Here we have the "Adult Video News Awards 2004", or in short and numerically the 21st AVN Awards, which means they already started back in the early 1980s with this even. Now people were a lot more prude back then, so I wonder how this was going, but that should not be the subject now, let us focus on the 2004 edition. These slightly under 2 hours took place in January, but weren't aired until mid-March, so slightly over two months later, and that is really quite a while, which also shows that the interest was not too high. Already the fact that there was no live broadcast did. The host here was comedian Jim Norton and he was so-so I think. Here and there a good moment and he was clearly taking obvious approaches that are really common in comedy, such as repeatedly making fun of himself in terms of how he is the only guy in the room who cannot get laid at an adult movie celebration show. And another approach would be exaggeration. For that, you will also find several example, not only when he describes his own looks and shortcomings, but also for example a pretty edgy joke on Christopher Reeve that was even too heavy for some of the folks in the audience and these are known to be able to take a lot (there I didn't say "swallow"). His co-host is genre icon Jenna Jameson by the way, who I did not find too attractive that night. Well, it shows how famous she is that even I know her and I am really not particularly into adult films, so I had no clue who the other people/actors in here were or also which films were the big winners this night. Even if my rating does not really suggest it, I think they did a lot right here with this awards show. I have seen many (music) awards shows who are basically nothing but concerts all in all, but this one here stays close to its core in terms of focus on the awards. And still they got in the perfectly right amount of distraction with some short comedy clips in between of adult film actors poking fun at the genre. The ideas were creative there, the execution not always or also with 2 or 3 music numbers, even including a huge hit and superstar near the end. Or also that Larry Flynt was there and accepted an award on Snoop Dogg's behalf (yep!) and the former seems like a really well-respected fella. (Snoop Dogg too of course.) I have only come across in touch with Flynt so far through the film in which he is played by Woody Harrelson, but this guy sure had a wild life and I don't mean that in the sense you could think I do related to the subject of adult films. Okay what can I say about this one. I still feel a bit sad for girls being part of the adult film industry, but I guess as it is all about free choice I don't have to and it is all good. But it is true that almost all of them look at least five years older than they actually are, which may have other reasons too of course, but it's obvious nonetheless and there may be certain reasons to it that I do not want to further elaborate on now. All in all, I must say though I did not really enjoy this award show. I think this is the second AVN Awards ceremony I watched after another from almost a decade later I believe and I like that one more. I thought the hosting there was better, but that's not the key reason. What I did see from the adult film industry I did not like a bit here I must say. The moments of girls in the audience flashing their breasts (also it feels almost all of them have really big ones, natural or not?), playing with sex toys etc. did feel really cheap I must admit. The clips also had moments that were not really tasteful, but also evidence how adult film actors indeed lack the talent to make it in "real" movies. The idea of showing snippets from the winning movies and performers right after the winner was announced was in theory a good one, but these snippets and scenes honestly did not impress me one bit. I don't think a single one of them got me curious to watch one of these films, even the big winners. Apart from that, I also still find it a bit cringeworthy when adult film actors have names that are soundalikes of real Hollywood actors, but that is just my perception I assume and there are more than just a few. And yeah, like I said the show felt like it went on for a bit too long too, 90 minutes would have been enough, and still it felt somehow rushed with the ways in which the categories were presented, which may also have had to do with shoddy editing, so yeah technically this one here was not a success either. The director, producer, in short man in charge here is Gary Miller and he is a bit of an icon when it comes to making this kind of award show, but here not really in a positive way. I have several other editions ready to watch and I hope these will be better. This 2004 edition gets a major thumbs-down from me. Highly not recommended.
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