A swing and a miss...

At some point, the train carrying my friends left me at the Kevin Smith station. In high school we would sit around and watch Clerks, Mallrats and eventually Chasing Amy our senior year. I remember watching the latter at a friends house and losing my mind laughing. The material was so edgy and out there for 1997, and to a small-city Midwestern boy who had little to no contact with the gay community at the time, it was eye opening. Of course, Smith's exploits into the inner workings of gay versus straight life are comic book exaggerated (a stretch, I know), and need to be somewhat tempered.

I've held on. Dogma had a great concept, good dialogue but poor acting for the most part. Some scenes were brilliant, some were flat out ridiculous. I held on through Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which does not stand up. It still has a small place in my heart, but it's dwindling. I liked where Smith and crew went with Jersey Girl, but Bennifer (remember that??) and the Gigli effect killed it. It was too precious for Smith anyway.

Clerks 2 made me believe again. I was quite pleased and that movie tugged on the heartstrings. It was 95% nostalgia, but it was a great ride. This takes me to his latest effort, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I'll admit I had high expectations like most people I knew.

It has probably one of the hottest comic stars right now in Seth Rogan, along with some wise casting to fill the roles around him. He was brilliant in The 40 Year Old Virgin, believable in Knocked Up and just mediocre in Superbad. I am yet to see Pineapple Express. Sadly, he didn't wow me much in this movie. Smith's leading man formula and Rogan's improvisational magic he has been known to weave on stage did not mesh.

Yes, that's right, I don't really like this movie at all. I laughed in parts the first time through, but mostly at my wife's reactions to all the raunch because she's not a huge fan of it. She's coming around the more I infect her, so to speak.

I took in my second viewing tonight, and I didn't laugh once. Even the infamous "frosting" scene didn't do anything for me. It just feels like too much of a rip off. Smith and his merry band of movie makers seemed to pride themselves on using "their cast." Now, the cast just seems like it's out on loan between Judd Apatow hits. It feels fake. And wrong. Smith was on the cusp with Affleck, Jason Lee and Joey Lauren Adams. They became stars after playing roles in a few a Smith's films. Now it seems like he's playing catch up with people that don't seem too interested in making his writing pop like it used to.

Watching Smith try and shove a square peg through a round hole is painful. It's painful to write this. Most of his movies are treasures among my DVD and Bluray collection. Jesus, I listen to SModcast while falling asleep nearly every night. I'm a fan. Still. But I just can't fake it with this movie. He's trying way to hard to get over his "30 million dollar hump" with this one.

The only character that salvages this movie in any respect for me is Elisabeth Banks. She is the one person who made the lines, the character and her story come alive. While everyone else was dying onscreen, Banks showed me that she should be one of the better actresses in Hollywood right now. She made me believe, watching Darryl and Mooj argue near the beginning of the movie while Cal jumped in and out of the conversation almost made me cringe. I was watching The 40 Year Old Virgin and The Office. It was horrible.

Smith and some of the reviews tried to prop up the movie because of it's heart and love story. It just felt so goddamned empty to me. It didn't get it's dull hooks in me at all. The love scene between Zack and Miri seemed off putting, the climax at the end fell way short and like I've said, the acting was lost in translation from Smith's script.

The movie swung for the fences on the shock value in going for a very hard 'R' rating and whiffed. Big time. It seemed like he was doing it just for the sake of doing it. None of it felt believable. Not even close. Tonight made me sad, upset and a little disappointed. As much as you can put emotions like that into a movie anyway. But I did feel compelled enough to write about it.

I'm sure I'll give it a few more shots. Who knows, it could grow on me. It just doesn't seem that likely at this point. It's hard to imagine the Weinsteins continuing to budget Smith and uber-producer Scott Mosier after this one. It should have been huge as far as the money it should have made. I think they've passed on his next project, a horror film tentatively titled "Red State." Even the name is too late in regards to it's other meaning. Smith, once a progressive writer, seems to be a reactionary now. I'm approaching 29 in the next ten days. It looks like "my movies" from my teens and twenties are going to stay in that era and not board the next train with me.