Last night I went and saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Today I have a sinus headache. As a result I’m having trouble formulating all my different ideas about the film into one intelligent and coherent review. So here’s the basics…I really enjoyed the film. It was awesomely funny and also rather sweet. There are a few points where the sweet almost tips the scale into schmaltz territory but those moments are few and far between AND a great funny line always comes along to restore balance to the force. If you like Kevin Smith’s stuff you will love this film. If you don’t like Kevin Smith stuff you still might like this film. It’s a cute date movie. Go give it a try.
Here are some aborted attempts at introductory paragraphs and angry rants:
Many reviews of this film have spoken about the synergistic relationship between Kevin Smith and Judd Apatow. They mention how Kevin’s early films lead the way for Judd who in turn made the whole obscene/touching dynamic commercially viable with hits like The 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up. While all of this is true, it must be noted that before Kevin Smith...there was another. “Pope of Trash” John Waters has made a career out of films about a scrappy bands of outsiders and it is in that tradition which Zack and Miri Make a Porno finds itself firmly placed.
Kevin Smith’s films exist along a spectrum. At one extreme you have Chasing Amy and at the other you have Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Aside from a few shared characters and verbal rhythms, the films could not be further apart. One is a nuanced meditation on love and sex, while the other is a broad slapstick cartoon. Located precisely in the middle of these two poles, is Zack and Miri Make a Porno.
The following are excerpts from Lisa Schwarzbaum’s review of Zack and Miri Make a Porno for Entertainment Weekly:
“…a visual eyesore, as if compositional coherence signifies selling out to the man.”
“…an intimate scene that even bad cinematography can’t ruin…”
I seriously feel that Ms. Schwarzbaum was watching an entirely different film than the one I saw last night. Cinematographer David Klein, working in harmony with production designer Robert Holtzman, created a wonderful dirt-smeared palette which perfectly compliments the film’s ‘down on your luck’ vibe.
And as for accusations of shoddy composition? I do not see how this film is any worse compositionally than 90% of the dreck unspooling on screens every week. I’m not saying that it is Antonioni-esque or anything, but it is also extremely far from compositional incoherence.
I’d be interested to see how many film reviews by Ms. Schwarzbaum over the last 15 years have included the word “composition”. Something tells me not many, and the few that do are probably Kevin Smith movies.
I get that she didn’t like the film, but why does she have to rely on old "truisms" that are no longer true? Sure Kevin had less than stellar meis en scene when he started, but after working with the likes of Vilmos Zsigmond can you really still make such claims? It comes off as reaching.
Hopefully reading all of these disparate parts in quick succession will give some semblance of what I would have said in an actual review. Time for Advil.
Hee Hee. This is my 69th blog post.
Colin Luther Powell served as a National Security Advisor to Reagan, Chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Bush Sr. and acted as Secretary of State to Bush Jr. For most people, a resume like that would buy a lot of Republican street cred.
Many out there (close friends of mine included) like to dismiss Troma© as schlocky trash with absolutely no redeeming value. On one level they are correct. Troma© has released its’ share of “goat shit”, but when it comes to actual Lloyd Kaufman productions, you are in for a treat.
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