Zack and Miri Make a Porno

Kevin Smith’s film follows two flatmates who cannot pay their bills and try shooting an adult feature, but its weight sits on the production: finding a crew, finding a room and keeping the shoot alive take far more screen time than anything they film. Smith later called it the story of how he made Clerks, as porn. The script was first set in Minnesota, where Mallrats was shot, and moved to Pittsburgh with a rewrite when the budget ran short. The Monroeville mall was chosen because Dawn of the Dead was shot there, and the hockey team in the film is the Monroeville Zombies. The part of Miri was written for Rosario Dawson. The obstacle was the title itself. The MPAA first gave it NC-17 and asked for a 14 frame shot to go; Smith appealed instead of cutting and won an R on 5 August 2008 with nothing taken out. About 15 newspapers refused the ads, Philadelphia kept the posters off its bus shelters, and the distributor fell back on a stick figure poster with no title. A good fit if you want the crude jokes hung on an amateur crew trying to finish a shoot. Not for anyone who finds the turn to straight romantic comedy in the second half inconsistent.