"Best in Sex: 2020 AVN Awards" is actually a pretty good title for this awards show because it summarizes very nicely what this is about: It is an awards show dealing with adult movies and it is from the year 2020. If it is the best, is of course up to you to decide, up to everybody who watches. I personally have not seen any of the films featured in here, so I really cannot be a judge of that, but of course, as adult films are a lot about the protagonists' looks when it comes to both males and females, there is a massively subjective component here as well. I will start with the basics though. First of all, you may be surprised about an awards show that took place in the year 2020. Or took place with an audience because this was of course the corona year, but this one here is from January and that was before it all began. The exact date I am not sure about. It says 27th January here on imdb. Elsewhere I read 25th January. I think it seems likely that this took place two days before it was on television. Not a live broadcast. This is not unusual for this event at all. I have watched older editions and there the gaps were considerably bigger. Sometimes two weeks or so. I never really like it when such an event is not shown live because it is so much nicer to see the winners' delight the moment it happens, but I guess two days delay are still somewhat tolerable. This was a really short show, barely made it past the 70-minute mark. It must be one of the shortest installments ever and again I can say this would not have surprised me if this was a virtual event due to corona, but nope, it was just a nornal ceremony really. I watched the same event from 25 years ago the other day and that show almost made it to the 2.5-hour mark, so it was twice as long basically (no pun intended). But while that was not the perfect solution by any means, this one here wasn't either. I mean they rushed in brief mentions of key categories on several occasions and I find that fairly disrespectful to both the winners and the nominees. So maybe a slightly longer running time would have been the better choice. Surprises me a bit myself that I say that because, as you can see from my rating, I did not really enjoy the watch here at all. By the way, this event has a longer tradition than most people think it is the case. This year's ceremony was already the 37th AVN Awards. As for the hosting, they went with a formula they also used in the past, namely by picking a male comedian and two female actresses to be in charge. Although this is hardly true here because the two actresses were almost not existent anymore after the opening and I found it a bit of a pity because Emily Bloom was one of the two and she was indeed easy on the eye. Her career profession would be cam girl I suppose and she also won the cam girl category that night. There we have another criticism from me: I have seen it in the past that they just pick too many nominees per category and this way they also do not get mentioned. I think for newcomer there were 20 nominees or so in the past, but cam girl had like fifty nominees this year. What? I mean that speaks for a tight competition, but did anybody really have doubts the host would lose? Would have been a massive surprise, but also they should just go with five nominees or ten max and mention all of them when the winner is announced, maybe also show them in the audience. This is much more respectful to everybody. The way it was now it felt all quantity over quality.
Director and writers (normally many) I cannot really say anything as they are not credited here on imdb at this point and I did not pay close enough attention when the credits rolled in to remember. So a few more words on the hosting. The comedian they picked this time was Aries Spears. Gotta say I am not familiar with him at all. After seeing him here, probably not my loss. I thought he was very forgettable compared to others in the past, but then again, just like his two co-hosts, he was barely in it. Apart from a joke by somebody else about his last name and how it fits the occasion and his "performance" when they show us the candidates for best butt (or whatever it was called), he was pretty much not even in it. But makes sense with how short this edition was. And this best butt sketch was also pre-recorded, so he really did not have to prepare a whole lot this time. What else can I say? Apparently, Angela White is almost unbeatable now and took home the big prize in her category for a third time in a row. The guys were a bit more on the forgettable side. Ron Jeremy, who has been a star for decades, is ousted now and facing entirely different battles. And Randy Spears wasn't around this time either, only the guy with the same last name, but he is not one to fill the void. I wish i could say more about the films in here, but I really can't. I must say "Teenage Lesbian" winning fairly big did feel a bit pretentious to me the way writer and director Bree Mills talked about it how deep and meaningful a coming-of-age film it is. Well, it is also an adult film. Don't mean to be disrespectful, but I don't think it's better than many of the others. It only runs for 1.5 hours can be said and it was one of the big winners of the night and other films here run for over four hours. Also the comment by Mills at the end that this film never would have been made without this specific lead actress felt a bit cringeworthy. You could say that the actress standing right next to her/him was not really dealing too well with this statement either. One thing I can still elaborate on is the music. They had two performers this time. First of all, a DJ (DJ DIPLO) and I cannot say I am familiar with him at all and I am surprised he got advertized so heavily early on because after looking at his career, he is really only okay at best. However, at the end, there was a performance by Doja Cat. Again, I must say I am not familiar with her and I was also not too impressed by this Ariana Grande lookalike's performance, but I was really surprised when taking a look at her awards recognition. Even the Grammys are included. For two reasons I am surprised. First would be that normally they did have somewhat famous acts here perform, but mostly quite some time after their peaks. Secondly, these acts were almost always males which is of course because especially the way women are treated in the adult film industry is a reason for many to not appreciate films and award shows like this one bit. But she as a woman performed here. Sang I mean of course. I think regardless of what you may think about her music, it's a bold move. Maybe she also did not know and expect yet that she would have such a massive breakthrough in the near future. Okay, that would be pretty much all I have to say about this show. Just one or two minor things in addition: Like I said, I watched much older editions not too long ago and it is pretty hilarious to see how different they look. Especially in terms of how the females behave. How emancipated they are nowadays. If that is a good thing or not is up to you to decide depending on what you prefer in adult films. Also another thing here is that they kept scenes from the winning movies/performers really short this time, probably to keep the overall duration this short. This was handled highly differently in the past too. Sequences were incredibly long, several minutes on many occasions. But I don't need that much either. A healthy number in the middle would maybe be the best direction to take. While we're at it discussing how the show has changed over the years, parodies are also not really a big thing anymore the way they once were. They are not gone entirely though, I think there was something featured in here that spoofed "Captain Marvel" this time. Overall, this one here gets a big thumbs-down as it did neither inspire/motivate me to watch any of the films featured in here, nor made me wanna check out any of the artists really (you can call them that). And I also felt a bit that the number of really stunning women was lower than on other AVN ceremonies. Watch something else instead.
Director and writers (normally many) I cannot really say anything as they are not credited here on imdb at this point and I did not pay close enough attention when the credits rolled in to remember. So a few more words on the hosting. The comedian they picked this time was Aries Spears. Gotta say I am not familiar with him at all. After seeing him here, probably not my loss. I thought he was very forgettable compared to others in the past, but then again, just like his two co-hosts, he was barely in it. Apart from a joke by somebody else about his last name and how it fits the occasion and his "performance" when they show us the candidates for best butt (or whatever it was called), he was pretty much not even in it. But makes sense with how short this edition was. And this best butt sketch was also pre-recorded, so he really did not have to prepare a whole lot this time. What else can I say? Apparently, Angela White is almost unbeatable now and took home the big prize in her category for a third time in a row. The guys were a bit more on the forgettable side. Ron Jeremy, who has been a star for decades, is ousted now and facing entirely different battles. And Randy Spears wasn't around this time either, only the guy with the same last name, but he is not one to fill the void. I wish i could say more about the films in here, but I really can't. I must say "Teenage Lesbian" winning fairly big did feel a bit pretentious to me the way writer and director Bree Mills talked about it how deep and meaningful a coming-of-age film it is. Well, it is also an adult film. Don't mean to be disrespectful, but I don't think it's better than many of the others. It only runs for 1.5 hours can be said and it was one of the big winners of the night and other films here run for over four hours. Also the comment by Mills at the end that this film never would have been made without this specific lead actress felt a bit cringeworthy. You could say that the actress standing right next to her/him was not really dealing too well with this statement either. One thing I can still elaborate on is the music. They had two performers this time. First of all, a DJ (DJ DIPLO) and I cannot say I am familiar with him at all and I am surprised he got advertized so heavily early on because after looking at his career, he is really only okay at best. However, at the end, there was a performance by Doja Cat. Again, I must say I am not familiar with her and I was also not too impressed by this Ariana Grande lookalike's performance, but I was really surprised when taking a look at her awards recognition. Even the Grammys are included. For two reasons I am surprised. First would be that normally they did have somewhat famous acts here perform, but mostly quite some time after their peaks. Secondly, these acts were almost always males which is of course because especially the way women are treated in the adult film industry is a reason for many to not appreciate films and award shows like this one bit. But she as a woman performed here. Sang I mean of course. I think regardless of what you may think about her music, it's a bold move. Maybe she also did not know and expect yet that she would have such a massive breakthrough in the near future. Okay, that would be pretty much all I have to say about this show. Just one or two minor things in addition: Like I said, I watched much older editions not too long ago and it is pretty hilarious to see how different they look. Especially in terms of how the females behave. How emancipated they are nowadays. If that is a good thing or not is up to you to decide depending on what you prefer in adult films. Also another thing here is that they kept scenes from the winning movies/performers really short this time, probably to keep the overall duration this short. This was handled highly differently in the past too. Sequences were incredibly long, several minutes on many occasions. But I don't need that much either. A healthy number in the middle would maybe be the best direction to take. While we're at it discussing how the show has changed over the years, parodies are also not really a big thing anymore the way they once were. They are not gone entirely though, I think there was something featured in here that spoofed "Captain Marvel" this time. Overall, this one here gets a big thumbs-down as it did neither inspire/motivate me to watch any of the films featured in here, nor made me wanna check out any of the artists really (you can call them that). And I also felt a bit that the number of really stunning women was lower than on other AVN ceremonies. Watch something else instead.
