Blu-Ray Review: Zack and Miri Make a Porno

There’s no such thing as free titties.
-- Delaney


What the hell has happened to Kevin Smith. I can remember seeing Clerks for the first time and thinking it was one of the funniest, realist movies I had ever seen. Mallrats may have been a slight misstep in comparison, but it had its moments. And Chasing Amy was pure genius.

But things started going downhill with Dogma. I know a lot of people like this movie. But I it wasn’t very funny and was shocking just to be shocking. And Jay & Silent Bob was the movie making equivalent of autofellatio (that should get some web traffic). Not that we all wouldn’t do it if we could.

At this point I pretty much gave up on Kevin Smith. There was absolutely nothing to interest me in Jersey Girl and I figured Clerks II would just sully the memory of a once great movie.
But when Zack and Miri Make a Porno came out I remember thinking, “That looks like a good movie to get on Blu-Ray Netflix, because, hey, it’s got Porno right there in the title.”

So I did in fact receive Zack and Miri Make a Porno along with the similarly titled Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. In the mood to see some titties, I figured I would go with Z&M first.

This was a big mistake.

I would like to announce that whatever Kevin Smith may have had in the early 90s is completely gone. With Zack & Miri Make a Porno, he has thrown up the white flag and decided his way is to copy the great Judd Apatow. Essentially he can’t think of anything funny, so he gets Seth Rogen and the little Indian dude from 40 Year Old Virgin and have him say “Suck cock”. Hilarity ensues.

This is a painfully unfunny movie that is not helped by Smith’s signature Dragnet-like dialog reading. In Clerks it added to the Indie feel of the movie. Now it just amplifies the amateurishness of the production and the unfunniness of the jokes. Comedy acting can’s sound like it’s being read directly from a script.

But the truly offensive part of this move is not its lack of funny but how it treats its subject matter. In these the late 00s, it’s just not this hard to make a porno. Anyone with a cell phone and a female friend with low self esteem can make a YouPorn clip. But this movie we need equipment, actors, sets and costumes. Costumes!?!??!?! It’s a fucking porno.

But more aggravatingly, every sex seen in the movie they make goes straight to intercourse. Has Kevin Smith never seen a porno? I doubt it! Where the fuck is the oral? And the star of the movie doesn’t even take off her top? Has there ever been a porno in which the lead actress does not take off her top?

I’m just saying respect your subject matter, Kevin.

There are some cues that maybe this film was meant to be set in the 80s. The idea that a porno has to have a plot certainly was prevalent then. There is also a pair of kids that hang out at the coffee shop that I thought we were supposed to think of as a young Jay & Silent Bob. The movie would make more sense this way. But they can’t be Jay & Silent Bob since this movie takes place in Pittsburgh.

And another thing, you make a movie in Pittsburgh and there’s not one scene in a Primanti’s?? Not one long, lingering shot of a South Side Slope??

• 10 Breasts
• 0 Beasts
• 4 Laughs
• 0 Out loud laughs
  

Academy Award Nomination for Justin Long for being the only good thing in this pile of guano.

Academy Award Nomination for Jason Mewes for hooking up with Kevin Smith early in life and delivering very little late in life.

D

King Wally says check it out at your own risk.