Cinemavenger

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Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Kevin "Heart Attack Man" Smith is a guy who knows what he likes. Here's the short list: comic books, movies, 90s music, underachievers, malls, weed jokes, fart jokes, podcasts, witty banter, and anal sex.

Your friendly, neighborhood Cinemavenger loves the absolute fuck out of Smith and his movies, so it was with much teeth-gnashing and clothes-rending that I had to take Hungry Man-sized dumps on a few of Bluntman's more recent flicks. It is thus with an equal amount of unrepentant joy and hetero-orgasmic bliss that I bestow upon Zack and Miri Make a Porno Cinemavenger's highest honor, a one-finger rating.

Arriving just after the midpoint of Smith's career to date, Zack and Miri Make a Porno is Smith at his Smithiest. Zack (Seth "Joe" Rogen) and Miri (Elizabeth "River" Banks) are underachievers working Clerks-style jobs, one of them at an actual mall. They're best buds who've known each other since childhood and now live together as roommates. Between the two of them, they barely have the pot to piss and can only dream of the window to throw it out.

Combine an accidental viral video of Miri in granny panties, a chance encounter with a gay porn star at Zack and Miri's 10 year high school reunion, and suddenly going from broke to Deep Core underwater, and you get the recipe for lifelong friends deciding to fuck on camera to avoid being the latest homeless folks on their block. But will fucking ruin their friendship?

Zack gets a buddy (Craig "Mrs." Robinson) to front the cash and play producer, another old pal (Jeff "Mr." Anderson, a Smith semi-regular going back to the very beginning) to be the cameraman, and a couple of actual porn stars to flesh out (ha!) the cast and crew, and they're off to the cum-covered races.

A fluffer's duffel of 90s music, fart jokes, witty banter, and anal sex later, the end credits roll, and you realize that Smith has delivered a dick-slappingly funny, genuinely engaging, heartfelt romantic comedy centered on amateur porn. And he's gifted pop culture with the shiny line, "Let us fuck."

Thank you, Kevin, you magnificent bastard! Zack and Miri Make a Porno is the gift that keeps on giving. It's like some sort of happy herpes.

July 17, 2020