"Zack and Miri Make a Porno"

[Ralph]

Posters for this film proclaim that it's too "titillating" to list more than the title and, in fact, explicit ads have been rejected in a number of places. In fact, this movie uses frontal nudity and unrestrained dialogue about sex to basically tell a very conventional love story.

Zack is a slacker working for an Indian (ethnicity exagerrated) who owns a Starbucks-type coffee shop. His roommate is Miri, short for Miriam. They've known each other since the first grade and are now very close friends but not "with benefits" as the young put it these days. Miri has some kind of job, never really explained. What they lack is enough money to pay their basic living costs and their power and water are shut off while they face imminent eviction.

Then Zack gets the idea for a get rich quick scheme - making a porno. Much of the story then follows how they recruit a cast and begin, despite misadventures, shooting. Zack and Miri agree they will have sex with each other in front of the camera but not with the other "stars."

It's not to hard to imagine how this tale develops. Seth Rogen is an admirable slacker and Elizabeth Banks is a sexually free woman who never stopped to think about love and a real relationship. For authenticity they even have porno star Traci Lord, woman of a thousand (or more) "money shots," as Bubbles, their lead actress.

Banks is fun to watch and she puts lots of energy into Miri, much more than was called for as the basically colorless Laura Bush in Oliver Stone's "W."

The movie theater last weekend was crowded, mostly with young couples, teens really, who clearly enjoyed the sexual banter. But if anyone was actually aroused by "Zack and Miri Make a Porno" they have a real problem.

Don't leave until the credits have fully run.