from www.dvdtown.com – In case you´re wondering, there is no such word as “Destricted.” Presumably it´s a coinage that plays off of the word “restricted,” as in rated “R.” And the “de”?

Probably an allusion to deconstruction, because most aesthetes believe that art is simultaneously a construction and a deconstruction.

I, meanwhile, confused the word in my mind with “detritus,” which means waste or debris of any kind. And that confusion turned out to be mightily prescient.

Just because a DVD comes in a plain black box that has a “Warning: Contains strong real sex and strobing effects,” it doesn´t guarantee that the film is going to be “fabulously, tantalizingly exciting,” as a reviewer from Vogue is alleged to have written. It´s not. Or rather, the eight short films included in this collection are not.

We´re told that “Destricted” invited eight acclaimed artists (“acclaimed” meaning artists most people will not have heard of) to make short films representing their views on sex and pornography. Apparently all of them see sex and pornography as something to be deconstructed or demystified. With the possible exception of one film, they are almost the antithesis of erotic.

There are penises being stroked and inserted into vaginas, there are lips and tongues, and there´s plenty of nudity, but the eight films are surprisingly untitillating. If I wasn´t reviewing them, I would have fast-forwarded to the next, and the next, looking for something more clever, more accomplished, and, yes, more erotic.

The closest we get to “erotic” is a documentary on the porn industry that ultimately is too talky and businesslike for anyone but the performers to get too turned on. But Larry Clark´s “Impaled” is fascinating because it´s an entry-level inside look.

Clark spends a good 10 minutes interviewing guys who responded to an ad to do porn, talking with them about their attitudes about porn, their first sexual experiences, and things that guys don´t normally open up about. But because the questions are asked by a potential employer in the porno film biz, they respond as readily as they strip down and show their “junk” to the director. After one guy is selected, Clark puts him on-camera on a couch, where a parade of females already in the porn industry get interviewed by the porn “rookie.”

He asks them similar questions, and of course they strip down too. And after he´s made his choice (yes, it´s kind of like a porno version of “The Dating Game”) then she crawls to him and the two of them get it on. And on. And the familiar porn “Yes! Yes! Uhahhhh! Uhh, Ohhh, OOOEEEE!” kicks in from the female player, who needs no direction. But it´s all so businesslike, with Clark treating it like any other profession, that it´s fascinating in a train-wreck curious sort of way while not being the kind of film anyone is going to use for self-stimulation. Another film in this bunch takes care of that for you.

Matthew Barney presents a film that suggests sex is mechanical, and we get up-close penis shots. Nose against the grindstone? Try penis. A naked guy stretched out under grinding (not bumping) machinery and giant gears repeatedly holds his junk against turning parts. Call it high-risk masturbation, to make an abstract artistic point.

The film begins in both boring and fascinating fashion, if that´s possible. We see what looks like a close-up of something dark on the belly of something, because it rises and falls with each breath. Yet there are things like lichens appearing to grow on the belly, suggesting we´re seeing something in nature. An organism of some sort? We don´t know at first. But after a while you realize it´s a dark, uncircumsized penis coming to life. Cut to guys working with heavy machinery, and then back to lichen man, who is suspended like Frankenstein´s monster waiting for lighting to strike . . . or rather, machinery to stroke. It´s more than a little bizarre and more dumb than erotic.

It gets even more artsy-fartsy with Richard Prince´s “House Call,” where deliberate film aging techniques are used to show a naked woman oiling herself down. The bulbous-breasted one looks spray-orange tanned, which only adds to the sense of artificiality, and she holds her hands as if she´s just done her nails.

Close-ups show her fondling her breasts. Erotic? Not remotely, because you look at her as if through lines and grids and fake flaws in the film, And how many times do we have to watch this woman play with her breasts? If Homer Simpson were sitting in the audience, he´d shout, “BOR-RING.”

Same with “Cooking,” by Tunga, which shows an artist´s laboratory of phallic-shaped devices hanging, some of them crystals. He walks to a bed where a woman in a yellow dress lies, conveniently, and they start making out. One thing leads to another, and soon he´s sticking his crystal in her. Yep. Crystal. I´m not sure what that says about sex or pornography, especially as the woman sucks on his rock candy, but trust me, it´s sexier reading about it than seeing it. After a while, the dumb factor kicks in. That´s the common denominator for most of these films. The concept might be interesting, but the filmmakers push it too far, to the point where interesting art becomes boring. It´s as if a poet tried to stretch a lyric poem into an epic poem.