Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Kevin Smith, 2008)

[Antoine Doinel]

"If they want to call the movie Zack and Miri, that's fine, but Zack and Miri cannot make a porno on my bus shelters."

[Cobz]

anyone have any idea of a UK release date?

[Antoine Doinel]

Utah doesn't like Zack and Miri.

[Tom Hagen]

Larry Miller is such a complete and total jerkoff. He pulled this nonsense with Brokeback Mountain back in 2005 and was roundly scoriated for it in light of the endless stream of violent, mindless slasher films that he had no problem showing in his muliplexes here.

However, unlike Brokeback, there is about zero chance that this film will be a source of national debate and discussion of any sort. It's a dick joke movie written and directed by Kevin Smith. All that Miller has really managed to accomplish with this stunt is to raise the profile of a movie that is likely to be forgettable in the first place. This type of counterproductive knee-jerk stunt is like something out of the McCain campaign.

[exte]

Stunt? From what I understand Utah is very conservative.

[domino harvey]

I'm sure Tom Hagen, being from Utah, knows full well

[swo17]

I can affirm that Hagen knows what he's talking about. Though more likely than it being a stunt, Larry Miller just seems kind of clueless to me. IIRC, the story around the Brokeback incident was that the film was actually scheduled to play in all of his theaters, with ads for it running in the papers and everything, but that something like the morning it was supposed to come out, he was being interviewed by a local radio program, and the guy asked him, "are you aware that this film your theaters are due to screen is rampant with explicit gay sex?" to which he said, "Wait, what? Well...not in my theaters." Of course he took a lot of flak at the time for, among other things, the fact that a little film called Hostel was allowed to play unchecked. But I'd actually be willing to bet that he is largely unaware of the things that go on in most R-rated movies today, outside of what his people tell him might be hot button issues. And so when someone told him about Brokeback Mountain, it was probably legitimately the first gay-themed film of which he'd heard, and when he hears about Hostel or Saw V, he probably genuinely has no idea of the level of depravity on display.

I find this very similar to the acts of other people who judge a movie without having seen it (like the recent protesters of Tropic Thunder or Blindness). The difference being that Larry Miller is in a position of power that enables him to make his foolishness much more public. Normally, I would be against this. But in this case, Larry Miller gets to feel good about himself, and a bunch of young folks get to not have to watch a Kevin Smith movie. Seems like a win-win to me.

[milk114]

How does it work if a theatre refuses to screen movies that they've already received the reels for? Don't they pay a deposit to the distribution company and have some sort of contractual obligation? I wonder if, perhaps, there's a way to not show a film, making oneself a moralistic hero yet somehow recoup or even make money by not showing it. Is there a financial gain/loss for Mr. Miller, beyond moralists choosing his theatres over others because he's not showing "filth" or do people not vote with their pocketbooks anymore?

[swo17]

This would have been deliciously ironic, if only it had happened in one of Larry Miller's theaters.

(Notably, his theaters are showing both of these movies though.)

EDIT: As pointed out to me below, this actually did happen in one of his theaters. Brilliant.

[Antoine Doinel]

Sorry guys, Elizabeth Banks keeps her clothes on.

[MichaelB]

How does it work if a theatre refuses to screen movies that they've already received the reels for? Don't they pay a deposit to the distribution company and have some sort of contractual obligation?

It's ages since I've worked in exhibition, and I was in the wrong country anyway, but when booking a film we'd agree to pay a so-called minimum guarantee - which the distributor would get regardless of whether or not we recouped the money at the box office.

I imagine if we'd been minded to take some kind of moralistic stance we could simply not have shown the film - the distributor probably wouldn't even have noticed, and would have been paid anyway.

On the other hand, if the distributor did find out, while they wouldn't be able to do much about that particular booking, they could make life difficult for the cinema when it comes to subsequent bookings, since this kind of behaviour would effectively ensure that the distributor received no more than the minimum, and the print might well have generated more income if booked elsewhere. So at the very least the distributor might insist on a larger minimum guarantee, and there are also more serious sanctions - I don't know how it works in the US, but in Britain a Society of Film Distributors blacklist is more or less the kiss of death for a cinema.

Even a boycott by a single distributor can wreak havoc on programming, as the Scala Cinema found out when Warner Bros refused to do business with them in the wake of the Clockwork Orange scandal - which, amongst other things, killed off their lucrative Mad Max trilogy plus Blade Runner all-nighters.

[domino harvey]

Sorry guys, Elizabeth Banks keeps her clothes on.

I don't know what's worse: that Kevin Smith had the opportunity and passed or that Elizabeth Banks was willing to get naked for a Kevin Smith movie

[tavernier]

The good news is that there's no Seth Rogen nudity either, which is a great trade-off.

[rs98762001]

Although, according to the Village Voice's review, there is a Jason Mewes full frontal. As if anyone needed another reason to avoid this film.

[tavernier]

Armond's almost unreadable review of this and HSM3.

Favorite line:

Kevin Smith would spell “art” with a capital “F.”

Funny, I always thought that's how Armond spells it.

[Tom Hagen]

Everyone can rest easy now: the local arthouse has come through for the citizens of Utah.

Also, I notice that the TV ads for this movie have dropped "Make a Porno" from the title, leaving us with the far more innocuous Zack and Miri. Sounds like the title of a Rob Reiner film.

[nsps]

This would have been deliciously ironic, if only it had happened in one of Larry Miller's theaters.

(Notably, his theaters are showing both of these movies though.)

Psssst! Brent! The District IS a Larry Miller Megaplex theater, so, in fact, it was deliciously ironic. I now feel I will have to update my blog post to include this story, but am quite lazy, so I probably won't.

swo17's recollection of the Brokeback incident is correct—by waiting until the last minute, Miller left Focus in the lurch and made the whole incident feel much more like a stunt.

Tom, the "Make a Porno" has only been dropped from the title for outlets where the ads wouldn't be accepted anyway. (Although there was a story about how NBC ran the abbreviated Monday Night Football spot on SNL by mistake.)

[swo17]

The District IS a Larry Miller Megaplex theater, so, in fact, it was deliciously ironic.

My mistake. I thought he only owned Jordan Commons and the Gateway. So why isn't Jay Leno making jokes about this?

[domino harvey]

I'm not sure Jay Leno's audience of everyone's grandparents knows who Kevin Smith is

[Antoine Doinel]

He was on the show two weeks ago.

[domino harvey]

If you think the elderly retain information from two weeks ago, your argument holds up

[swo17]

Well, there was the whole matter of his regular segments on the Tonight Show.*

*This post should not be construed as an endorsement of either Kevin Smith or Jay Leno.

[domino harvey]

I guess I should have figured that Leno and Smith share a comic sensibility (or lack thereof)

[Antoine Doinel]

Well, Kevin Smith's headlines are always unintentionally funny.

[swo17]

I guess I didn't really mean to bring Jay Leno into this. My point was that it's very rare that something this funny actually happens--a guy banishes one "sex" film from his theaters, and within a few days of this, accidentally shows a theater full of children another one (one with "sex" actually in the title, and which apparently had opening credit bush, as I understand). This guy should be laughed out of the village as far as I'm concerned.