Zack and Miri Make a Porno

I think I know why director Kevin Smith doesn't have a day job. If his character's work ethics are even vaguely similar to his, he's better off doing something creative, far, far away from real people.

Zack and Miri Make a Porno does exactly what it says on the tin - best friends since high school, Zack and Miri decide that, in order to pay off their bills, they should make a porn film. While one character is easy to sympathize with, it's easy to believe that the other one is getting far, far more than he could possibly deserve.

Miri is a beautiful girl, with low confidence and few friends apart from Zack, who continually tells her that she's just as unattractive as she once was in high school (and really, if she did look like that in high school, her classmates were clearly blind). He also steals her handwarmer (that's just mean), and has such an utterly terrible working attitude that's it's hardly surprising that they can't pay their bills. Later in the film (and here's a bit of a spoiler) he runs away completely, abandoning Miri to their debts. What a nice guy. What a great friend.

The chemistry between Miri (Elizabeth Banks) and Zack (Seth Rogen) seems utterly fake. The sexual tension is written in but not felt, and laid on with a trowel. Zack and Miri don't feel like friends or potential lovers, however desperately the script wants you to think that. The film does have some funny moments, and a great scene from Justin Long, but generally speaking, it has the same problems I've seen in other Smith films, and other Rogen films, with very few of the good points. Although, you do get to see Jason Mewes naked (yum). Definitely worth the wait. I was honestly expecting just the gratuitous female nude shots - well done for being non-sexist.

I should probably confess here that, while I don't mind Kevin Smith, I really don't like Seth Rogen, because I think he abuses his position as a writer and/or producer in order to act out his fantasies with beautiful actresses. Despite purposefully making himself less attractive than the people leading male roles traditionally go to, he still always gets the girl. And that would be admirable if he didn't make sure that the 'girl' in question is a stunning up-and-coming actress. It would be good if someone at least acknowledged that these girls are way too good for him, even in the films that he's written - and I don't just mean his own character, in some kind of self-deprecating scene designed to make us think he's obviously really sweet and romantic and has hidden depths. To quote from an article on Alternate Takes (a fantastic film site, go take a look);

Laura Mulvey famously argued that in classical Hollywood cinema, the female serves as the “bearer of meaning, not maker of meaning” - that women are objectified by the implicitly male gaze of the camera, the audience, and the male lead.

Now, that may be true of most movies, but there's no need to be quite so transparent about it, is there Rogen?

Zack and Miri is funny, but forgettable, and supremely irritating in several ways. It's also quite amazing just how Miri's character manages to keep her curls intact with no water or electricity.

Scar 3D

It would be fair to say that I am not, typically, a horror fan.

It would, in fact, be true to say that I cry like a little girl at gory films.

So, when I watched Scar 3D yesterday, I didn't watch it, as such, since most of it was viewed from between my fingers. Or simply enjoyed audibly instead of visually (that is to say, with my eyes closed).

Scar 3D is about the survivor of a serial killer. After Joan managed to escape from Bishop, she left town and began a new life elsewhere. This was probably for the best, considering that, the instant she returns, the killings begin again, with a new generation. Joan believes it's Bishop - despite having killed him with her own hands.

As I said, I'm not a horror fan, but I was able to make fairly accurate predictions about how the movie would unfold. The storyline doesn't really break new ground, and, gory as the gore scenes are, they're not terribly innovative either (or so I hear). In fact, I'd say that the most creative thing in the entire movie is the method by which one character is killed - with a plastic glove superglued over her nose and mouth. How someone came up with this, and why they are not being carefully watched is a mystery that will plague me.

In an interview (with Cineworld's Unlimited magazine), the director stated that in previews, the flashback scenes and the last thirty minutes seemed to be the most disturbing. Considering that those are the scenes with the torture, that would seem to be expected.

Despite, as I've said, watching the film from between trembling fingers, it didn't seem to haunt me once I'd left the cinema. Unlike The Orphanage (El Orfanato), The Ring, or even The Eye (that scene in the elevator), the film didn't make me leave all the lights on all night, and nor was I terribly nervous about being left alone (I did stay up till 3am, but that was for a different reason, to be quite honest). To be fair though, I have been slightly twitchy today, continually thinking that I see a figure in the dark, or, at one point, a hand in a vat of boiling oil (it was five chips, floating together). Still, I don't think I'll be losing much sleep.

The main difference between Scar 3D and the other films mentioned is, I think, that Scar focused on a kind of physical horror, which I didn't fully partake in (difficult to, with ones eyes closed). El Orfanato especially focuses more on a kind of mental horror, and seems far more plausible. Scar's attempt to scare with physical horror didn't seem to apply to me - it seems far more likely that I might lose a child than that I might be abducted and tortured.

The main reason I saw the film is because it was in 3D. For the past few years, 3D has been more of a gimmick than a legitimate method of film-making. I can count on one hand the number of 3D films I've heard of and/or seen - and at least two of those were only converted into 3D afterwards. The technique has been sadly neglected.

Using 3D imaging in a horror film is a good start. I'm sure there must be things that one can do in 3D that wouldn't work, or at least, wouldn't be so effective, in 2D. Admittedly, I can't think of any, but I'm sure there must be some (apart from simple tricks like the torch in Journey to the Centre of the Earth).

Scar 3D wasn't the best horror film ever made, but I hope that other film-makers think about using 3D imaging for other films.

Bartelmy