NO SPOILERS HERE
Meggie and I just saw Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I will say this first: the way I know this is a good movie is because I enjoyed it the whole way through in the theater, I would easily go see it again (if someone wants to buy an outrageously overpriced ticket for me), and I will most definitely get it on DVD when it comes out.
So, the movie was good.
Right now, I have more criticism for Lisa Schwarzbaum’s (Entertainment Weekly) review of the movie. If I could make a character judgement of Lisa using just three words, it would be “stuck up bitch.”
Meggie always says (jeez, that makes me sound like Forrest Gump) that most movie critics are just bitter people who like to tear up movies because they couldn’t make it as a star/writer/director/fluffer themselves. (And no, I am not bitter that I am not a movie critic.)
Lisa Schwarzbaum’s entire review can be found here. What I want to do is sort through some of her criticisms and explore why she is probably a lonely, self-hating woman who constantly wonders why she can’t find a man (or a woman, not that that is a bad thing):
Before I even read the full review, I immediately realized Lisa Schwarzbaum is likely a bitter woman. Her title says it all:
*Review: ‘Zack and Miri’ is stupid and sophomoric*
Something in this review title told me Lisa Schwarzbaum probably thought Sideways was “A Brilliant Triumph.” I’m not saying that I thought Sideways was was a piece of pretentious crap (I thought it was a piece of pretentious crap), but it seems like the kind of movie Lisa would drag a blind date to see and then wonder why he left to go to the bathroom and never came back while she was in the middle of praising how groundbreaking it is (Sideways not her ability to get a date).
I disagree that the film is “stupid.” It is not a thinking piece, for sure, but it is not stupid. And “sophomoric?” Of course it’s sophomoric. It’s a Kevin Smith film. Kevin Smith writes movies laced with the f-word and dick jokes because Kevin Smith knows that this is what his fans want to see.
The dilemma facing Zack and Miri is that the two roommates, friends since 1st grade (not high school, did you watch the movie Lisa?) are broke, don’t make too much money, and are on the verge of being evicted after their utilities are shut off.
Lisa writes:
The Zack-and-Miri version of thinking big? Maybe homemade porn will pay the bills. (Zack the java monkey’s minimum-wage job at a Starbucks knockoff would make presidential candidates weep with election-season empathy.) The pair even volunteer their own services, willing to “do” sex on screen if that’s what it takes to get the electricity turned back on.
First of all, why do you quote “do” in that? Is it because at some point in the film “do” is substituted for sex? With a fan base of 20 and 30-something aged fans, Kevin Smith probably recognizes that most of the viewers will wax nostalgic for the days when Beavis and Butthead looked at a blond bimbo and proclaimed they would “do her.” It’s not such a bad thing, Lisa. It’s just funny.
Also, you seem to look down on the main characters’ “version of thinking big.” It’s a comedy about making a porno. Maybe they would have had a different “version of thinking big” if the movie was called “Zack and Miri Make an Investment” or “Zack and Miri Make a Cure for Cancer,” or “Zack and Miri Find Osama Bin Laden.”
Lisa writes:
And what the amateur filmmakers recapitulate in the porno embedded within “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” is the usual stuff of that proud son of New Jersey’s repertory, only with more giggling over boob jokes, gay jokes, mall jokes, panty jokes, and high-school-back-in-the-day jokes.
Again, with the underhanded comments. “The proud son of New Jersey?” And the kind of humor arsenal splattered through the film, including boob jokes, gay jokes and panty jokes? Whys is that bad? Those things are all comedy goldmines. And again: Kevin Smith film. When I want f-word laced jokes about retards, homosexuals, balls and masturbation (all the time, just an FYI), I pop Dogma, Chasing Amy or Mallrats into the DVD player.
Lisa then writes:
The simplistic message, however, is one any church pastor might give: Sex isn’t sexy without love, commitment, and fidelity. The established auteur who made “Clerks” (un and deux), “Mallrats,” and “Chasing Amy” may now be a 38-year-old husband and father who heads a successful production company, but he’s still got cheap advice for schlumpy twentysomething guys like Zack. (Zack’s notion of getting lucky at the reunion, FYI, is receiving some quickie manual stimulation from a bitter, married classmate who’s enraged because her husband is flirting across the crowded room.)
“[C]heap advice for schlumpy twentysomething guys like Zack?” I don’t think Kevin Smith set out to advise twentysomething guys on how to solve their financial dilemmas, Lisa. I think Kevin Smith wanted to make a funny movie about twentysomething guys (and gals). Speaking from a twentysomething guy’s point of view, I can tell you that WE ALL LIKE PORNO (for its erotic and comedic values). At some point, we have all fantasized, even if for just a minute, of being a porn star, and thought to ourselves, “Man, wouldn’t that be cool? To get paid to fuck?” Kevin Smith chose porn as the characters’ financial savior in this movie because it is the lowest common denominator of guy humor. Again, if Kevin Smith had other intentions besides making a COMEDY and was, as you say advising a certain age demographic, he would have made, “Zack and Miri Update Their Resumes” or “Zack and Miri Apply for a Master’s Program Scholarship.”
Lisa also takes a stab at Kevin Smith’s film making aptitude, which has obviously been a handicap for him for the past almost two decades:
A Smith production is always noisy, shambling, and liberally smutty on the outside while conservatively gooey on the inside (and always, proudly, a visual eyesore, as if compositional coherence signifies selling out to the Man).
Noisy? Yes. Shambling? Maybe. Liberally smutty on the outside while conservatively gooey on the inside? Absolutely. Once again: Kevin Smith film. But she takes a stab at the man’s “compositional coherence” as if he dreads “selling out to the Man.” I don’t think that’s it at all. Kevin Smith’s “compositional coherence” is fantastic. He has a model that works, and it has worked just fine since making his cult-classic Clerks and followup, Mallrats, with HUGE budget constraints.
Lisa Schwarzbaum, shut up.
If, for some reason, you read Lisa Schwarzbaum’s review and were swayed from seeing the movie, think again. Zack and Miri, like all of Smith’s other films, works because it speaks to the viewers on a human level. People don’t live grand, special effects-laden lives with “compositional coherence.” People live lives that are often crude, sophomoric and awkward. That is why I plan to see the next Kevin Smith movie, regardless of what Ms. Schwarzbaum says.
- David C. Garcia, film critic critic