The following podcast contains explicit language.

Hi, this is Dana Stevens, Slate's movie critic, and I'm here with a Slate's spoiler special podcast on Zach and Mary Make a Pornow, the new Kevin Smith movie.

I'm here in the studio with Tanner Colby.

Hey, Dana.

Tanner, how do I identify you? Comedy writer, extraordinaire, author of the Chris Farley show.

Author of the Chris Farley show and comedy writer.

Ordinaire?

Ordinaire.

Medioc.

Mediuch.

So we saw Zach and Miria, unfortunately, together the other day.

Unfortunately, I'm still trying to recover.

And as you were just pointing out, this is one of the most charmless movies you've seen in some time?

It is. I've seen more charmless movies you've seen in some time? It is.

I've seen more charm and heart in real pornography in many cases.

Just to give the basic plot, two high school buddies, Zach and Mary, are down on their luck.

They're, you know, can't pay the rent, can't pay the bills.

And so they decide to make a porno movie to get their money back and get their lives back on track.

Only their best friends who've never slept together and then they've got to sleep together in the porno.

And that's going to test the bounds of their relationship, which could have been, I guess, an intelligent conceit to explore the dynamics of platonic sex and so forth.

But it just comes off as wrong.

Kevin Smith is possibly the least nuanced filmmaker ever.

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