Friday, October 31, 2008

Zach & Miri Make a Porno (Review)

Kevin Smith loves three things – profanity, schmaltzy love stories and a naked Jason Mews. It really shouldn’t surprise anyone that all three are on… er… display in his latest film Zach & Miri Make a Porno. (Using the actual title of the film thank you very much.)

The film gets off to a bit of a shaky start as Smith’s first act is just littered with unclever and over abundant uses of various expletives. Smith has a tendency to layer it on thick when he can’t find any pop culture references to riff on for 6 pages and this happens quite often here. The dialogue isn’t sharp but just as you start to get annoyed the leads arrive at their high school reunion and we meet Justin Long (playing a character named Brandon) doing his best Harvey Fierstein impression as a gay porn actor and beau of superman himself, Brandon Routh (playing a character named Long). And for the next hour or so this is a pretty good film. Smith keeps the plot on a steady pace, the jokes funny and the characters that matter developing. The addition of an Apatow alum cast (Long, Elizabeth Banks, Seth Rogen, Gerry Bednob, Craig Robinson) helps with the natural chemistry and the two porn actresses in the cast (Traci Lords & Katie Morgan) pull off their roles adequately. Then something strange happens – Smith goes meta. Or at least tries to. When the inevitable second act bottom-out happens the film jumps 3 months and Craig Robinson’s producer shows up to find Rogen so he can tell him that “the film has no ending.” Charlie Kaufman can pull this type of thing off without seeming hackneyed… Smith cannot, so for 3-4 scenes the film just falls flat on its face but once again the ultimate resolution is saved by the strong bond between the characters and the chemistry between the actors as Banks and Rogen get all sappy and live happily ever after – under cut of course by cursing and a naked Jason Mews… I don’t mean Mews was improperly sniped… I mean he may have been I just tried not to look… I mean I’m sure the doctors did a fine job on him as a baby… I should just stop talking.

B/B-

Sunday, October 12, 2008

EZ1 Winter Game Starting Soon


The final season of the EZ1 boxoffice game for 2008 starts soon - follow the link to sign up and play. The winter game is run not by Eddie but by Jana and has several unique aspects including the presence of Limited Release titles and poetry based "hints" to each price change. Sign up at http://www.ez1productions.com/.