Filth, nudity and heart

Porn. It’s out there. You’ve probably seen some of it. As college students, you might have even been in some of it. But have you ever made your own? Kevin Smith has. Well, not exactly.

What Kevin Smith has done is make a movie about other people making a porno. A movie that is so outrageous it was originally given an NC-17 rating and had to file an appeal to get down to an R. A movie that is so filthy, the theatrical poster was banned in America and replaced with a drawing of two stick figures with a camera.

Smith has taken the best parts of his own movies (“Clerks,” “Mallrats” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”) and combined them with the best of the Judd Apatow films to create the next great gross-out comedy. Sick, sexy, and sentimental, “Zack and Miri” provides laughs that don’t quit along with a surprisingly heartfelt story.

“Zach and Miri” stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as BFFs rooming together in an apartment that is falling apart while landlords and bill collectors loom to take it all away.

After meeting a gay porn star (Justin Long) at their high school reunion, Zach decides that the only way to come up with the money for the bills and keep a roof over their head is to make their own porn film.

So after recruiting a camera man (Jeff Anderson), some co-stars (Traci Lords and Jason Mews) and a producer (Craig Robinson), they set off to make their movie, determined not to let things “get weird” after they’ve had sex. And of course, they do.
It’s a great movie, with an unexpectedly nuanced and heartfelt story buried under the boner jokes and nudity. But of course, that’s what audiences have come to expect from Kevin Smith.

With an amazing cast from both Smith’s own movies and the more recent Apatow hits, Smith has made a standout film for a demographic becoming increasingly jaded by lackluster films attempting to be the next “Superbad” or “Anchorman” (I’m looking at you, “Pineapple Express” and “Step Brothers”).

Where those movies fell, “Zach and Miri” stands strong– for those with the stomach to handle it.