Pre-order “Zack & Miri Make a Porno”
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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.

What was it like working with actual porn stars?
It was pretty great. I was so happy to have professionals to take care of that business. They were so comfortable and into it. Katie Morgan especially — she’s so funny in the movie, she’s led a very interesting life, and I think she does a great job in the movie.

There’s already been a lot of controversy surrounding the film — over the word “porno” in the title in particular. There was a story about a kid asking his dad what a porno was after seeing an ad for the film. What did you think about that?
I want to know if that kid has seen stories about the Rwandan genocide and also asked his dad about the genocide. I think there are way things worse going on in our world than having to explain to your nine year old — who can already read! — what the word “porno” means, which is in the dictionary, and the kid could look it up.

Seth Rogen again plays the underachiever man-child in this film. What do you think about that kind of character in a romantic comedy?
I think the great thing about Kevin Smith is that he makes Zack and Miri equals in this movie. I mean, they’re both equally losers. [laughs] They’re both equally lovable, they’re both equally on a path, they’re both equally in love. He really found a way to make a romantic comedy that is truly funny and in the same vein as these sort of dirty bromances. But he put the romance back into it.

You and Rogen did this experimental Tony Kaye short film called This is Not Sex. Can you tell me a little about the idea behind that?
In all honesty, I’m not really a fan of that film. It was the product of a photo shoot, and they also used live-action cameras as well as photo cameras. We were doing a really interesting photo spread for Mean Magazine, and while we shot the photo spread they shot video and edited it together. So it was not anything particularly conscious that we did. We were there to do a photo spread. And we had no say in the actual video.

That explains a lot.
It does. It mostly explains why it’s not funny.

You also just did W., in which you played Laura Bush. That seems like such a different role for you. How did you get the part?
[laughs] You sound so surprised, like, how the hell did you get that job? I literally just went and met with Oliver. I think Oliver Stone is very instinctual with his casting choices, and I think he just thought I had an essence that he was looking for to be Laura Bush. And we had a great conversation about it, and I knew I could do it. I went to drama school, and playing Laura Bush is one of those roles that drama school particularly prepares you for. Because it’s all about the research and the external work — you know, you really work from the outside in, in that you really need to get the hair and the makeup and the jewelry and the clothes and the shoes all correct and on the money, and then while I was worrying about all that and making sure the wigs worked and making sure I had all that done, I was doing my research into who this woman really is. And then hopefully, you bring that into it to make a three dimensional character.

What research did you do?
I mined as much biographical material as I could get my hands on. I read biographies, I watched tons of video, I downloaded interviews that she’s given and listened to them on my iPod nonstop. I went to her homepage. The First Lady has a great homepage, it kind of updates you on what she does on a daily basis.

You could easily have been pigeonholed as the goofy blonde, but your roles have been pretty diverse. How have you kept it fresh?
I have no idea. It’s partially out of my control. I really don’t know — I’m just responding to the best material and the best directors I can work with, really. When Oliver Stone calls you up and says do you want to be in a movie, you say yes. When Kevin Smith says do you want to be in a movie, you say yes. They’re hugely iconic directors and they have unique voices, and you know it’s not going to be boring. Those are going to be great jobs.

You’re next doing a remake of a Korean horror film and a David O. Russell comedy — also very different projects.
Very different, but the David O. Russell movie [The H-Man Cometh] I think is not going to happen. It’s pretty much fallen apart.

Oh, no. Well, tell me about the horror film.
Yeah, Uninvited. I wanted to explore a darker side of myself. I play a potential serial killer — you’re not really sure who I am. But I am the evil stepmother, sort of in the vein of The Hand That Rocks the Cradle — the Rebecca De Mornay character. You’re not really sure what my motivation are, or what my past is. [pauses] I was just interested in playing evil.

From Premiere

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 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

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!

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

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

I’m in the camp that thinks the problem lies less in the MPAA’s attitudes toward “objectionable” content and more in the stigma placed on the NC-17. For a movie whose marketing campaign has consisted of cheerfully courting controversy — check out the hilarious teaser if you don’t believe me — it’s a bit disappointing that Zack and Miri doesn’t run with the harsher rating. The asinine restrictions on advertising that accompany the NC-17 stamp would be a bummer, but the blogs and magazines would go nuts, and I think the movie would do pretty well.

Do watch that teaser (which had MPAA issues of its own) if you haven’t already. Among other things, it will make you fall in love with Elizabeth Banks. Uh, if you haven’t already.

From Cinematical

I have been attending San Diego Comic Con for almost a decade. Organizations have tried to copy the success of the Con but with only mediocre success. San Diego Comic Con is the ultimate place to be if you are a fan of movies, TV shows and comic books.

First if you plan on attending, get your passes now if you haven’t already. Four day passes have already sold out and only individual days are available. If you still haven’t booked your hotel rooms, you are probably S.O.L. If you have one already, good for you.

So what can we expect come late July in the beautiful city of San Diego?

While the final schedule is yet to be determined and guests have not been locked down (and with the actors strike who knows who will be showing up), this what we have heard so far from various sources.

Warner Bros. will be featuring RocknRolla, Ninja Assassin, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Terminator: Salvation, Watchmen and Friday the 13th. Christian Bale, Zack Snyder and the cast of Watchmen, Jared Padalecki are rumored.

Paramount will have a Tropic Thunder screening. We have heard there might be something for G.I. Joe and Star Trek. No guests rumored.

The Weinstein Company will showcase Kevin Smith’s Zack and Miri Make a Porno and possibly premiere the highly anticipated film from Kyle Newman, Fanboys. Kevin Smith, Seth Rogen, Elizabeth Banks, Kyle Newman and Jaime King are rumored.

Lionsgate will only focus their attention on Frank Miller’s The Spirit and maybe show a little from their upcoming reboot Punisher: War Zone. Frank Miller, Jaime King, Eva Mendes, Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson are rumored.

20th Century Fox will have a little something from the City of Ember, Mirrors and the Day the Earth Stood Still. No word if X-Men Origins: Wolverine will have any presence. Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kiefer Sutherland, Amy Smart and Alexandre Aja rumored.

Sony/Screen Gems will have Quarantine, Underworld 3: the Rise of the Lycans and we have been hearing rumors about a little something from the Quantum of Solace. Rhona Mitra, Bill Nighy, Michael Sheen, Jennifer Carpenter, Chris Brown, Jay Hernandez rumored.

Universal will have Death Race. There is a good possibility of having Land of the Lost and Rob Cohen’s The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. Jason Statham, Paul W.S. Anderson, Rob Cohen, Brendan Fraser, Danny McBride, Will Ferrell rumored.

Summit will be bringing the cast of Twilight for a panel and autograph signing. Catherine Hardwicke, Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Cam Gigandet, Rachelle LaFevre, Edi Gathegi, Taylor Lautner and author Stephenie Meyer confirmed.

On the TV front NBC will be showcasing Heroes and Fear Itself. Plus, we are hearing Fox will be showing of a bit of J.J. Abrams’ Fringe. Complete cast of Heroes rumored. Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and J.J. Abrams rumored.

The only panel we can confirm 100% is on Thursday morning at 10:00am to 11:00am June 24th – The Masters of the Web panel with several popular websites in attendance including IESB, CHUD, Latino Review, Ain’t It Cool News, Movie Web, The Movie Blog, Dark Horizons, JoBlo, Cinematical and Bloody-Disgusting. The panel will be moderated by our good friends and super directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (The Game, Crank 2). Make sure you stop on by!

From IESB

Rogen and Banks star as Zack and Miri (respectively), two “broke friends who embrace their desperation by making their own X-rated tape to pay off their debts. In the process, they uncover romantic feelings for each other.” Beyond that, who knows what other shenanigans will take place in Smith’s comedy. Also co-starring are (of course) Jason Mewes, Jeff Anderson, Tom Savini, and even Traci Lords.

USA Today does bring up a very interesting point about the title, but Smith himself isn’t too worried, saying “we’re just hoping that by the time the movie comes out, if the marketing people do their jobs right, it’s a word that people will kind of get over.”

On the other hand, Jeff Block, an “analyst with movie tracking firm Exhibitor Relations” praises it, saying “It’s one of the best titles of the year. It sells the film for exactly what it is.” He goes on to explain that Smith has a dependable fan base and that “They’ll follow him anywhere. I don’t think anything is too risqué for Kevin Smith fans.”

Without much to go on besides a simple story explanation and perfect cast, this is already near the top of my list of highly anticipated movies for this year. I’m thinking, like Superbad, it’ll hit on all the perfect “sex comedy” notes yet still remain a true Kevin Smith film, and that I truly can’t wait for.

“What’s weird about it is, it’s dirty. But it’s so incredibly sweet,” Smith says, noting that Porno will be rated R (obviously, there’s no actual porn in it). Banks says grown-ups are mature enough for immature jokes. “These kinds of comedies, these sweet and sexy comedies, have all started to push the envelope. This movie takes it even further, that’s definitely true. But if you’re over 15 years old … you know what sex is, and in comedy you’re always trying to find those taboos that you can break for a laugh. Sex in America is a huge one.”

But don’t be worried, Seth Rogen confirms that they “are going too far…” and that the “first thing people should think is: ‘Are they allowed to do that?’” Awesome, I can’t wait to see the family besides me run out in horror when they “accidentally” took their kid to see this sweet comedy.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno is both written and directed by Kevin Smith (Clerks, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back). It doesn’t have a release date yet, but is expect to be out sometime by the end of the year from The Weinstein Company.

From First Showing

Now, in what appears to be a viral marketing effect for Kevin Smith’s new movie Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Kevin Smith, Elizabeth Banks and Seth Rogan have created a parody video with a couple laughs you haven’t already had. Most noticeable, the last scene with Kevin Smith and M. Night Shyamalan’s director credit.

Jason Mewes and ex-porn-star Traci Lords make brief appearances.

Watch Elizabeth Banks is Fucking Seth Rogan:

Or view it at Youtube

Article from D Theatre