ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO

Release Date:	October 31, 2008
Directed by:	Kevin Smith
Genre:	Comedy/Drama/Romance
Starring:	Seth Rogan, Elizabeth Banks, Craig Robinson, Traci Lords, Katie Morgan, Ricky Mabe, Jeff Anderson & Jason Mewes
Approx. Runtime:	102 min.
MPAA Rating:	R for Strong Crude Sexual Content Including Dialogue, Graphic Nudity and Pervasive Language

“Yeah, Zack and Miri make a porno. They also make one of the years most memorable comedies.”The 1990's, if you recall, were a ripen golden age of inexpensively financed movies about white middle class slacker males in their twenties sitting around doing nothing. Suffice to say this is not a genre that’s spawned many sequels, its predominantly white male originators having faded away into cinematic oblivion to find themselves and their legacy once again resurrected by the seemingly unstoppable force of Judd Apatow and his comedic minions and pupils almost a decade later. When viewed alongside his modern peers Kevin Smith is both a typical and exceptional comedic specimen, his debut–the black and white study of suburban convenience store states and its crises–made for $27,000 to be succeeded in the years between with larger fare: among them Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jersey Girl. The creative genius to open the comedic door that, ten years later, Judd Apatow would find himself walking through to fame and fortune, it is Smith who–with Zack and Miri Make a Porno–finds unabashedly following Mr. Apatow through territory he once owned: exemplifying and completing the vicious cycle of the current corporate Hollywood system.

It is, therefore, rather fitting that Zack and Miri Make a Porno should also be the directors most mainstream project to date, rooting itself in the gritty rural underbellies of western Pennsylvania as opposed to Smith’s native New Jersey, where most of his other films have transpired. As the films title would suggest, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is–you guessed it!–about its platonic title characters, Zack (Seth Rogan) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks) making a porno!

Ooh, that word a again . . . porno. For those of you who don’t know, the word "porno" as associated the films title has generated a hellstorm of controversy in the direction of Mr. Smith and the head honchos over at the Weinstein company, some papers going as far as to refuse publication of ads for the film and some theaters refusing to project it. Though the sex scenes are filmed in such a way that nothing particularly graphic is evident and the nudity (provided entirely by Smith regulars Katie Morgan and Jason Mewes) is utilize solely for comedic effect. Nevertheless, Smith fans know what to expect from their comedic master and, pushing the envelop to its furthest of known limits, he delivers.

Facing hard times and a mountain of unpaid bills, Zack, who works at a local coffee shop and Miri, who works at a shopping mall, unexpectedly find their water and heating turned off before the night of their high school reunion where they share a bizarre encounter with a pair of gay male porn stars, whose words of encouragement spawns an unforseen brainstorm in Zack. Facing eviction and financial ruin, he suggests they make an amateur porn film as a way of clearing their debts, despite their never having had sex before. Gathering a group of hired acquaintances and crew members including real life porn star Katie Morgan–whose expansive filmography includes almost 200 adult titles–Zack and Miri vow that *bleeping* on film will not ruin their friendship, though, as filming begins, what started as a simple business proposition between the two of them quickly becomes much, much more.

I suppose it’s hard to say whether Smith has grown with Zack and Miri Make a Porno, but he certainly hasn’t regressed. The humor is just as edgy and as R-rated as its ever been, and it’s likely those who enjoyed the previous movies will be entertained by this one as well. In fact, before the films gradual regression into sentimentality in its third act, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is pretty much vintage Smith. Raucous and positively liberating, the laughs that dominate the films first half riff uproariously upon the notions of sexual stallions and bubble headed vixens out there, focusing itself entirely upon the absurdity of people making a sex tape as opposed to just having sex.

Akin to that final day of high school–when you know one chapter of your life is closing, there is a sense of excitement and happiness, but also a haunting undertone of knowledge that the chapters to come are not necessarily defined as you’d like them to be–Smith strikes a perfect balance between humour and heart resonate in his finest of comedies through the anchoring performances of Rogan and Banks whose potty mouthed dynamo has almost never been put to better use. Spewing profanities in toe-to-toe intensity, it is the confident flow and rhythm of their loveable on-screen raunchiness that gives the film a surprisingly sweet and subtle aftertaste that prevents it from flopping, limp and brainless, into the sugar coated abyss of romantic comedy convention.

Of course, Zack and Miri Make a Porno isn’t perfect, but for pure laughs, it’s as unashamedly crude and as convulsively funny as the very best of the movies it–and its director–strives to be. Yeah, Zack and Miri make a porno. They also make one of the years most memorable comedies.