Shocker: Kevin Smith's talking about sex

Apparently, Harvey Weinstein just loves to throw money at directors that he (and I) like, and for that at least you have to respect him.

According to the L.A. Times, he tossed $15 million at Kevin Smith's latest project after only hearing this title: "Zack and Miri Make a Porno." As the L.A. Times also rather condescendingly put it, "for a certain moviegoer, that's a sure thing."

Well, I guess I'm that "certain moviegoer," because I'll always like raunchy comedies with both brains and heart, which Kevin Smith can (but certainly doesn't always) deliver.

According to the newspaper, "Zack and Miri" is about two friends who have managed to trudge into their 30s with a satisfying lack of accomplishment. But a 15-year high school reunion and dire rent problems spark the novel moneymaking idea of pulling together an amateur porn enterprise.

"It's ... dirty, with nudity," Smith told the paper. "But funny nudity, not gratuitous nudity." Thanks for clearing that up.

Much to the chagrin of my brother, who just thinks (and many people agree with him) that Mr. Smith is a tremendous tool, this one will be shot in Minnesota in February, my brother's adapted home, instead of Smith's regular Jersey haunts.

In the meantime, Smith said he hopes to squeeze in filming of his low-budget ($3 million) horror script, "Red State," by the end of the year. This one sounds a lot more dubious to me. Mr. Smith has certainly shown he can tackle hot-button stuff with humor, but I can't see why he needs to give any publicity at all to the simply sickening Fred Phelps.

Shocker 2: Black people like to see people who look like them on TV

I thought the first two episodes of Tyler Perry's "House of Payne" were just plain awful, but then again I'm not exactly the target audience. Many of those who are apparently tuned in, and probably enjoyed it a lot more than me.

The show, which premiered Wednesday night, averaged 5.2 million total viewers at 9 p.m. and 5.8 million at 9:30 p.m., and did very well with the 18-49 set. It even managed to beat one network show, a new episode of "One Tree Hill" on the CW (if you can really call that a network, those "Veronica Mars"-hating bastards.)

Reading this made me wonder why there aren't more sitcoms with black stars on network TV. There's only one I regularly tuned in for, the very funny "Everybody Hates Chris" (I say "tuned" because I'm now boycotting the CW.)

It's all about the money, of course, but clearly the audience is out there and hungry to be entertained.

What to see this weekend?

Well, as anyone who's been here earlier this week knows, it won't be "Hostel: Part II." Simply not my bucket of blood. I'm gonna try to see "Surf's Up" Saturday and maybe "Ocean's Thirteen" Sunday. If you have seen either, please feel free to let me know what you thought about them, and have an entirely nonsucky weekend.