This review is about a week late but since this genuinely is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in well, forever, I figured I’d still write a little recommendation and urge attendance.
What you know by now:
- “Zack and Miri” make a porno is a Kevin Smith movie (remember: “Chasing Amy”? forget: “Jersey girl”?) which looks like a Judd Apatow movie, but really is a Kevin Smith movie really, really wanting to be a John Waters movie (down to the gross-out excrement humor)
- There were some censorship issues with the title (exactly HOW prudish is this country?)
- Seth Rogan lives a charmed movie life (nice guy and all, but come on- Katherine Heigl in “Knocked up”, then now Elizabeth Banks in “Zack and Miri” (Times called this type of a female character “pretty on a pedestal” and I could not agree more)…the man is a vessel for every dorky director’s unlived sexual fantasies and good for him for that)
- And the story revolves around 2 roommates (just friends, not lovers, as we are reminded so often that it is obvious that status won’t last long) Zack and Miri who are about to be evicted from their pretty shitty Pittsburgh apartment (they’ve spent their rent money on sex toys since both seem to be terminally and totally single) and decide to make a porno to earn some cash. Hijinx and more ensue.
What you need to know:
- While there is definite full frontal male nudity, a specially talented stripper named Bubbles played by Traci Lords (another Waters wink/nudge/hi-five) and strap-ons a-go-go, the movie is actually pretty sweet, and ends exactly as you hope it would (Kevin Smith being painfully romantic under all those racial, New Jersey, sexist jokes he dispenses by the bucket. I mean remember “Mallrats” or “Chasing Amy”?).
- Its best moments come early on (when Zack and Miri show up at their high school reunion, desperate to impress AND get wasted) when all emotions are bare and all peni are covered. (there is a scene when Miri is hitting on her high-school crush Bobby, played by Brandon Routh (Superman! Kevin Smith loves Superman! Everyone knows that! This is Kevin Smith’s crush not hers) when she gives him a compliment and he says “Thank you” and she responds “Don’t thank me, fuck me” that had the whole theatre cringing, laughing and somehow, relating) and the brief exchange with Justin Long (as Brandon St. Randy) is worth the admission price alone
- It is all fast and furious and fun fun fun (as making pornos (theoretically) probably is) from there on and maybe, if fake breasts, unsanitary conditions in coffee shops or dildos offend you, you should not go see it. But then, you are reading BYT so if those things offend you, you probably should not even be here in the first place.
Go see it.
I though Mallrats, Dogma, Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob were decidedly UNFUNNY.
I liked Chasing Amy.
I LOVED THIS MOVIE.
You will LOVE THIS MOVIE.
Cale,
Do you like Judd Apatow movies? I’ve heard that Zack and Miri is similar to them. Would you agree, Svet?
November 10, 2008 at 2:39 pmit was kind of a apatow/waters cross-over.
i liked it waaaaaaaaaay better than “knocked up”.
I thought 40 Yr Old Virign and Knocked Up had some funny moments, but overall were pretty standard issue mainstream comedy fare. Watchable but not memorable. I thought Fun with Dick and Jane was not funny at all. I thought Superbad was very funny. I have not seen Pineapple Express yet.
November 10, 2008 at 3:21 pmi agree with you on superbad, but i think michael cera may have pigeonholed himself and he’s becoming typecast.
November 10, 2008 at 3:35 pmI agree with all the levels of funny you mentioned re:apatow movies.
and I am telling you this is REALLY, REALLY FUNNY.
yeah, but you also thought Kicking and Screaming (1995) is REALLY, REALLY FUNNY.
;-)
November 10, 2008 at 4:41 pmRe: Cera
If it ain’t broke…
November 10, 2008 at 4:42 pmI am contemplating on writing a big “Kicking and Screaming” essay to explain all its merits (many of which extend past its first 20 minutes).
November 10, 2008 at 7:07 pmSounds like Noah Baumbach is a tad highbrow for this crowd. School ‘em, Svetlana!
November 10, 2008 at 10:14 pmMax: Is that a pajama top?
Otis: No…(incredulous)
Otis: Yes.
Grover: Oh, I’ve been to Prague. Well, I haven’t “been to Prague” been to Prague, but I know that thing, that, “Stop shaving your armpits, read the Unbearable Lightness of Being, date a sculptor, now I know how bad American coffee is thing…”
Jane: They have good beer there.
Grover: “… now I know how bad American beer is thing.”
DEFINITELY writing the essay.
with subcontent about “mr. jealousy” too.
Well, Apatow has pretty much admitted to ripping of Kevin Smith flicks (with far better writing). Smith basically made one great film (Clerks), and then wrote a bunch of sex and fart jokes for the rest of his career. Oh yeah, and some Dogma self-righteous preachy crap.
I wish comedy writers would learn that characters don’t need to be complete idiots just to be funny.
November 21, 2008 at 2:34 pm
Wait, if I didn’t think Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back were funny at all and not in a “oh everyone loves Kevin Smith so I’ll be cool by not liking him” sort of way, but a “I’ve tried since 1994 to understand what all the fuss was about but just saw a pretty cool/nice guy making mediocre movies and trying way too hard to be weirder than he actually is” kinda of way, will I still like it?
November 10, 2008 at 11:56 am