Archive for the ‘Zack and Miri Make a Porno’ Category
Elizabeth has 2 movies being released on DVD in February. “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” will be released on DVD on February 3rd. “W.” will be released on DVD on February 10th. You can click the links below to pre-order both movies from Amazon:
Elizabeth Banks talks to Premiere about why ‘Zack and Miri’ could be a blueprint for how to get out of today’s economic crisis — or at least take your mind off of it for a while.
Elizabeth Banks is probably best known for her role as the showerhead-loving bookstore clerk Beth in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, and her turn as Zach Braff’s girlfriend in Scrubs. In each of those roles, the 34-year-old Banks exhibited an open-hearted charm and a sly intelligence that belied the goofy-blonde stereotype of her characters, stealing every scene she was in. But rather than a one-trick comedic actress, Banks has proved real diversity in her roles; once you knew who she was, it turned out that she was everywhere — from the Spider-Man films to Seabiscuit to Slither. This month alone has given us two very different Bankses: first up, she channeled Laura Bush in Oliver Stone’s W., and this week, she returns to comedy (and sex) with her starring role in Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno, in which Banks and Seth Rogen play roommates who decide to cast, direct, and act in a porn to raise money. The film has already earned buzz for its raciness, Smith’s fights with the MPAA for an R rating, censoring of the posters in the U.S., and more (like an ongoing joke about a fecal mishap and a view of Jason Mewes’ goodies and well-groomed pubic hair ) — but it’s also a sweet rom-com about two roommates falling in love. On the eve of its release, Banks talked to Premiere about her affinity for Seth Rogen, playing Laura Bush, and her descent, in her next role, into evil.
Zack and Miri is about two roommates who make a porno in an attempt to escape their debt. Is this the ultimate recession film?
It’s a blueprint for how to get out of the economic crisis.
So it’s a service film.
It really is. We’re doing a solid for the American people. More than anything, I think, though, we’re supplying an outlet for escape from the current craziness that’s happening right now. If you want to go to the movies and laugh, this is your movie.
It does seem your economic plan involves sharing a camera with Seth Rogen — I heard he suggested you for the part of Miri.
He did, yeah, thank you.
This is the second time you two have played a couple onscreen — your characters ended up together at the end of 40-Year-Old Virgin — or the third if you count “I’m Fucking Seth Rogen,” the viral video you two made in response to Sarah Silverman’s “I’m Fucking Matt Damon.”
Oh that’s right, the video! I really consider Seth my acting soul mate, we have incredible chemistry. I would love to work together again and again and again. It probably won’t happen, but a girl can dream.
Good news for Zack and Miri Make a Porno – check it out below!
Filmmaker Kevin Smith has won an appeal to lower the rating for his comedy “Zack and Miri Make a Porno” from an adults-only NC-17 to an R.
Motion Picture Association of America spokeswoman Elizabeth Kaltman said Tuesday the rating was revised after the group’s appeals board viewed the movie.
“We didn’t set out to make an NC-17 film. That’s just commercial suicide,” Smith told The Associated Press.
The NC-17 rating would have prohibited anyone younger than 17 from seeing it. With an R rating, those under 17 can see it in the company of an adult.
“Zack and Miri,” due out Oct. 31 from the Weinstein Co., stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as best friends and roommates who try to make a homemade porn flick to dig themselves out of debt.
Smith said the MPAA ratings board objected to two sex scenes involving co-stars Jason Mewes and Katie Morgan. After the movie’s initial NC-17 rating, Smith said he trimmed those scenes as far as he was willing to go but was unable to convince the board to lower the rating.
“They felt it was rather sexually graphic. My point is, it was comically graphic. All the sex in the movie with the exception of one scene is very cartoonish, very campy,” Smith said. “It wasn’t designed to titillate.”
The appeals board, a separate panel from the ratings board, viewed the movie Tuesday, and Smith presented his arguments. It was the third time Smith successfully talked his way down to a lower rating: His 1994 debut “Clerks” initially received an NC-17 rating that was reduced to an R on appeal, while his 2003 film “Jersey Girl” was reduced to PG-13 after first being rated R.
Smith said the title alone should be enough to caution audiences about the contents.
“Anybody not inclined to see a movie with `Porno’ in the title is not going to see it, so it kind of regulates itself to a degree,” Smith said. “And anybody who is going is not going to be surprised by what they see.”
From Associated Press
It’s no secret that director Kevin Smith has been having a rough time in getting an R-rating for his new comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Last month star Seth Rogen went on the record and said the MPAA was giving them trouble with some of the sex stuff in the film. Well now it’s not just rumoring, Zack and Miri has been officially hit with the NC-17 kiss of death.
It was the guys at Kevin’s own site NewsAskew who first uncovered it. A search on the MPPA’s official site lists Zack and Miri Make a Porno as “Rating: NC-17”. Reason for the rating? As expected, “Rated NC-17 for some graphic sexuality.” Gee, thanks MPAA. As if we couldn’t figure that out from the title. I’m sure people everywhere were planning to take their kids.
Though I think we’d all rather see the NC-17 cut and watch the movie as its director originally intended it to be seen, slapping any movie with an NC-17 spells box office doom. Not because people won’t show up to see it, but because most major theaters will refuse to carry it, thus taking away our right to choose whether or not we want it in front of our eyes. The really frustrating thing in this particular case is that if any filmmaker has the kind of audience necessary to blow up the stigma attached to an NC-17, it’s Kevin Smith. Heck, an NC-17 rating might even help his ticket sales… his crowd is going to be there money in hand regardless. Sadly if it’s not playing, they’re powerless to support it.
Don’t worry though, the fight’s not over for Kevin Smith’s Porno. Under the movie’s rating on the MPAA site, there’s a little note which reads: “Pending Appeal”. That means they’re fighting the rating, and there’s still reason to think this thing will eventually get the R it needs to show up in a theater near you. Of course who knows what sort of cuts Kevin will have to make to his film in order to achieve that. When the MPAA gets involved with what you’ll be allowed to see, there’s always a depressing chance that one of the casualties of their interference could be the movie’s funniest scene. I guess there’s always DVD.
From Cinema Blend
Elizabeth posted on blog the information about her appearing at Comic Con. Read it below:
The Zack & Miri Make A Porno chat with Kevin, me and Seth is Friday night at Comic-con. I think they are prepping a red-band trailer too!!! I’m so excited to share this one with audiences. Kevin, of course, will be a highlight at Comic-con as always. I mean, have you seen this:
To view: you can click the title above too (I have to write this for my mother-in-law, who might be one of only 9 people who ever read this blog).
If you’re going to Comic Con, have fun! 
Thanks to last summer’s double dose of “Knocked Up” and “Superbad,” combined with Judd Apatow-branded TV cult classics “Freaks and Geeks” and “Undeclared,” I could not be more in love with Seth Rogen. And being the tried-and-true Jersey Girl that I am, I am super stoked about the upcoming Kevin Smith film starring none other than Rogen himself (yes he does work on projects not involving Apatow) “Zach and Miri Make a Porno.”
The film sounds like Smith’s getting back to his roots of honest emotion and complete vulgarity as the plot centers on two broke best friends. The female lead played by Elizabeth Banks (shown with Rogen above), who teams up with Rogen to make a porno film for some quick cash, but end up falling for each other along the way.
While production wrapped back in March, the film has hit a new, and perhaps damaging, bump in the road – an NC-17 rating.
According to an MTV.com news interview with Rogen last week, the filmmakers are working with the MPAA to win an R rating (a standard for Kevin Smith films), but Rogen and Co. sound none too pleased with the process thus far.
This begs the question, is the NC-17 rating even relevant these days?
This past awards season, Academy Award winning director Ang Lee caused quite a stir with his NC-17 drama “Lust, Caution”. The film received mixed to poor reviews and seemed to fall quickly out of sight at theaters. For some unknown reason (har har), NC-17 ratings don’t exactly spell box office bonanza these days.
Remember that other much-talked-about NC-17 movie from a few years back, “The Brown Bunny?” Yeah, I didn’t think you would.
So the question remains: if the films aren’t going to be able to reach their targeted audience, or any audience for that matter, what’s the point? Fans love Smith, and Smith loves his fans, so while other directors claim they just want the best film possible, Smith on-the-edge films targeted to a young crowd only fit under that category marginally.
Here’s hoping Smith and crew can sweet talk the MPAA into an R rating before the scheduled October release and before taking too much out of the film.
From Sign On San Diego
Kevin Smith’s upcoming comedy Zack and Miri Make a Porno, with Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogen, may actually be a porno. No, seriously. The MPAA is trying to slap it with an NC-17 rating, meaning you’d have a tough time seeing it down at the megaplex.
So what’s in this thing that makes it so, like, porny? We asked Seth, and here’s what he said…
“It’s like a romantic comedy,” Rogen told us this week, at the press day for The Pineapple Express, which opens in August. “It’s a romantic relationship movie—with a lot of porn and balls.”
Wait, whose balls? “My balls are not in it,” he clarified.
Still, Smith is fighting for an R rating, as he did when Clerks first got slapped with an NC-17—simply for dirty language. “You can disembowel someone in a youth hostel in Romania, but you can’t show people having sex,” Rogen said. “I think it’s weird.”
If Zack and Miri does get an NC-17, Rogen thinks his hit flicks Knocked Up and Superbad should have, too.
“This is not anything outside of what we’ve done before,” he told us. “The word porno is in the title, and that kind of freaks people out.”
Well, that and the balls, maybe.
From E! Online
