DVD Review: “AZN Pop!”

David Aaron Clark is of a generation that worked in porn when a reasonable number of its practitioners called it art, and during a time when people were still going to jail for it. He worked for earlier incarnations of Screw and Genesis magazines, and wrote highbrow treatises on the evolving adult industry for whichever outlet didn't bounce checks—and some that did.

His writing is mostly seen on adult industry messageboards lately, weighing in on various feuds if not getting in them, but he's primarily a director of Asian female-themed movies. Read our review of the first installment of his "AZN Pop!" after the gap. - G. Ponante

- - -

AZN Pop!

Studio: Videoteam/Serious Mirror
Director: David Aaron Clark
Cast: Yumy, Destiny, Brian Surewood, Sledge Hammer

Review by Gram Ponante

Meeting Clark at a party, one would probably guess his profession within a few tries. He has a voice that sounds like it is coming from behind a camera, telling you to turn around slowly, to bend over, to play with your pigtails a little.

I'm like, "David, I just asked you where the bar was."

His point-of-view movies (the adult biz just calls them POVs) are low budget affairs shot in his bright apartment near downtown L.A. in which—there is no way around it—the director has sex for free with the Asian objects of his fancy and films it.

Elements of POVs like Clark's "Asian Mouth Club" are in "AZN Pop!" but the difference is of scale and help. In the former, Clark is holding the camera while Asian-American porn stars like Taya Cruz service him. The viewer's eyes travel to the "Lives of the Saints" and Velvet Underground box set on the shelves as the camera jumps with the cameraman/director/male talent.

In "AZN Pop!", by contrast, Clark's own double fetish—the way we fetishize body parts added to his own particular fondness for two women, Yumy and Destiny—comes through, often exquisitely, with the help of another cameraman, a brilliant editor, sexy costumes, and a non-Apple Garage Band soundtrack.

I can't speak for everyone who tends to like Asian-themed porn, but the scenes featuring both Yumy and Destiny in separate rock video pose-offs are longer and more loving than similar throwaway quota scenes in other movies. These scenes are for people who like to watch and don't want anyone else in the room.

Then Clark interviews both women, separately again, in the same tub. We see only his tattooed arms traveling here and there. We can extrapolate from this that the true fetish market will not bear too many distractions in the picture.

Destiny's scene in a hilltop pool overlooking L.A. at night—complete with a title card Doors reference—is lovely. The camera pans over the city in a way reminiscent of a more hopeful version of "Blade Runner".

It was interesting to note that there was more male talent in the picture than female talent. Yumy and Destiny were really the stars, and Clark spent a lot of time treating the audience to them.

Only a scene in which Yumy, in full schoolgirl ensemble, knocks on the door of biker dude Brian Surewood and Sledge Hammer to sell doughnuts for film school (ahem) does the movie look like more typical gonzo fare. The scene quickly morphs into a multiracial double-penetration sketch, culminating in our heroine eating a doughnut that has been wiped on her come-splattered face. She takes a clearly reluctant bite.

Maybe Clark was not there for that scene (I heard that excuse from a director recently), or perhaps he was required to provide a scene aimed at the groundlings.

More appropriate to the genre was Destiny's scenario as a disinterested callgirl in the same schoolgirl getup (I hope Clark has more than one of these costumes, because I think I've seen them a couple dozen times). It seemed like an apt commentary on what we make people as opposed to what they are.

(Luckily, she had sex with the guy anyway; I don't want my own harsh self-judgments getting in the way of my porn.)

Clark's "AZN Pop!" is the rare niche movie that not only transcends its fetish but also effectively telegraphs the director's crush to the uninitiated.

· Order: "AZN Pop!" (Adult DVD Empire)
· David Aaron Clark (davidaaronclark.com)
· Videoteam (Videoteam.com)

* * * * *

Previously: Porn Valley Dispatch Archive