Review by Bob Ignizio
Columbus native Aaron Tsuru is sort of
like a low budget Hugh Hefner. Tsuru, subject of the short
documentary THE NAKED ZINESTER,
takes photos of women in various stages of undress. Some wind up in
his self published fanzines, some on his website. His subjects,
including girlfriend Cherry La Voix, are not the standard
cookie-cutter models one sees in Playboy, but what Tsuru describes as
“real” women. Personally I think that's kind of unfair, seeing as
the Playboy girls exist, too. They don't necessarily live next door
to me like the fantasy Mr. Hefner is selling, but obviously they live
next door to someone. Perhaps it would be more fair to say that Tsuru
photographs a different kind of woman than one usually finds in
Playboy, women who aren't quite as made-up, have a few more curves,
maybe some tattoos and piercings. His models are kind of in the vein
of the Suicide Girls, but a little more down to earth.
THE NAKED ZINESTER
gives viewers ample opportunity to see Mr. Tsuru's work and judge it
for themselves, making this film most definitely “Not Safe For
Work”. Tsuru is a good photographer and seems like a fun guy, and
the girls he works with appear smart and confident and very much
comfortable with what they're doing. In the great spectrum of erotic
entertainment available these days, Tsuru's photography (what we see
of it here, anyway) is fairly tame and harmless, although those who
find nude photography of women exploitative or offensive regardless
of how it's done will likely disagree.
As
for the documentary itself, director John Nix has made a good looking
film, and his editing insures that it moves along at a lively pace.
At just a little over ten minutes, there's not a whole lot of depth
here, though. It's basically an infomercial, a nice way to discover
Mr. Tsuru's work if one is interested in that sort of thing, but with
no real insight into what drives him or why he as a person should
warrant a film. One gets the impression based on what we do see that,
even at feature length, there wouldn't be a whole lot more to cover.
Still, worth a look for fans of alt erotica with ten minutes to kill.
2 1/2 out of 4 stars.
I
won't embed the film because it does feature nudity, but if you want
to watch it for free, you can at the Turnstyle Films website.
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