Zack and Miri Make A Porno

In the immortal words of that elderly couple who sat behind Kevin in Reno 911: Miami (7 Beards): "What is this a pooooorrrrrnnnnooooo?!" No, but seriously, this movie isn't ACTUALLY a porno. Although, my mom think it is if she ever actually watched it, but I'll go to great lengths to make sure that never happens. In a lot of ways Zack and Miri Make A Porno may look like a porno, it's really about the making of a porno. When this is over can I get someone to count how many times I say 'porno' in this review?

The movie starts two of the new faces of comedy Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. They play lifelong friends who are living together platonically in the same town they grew up, working shit jobs, and struggling to pay bills that were due months ago. The plot's fairly simple, but it works because the humor of this movie is driven by basically one thing: that two best friends are trying to make a porno together because all their utilities are cut off and they're about to get evicted.  

What suprised me about this was how at the end of this movie, they stripped away the comedy and suddenly there was this resolution to a story that I had been unwittingly following. Basically, once I stopped laughing and settled down for two seconds, I realized that this movie actually had something going on. That something turned out to be pretty good. And, they also threw in just enough twists to take a rather tired story and make it interesting and endearing.

Who's gonna like this movie? Well let me ask you a few questions:

Do you like Seth Rogen?

Do you like Kevin Smith movies?

Do you like porno titles that are sexy reimaginings of actual movie titles?

Do you like porno?

If you answered yes to any of those, then you're going to like this movie. If you answered yes to more then one, you're really going to like this movie. And, if you didn't answer yes to any of those questions then, well, you should probably go watch Brokeback Mountain again.

Zack and Miri Make A Porno gets 6 Beards.