Cinematical has just confirmed that The Weinstein Co. plans to release Zack and Miri Make a Porno on October 31, 2008 (aka, Halloween babyyyyyy!). The film, which recently wrapped production, is currently in post-production -- where Smith is editing in HD, using Adrenaline, which he claims "crashes at least twice a night" according to statements he's made on his message board. Thus, he's gotten used to hitting the save button. Zack and Miri stars Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks as two platonic friends who, hard up for cash, decide to make an adult film. At some point during the process, however, they begin to have "more than friends" feelings for one another.

The film also stars Smith regulars Jason Mewes and Jeff Anderson, as well as Traci Lords, Craig Robinson, Tom Savini and Smith's hottie wife, Jennifer. Recently, Smith stopped by his site to offer up a second summary of his time in production, where he noted that he kinda wants to keep things under wraps for awhile: " I want folks to discover the flick for themselves, instead of me jamming it down their throats. I'm also gonna try to keep from over-selling it with hyperbole and absolutes. I'll let you guys apply those (good or bad) when the time comes. Just know that we had a problem-free, productive shoot in which everyone was firing on all cylinders and the result was THE FUNNIEST F**KING MOVIE WE'VE EVER MADE!!!"

Once again, Zack and Miri Make a Porno will arrive in theaters on October 31. Oscar push?? Maybe???

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
-- The Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians 13: 11

Jerky, grainy black-and-white, the ugly grind of a low-paying job, the zombie-like stumble through a life unlived: Clerks II opens exactly like 1994's Clerks did, with nervous and harried counterworker Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) heading to the Quick Stop for another day. In Clerks, Dante found the shutter's locks jammed with gum -- a story point springing out of the economic reality that Smith shot the film in his real neighborhood variety store after-hours. In Clerks II ... well, the good news is that the shutters aren't locked (in no small part thanks to Smith's ability to command bigger budgets); the bad news is that years later, Dante is still slumping in to open the same damn shutters.

There's worse news for Dante -- a career change (or, rather, lack-of-career change) that's put him and his gum-snapping, blithely obnoxious best friend Randal Graves (Jeff Anderson) under the same roof of employment, as well as romantic complication, existential angst and a peer group made of equal parts dimwits and dickheads. All of this is bad news for Dante, but its good news for us, as viewers, insofar as Clerks II is the best film Kevin Smith's made in quite some time, in part because it's got a certain sense of wistfulness and hope to it, along with the dick jokes. Clerks II is actually heartwarming -- or, rather, as heartwarming as any film that includes the phrase 'donkey show' can be.

And we live in an era where you can have a heartwarming film include the phrase 'donkey show' -- in no small part thanks to Clerks, which clumsily-yet-firmly paved the way for a wave of appealing, appalling comedies at the box office: From There's Something About Mary to The 40-Year-Old Virgin, films with foul mouths and big hearts have become more and more possible. Clerks II may occasionally be rankly sentimental -- no more so than in Smith's endless, near-unendurable end credit acknowledgments -- but it has more than a spoonful of medicine to help the sugar go down.

Now and then, you go the long way around, come back to where you started ... but where you started isn't where you started, because you changed on the journey. That's the underlying message of Clerks II, which opens Friday nationwide; in many ways, it's the underlying metaphor for Jeff Anderson and Brian O'Halloran's return as Randal Graves and Dante Hicks, the lead characters from 1994's Clerks. On a bright, clear day in San Francisco, Anderson and O'Halloran talked about working with writer-director Kevin Smith, returning to their best-know work .. and, surprisingly, inital reluctance to the project. As part of the pleasure of Clerks II is Anderson and O'Halloran's interaction and vocal cadences, we're presenting this interview as an audio file, which you can download right here.