YOU CAN HAVE SEX WITH ANYTHING YOU WANT-

                             by nigel cocktail for vox pop

Those in attendance on the closing night of the Director's View Film
Festival were witness to the emergence of a keen new talent in the world of
independent film. Paul Yates's Porno is a comic frenzy, shot out of a canon
and bouncing off the walls of the theater with sex, music, science fiction,
and all combinations thereof. But behind the plastic bedroom toys and
rapid-fire pop culture references, there shines the clear intelligence of
Yates's vision, that sex is not crime (that, in fact, you can have sex with
anything you want, as one musical number informs us) and that the Christmas
spirit can be found anywhere, even among "hornball" sex videos, dildos, and
butt plugs.

The film takes place in an adult video store on Christmas Eve and features
such characters as Joe, the befuddled owner, who is terrified of his own
merchandise, and Adam, who spouts his indignation on all subjects from the 
decline of the Star Wars series to accidentally having sex with his cousin.
There are also dancing security guards, mad bombers, Star Trek nerds, and  
the lesser-recognized porn nerds. Yates juggles these elements with the
skill of a brilliant madman, fearlessly throwing in musical numbers,
pornstar cameos, and appearances by dildo-festooned executive producer
Moby, to create an almost dreamlike cacophony. Yates's finest creation,
however, the heart and soul of the film, is Joe's niece Tina, a woman so
unabashedly promiscuous and uninhibited that if audiences can be honest
with themselves, she will be heralded as one of the most strongly feminist
characters of recent American film.

If the crowd's unconditionally enthusiastic reaction at the festival
screening is any indicator, the message is received loud and clear.