Seth Rogen (Really) Makes a Porno
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 moviewith 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-17simply 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.
Zack and Miri Make an NC-17 Movie?
Does the MPAA have it in for Kevin Smith? It’s beginning to sound like it. First they made the filmmaker remove an unapproved red band teaser trailer (which featured no footage from the actual film) from the web, and not it looks like Smith is having issues getting Zack and Miri Make a Porno by the ratings board.
“The MPAA is gunning for us, I think. It’s a really filthy movie. I hear they are having some problems getting an R rating from an NC-17 rating, which is never good,” Seth Rogen told MTV. “A guy f—ing a donkey, they ain’t got no problem with. But a man and a woman having sex they seem to have real issues with, for some weird reason. It’s insane. It’s completely insane.”
I knew when the title was first announced that Smith and company would probably have a few hurdles to jump when it came time to go up against the MPAA. I doubt The Weinstein Co is willing to release the film with an NC-17 rating, which means that Smith likely have to make cuts to get a theatrical R-rating. But don’t worry, Smith always includes a ton of extra footage on his DVD releases. If anything is cut, you can expect to see it on the DVD. As for the MPAA, I highly recommend everyone rent or buy the documentary This Film Has Not Yet Been Rated. I understand the need for ratings but the whole MPAA process is beyond ridiculous.
Cage: Who’s Bad?
Nicolas Cage is headed to the dark side.
The City of Angels star is set to headline a remake of Abel Ferrara's 1992's pulp classic Bad Lieutenant, which will be helmed by famed German auteur Werner Herzog.
Per Variety, the 44-year-old Cage will slink into the role originated by Harvey Keitel, an NYPD detective who investigates the rape of a young nun all the while seeking forgiveness for a litany of his own sins, including heavy drug use, gambling and cavorting with prostitutes.
The original Lieutenant, directed by Ferrara from a screenplay he cowrote with Zoë Lund, was slapped with an NC-17 rating for its explicit language and hard-core sex scenes, like the one in which Keitel's lapsed Catholic copper masturbates in front of a teenage girl. The redo was written by Billy Finkelstein, a vet of small-screen police dramas like NYPD Blue and Law & Order.
Cage is currently in Australia shooting the time-capsule thriller Knowing with Rose Byrne. Cameras roll on Bad Lieutenant this summer.
MPAA Gives SAW IV an NC-17 Rating
SAW IV producer Mark Burg and director Darren Lynn Bousman announced at Comic-Con that the MPAA has given SAW 4 an NC-17 rating. I assume they will go back and make cuts to earn a R-rating but producer Mark Burg says “One day we’d like to have the guts and leave it like it is” So who knows. I’m sure Lionsgate wants to reach as many people as possible and unfortunately that means they must conform to the ratings board. In fact, even a clip of the first five minutes of the film was rejected by Comic-Con because it was too intense.
Bousman says that if there was ever a line that he promised himself he wouldn’t cross, he crossed that line in SAW 4. And as for the critics, Bousman says “Fuck em”. Burg adds, “We’d like to think that you (the fans) are coming for the story in addition to the fucked up brutal violence”
“With the last two films the traps were the very last things we worked on,” says Bousman. “It starts with the themes first.”
When asked how there can be a Saw 4 when (spoiler alert) Jigsaw dies in the third film. Bousman says “In our world, legends never die.” Producer Mark Burg promises fans that there are no cheats, and that fans will be shocked to find out who everything happens.
“I think it;’s the best ending of any SAW movie we’ve done yet,” said Burg, who promises the biggest shocker yet.
Bousman even admitted that he thought there was no way to make a sequel when he agreed to film SAW 3, but Mark promised that it was not only possible but inevitable - there was a plan.
Tobin Bell who plays the character in the film series was also in attendance. Bell has done extensive research into the background of his character. Bousman says he has notebooks worth of data on everything about the character.
“I could ask Tobin if Jigsaw is a vegetarian and he would know and tell me why and how.”
The clip shown involves a man who wakes up in a room with his eyes sewn shut. He has a collar around his neck attached to a chain. The other end of the chain is attached to a man who has his mouth sewn shut. There is a key on the man with no vision which may open the man with no voice’s neck clamp. In the middle of them is a trap device which is spooling the chain inward. What follows was a blood filled brutal fight for survival. I’ll just say this, if they allowed this clip than the first five minutes of the movie most be disgustingly gory.