to have a role in the evolution of human civilization, and their share in the coming decades will certainly be increasingly higher. The main character in this film is part of this typology of people and personal experience that she has made without regard to the dogmatic attitude of most of her entourage saved her and turned her into a moderator of the future. Perhaps everyday personal life of Miriam Weeks is somehow different, but this matters little, it is important her overall image.

mgconlan-1 First up on Lifetime's prime-time schedule last night was a "world premiere" film with the provocative — to say the least — title "From Straight A's to XXX," telling the pretty sad tale of Miriam Weeks (the attractive and appropriately perky Haley Pullos — whose name is the sort of thing that in the days of classic Hollywood got changed; who, the studio chiefs thought back then, would want to see "'The Wizard of Oz,' starring Frances Gumm"?), who gets accepted to her "dream" college, Duke University (and it was a bit startling to hear the name of a real university in a Lifetime movie instead of a fictitious one like "Whittendale," though given that this is the story of a young woman who pays for college by selling her body sexually it would have fit right into the "Whittendale universe"), only just as she gets the news that she's in, her dad, Dr. Kevin Weeks (Peter Graham-Gaudreau), receives word that he's being sent to Afghanistan. This means that the family's income is about to take such a major nose-dive that the Weekses, Kevin and his wife Harcharan (Imali Perera) — I don't recall hearing her first name on the soundtrack but that's what IMDb.com says it is — can no longer afford to cover her tuition.So what's a poor young college girl to do? She discusses this with her college roommate Jolie (Sasha Clements) — who is really from Oklahoma but has spent enough time in New Orleans to acquire a (bad) Southern accent and a lassiez-faire attitude towards public displays of casual sex (of course Miriam asks her about Mardi Gras and Jolie fends off the question with a hauteur that indicates she's bored with the whole ritual and if you've seen one Mardi Gras you've pretty much seen them all) — and they joke about various options. Miriam doesn't want to take out student loans — "My dad didn't finish paying off his student loans until I was in middle school!" she whines — and she doesn't want a job as a waitress, not only because it's demeaning but because the low pay for a waitress in North Carolina (where the minimum wage is $7.25 per hour, the same as the federal one) is barely going to make a dent in the $65,000 per year Duke charges for its education. "Maybe we could rob a bank," Jolie jokes — and Miriam jokes back, "Or I could be a porn star." Eventually, using the nom de porn "Belle Knox," she shoots to the top of the porn world even though maintaining her double life — neatly dramatized by director Vanessa Parise (a cut above the general run of Lifetime directors) in a series of intercuts between Miriam's and Belle's Facebook pages — gets harder and harder, as she's shown frantically plowing her way through a thick and impenetrable women's studies text during breaks on her porn shoots. Meanwhile, an Asian-American student named Jeff discovers Belle's videos online and recognizes her as Miriam, and soon it's all over Duke that one of their nice young freshgirls is doing porn.The credits say this film was "inspired by a true story," but it also travels down the same roads seemingly hundreds of previous Lifetime movies have gone before, though I give writer Hess credit for not having Miriam get hooked on drugs to sustain herself through her porn work — a plot twist usually de rigueur for these sorts of titillating stories about nice young girls who get involved in sex work and then lose control. (Maybe Hess and director Parisse figured they'd already done the innocent-girl-seduced-into-the-drug-scene number in their previous film "Perfect High" and didn't need to do it again.) As familiar as most of this story is, we never feel for Miriam so much as we do when it seems like she's lost all sources of community and been rejected by her family, her college friends and her porn friends. The story lurches to a close as Miriam closes out her freshman year and then, two years later, speaks at a rally of pro-sex feminists and says that feminism ought to be about a woman's right to make choices about her own life — including selling her body on screen for money, if that's what she wants and feels she has to do. It's an O.K. ending but an oddly inconclusive one for a film that, as familiar as the paths it trods are, does have some unique aspects and also makes me wish Vanessa Parise would be able to break out of the Lifetime ghetto, get some decent scripts and take a run at feature films.

Desertman84 The new Lifetime TV movie "From Straight A's To XXX" premiered tonight.It tells a story that is based on the true story of Miriam Weeks,also known by her stage name Belle Knox.Haley Pullos stars in this TV movie that tells the story of a college student at Duke University who resorted to becoming a pornographic star in order to support herself with her expensive college expenses at amounted to as much as $60,000 a year.Breakfast Club star Judd Nelson co-stars with Pullos,who also appears in the long-running daytime TV show,General Hospital,in this TV movie directed by Vanessa Parise.Interestingly,this new TV movie focused more on Belle's beliefs and her choices in life.Aside from that,it brought up issues that are affecting millions of Americans today such as rising expenses of getting a college education.Added to that,it brought up fact that the real Belle Knox,who evidently became a media celebrity,to defend her choice to becoming a porn actress to afford college.In her interviews in TV shows such as Young Turks or Piers Morgan at CNN,she defended her involvement in pornography as college has become less affordable to the average American as well as a part of her feminist views considering that she has the right to choose on how to use her body and what industry she can get involved in as long as it is legal and she isn't committing any crime.Aside from that,this also brought her empowerment as it brought another side of her from being a nerdy student and to another character or to her alter-ego known as Belle.Surprisingly,she is not asking sympathy from people especially those who criticize her as a "slut",brought her sexual ridicule or harassed her no end but to respect her choice as a porn actress to be able to afford college tuition and to defend pornography as a legal business.No question that we got more into a political drama.Didn't she become an activist at the conclusion?The screenplay did a good job on providing a balanced views on Belle's choices.It provides defense on the logic of her choice and it also presents those who do not agree with her decision through the characters that she is in conversation with as they bring up the issue of lack of fulfillment and happiness,morality of the job that she is engaged with,and her character's naivety and lack of wisdom being only 18 years old.The viewer may agree or disagree with Belle particularly her views and her choice to resort to porn as a way to support college.Obviously,the viewer is allowed to think about it while watching the TV movie and given the opportunity to evaluate her beliefs and her character whether they are worthy of respect or not.With that,it makes it good TV movie to watch since it isn't typical of a Lifetime movie that would normally present a clichéd and predictable movie that a viewer is usually served that is why I would rate it higher as compared to that others.