X
- 2010
- R
- Phase 4 Films
- 2 h 4 m
- 2010
- R
- Phase 4 Films
- 2 h 4 m
Summary A look at the battles Hugh Hefner fought over the years against the U.S. government, the religious right, and militant feminists.
- 2010
- R
- Phase 4 Films
- 2 h 4 m
- 2010
- R
- Phase 4 Films
- 2 h 4 m
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel
55
User Score
Available after 4 ratings
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Summary A look at the battles Hugh Hefner fought over the years against the U.S. government, the religious right, and militant feminists.
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
55
44% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
56% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
55
44% Positive
7 Reviews
7 Reviews
56% Mixed
9 Reviews
9 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
If your sole image of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner is that of a lanky, silk-jammied sybarite strolling the grounds of his mansion with a jiggling blond on either arm, Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist and Rebel will knock your socks off.
Unfortunately, Berman skips past the darker implications of Hefner's sexual universe and omits discussion of how the periodical business -- and access to erotic imagery -- has changed in the Internet age. Still, the movie remains an involving look at an American icon as well as an adept snapshot of our national zeitgeist from the McCarthy era through the Reagan years.
The film is at its most potent delineating Hefner's role in the American civil rights movement, going beyond the pages of his magazine.
One wants to find enlightenment - or at least entertainment - in this reconsideration of Playboy and of Hefner. But it's tainted.
A very mixed bag. Despite some faint gestures in the direction of journalistic balance, it plays a lot like a two-hour infomercial for the Playboy publisher's historical importance, philosophical depth and personal greatness.
This fawning docu goes to lengths to portray the octogenarian Playboy magazine founder as among the greatest figures of 20th-century American popular culture, while only cursorily acknowledging his status as a pioneering softcore pornographer.
A proper profile of Hefner would start and end with sex, and not merely glance on casualties like Dorothy Stratten (and even the loveless Hef himself). The movie can't seem to get it up.
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Production Company
Metaphor Films
Release Date Jul 30, 2010
Duration 2 h 4 m
Rating R
Genres
Awards
Image Awards (NAACP)
• 1 Nomination
Miami Film Festival
• 1 Nomination
