Seth and Liz Make a Faux Apatow

Review: Zach and Miri Make a Porno

Many highbrow Bostonians attended the Good Vibrations amateur erotic film fest tonight, at the Coolidge Corner arthouse theater. Those of us who wanted an extra layer of meta watched a film about making amateur erotic film. Zach and Miri Make a Porno needs no plot summary beyond its title. A porno they make, and not a very good one. (This is where every newspaper in America writes, oh gee, we just can't print that title.) Along the way, we are desensitized to every offensive word and image that an R-rated movie can pull off. But beneath it all, they really love each other, asserts Judd Apatow. Sorry, Freudian slip - that guy who directed lots of other mildly offensive cult movies.

In this bizarrely vulgar teddy-bear universe of Judd - I mean that Dogma guy - Man Without Prospects bags Hot Girl, then realizes that they share more than just friction. Burned-out losers churn out more four-letter words in coffee shops than cappuccinos. Their circle of outcast friends helps out through thick and thin (skin in this case). It's probably the only movie about porn where Seth Rogen is the one to watch. A self-professed "Beluga whale," he makes a leading man of his earnest schlub who carpes the diem. Zach and Miri knows that there's more to meta-porn than Zach's editing method of money shot, credits, out. If it doesn't plow any deeper, at least we get some instant gratification.