Zack and Miri Make a Porno

When I watched Zack and Miri Make a Porno, and I saw the title characters at their 10th high school reunion, and I thought that must've been exactly what my 10th high school reunion was like . . .  had I gone.  A bunch of 28 year-olds that haven't drunk together since July 1997, standing around those big plastic wedding tables set-up in a high school cafeteria, consuming the output of an open bar and listening to "Sex and Candy".

Well, the bar probably wasn't open.


I missed my high school reunion.  Not because I was all oooh, I am totally nervous that I won't impress but because I had better things to do that night and didn't really feel like spending the $160 for me and my wife.  Plus, everyday on facebook is like a high school reunion and reminds me that if I wanted to keep in touch with a lot of these people, I probably would have.  In fact, most of my favorite people from Merrill F. West High School (BTW, if you click on this link,  you are likely to see two people kissing a horse . . . it's the school's homepage) were in the class before and the class after me.  I mean, the class of 98 was all hotties, and the class of 96 was all the partiers.  Most (not all but most) of the class of 97 was pretty square.

But I digress.  The real question that surrounds this movie is where the hell has Jeff Anderson been hiding?  The guy plays Randall in Clerks and then disappears??  Where was his buddy Tubby Smith through all that time.

Also, I think that Seth Rogen being like 20 years younger than Tubby is proof that God just wants to mess with Tubby.  It has been like 15 years since Clerks, and it took until Zack and Miri Make a Porno for Tubby to find an actor who knows how to effectively deliver his overly-verbose yet crude and coarse dialogue in a believeable fashion.  Seth Rogen is Tubby's muse.

Speaking of Tubby's muses: Jason Mewes (get it?) appears in a non-Jay role as a guy who can get a boner really quickly and it stands straight up.  We see his flaccid wing wang in the last scene, which reminds me a lot of Boogie Nights, although not quite as long (both duration and measurement). 

 I'd like to take a moment to gush a little over Elizabeth Banks, who plays Miri in ZAMMAP. 

I'm not in love with her because she's not really my type (I'm married, I can afford to have a type), but I think she is fabulous.  She played Laura Bush totally straight, she affected a decent Pittsburgh area accent in ZAMMAP, and she played the gay guys' ultra-drunk friend in Modern Family.  This girl is versatile and cute and fabulous and I wish her all the luck in the world.  Merry Streep luck.  Or at least Jessie Lange luck.  Or, at the very very least, Kimmy Basinger luck.  Lizzie Banks is reason enough to watch this movie a few times.



The flick started strong, started funny and recalled what it used to be like to see one of Tubby's movies back when using the F-word 219 times was relevant (the narrative film that has the record is Nil By Mouth (1997) which drops the bomb 470 times.  For Tubby's movies, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is his personal record holder, which uses F dash dash dash 248 times).

ZAMMAP turns into a conventional love story, something that Tubby has a difficult time avoiding because his writing is based solely on the decade that he spent watching John Hughes' films, which is enjoyable enough despite its predictability.  I'll just break it down for you like this: if you have a romantic comedy where the two main characters are a man and a woman, single, best friends, and not gay -- they're going to end up together.  Hell, in Tubby Smith's universe, even the gay women end up with dudes. (see Chasing Amy)



In other news, I had a few more ideas for film fests:

1. Jeff Bridges vs Kurt Russell Grudge match (can anyone say Captain Ron vs. The Big Lebowski)
2. Slacker Fest (Requiem for a Dream, Mallrats, Reality Bites)
3. Movies that feature the internet as a main character (The Net, The Matrix, Suicide Club)
4. Movies starring women who have gotten down with Brad Pitt (Seven, Picture Perfect, Cape Fear)
5. Fat guy gets hot chick movies (pretty much anything with Seth Rogen or produced by Judd Apatow)

Also, you guys have been failing me on Tiffany Brissette news.  Don't make me come through this computer and show you how to ask on Facebook.  Do I need to make a phone tree?