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Thursday, March 28, 2024
The Eagle
DIRTY SEXY MONEY - Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks show how to survive bad economic times by starring in their own porno in Kevin Smith's newest movie, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." The film is a successful attempt by Smith to branch out beyond his home st

Sometimes sex leads to love, money

Rogen rides role, Banks to success

Zack and Miri Make a Porno: B+

After the overtly sentimental "Jersey Girl," writer and director Kevin Smith appeared to abandon his trademark gross-out humor. Yet with his latest film, "Zack and Miri Make a Porno," he has undoubtedly reclaimed his vulgar credibility.

Smith makes films about real, everyday people - the kind of people you'd run into at your local convenience store or a mall food court. This time around, these everyday people are roommates Zack and Miri (Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks), two 20-somethings working at minimum wage in a sleepy, snowy Pittsburgh suburb. After attending their high school reunion, Zack and Miri run into old - now successful - friends, leading them to evaluate what they have amounted to since graduation.

Strapped for cash to pay rent and with the water and heat shut off, Zack and Miri realize they need to get their act together. At the reunion, Zack meets a gay porn star, brilliantly played by Justin Long of Apple's "Get-a-Mac" commercials, who explains the intricacies of the porn industry. One night while sitting in the living room draped in blankets with a trash can ablaze with newspapers, Zack and Miri reason that they are currently in the sort of financial predicament when people resort to having sex for money.

An imaginary light bulb illuminates as the two decide to make an adult film together with the help of their friends, including a sex-obsessed amateur porn star, a stripper who can blow bubbles from unexpected places and a disgruntled, sexually repressed barista.

The hodgepodge of a cast and crew film in the middle of the night at the coffee shop Zack works at, with hardcore sex scenes filmed on coffee bars and shop furniture. While shooting the film's climatic sex scene between Zack and Miri in the coffee shop's stock room atop a bag of coffee beans, it becomes clear their supposedly platonic relationship is something much deeper than they both imagined.

"Zack and Miri Make a Porno" marks New Jersey-native Smith's first film neither shot nor set in the Garden State - he's literally and figuratively branching out of his comfort zone and the result is a delightful success. Prior to the film's release, Smith went through hell trying to attain an R rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, who branded it with an NC-17 rating after the film's first and second cut. Posters featuring the back of Rogen and Banks' heads positioned in front of each other's crotches were banned in the United States, which were replaced with stick-figure drawings lampooning the ridiculous censorship.

At face value, "Zack and Miri" is a sexually explicit, dirty-minded farce chock-full of nudity and profanity, but in reality, we need more films like this that boldly challenge America's irrational fear of sex. Instead of exploiting sexuality for shock value, Smith shows that sex, friendship and love aren't mutually exclusive concepts, but rather incredibly intertwined and interdependent. Rogen and Banks share a dynamic on-screen chemistry that lends the story a genuinely realistic vibe, yet it is Rogen's winning charisma that steals the film.

Rogen is quickly emerging as his generation's top comedic actor and his latest work as Zack serves as a testament, as he evokes the goofy slacker charm that defined his past performances in "Knocked Up," "Superbad" and "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."

Although the film takes a formulaic, and surprisingly sappy, turn in the third act that prevents it from reaching the same level of the aforementioned Judd Apatow films, it's consistently hilarious and sweet natured. For Smith, this is a much needed step back to the intelligent crassness of his finest films "Chasing Amy" and "Clerks" without ever really treading upon the same line of redundant familiarity that "Clerks II" crossed.

"Zack and Miri" is a bright, fresh film, and with its vibrantly original characters, bold humor and sharp script, it's bound to turn up the heat in theaters this season.

You can reach this staff writer at dsheldon@theeagleonline.com.


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