THIS YEAR'S AVN AWARD NOMINATIONS BY LEO TOLSTOY :: Simply Jimmy D :: Breakin' News or Breakin' Balls: It's all the same to me!

jimmyd _writes "Am I out to lunch or are there more AVN nominations per category--and possibly more categories--than ever before? I don't have the actual numbers, but it simply seemed to my simple mind that the usual book of noms suddenly became "War and Peace."

Assuming I'm right, AVN's use of an "appeasement factor" must be at an all-time high! And I gotta tell you, I'm pretty sure the product, in general, hasn't gotten way better in 2002. It's not like suddenly there's more "award-worthy" movies made than ever before. And this has got nothing to do with the fact that my name is nowhere on that lengthy nom list. The truth is, I didn't shoot anything last year that even remotely was worthy of a nom.

Even if I'm wrong, and the list hasn't substantially grown, we still have way too many award nominations being selected for each category. It really dilutes the whole feeling of having done something special when you look at who was nominated right alongside your little masterpiece. I'm confident that in each cagetory there's a movie that sucks way bad. And once you determine the inferior level of that movie, you realize that YOUR movie only needs to be at least that good (or bad), or slightly better to garner a nom.

This whole award nomination thing is really an extension of AVN's review process. When AVN switched to only printing 4-star or better movie reviews in the magazine, it seemed to me that suddenly there were way more 4-star reviews. Used to be there'd be a modicum of 4-star reviews, some rare 4-1/2 star reviews, and even rarer 5-star reviews. There were, of course, plenty of 3-1/2 star and 3-star reviews. I think it was when they started that "Spotlight Pick" thing, which I guess meant your movie got some kind of a 4-star PLUS review, that things began to change. I know, they're not stars, they're "A's." But "A's" seem so lame and unreview-like. What the fuck's an "A?" If you're going to use academic grade letters, than give the movies A's and A-'s and B's and F's, you get the idea. At least a "star" says something to almost anyone.

These days, there's suddenly (and magically) the right number of 4-star reviews--more than before--to fill up the magazine. And it seems to me that there's the same number of "Spotlight Pick" reviews as their used to be 4-star reviews, and that the current number of 4-star non-Spotlight Pick reviews kind of matches the number of 3-1/2 star reviews that used to be issued. I'm thinking this is a case of that pesky "appeasement factor" at work again.

One also wonders--at least I do--to what extent the movies are screened before a review is written. Here's a recent example: "2 FREAKY 4 U," from Smash Pictures, recently received a 4- star review. The text of the review was pretty lean and without depth. But down at the bottom, where they print the marketing tip, they wrote that store owners should recommend this flick to customers wanting to see hot black girls in action. The problem is, there's no black girls in the movie. It's an inter-racial flick: black guys and white chics.

So when I think about stuff like the "2FREAKY 4 U" review, and couple it with the "appeasement factor" that I believe is going on over at AVN when selecting nominations, it makes me wonder just what kind of screening of the contenders is going on? Since most companies seem to believe that everything in their library is good enough for a nomination, AVN must get deluged with nomination submissions. Can they really go all through that stuff? Why don't they just tell everyone that a 4-star review is the minimum requirement for submission for a nom? That would still be a hell of a lot of tapes, but I'll be it's less than what's being submitted now.

I'm not bagging on AVN here. I'm sure it's a motherfucker of a job every year to go through all this shit. So why don't you guys make it easier on yourselves? Find ways to limit submissions, and definitely put limits on the number of noms per category. Trust me on this one. You'll thank me in the morning.

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