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-

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (Review)

Glamorous indie rock and roll, New York is thy name. This aspirational film for hipster kids everywhere paints a portrait of overly talented and highly connected high school kids with fake IDs running amuck in NYC over one shimmering night of comically tumultuous coming of age set to some of the finest music the kid down the street insists is the best thing ever (on his blog). Welcome to Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

Starting out in North Jersey (as all nights in Manhattan do) we are introduced to Norah – a brunette who seems indefinably uncomfortable in her private, single-sex school with a group of blonds who are nicely movie-plastic. She is in love with the desperate ex-boyfriend of classmate Tris whom she’s never met but knows only through a series of mixtapes that he has sent (and which Tris heartlessly trashes) over a six month period. This, of course is Nick, reluctant arbiter of taste and the straight bassist in a queer-core band struggling to come up with a name. Being in mourning still, he rebuffs his bandmate’s when they try to get him to come out for the evenings gig.

When an announcement is made on a radio station that the uber-cool and mysterious band Where’s Fluffy? (yes, their name is part of their gimmick) will be playing one of their infamous sets somewhere in the city that night though, everything swings into action for your typical night in the city romp as people meet, separate, lose cell phones, miscommunicate, get tired, get drunk, have sex, fall in love, get jealous, make mistakes and figure it all out before the first NJT train of the morning leaves Penn Station. Did I mention this is all set to the swirlingly warm tones of the most lauded indie tracks of the day?

The film really is a trainspotter’s dream. They name drop every lauded rock venue in two boroughs (cuz there is no need to ever go to Queens, The Bronx or SI) and the ever present soundtrack changes from minute to minute during the night that one has to be an astute trainspotter to keep up with it all. The story itself is rather conventional and Cera (Nick) shows once again that Apatow (who, for the record has nothing to do with this) is a genius at type casting but not so great at finding “actors.” Still when you fit the part you fit the part. The one person I’m happy to say has impressed me quite a bit in the performance department from said machine is Jay Baruchel who, after a strong turn in Tropic Thunder, takes on a seedy struggling musician in the mold of Julian Casablancas who is trying to use the other casting stand out, Kat Dennings’s (Charlie Bartlett, 40 Year Old Virgin) Norah, as a way to get a record deal for his Zion Fire Rock outfit. Also of note on the comic relief front are Norah’s bff Caroline played by Ari Graynor who provides the bulk of the B-story as she gets wasted and then gets lost by the super-gay bandmates Rafi Gavron (Breaking and Entering) and Aaron Yoo (21, The Wackness, Disturbia) who try to take her off Norah’s hands so that Nick can get the rebound started. (Yoo btw, is almost 30 and is still playing a kid in HS – take that Luke Perry).



While not earth shattering N&NIP is a nicely crafted piece of escapist fluff and if this is you kind of scene or, more likely if you’d like it to be Mr. Minnesota blogger, then I would say to rush out and see it like 8 times while you listen to the leaked soundtrack on your iPod. For everyone else – how do you feel about Before Sunrise light?

B/B+

Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Review)

I do not ever want to be Jason Segel. He is the writer and star of this film and frankly I think he is exactly like this in real life. I always thought Apatow cast him as a stand in for himself but now I’m sure that he is just this way and Apatow used him effectively as such.

Segel plays Peter, a well to do musician who scores the TV show that made his titular girlfriend (that sounds dirty) a star. After 5 years together she breaks up with him and he become a wreck… well more of a wreck than he was before. Peter is a schlub with a big heart who is overly sensitive to everything but his own shortcomings. In order to clear his head he goes to a Hawaiian resort that Sarah had always talked about… surprise she’s there as well and with her new lover, an English rock lothario. Hijinks ensue. In fact, I think this was how the first 40 minutes of the script was “written.” There is almost no story and everything is improv. While this is par for the course for the Apatowniverse, first time director Nicholas Stoller’s sloppy handling of it took me out of the film. Yes, its mostly funny but you can only take so much of Paul Rudd looking into the camera and running lines before it gets old. You could see the improving which is not a good thing. Still when the story gets back on track after what seems like forever it turns into a decent romcom. Mila Kunis is actually good in this (I usually can’t stand her voice) and Segal plays his role like a well worn sock. And there are a lot of laughs but more dead jokes than I’m used to from this crew. If the beginning of the film was tightened up and focused more on story this would be close to the top of the Apatowniverse films but as it is its middling at best.

B-