Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)

	Also Known As: -
	Year of first release: 2008
	Director: Kevin Smith (Clerks 1-2, Tusk)
	Actors: Seth Rogen (Knocked Up, The Green Hornet, Paul), Elizabeth Banks (Man on a Ledge), Craig Robinson, Justin Long (Jeepers Crepeers, Tusk), Jeff Anderson (Clerks 1-2)
	Country: USA
	Genre: Comedy, Romance
	Conditions of visioning: 11.10.2017, VOD, 40" TV screen
Synopsis: Friends since High School and now roommates, Zack & Miri (Rogen & Banks) go beyond shame and self-respect and decide to produce a porno movie in order to pay their bills.
Review: This is what a Romantic Comedy looks like when you let Kevin Smith shoot it. That is crossing boundaries that Judd Apatow didn't approach in movies like Knocked Up for example (starring the same Seth Rogen by the way). Smith's dialogs are as crude and crispy as in his first movie Clerks or his most recent Yoga Hosers. And thanks to him, the untold love between Zack and Miri is not revealed by a well-chosen event that would trigger gags (like in the other romantic comedy Man Up to quote one of the few I know), but by the full-blown production of a movie for adults, from inspiration to finding a title (Oh the SF references!), casting and gathering a crew (with Anderson and Mewes from Clerks and any other movie with Jay and Silent Bob), location scouting, costumes and story, until the unabashed shooting scenes reminding of the Donkey one in Clerks 2. Unavoidably the Romance kicks in at some point (Smith manages to do that, just to show that he also can follow the rules of classic Cinema genres), via realistic reactions from the couple. On the other hand the movie seems a bit unrealistic on the ambition of the director: how does he plan on linking the various sex scenes ?!? Unfortunately the movie ended up a critic and public failure. I learnt some anecdotes about it when watching Smith's one man show Too Fat for 40, like the fact that it is not easy to market a movie with "Porno" in the title, a realization that made him change the title of his following movie from A Couple of Dicks (= nickname for Cops in that context) to Cop Out.
Rating: 6 /10