Today in Porn, Kevin Smith Edition

The NYT is not overly impressed with Zack and Miri Make a Porno:

“Mr. Smith tries, with mixed results, both to rub our faces in the tawdriness and to erase it altogether. The movie wants to insist that pornography is a jolly, innocuous pursuit, but also to take refuge in a sincere, romantic traditionalism that is antithetical to the cynical, often playful sexual ethos of pornography. Mr. Smith is intent on making a love story, which is almost by definition the opposite of the kind of movie Zack and Miri set out to produce.”

Ah, the often playful sexual ethos of pornography… Still:

“The gauzy sweetness that envelops the end of the movie is not unwelcome, but not very convincing either. The ‘porno’ remains unfinished, and so does ‘Zack and Miri,’ having — like most pornography, interestingly enough — thrown away an imaginative premise to get down to predictable, mechanical business. It’s as if Mr. Smith were a plumber who knocked at your door and then, against all reasonable expectations, insisted on fixing the sink.”

Godsbody suspects that Apatow would have found a way to have the couple repudiate their porny ways – “Dammit, why does it feel like this jolly, innocuous pursuit is supposed to mean something?” – but without giving up the funny. It rather sounds like Smith is trying to have his cake and eat it too.

Comments

  1. notrelatedtoted says

    How about a little policitcal commentary?

    Bruce is gambling to raise cash to save his fly-by-night mortgage brokerage firm.

    As the zombies close in….cut to scene of said mortgage brokerage firm staffed by zombies! And Bruce is the zombie ceo!

  2. notrelatedtoted says

    Woops….this was supposed to go in the one about your zombie flick.

  3. While this was being filmed, Smith’s daughter was enrolled in my nephew’s class at his school in Pittsburgh. My sister got to spend time with the Smiths, whom she describes as “fun as you would expect.” However, she never could tell her then nine-year-old son what the movie was about or even called. Not quite the same thing as one of his classmates in the early years of school there whose father created and directed Saved by the Bell. Porn of a different sort, but one you could discuss with the kids.

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