Zack And Miri Make A Porno? Umm, If You Say So...

As mentioned in my previous post, last night I went to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno, writer-director Kevin Smith’s latest romantic comedy featuring Seth Rogen – for whom the movie was actually written after Smith, in his own words, “fell in love with him” upon seeing his performance in The 4o Year-Old Virgin – and Elizabeth Banks as the titular lifelong platonic friends who, in an effort to overcome (so to speak) their money woes decide to make a porno.
There are a couple of minor spoilers ahead, so keep that in mind if you’re planning to see the movie.
The basic plot of the movie is essentially contained in the title, but as with most Kevin Smith’s movies the plot isn’t really what drives the movie, as it focuses on the characters. Characters who are, because it’s a Kevin Smith movie, smart-assed social misfits who constantly make with the funny, quirky, and extremely vulgar wise cracks.
Whether or not you like that sort of thing will definitely indicate how you’ll feel about the movie.
For my part, I do like those sort of characters, and they’re the reason why I generally enjoy Kevin Smith movies even though they are often stunningly predictable.
Of course, the fact that it’s a romantic comedy adds another layer of predictability. Turns out that the platonic friends really aren’t as content to keep things platonic as they claim, and when sex – in the form of a scene in the titular porno – is introduced to the dynamic the unspoken feelings lead to misunderstandings, resentment, a breakdown of the relationship, an epiphany, a heartfelt confession, more misunderstandings, a certain amount of hilarity, and finally, a happy ending.
As they say, though, it’s not the destination, it’s the journey, and while the comedy was – as is always the case in a Kevin Smith movie – uneven, there were some truly hilarious moments along the way.
In my opinion, if the movie had nothing else going for it – though it did have a lot going for it – it would have been a success for two reasons.
First of all, it included the MC Chris nerdcore rap classic Fett’s Vette on the soundtrack. That in and of itself would have been a selling point for me.
However, the other thing that it had going for it was the pairing of Superman and The Mac as a gay couple.
The Mac’s performance as a gay porn star in particular was entertaining. A few years ago I watched this documentary series about the porn industry on HBO, and one of the performers appearing on it was one of the most successful performers in gay porn. It seemed clear to me that The Mac also saw that and based his character on that performer.
(I don’t remember his name, and I don’t want to see the results I’ll get if I try Googling him.)
As for the titular porno itself (which really wasn’t all that tit-ular), I have to kind of wonder if Kevin Smith has ever actually seen porn. Granted, part of the idea was that it was being made by complete amateurs who had no idea what they were doing, but even so, the results seemed as though they were produced by people who had only ever had porn described to them, and described to them in only the vaguest and most general way.
Okay, fine, they make a bad porn, and that’s all part of the joke, but I can’t help but think that the badness was entirely the result of deliberate narrative choices, though I’m sure that the fact that Elizabeth Banks never actually got nude in her sex scene was due a combination of her unwillingness to give up the goods on-screen and the narrative device of Zack wanting to be “respectful” to the woman he secretly loved – a clear indication that they don’t know much about porn, as “respect” never enters into the equation – but there is one very salient point that makes it obvious that the makers of the movie in which the porno was being made had no idea what they were doing.
While the porno features a scene in which a male character is sodomized by a female character wearing a strap-on, at no point does anyone so much as mention the possibility of maybe doing a girl-girl scene.
Really, Kevin Smith? People are going to make a porn that features a guy getting ass-fucked, but never even consider having two (or more) chicks going at it? Really?
There were five guys involved in the production of the porno and not one of them thought to suggest a girl-girl scene? Really?
There are places you can go in America and find five (more or less) straight guys who don’t want to see hot girl on girl action?
Really?
There are a lot of things I’m willing to suspend my disbelief for in order to enjoy a movie, but that just is not one of them.
I mean, I can overlook the lack of nudity, close-ups, and a money shot in the Zack and Miri scene because that was all part of the build-up to the whole realization that they were in love all along, and the overall lack of extended scenes of oral sex, but no girl-girl scenes? I call bullshit.
What makes the lack of verisimilitude in the production of the porno all the more puzzling is the fact that a current (Katie Morgan, who was also featured prominently in that HBO documentary) and former (Tracy Lords, whom I have to say is looking rather old and tired these days) porn stars were actually in the movie.
Still, to be fair, Katie Morgan is what’s known as “strictly dickly,” which is to say that she only does boy-girl scenes, and Tracy has been out of the business for a very long time, and I’m sure she’s probably tried to repress a lot of her memories of how it all worked.
Still, I think the movie within a movie could have been just funny and amateurishly bad without also being almost totally unlike a real porno.
Just my two cents.
Despite that complaint, and the fact that, no matter who makes them I have a bias against romantic comedies, I did enjoy the movie, though it clearly wasn’t one of Smith’s finest efforts. Or Seth Rogen’s, for that matter. There was just something off about his performance, and he lacked some of the charm that was a major component in his former movies. Maybe it was the lack of an Appatow influence.
And of course I would have liked to have seen a lot more of Elizabeth Banks, but I went in not really expecting to, so it wasn’t really a disappointment.
Anyway, if you like Kevin Smith movies, you’ll probably like this one. If you don’t like Kevin Smith movies, this isn’t the one that’s going to change your opinion, and if you’ve never seen a Kevin Smith movie, this isn’t an ideal introduction.