Written by John Shea
I am not such a person. I laughed my ass off.
In typical style for writer/director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy), he is not afraid to engage any topic in search of a laugh. He seems to consider nothing of limits and that has a lot to do with my long running appreciation of his work. Many critics have often put him down as immature or not sufficiently serious. Apparently since he got his start with a hit at Sundance he should settle down and do a lot of arty stuff and let go of the dick and fart jokes. Thankfully he has ignored this sort of condescention masquerading as advice.
My attitude on film is that nothing is sacred. No genre is better than another. Everything is fair game but a filmmaker does have to provoke a reaction from me. I don't even require it to be a pleasant reaction to praise the movie. I've dropped good reviews on plenty of films full of things I found unpleasant in some way. The only unforgivable sin for a film is boredom. Kevin Smith has never bored me.
The movie centers around titular characters Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks). They are roommates who have been best friends since grade school but romance has never been a consideration. Times are not so good for them though. They both work at a coffee house and aren't really making enough to cover their bills. Pretty soon their water and electric have been shut off and it's clear eviction is around the corner. Somehow they land on the idea of making a porno movie to earn enough cash to get out of debt. They convince a coworker to lend them cash to get started and pretty soon are casting parts.
Smith virtually always sets his movies in New Jersey and populates them with recurring characters. For the first time, neither of these is true. The movie is set in Pittsburgh and no characters from previous films appear. He does bring along regular actors Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes though.
Critics who are fond of picking on Smith's visual style are going to have to start letting go of that complaint. He's not Scorsese yet but his camera is off the sticks and fairly mobile these days. Even color and composition are pretty solid these days.
Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks have a very nice chemistry going. They do get the feel of long time friends down nicely. Rogen is particularly strong when it comes to delivering Smith's raunchy dialogue. He actually seems to relish it. A particularly great exchange takes place at their high school reunion when he discovers he's talking to the gay lover of one of his classmates. Rather than be uncomfortable, Zack dives right in and wallows in the conversation eventually declaring it the high point of his life. And that attitude is what tends to separate Smith's style of raunch from anyone else's. It isn't there because it's risque. It's there because he just loves that stuff. That attitude is infectious, getting even a crowd supposedly to sophisticated for this sort of thing to laugh hard.
And give him credit for writing a solid role for Banks. She could have easily been playing straight man to Rogen but she gets her own opportunities to be outrageous and funny too. And she has the comic chops to handle it just fine. Actually the whole cast does a great job, even the small parts and cameo style roles.
I will say that this isn't his best film. The third act leans too heavily on stereotypical romantic comedy conventions, making it fairly predictable. It doesn't stop being funny, it just stops being as original and creative as the first two acts. In another film, I'd smack it around a lot harder for this sort of thing. Here I don't feel I can complain too much as the rest of the film has been such a pleasure. It's essentially the difference between really good and great.
Tuesday, 21 October 2008 02:58
I saw this movie with an older upscale crowd. They didn't seem like a natural fit for the movie and yet they howled with laughter. They may only grudgingly admit it later but they were having fun. I suspect a lot of people will have a hard time admitting that they enjoyed a movie with porno in the title.I am not such a person. I laughed my ass off.In typical style for writer/director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy), he is not afraid to engage any topic in search of a laugh. He seems to consider nothing of limits and that has a lot to do with my long running appreciation of his work. Many critics have often put him down as immature or not sufficiently serious. Apparently since he got his start with a hit at Sundance he should settle down and do a lot of arty stuff and let go of the dick and fart jokes. Thankfully he has ignored this sort of condescention masquerading as advice.
My attitude on film is that nothing is sacred. No genre is better than another. Everything is fair game but a filmmaker does have to provoke a reaction from me. I don't even require it to be a pleasant reaction to praise the movie. I've dropped good reviews on plenty of films full of things I found unpleasant in some way. The only unforgivable sin for a film is boredom. Kevin Smith has never bored me.
The movie centers around titular characters Zack (Seth Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks). They are roommates who have been best friends since grade school but romance has never been a consideration. Times are not so good for them though. They both work at a coffee house and aren't really making enough to cover their bills. Pretty soon their water and electric have been shut off and it's clear eviction is around the corner. Somehow they land on the idea of making a porno movie to earn enough cash to get out of debt. They convince a coworker to lend them cash to get started and pretty soon are casting parts.
Smith virtually always sets his movies in New Jersey and populates them with recurring characters. For the first time, neither of these is true. The movie is set in Pittsburgh and no characters from previous films appear. He does bring along regular actors Jeff Anderson and Jason Mewes though.
Critics who are fond of picking on Smith's visual style are going to have to start letting go of that complaint. He's not Scorsese yet but his camera is off the sticks and fairly mobile these days. Even color and composition are pretty solid these days.
Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks have a very nice chemistry going. They do get the feel of long time friends down nicely. Rogen is particularly strong when it comes to delivering Smith's raunchy dialogue. He actually seems to relish it. A particularly great exchange takes place at their high school reunion when he discovers he's talking to the gay lover of one of his classmates. Rather than be uncomfortable, Zack dives right in and wallows in the conversation eventually declaring it the high point of his life. And that attitude is what tends to separate Smith's style of raunch from anyone else's. It isn't there because it's risque. It's there because he just loves that stuff. That attitude is infectious, getting even a crowd supposedly to sophisticated for this sort of thing to laugh hard.
And give him credit for writing a solid role for Banks. She could have easily been playing straight man to Rogen but she gets her own opportunities to be outrageous and funny too. And she has the comic chops to handle it just fine. Actually the whole cast does a great job, even the small parts and cameo style roles.
I will say that this isn't his best film. The third act leans too heavily on stereotypical romantic comedy conventions, making it fairly predictable. It doesn't stop being funny, it just stops being as original and creative as the first two acts. In another film, I'd smack it around a lot harder for this sort of thing. Here I don't feel I can complain too much as the rest of the film has been such a pleasure. It's essentially the difference between really good and great.
