- Alan Moore speaks to Wired about his antipathy for the Watchmen movie, this time adding antipathy for the superhero genre in general. It's been hard to refute any of Moore's arguments, particularly those the entertainment industry usually doesn't make (that spending $100 million on a film is pretty outrageous), but it's also sad that Zack Snyder and his crew have been so dedicated to doing right by his work and he still says "I'll be spitting venom on it." Sigh. He has some great thoughts on the advantages of comics as a form though, in relation to film and particularly CGI, which he feels is erasing our ability to imagine.
- on that note, CHUD's Devin Faraci and Hitfix's Drew McWeeny (formerly the invaluable Moriarty of AICN) review Watchmen. I'd link to negative reviews for balance, but the only official one yet released is from British tabloid rag News of the World. These guys are fans, but realistic ones, and they're ringing endorsements are very encouraging.
- lone holdout Michael Cera may well be signing on to the Arrested Development film, reports the reliable Kristin of E Online. I imagine the right offer was made at last... She also says that Ron Howard is directing, which goes against initial reports that creator Mitchell Hurwitz would be helming as his directorial debut. It's off-hand so may be a mistake, as I can't imagine Howard spending all that time on a small-budgeted TV adaptation, even if he loves it, especially since he never directed any of the episodes. We'll see....
- Michel Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) will direct The Green Hornet starring Seth Rogen and former director of the film Stephen Chow. Although Gondry hasn't managed a slam-dunk follow-up to Eternal Sunshine, he's a highly interesting director and Gondry directing a pseudo-superhero Seth Rogen film is a wonderfully deranged prospect.
- occasionally movie deals are announced that strip any remaining illusions you may have had about creative integrity in Hollywood: Gore Verbinski will direct a film version of Clue (aka Cluedo). Not only is it a film based on a board game, it is the SECOND film based on said board game. This comes a few months after the news that Ridley Scott was developing a Monopoly film. You couldn't make this stuff up. I've been underestimating the sheer power of brand recognition...
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
REVIEW - Zack and Miri Make a Porno
I’m of two minds about so-called ‘gross-out’ films. Part of me deplores them for reducing mainstream comedy to something reliant on shattering an endless series of glass ceilings of vulgarity, reaching the point where even the presence of a botched sex act or poorly targeted faeces is supposed to be funny by default, presented like some feckless museum exhibit. On the other hand, such films can be hugely entertaining in their liberation when there is some wit involved, and it’s tempting to defend these rare exceptions against critics who write them off entirely for the mere presence of such material, whether it is well-deployed or not.
Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno is such a film, with a title that almost baits critics into having preconceptions in order to upend them. However, Smith has not always employed vulgar comedy in the most successful way. Clerks II, a throwback effort that embodied Smith’s mid-career timidity, placed the characters from the micro-budgeted, conversational 1994 original into a slightly larger canvass where a performer having sex with a donkey and a supporting character masturbating to the sight was apparently seen by Smith as a natural development and emblematic of 30-something life. Although his trademark arcs of characters angsting their way into a better life were still present, the whole project stunk of desperation and narrow thinking, best exemplified by Smith casting his non-actor wife in a major role and having one character stop the film to recite a poorly-rationalised spiel about why the Lord of the Rings films sucked compared to Star Wars, a spiel virtually repeating verbatim Smith’s own public pronouncements on the matter. Jersey Girl, Smith’s first venture outside of the loosely-connected ‘Askewniverse’ and into a less cult mode was so savaged that he was incapable of just giving variety another shot via a different method. Hence Clerks II.
Thankfully, the tepid critical reaction to that film has galvanised the director into giving it another shot, albeit with one foot still in the warm bath. Signing Seth Rogen – who could have done any comedy he wanted after Knocked Up – was the first good sign, as was the news that this was not part of the Askew series. The result is a vulgar comedy with a surprisingly sweet and moralistic purpose, perhaps even Smith’s commentary that our culture’s sex-obsession may be wrong-headed despite his own many embodiments of it in his work.
Set once again in New Jersey, the film follows Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks), 20-something lifelong friends and housemates working small-time jobs and enjoying their convenient platonic relationship. When Zack’s impulsive spending brings them to the brink of destitution with a house lacking power and water, his meeting a gay porn star (Justin Long) at their high school reunion gives him a brainwave – they could earn money making their own porn film. While initially reluctant, Miri agrees, and they hesitantly decide to have sex on camera themselves, despite believing they have no interest in each other. They assemble a group of friends, strippers, and sexually talented ‘actors’ and begin filming.
As expected, Zack and Miri, endearingly played by Rogen and Banks, must confront their latent feelings for each other. Although a conventional plot arc, when inserted into a bizarre concept like amateur porn to make money rather than something hideously conventional, it somehow becomes fresh and even a little incisive. The film is sexually frank throughout, not holding back, and by running the gauntlet and showing sex at its most raw, Smith emerges with the question of ‘what about sex as intimacy rather than solely gratification?’ Why must these be apparently two separate concepts, with sexual love being depicted as almost boring in a media hellbent on titillation? By having the characters utterly at ease with sex as an entertaining, provocative, and constant conversation topic, Smith is able to raise the question without being accused of being sentimental and chaste. And even after the plot takes this turn, he still mines sex for its funny side so that the film is meaningful without being self-important.
This attitude is greatly assisted by Zack and Miri looking like a slick product. This is not shot in a pedestrian fashion with occasional amateurish acting, like Clerks II. The performances are charismatic and entertaining, the cinematography strong, helping Smith to shake his (self-confessed) reputation as a bland visual storyteller. He has cast well, with The Office’s Craig Robinson terrifically deadpan as Zack’s co-worker and reluctant money-man Delaney and Justin Long tremendous as an arrogant, overly dramatic porn star partnered with Brandon Routh, whose performance would do great things to overturn his squeaky-clean image as Superman if anyone actually remembered that he was in that film (I say that with sympathy for Routh. He’s fairly engaging and doesn’t deserve the embarrassment that the lack of major deals following the then-most expensive film ever and speculation about a never-gonna-happen sequel has caused him).
Having thought Smith would never again reach the heights of Chasing Amy, a film that excelled with the creative limitations of a low-budget, I’m relieved to see that there is hope for him to return as a major voice for youth in cinema. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is touching, tender, and hilarious, if you have a high tolerance for gross-out comedy. But please, Kevin, move on from Star Wars humour. It’s getting old.
Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno is such a film, with a title that almost baits critics into having preconceptions in order to upend them. However, Smith has not always employed vulgar comedy in the most successful way. Clerks II, a throwback effort that embodied Smith’s mid-career timidity, placed the characters from the micro-budgeted, conversational 1994 original into a slightly larger canvass where a performer having sex with a donkey and a supporting character masturbating to the sight was apparently seen by Smith as a natural development and emblematic of 30-something life. Although his trademark arcs of characters angsting their way into a better life were still present, the whole project stunk of desperation and narrow thinking, best exemplified by Smith casting his non-actor wife in a major role and having one character stop the film to recite a poorly-rationalised spiel about why the Lord of the Rings films sucked compared to Star Wars, a spiel virtually repeating verbatim Smith’s own public pronouncements on the matter. Jersey Girl, Smith’s first venture outside of the loosely-connected ‘Askewniverse’ and into a less cult mode was so savaged that he was incapable of just giving variety another shot via a different method. Hence Clerks II.
Thankfully, the tepid critical reaction to that film has galvanised the director into giving it another shot, albeit with one foot still in the warm bath. Signing Seth Rogen – who could have done any comedy he wanted after Knocked Up – was the first good sign, as was the news that this was not part of the Askew series. The result is a vulgar comedy with a surprisingly sweet and moralistic purpose, perhaps even Smith’s commentary that our culture’s sex-obsession may be wrong-headed despite his own many embodiments of it in his work.
Set once again in New Jersey, the film follows Zack (Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth Banks), 20-something lifelong friends and housemates working small-time jobs and enjoying their convenient platonic relationship. When Zack’s impulsive spending brings them to the brink of destitution with a house lacking power and water, his meeting a gay porn star (Justin Long) at their high school reunion gives him a brainwave – they could earn money making their own porn film. While initially reluctant, Miri agrees, and they hesitantly decide to have sex on camera themselves, despite believing they have no interest in each other. They assemble a group of friends, strippers, and sexually talented ‘actors’ and begin filming.
As expected, Zack and Miri, endearingly played by Rogen and Banks, must confront their latent feelings for each other. Although a conventional plot arc, when inserted into a bizarre concept like amateur porn to make money rather than something hideously conventional, it somehow becomes fresh and even a little incisive. The film is sexually frank throughout, not holding back, and by running the gauntlet and showing sex at its most raw, Smith emerges with the question of ‘what about sex as intimacy rather than solely gratification?’ Why must these be apparently two separate concepts, with sexual love being depicted as almost boring in a media hellbent on titillation? By having the characters utterly at ease with sex as an entertaining, provocative, and constant conversation topic, Smith is able to raise the question without being accused of being sentimental and chaste. And even after the plot takes this turn, he still mines sex for its funny side so that the film is meaningful without being self-important.
This attitude is greatly assisted by Zack and Miri looking like a slick product. This is not shot in a pedestrian fashion with occasional amateurish acting, like Clerks II. The performances are charismatic and entertaining, the cinematography strong, helping Smith to shake his (self-confessed) reputation as a bland visual storyteller. He has cast well, with The Office’s Craig Robinson terrifically deadpan as Zack’s co-worker and reluctant money-man Delaney and Justin Long tremendous as an arrogant, overly dramatic porn star partnered with Brandon Routh, whose performance would do great things to overturn his squeaky-clean image as Superman if anyone actually remembered that he was in that film (I say that with sympathy for Routh. He’s fairly engaging and doesn’t deserve the embarrassment that the lack of major deals following the then-most expensive film ever and speculation about a never-gonna-happen sequel has caused him).
Having thought Smith would never again reach the heights of Chasing Amy, a film that excelled with the creative limitations of a low-budget, I’m relieved to see that there is hope for him to return as a major voice for youth in cinema. Zack and Miri Make a Porno is touching, tender, and hilarious, if you have a high tolerance for gross-out comedy. But please, Kevin, move on from Star Wars humour. It’s getting old.
Dusting away the cobwebs
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Yes, my likely imaginary readers, Remote Wanderings has been updated. Your RSS feeds would be pinged once again if I hadn't abandoned you in the year Ought-Seven and you had rightly deleted me in outrage over my disappearance.
Nah, I'm a realist. But the blog is back, as what I hope will be one of a few venues for my not-unique brand of pop culture musing. There will be a little spring cleaning, and most importantly, new content when life isn't getting in the way as it is so fond of doing.
The imminent arrival of Watchmen on the movie scene and its potential to be one of the genre touchstones for our generation (he said with hopeful reservation and foolish hyperbole) has galvanised me to get Remote Wanderings happening again, as have a few new ideas for different kinds of movie coverage, old and new. More on those as we get to them.
We'll inaugurate proceedings with something classy: a review of Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Although long since out of US cinemas, its recent opening here in Australia has inspired me to write a few words in its favour, which you'll see above. The inevitable Watchmen review will, thankfully, be somewhat more timely.
So settle back, add or re-add RW to your RSS doohickey, and enjoy some ramblings of the filmic and televisual variety.
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