Actor, writer, director and comic book buff Kevin Smith, whose breakthrough film was 1994's Clerks, is at his best when he's just talking. He even figured that out, so in between actual movies, he films his college Q&A tours to release An Evening With Kevin Smith DVDs, the third of which is now in stores. Smith's movies force him to take break from his raw wit for things like plot and character development. But at least when he makes them, we get to hear some unedited Smith-isms when we interview him.
Zack and Miri Make a Porno is Smith's latest film, which he wrote, directed and edited. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks star as the title couple, childhood friends who think homemade porn, more specifically a homespun version of Star Whores, is their ticket out of debt. The joke is that Zack and Miri are pretty incompetent when it comes to making erotica, but clearly Kevin Smith knows his stuff, referencing the greats like Edward Penishands.
We chat with Smith, who owns and operates East and West Coast comic stores, about his latest flick and his favorite big screen comic book franchises (he was fortunate to get an early look at J.J. Abrams new incarnation of Star Trek).
Question: I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who's seen Edward Penishands.
Kevin Smith: I remember being a kid hearing that title, and later in life seeing the box for it when I worked at RST Video. They had the box.
Q: You didn't watch it?
KS: I've never watched it even to this day. I had it at my fingertips. I always could have watched it but the box, I was like, "It'll never get better than this."
Q: The amazing thing was they did all the face makeup and costume of Edward Scissorhands, only he had dildos on his fists.
KS: Yeah, I remember him from the cover.
Q: But how sexy is shoving dildos into women?
KS: That was one of the reasons why I was cool not to watch it because I'm like it's not really porn because he's not putting his dick in somebody. He's putting five, ten fake dicks in somebody. So I was okay to not watch it. I was okay to just appreciate that box art.
Q: But surely you know there was an actual Star Whores.
KS: No, and we looked it up, man. When I wrote it, I looked it up online and we couldn't find anything about it. Was there one? To me it was a no-brainer.
Q: I found several titles online, from different years, so there've been remakes.
KS: Strange. That's weird. When I was writing it, I was like, "I'm gonna Google this shit and make sure it's never been done," and I couldn't find a hookup for it so I was like, "is it possible that nobody ever did Star Whores?" I guess it was impossible that nobody had ever made Star Whores.
Q: One thing about this movie is Zack and Miri seem like they're really just friends, not like Hollywood just friends where they're totally hot for each other all along.
KS: All credit should go to those performers, man, because on the page it's one thing but they've got to bring it to life. Their chemistry was such that they functioned as friends. They just bounce off one another like friends who have no romantic interest in each other whatsoever. Like you don't even see it. It's not like there's a spark in their eyes until we get closer and closer to their scene. The scene is actually the moment where it kind of brews over. So I give all the credit to them. I tried to structure it as much as possible in terms of keeping the romance out until it had to happen, but I think the way they played it is what sold it completely.
Q: Were you thinking this film could attract more female viewers for the romance?
KS: When I was making it, I thought it was as close to Chasing Amy as anything I've ever done before in terms of structure and whatnot. I mean, we're definitely a lot less serious than we were in Chasing Amy. Chasing Amy is a very earnest movie. Funny, but very earnest at the same time. This movie is more funny than I think Chasing Amy is, but it does this weird shift in the third act where it becomes kind of emotional. It catches people off guard, but, I don't know, it works for me.
It's the kind of movie I enjoy watching. I love romantic comedies. I love rom-coms. I just can't stand it when they're sanitized and cleaned up, and it ends with a kiss. I like mine to have the fucking happen, and then everything falls apart. I like people to speak candidly and frankly and use harsh language. Not to be a show-off, but because everyone I know speaks like that. When I see something like Made of Honor, I'm sitting there thinking, "Why am I watching this?" And my wife is going, "Yeah, why are you watching this?"
Q: Why are you watching it?
KS: I like romantic comedies and I like Patrick Dempsey. I've loved him since Loverboy. He was awesome in Loverboy and he was awesome in Can't Buy Me Love when he was doing the dance and shit.
Q: Does it frustrate you as a rom-com fan when it's so obvious that the "just friends" are going to get together?
KS: I mean, it can't frustrate me because look, let's be honest, it's obvious in this movie too. From the jump, you know they're going to get together, even if you haven't read the promotional materials. You know that those two are going to wind up together. To me it's all about the journey, how one gets there. This movie is totally up my alley in terms of the journey. Other romantic comedies, not so much.
Then there are some romantic comedies that, like I thought the Sex and the City movie, I know chicks love it like crazy. My wife absolutely loved it. I was a huge fan and still remain a huge fan of that show, watched it religiously. I've seen every episode more than once. When I saw that movie and they split up Carrie and Big with that contrived like he was too afraid to go into the library for a minute, then was turning around. I just felt like come on, man, you could've found another way to split them up if you needed to split them up. But still that movie worked based on the charm of its performances, and we love those characters and what not, but that did bug me about that movie.
Also what bugged me is they made Steve cheat on Miranda and I'm like Steve would never do that. And I've met women who are like, "Steve is totally the guy who would cheat." I'm like you're out of your mind, man. He fuckin' hung the moon on Miranda. He really believed in that. I'm talking about Sex and the City too much, aren't I? I'm coming off like a gay man but I like that show quite a bit.
Q: Do you like porn as much as romantic comedies?
KS: No, I like romantic comedies more, but I do like porn very much. Not so much for titillation anymore. I mean now, I've been married for ten years, so sex is built in and free. So porn isn't something I use as a tool anymore. I haven't jerked off to a porn in I can't tell you how many fucking years. But I look at porn every morning. Every morning I wake up, I do Google News, Guardian UK, and then I go to the free porn sites, any of the numerous ones I've bookmarked.
Just by virtue of the fact that it shocks me that every time I click on it, I never see the same face twice. Always different people, always. It just makes you feel like the whole world is taking naked pictures of themselves. And I'm always looking for that one person I know because, by sheer process of elimination, I'm going to see someone I know. Only recently I realized I'm looking at the wrong pages. Everyone I know is, like, 38, so I have to start looking at cougar-like sites.
I'm telling you, porn now, it's not even well-lit settings with a built background. Now it's just like every porn picture or video I see takes place in a college dorm. It's all real now. Now it's people sending in pictures or stuff. Or this revenge porn shit, which creeps me out because it's this weirdly intimate look into someone's life like, "Oh, man, this was not meant to be seen by me." That's the only porn right now I can't really dig on. That and violent porn. I don't like people punching each other or spitting at each other. It's just weird to me.
Q: So you're finally going to do a big sci-fi movie next?
KS: No, I thought that was rather premature that that got out there. I thought it was supposed to be part of this Q&A that I did with [Variety] that was going to run closer to the movie but he pulled that part out and turned it into an item. It's just something I've been kind of piecing together since I was working on Zack and Miri. It's not Star Whores but it's this other thing I've been wanting to do since then.
Q: You got to see the new Star Trek and you loved it. Don't think we're on prequel overload yet?
KS: I mean, I'm all for a prequel. Also, the reboot or the prequel sidesteps having to do a sequel of sorts, although in the case of The Dark Knight you get really lucky with a sequel and it's actually far superior to the original which was already really great. Star Trek works in a way where you're sitting there going, "I can't believe this works."
I remember when they announced it, I felt, look, it's one thing to introduce a whole new cast of characters. It's another thing if you're going to take the original characters, have other people play them, and do a Muppet Babies version of Star Trek. But it fucking works like gangbusters. The credit goes to J.J. and his writers, but definitely to the cast. They pull it off.
Chris Pine, who plays Captain Kirk in the movie, does not do a William Shatner impression, but, at the same time, he's unmistakably Captain Kirk. He just brings all the bravado, the gusto, everything about Shatner's delivery to bear on the character. It doesn't disavow anything that's gone before. It lives side by side with everything that's gone before in Star Trek lore, in the movies, and the TV show. He did a great, great job. It's totally a fun movie.
Q: How does Trek compare to the Star Wars movies you love so much?
KS: I mean, I've always been able to keep the Trek and the Wars very separate and appreciate both. I'll be honest, and you're not supposed to say this kind of thing, but I'm a bigger fan of the Star Trek movies than I was of the original Star Trek TV show.
Q: You also got to see Watchmen. How did it look?
KS: I saw it once when, out of something like five hundred visual effects shots, they only had ten percent done. Next time I saw it, I think they had fifteen percent done. That's the one thing I haven't really said. I watched that movie without all the effects shots done. Through most of the movie, Billy Crudup, even as Dr. Manhattan, looks like Billy Crudup. And still that movie works like gangbusters, even though it's not completely fleshed out and finished visually speaking with the digital effects.
That being said, when I watched the movie, the biggest impression I walked away with was, "This could totally be Pulp Fiction to some degree." For the mainstream audience, when Pulp Fiction came along, they said, "Okay, I know crime thrillers. I know the genre, kind of." But this is a movie that spins it with this left of center view. With Watchmen, you've got people very familiar with the comic-book format of the movie, but it takes this left of center view of it. People who love the comic book are definitely going to go in droves, but I think they're going to get a lot of people who would never see this movie, based on the buzz factor. It's the goods, man. It's a really smart, intelligent film. It's just like reading the book, but a movie.
Q: What do you think of the plans to reboot Superman AGAIN?
KS: I thought that seemed rather soon, but why not? Why not give it a shot? To be fair, Warner Bros. has been doing comic book movies as far back as Superman so they kind of almost created the genre. Not counting the black and white serials and shit like that, in terms of big screen treatments, I would have to think that Superman was the first big screen treatment of one of the major comic book characters. So now it's like the world has kind of caught up and everyone's doing comic book movies and Marvel is putting tons of stuff into production. DC has this wealth of characters. I mean, Warner Bros. has a wealth of characters with all the DC universe that they have to play in so why not go forward with it?
Zack and Miri Make a Porno is Smith's latest film, which he wrote, directed and edited. Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks star as the title couple, childhood friends who think homemade porn, more specifically a homespun version of Star Whores, is their ticket out of debt. The joke is that Zack and Miri are pretty incompetent when it comes to making erotica, but clearly Kevin Smith knows his stuff, referencing the greats like Edward Penishands.
We chat with Smith, who owns and operates East and West Coast comic stores, about his latest flick and his favorite big screen comic book franchises (he was fortunate to get an early look at J.J. Abrams new incarnation of Star Trek).
Question: I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who's seen Edward Penishands.
Kevin Smith: I remember being a kid hearing that title, and later in life seeing the box for it when I worked at RST Video. They had the box.
Q: You didn't watch it?
KS: I've never watched it even to this day. I had it at my fingertips. I always could have watched it but the box, I was like, "It'll never get better than this."
Q: The amazing thing was they did all the face makeup and costume of Edward Scissorhands, only he had dildos on his fists.
KS: Yeah, I remember him from the cover.
Q: But how sexy is shoving dildos into women?
KS: That was one of the reasons why I was cool not to watch it because I'm like it's not really porn because he's not putting his dick in somebody. He's putting five, ten fake dicks in somebody. So I was okay to not watch it. I was okay to just appreciate that box art.
Q: But surely you know there was an actual Star Whores.
KS: No, and we looked it up, man. When I wrote it, I looked it up online and we couldn't find anything about it. Was there one? To me it was a no-brainer.
Q: I found several titles online, from different years, so there've been remakes.
KS: Strange. That's weird. When I was writing it, I was like, "I'm gonna Google this shit and make sure it's never been done," and I couldn't find a hookup for it so I was like, "is it possible that nobody ever did Star Whores?" I guess it was impossible that nobody had ever made Star Whores.
Q: One thing about this movie is Zack and Miri seem like they're really just friends, not like Hollywood just friends where they're totally hot for each other all along.
KS: All credit should go to those performers, man, because on the page it's one thing but they've got to bring it to life. Their chemistry was such that they functioned as friends. They just bounce off one another like friends who have no romantic interest in each other whatsoever. Like you don't even see it. It's not like there's a spark in their eyes until we get closer and closer to their scene. The scene is actually the moment where it kind of brews over. So I give all the credit to them. I tried to structure it as much as possible in terms of keeping the romance out until it had to happen, but I think the way they played it is what sold it completely.
Q: Were you thinking this film could attract more female viewers for the romance?
KS: When I was making it, I thought it was as close to Chasing Amy as anything I've ever done before in terms of structure and whatnot. I mean, we're definitely a lot less serious than we were in Chasing Amy. Chasing Amy is a very earnest movie. Funny, but very earnest at the same time. This movie is more funny than I think Chasing Amy is, but it does this weird shift in the third act where it becomes kind of emotional. It catches people off guard, but, I don't know, it works for me.
It's the kind of movie I enjoy watching. I love romantic comedies. I love rom-coms. I just can't stand it when they're sanitized and cleaned up, and it ends with a kiss. I like mine to have the fucking happen, and then everything falls apart. I like people to speak candidly and frankly and use harsh language. Not to be a show-off, but because everyone I know speaks like that. When I see something like Made of Honor, I'm sitting there thinking, "Why am I watching this?" And my wife is going, "Yeah, why are you watching this?"
Q: Why are you watching it?
KS: I like romantic comedies and I like Patrick Dempsey. I've loved him since Loverboy. He was awesome in Loverboy and he was awesome in Can't Buy Me Love when he was doing the dance and shit.
Q: Does it frustrate you as a rom-com fan when it's so obvious that the "just friends" are going to get together?
KS: I mean, it can't frustrate me because look, let's be honest, it's obvious in this movie too. From the jump, you know they're going to get together, even if you haven't read the promotional materials. You know that those two are going to wind up together. To me it's all about the journey, how one gets there. This movie is totally up my alley in terms of the journey. Other romantic comedies, not so much.
Then there are some romantic comedies that, like I thought the Sex and the City movie, I know chicks love it like crazy. My wife absolutely loved it. I was a huge fan and still remain a huge fan of that show, watched it religiously. I've seen every episode more than once. When I saw that movie and they split up Carrie and Big with that contrived like he was too afraid to go into the library for a minute, then was turning around. I just felt like come on, man, you could've found another way to split them up if you needed to split them up. But still that movie worked based on the charm of its performances, and we love those characters and what not, but that did bug me about that movie.
Also what bugged me is they made Steve cheat on Miranda and I'm like Steve would never do that. And I've met women who are like, "Steve is totally the guy who would cheat." I'm like you're out of your mind, man. He fuckin' hung the moon on Miranda. He really believed in that. I'm talking about Sex and the City too much, aren't I? I'm coming off like a gay man but I like that show quite a bit.
Q: Do you like porn as much as romantic comedies?
KS: No, I like romantic comedies more, but I do like porn very much. Not so much for titillation anymore. I mean now, I've been married for ten years, so sex is built in and free. So porn isn't something I use as a tool anymore. I haven't jerked off to a porn in I can't tell you how many fucking years. But I look at porn every morning. Every morning I wake up, I do Google News, Guardian UK, and then I go to the free porn sites, any of the numerous ones I've bookmarked.
Just by virtue of the fact that it shocks me that every time I click on it, I never see the same face twice. Always different people, always. It just makes you feel like the whole world is taking naked pictures of themselves. And I'm always looking for that one person I know because, by sheer process of elimination, I'm going to see someone I know. Only recently I realized I'm looking at the wrong pages. Everyone I know is, like, 38, so I have to start looking at cougar-like sites.
I'm telling you, porn now, it's not even well-lit settings with a built background. Now it's just like every porn picture or video I see takes place in a college dorm. It's all real now. Now it's people sending in pictures or stuff. Or this revenge porn shit, which creeps me out because it's this weirdly intimate look into someone's life like, "Oh, man, this was not meant to be seen by me." That's the only porn right now I can't really dig on. That and violent porn. I don't like people punching each other or spitting at each other. It's just weird to me.
Q: So you're finally going to do a big sci-fi movie next?
KS: No, I thought that was rather premature that that got out there. I thought it was supposed to be part of this Q&A that I did with [Variety] that was going to run closer to the movie but he pulled that part out and turned it into an item. It's just something I've been kind of piecing together since I was working on Zack and Miri. It's not Star Whores but it's this other thing I've been wanting to do since then.
Q: You got to see the new Star Trek and you loved it. Don't think we're on prequel overload yet?
KS: I mean, I'm all for a prequel. Also, the reboot or the prequel sidesteps having to do a sequel of sorts, although in the case of The Dark Knight you get really lucky with a sequel and it's actually far superior to the original which was already really great. Star Trek works in a way where you're sitting there going, "I can't believe this works."
I remember when they announced it, I felt, look, it's one thing to introduce a whole new cast of characters. It's another thing if you're going to take the original characters, have other people play them, and do a Muppet Babies version of Star Trek. But it fucking works like gangbusters. The credit goes to J.J. and his writers, but definitely to the cast. They pull it off.
Chris Pine, who plays Captain Kirk in the movie, does not do a William Shatner impression, but, at the same time, he's unmistakably Captain Kirk. He just brings all the bravado, the gusto, everything about Shatner's delivery to bear on the character. It doesn't disavow anything that's gone before. It lives side by side with everything that's gone before in Star Trek lore, in the movies, and the TV show. He did a great, great job. It's totally a fun movie.
Q: How does Trek compare to the Star Wars movies you love so much?
KS: I mean, I've always been able to keep the Trek and the Wars very separate and appreciate both. I'll be honest, and you're not supposed to say this kind of thing, but I'm a bigger fan of the Star Trek movies than I was of the original Star Trek TV show.
Q: You also got to see Watchmen. How did it look?
KS: I saw it once when, out of something like five hundred visual effects shots, they only had ten percent done. Next time I saw it, I think they had fifteen percent done. That's the one thing I haven't really said. I watched that movie without all the effects shots done. Through most of the movie, Billy Crudup, even as Dr. Manhattan, looks like Billy Crudup. And still that movie works like gangbusters, even though it's not completely fleshed out and finished visually speaking with the digital effects.
That being said, when I watched the movie, the biggest impression I walked away with was, "This could totally be Pulp Fiction to some degree." For the mainstream audience, when Pulp Fiction came along, they said, "Okay, I know crime thrillers. I know the genre, kind of." But this is a movie that spins it with this left of center view. With Watchmen, you've got people very familiar with the comic-book format of the movie, but it takes this left of center view of it. People who love the comic book are definitely going to go in droves, but I think they're going to get a lot of people who would never see this movie, based on the buzz factor. It's the goods, man. It's a really smart, intelligent film. It's just like reading the book, but a movie.
Q: What do you think of the plans to reboot Superman AGAIN?
KS: I thought that seemed rather soon, but why not? Why not give it a shot? To be fair, Warner Bros. has been doing comic book movies as far back as Superman so they kind of almost created the genre. Not counting the black and white serials and shit like that, in terms of big screen treatments, I would have to think that Superman was the first big screen treatment of one of the major comic book characters. So now it's like the world has kind of caught up and everyone's doing comic book movies and Marvel is putting tons of stuff into production. DC has this wealth of characters. I mean, Warner Bros. has a wealth of characters with all the DC universe that they have to play in so why not go forward with it?
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
I love Kevin Smith and this film was awesome!