We rented “Zach and Miri Make a Porno” from Netflix this weekend. The premise is quite simple– long time friends and roommates Zach and Miri are broke, and decide to remedy the situation by filming a porno flick. Of course nothing really goes as planned, and things get weird between the two friends when the idea of having sex with each other and a bunch of strangers comes into play.
Overall I enjoyed the movie. Seth Rogen who plays the main character Zach, does a great job being the slightly irresponsible but good intentioned roommate. Elizabeth Banks play Miri, who kind of seems too sexy to have been living with Zach for the past decade. These main characters get developed well through witty dialogue. My biggest problem was that you could see where the plot was going every second of the film– no major surprises. Zach and Miri attend their high school reunion and meet a moderately successful gay porn star. Brandon St. Randy mixes Keanu Reeves good looks, Clint Eastwood’s scratchy voice, and a dash of old fashioned compassion in perfect proportion to create his almost-but-not-quite over-the-top performance. I kept waiting for him to appear later on in the movie, but was sorely disappointed. Oh, I guess I should have put “spoiler alert” before that last sentence.
I don’t know exactly how this type of compensation works, but someone should be paying Jason Mewes because they really just stole the his character of Jay from several movies (Clerks, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks 2, and so on) with the Lester character. He looked and sounded just like Jay, which really bothered me since all of the other characters seemed so original.
My favorite line of the movie was Zach telling Miri, “I don’t mean to alarm you… but I think I just jerked off Lester a little bit.”
See this movie if: you are a Seth Rogen fan and enjoy porn satire.
Don’t see this movie if: you are on a first date, want to watch a real porn movie, or want to be surprised by exciting plot twists.
And, while I’m thinking about comedy pornography, I think the best movie to see in this genre is “Orgazmo.” Written by South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Orgazmo details the transformation of Joe Young from a Jahova’s witness on his first mission to taking down an organized crime ring. A variety of jokes about Utah (Joe Young, “I’m not a superhero! I’m a Latter-Day Saint.”), fake boobs (“My doctor says now I have enough silicone in my body to kill a small elephant! Isn’t that cool?”), and even a surprisingly insightful debate by the porn stars about who gets degraded by pornography.
The movie might have seen a wider audience if it hadn’t gotten an “NC-17” rating. I don’t think it is any more or less graphic as “Zach and Miri,” which received and “R” rating. I suspect the people who rate movies just don’t like Matt Stone and Trey Parker. I’ve read that “Team America” and “South Park: The Movie” both orginally received NC-17 ratings. Which is interesting since one was made completely out of puppets and the other one was a cartoon.
So if you are only going to see one funny pornographic movie this summer, watch Orgazmo. If you are going to see more than one, also check out “Zach and Miri Make a Porno.”
I wrote a ranting lunatic type letter to Dish Network the other day just to make myself feel better. Basically I want to be able to make playlists of DVR television shows for my future children to watch based on their age. Then I want everyone to be able to share their playlists with the world through the Internet. Anyone, even Oprah, could make suggestions about programming to watch based on date of birth. From this I can see which shows are popular with parents whose children are the same age. Oh yeah, and when my kid turns on the TV, they have to enter their own password so they can only watch shows on their own playlist. I’ll switch over to which ever company can effectively set this up. So Dish, Echostar, Cable guys, and Tivo– get working on this ASAP– my first girl is due in December!
I put off talking about this topic because there seemed to be so much wedding stuff to blog about, but here is the official news: Katherine is pregnant and due to deliver in mid December. Here is our first ultrasound, taken May 6, 2009. I was going to scan this into my computer, but it was already quite blurry so I just used my cell phone camera.
I have no idea what is in the picture, but Katherine explained to me that the big dark blob is her womanly parts, the small gray blob inside that is the baby, and the pink object on the right is my thumb. At the time the ultrasound was taken it was roughly the size of a gummy bear, which is what led us to the nickname “Walter.”
No word yet on the gender. Everyone seems to have an opinion this topic, but I’ll just be happy if it comes out one or the other and not both. We should have more information on the boy/girl issue after our August appointment. We may even get a three dimensional ultrasound even though it is more expensive than the regular two dimensional version. Most of the extra cost involves hiring an artist to be present in the exam room during the procedure to create a clay model based on a compilation of various two dimensional views. Once the model is air dried it gets fired in a kiln after which time we can apply color glazes as we see fit. It will look great on the mantle above the fireplace.