Ira Isaacs, who was named last year in an eight-count federal obscenity indictment, heads into the courtroom today, and the LA Times has a profile. Since it appears by my referrer log that people are coming here looking for Isaacs-related information, you can find my interview with Isaacs at Radar Online, "But Is It Art?" My outtakes are here.
The Times reports: "In a statistic that some may find every bit as shocking as his work, Isaacs said he was selling about 1,000 videos per month at $30 apiece before being raided by the FBI early last year. The number has since dropped to between 700 and 800 per month, but they still generate enough money to pay the rent on a house with a pool in the Hollywood Hills.
Isaacs predicted that many jurors would not be able to stomach viewing the movies, some of which feature acts of bestiality and defecation.
'It's going to be a circus,' he said of the upcoming trial. 'I think I'd freak out if I had to watch six hours of the stuff.'"
It's difficult to know what will happen in the courtroom. The incredibly intense nature of the videos will be hard for jurors to navigate their way through, and Max Hardcore's verdict last week doesn't bode well. But as Scott Glover points out in his story, the judge presiding over this trial is a truly unusual character. Alex Kozinski presided over the case of Mattel v. the band Aqua in a dispute over the song, "Barbie Girl," and opened that trial by stating, "If this were a sci-fi melodrama, it might be called Speech-Zilla meets Trademark Kong," and concluded, "The parties are advised to chill." Ultimately, LA may be more liberal than Tampa, but what we're talking about here is coprophagy and bestiality, subjects most Americans have a hard time being objective about, to say the least.
