2 Responses to “Rog Podcasts: 2014 AVN Awards Voting: Part Four”

1. Don Houston says:

   December 28, 2013 at 5:03 am

   I’m definitely a “tinkerer” when it comes to the rank ordering system, especially as certain key titles come in that showcase performers.

   I actually do keep virtually everything I review, sometimes sending out a title to a peer so another set of eyes can check it out or as a favor. This does create storage issues because my mainstream and porn collections total around 20,000 movies/tv series, etc. (more porn than mainstream these days); so yes, a lot of my home is geared to storing them (my vaulted ceiling game room has 12′ shelves across the entire wall and my gym has shelves lining the walls too but I’m always reconsidering how to improve storage. For me, keeping titles I’ve reviewed is akin to having a resource library when issues or questions pop up.

   Regarding voting, specific projects get votes pertaining only to those but more generalized categories open things up more. An acting award is just for acting but a performer award extends further (for me) to include the entirety of their porn persona (at least when I need a tie breaker). Performer of the year, like director of the year, are body of work awards; pitting the genius that makes one great flick against the journeyman director who makes 25 really good movies will always result in my giving the nod to the larger body of work, leaving the one shot awards in the title specific categories for the genius. Good point on being easier on performers since they tend to lack control over who they are paired with, the extent of how expressive they are sexually, but every year we hear “how could X be nominated since she didn’t do anal, IR, DPs, etc” while others who do it all might do so in a lackluster manner.

   Underworld: I adored it and said so all over the place, competing against such a mammoth blockbuster with a low budget, single day cheapy is wildly unfair but Wicked puts its money where it needs to be and Armstrong has proven time and again to be one of the best directors in feature porn, bar none. If some of the other candidate directors had as much financial and artistic freedom, they might give him a better run for the money more often but it’d still be an uphill battle (because even on his lower budget movies, he really shines most of the time).

   On Grease XXX vs. Not Wizard of Oz XXX, it might kill Will Ryder to hear this but I agree with you that Grease was better (and I adored Clerks XXX too). Ryder had a really strong year, especially in his musical efforts on parodies, much more consistent than others who I liked in the genre. On Daddy’s Girls, I hated the tacked on ending and the “let’s throw everything but the kitchen sink into the mix to be declared edgy” attitude but I’m a longtime fan of Skow’s works and thought several of his other titles were superior.

   Question of the day: Are there categories or awards you know going into the process that you are not going to bother with, either for time considerations, lack of interest, or whatever else? I skip the web related stuff for the most part since I feel I’d need a lot more exposure to it all year round to make a credible rank order and I skip the toy stuff because even though I’ve reviewed a lot of toys, these companies do not ship us items to test. I skip the retailers since I really only stick with a couple of them and I skip categories where I haven’t seen at least half the nominations at the starting point (I watch around a 1000/year and a lot during the voting period but there are limits to human endurance). If I have enough time, I will try to include categories outside my comfort zone but it’s too much to expect we hit them all.

2. Apache Warrior says:

   December 28, 2013 at 2:42 pm

   As to the Grease XXX vs. Not Wizard of Oz XXX debate, I felt that the songs from Grease were much more memorable than the very fun, creative and yet still very good Wizard of Oz ones. Even though “What’s Wrong With Me” sung by Dorothy is an emotional song and “I Wonder What is Happening” sung by the cast, but mostly by the Cowardly Lion as the lead vocal is fun and memorable, the songs like “Summer Lust,” Beauty School Slut,” “Blowjob Queen,” and the Grease XXX theme continued to permeate in my mind for days. I was surprised that none of the Grease songs were nominated for Best Original Song.