Kevin Smith and His Movies

Calling him solipsistic doesn't answer the question of why his later movies are so bleah, b/c usually solipsists are (unintentionally) pretty interesting people. Not having seen the Jay & Bob movie, I'd still say that he's just way too obsessed with notions of artificiality and pretend-reality ...

"Hollywood is so fake, man," oh, but it turns out that real life is fake too because it's just a bunch of people playing roles ...

So he concludes that by understanding the roles we can come to a full understanding of the people behind them, who, despite some pretty *crazy* appearances on the surface (WHOA, those nutty lesbians!! and black nationalists!!), are when it comes down to it all pretty similar to Kevin Smith. Otherness is a myth, dude.

but why is Jason Lee crap in every film except those by Smith (in which he always steals the show)?

what about the Clerks cartoon? no good? better or worse than MTV's Downtown (which i liked)?

Smith should have a new film out soon i would've thought - any thoughts?

I passed out approximately 4 in the AM this morning/last night (while a frozen pizza turned to blackened death frisbee in my oven) trying to watch Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. I'm gonna actually watch it (without all the tequila in my belly) when I get home. His movies (save Chasing Amy) never fail to give me a goodly portion of giggles. I'm also of the opinion that he is a great writer of dialog.

i'm waiting for my Jay & Silent Bob DVD to come thru (I HAVE NEVER LAUGHED SO HARD IN A CINEMA THAT I DID WATCHING THAT FILM, fact fans

This only makes sense if you've spent the rest of your cinema-going life at Ingmar Bergman retrospectives.

I enjoy totally stupid comedy, but there are limits (somewhere).

yeh then you probably laughed at a whole load of crap i didn't find amusing at all. life's like this < /avril>

The American in me now likes Kevin Smith even better than he did before.

Doesn't he have a new film coming out with Jack Black in it?

Smith admitted he fudged it kinda, he tried to persuade ? ? (director of 'Desperado' whose name i forget) to finish it apparently because he felt he's bitten off more than he can chew.

wait, that's it. this film IS UNKLE's 'Psyence Fiction' (only with significantly more laughs)

Clerks is OK, not that great after the first time.

Mallrats is funny, but the unbelievably bad acting and direction bother me.

Dogma was good, but doesn't hold up well to repeated viewings.

JSBSB, I saw it once in the theater, thought it was funny but mindlessly so, never saw it again.

i've really gone off Jack Black so i'm worried the combination of he and Smith will not do anything for me at all.

that movie has the greatest DVD commentary ever...

Loved Clerks and Mallrats, and still think that the scene where Affleck 'confesses' his love for Joey Lauren Adams and her subsequent and powerful rebuttal to be quite moving, though i think the movie's quite a mess otherwise. Dogma is a muddle, but i enjoyed some of it. Hated J&SBSB so much it scared me, and don't really care what he does any more. I think, as a filmmaker however, he's pretty much been ruined by his slavishly loyal fanbase.

He's also doing a Fletch prequel and is considering Will Smith to star as Fletch ha ha haha.

"Casting for 'Fletch One' has not begun, but Smith tells Variety his 'short list' for the Fletch role includes Ben Affleck, Brad Pitt, Will Smith(!!!!?!?!?!?!), Jimmy Fallon and Adam Sandler."

http://www.reuters.com/article/entertainmentNews/idUSN1655804520080116

Former porn star Traci Lords has joined Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks in Kevin Smith's raunchy comedy "Zack & Miri Make a Porno."

^^^this looks so unblelievably stupid/horrible but what else should I expect from Kevin Smith. Extreme taste failure, mr. rogen.

I mean the premise doesn't even make the remotest sense - 1) amateur porn does not make money, 2) doubly so when it features the fat ugly ass of Seth Rogen

this dude is ok. love this post:

I like all his movies. He wrote Dare Devil as well. All round a pretty cool guy.

― jel, Saturday, September 8, 2001 8:00 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

lol i saw dogma recently, it should have been cooler than it ended up

but it had some really neat ideas! shame that all along it was one of those "god is gr8" flicks, but hey, storytelling's storytelling

I mean the premise doesn't even make the remotest sense - 1) amateur porn does not make money,

No, but the kind of people who might be characters in a Kevin Smith movie might not understand that.

oh shakey shakey shakey

or should we revive an Animal House thread so you can complain about the lack of realism there?

wait amateur porn doesnt make money??? all my plans for the economic apocalypse down the drain!

shantytown is doomed!

http://splinteredsunrise.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/braveheart.jpg
WE WILL HAVE FREE WIFI I PROMISE U THIS!

no facepaint no credibility

olololo

but it had some really neat ideas!

Yeah, most of the ideas had been knocking around for years in Vertigo comics which Smith would have been well aware of. It's a bad film.

http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2010/02/kevin_smith.jpg

this fuckin guy

I thought this would be about his "hey, you're too fat, get off our plane" beef with Southwest.

he hasn't always been this fat, right?

he looks like a juggalo

bet you guys can't wait for that hired-gun Bruce Willis-Tracy Morgan cop comedy he did

that zing would make more sense if ilx didn't loathe kevin smith

you presume too much, herr doktor
xp

http://gawker.com/5471463/the-kevin-smith-southwest-airlines-fat+flight-tweakout-of-epic-proportions

but they love terrible comedy! which is stronger

xxp

http://blogs.suntimes.com/scanners/ksmith.jpg

I will firmly set up camp all alone in the Kevin Smith defending camp. Yes, his films have gotten progressively worse and I don't think I'll ever be anxious to see one of them ever again. But I really appreciate his honesty and open attitude when it comes to talking about his career. I mean, he is always super gracious and inviting to fans and comes across as genuinely humble (and bewildered) by his success. When Zach & Miri tanked he talked a lot on his podcast on how much that sucked the wind out of him and how humbled he was by the whole experience. It was actually really interesting to hear.

Anyway, I like the guy. He made three good movies, two decent movies, and the rest have been shit. I'll admit that. But I don't think he's a worthless douchebag by any means.

i definitely appreciate that he's kind of unflinchingly self-aware and upfront about his own flaws, in fact that's why i'm consistently amazed by his unapologetic tendency to dress like a giant toddler.

ha, thanks for helping me come out of hiding so i can say I actually do like Kevin Smith. he's got many a flaw as a filmmaker but i appreciate the honesty and still like several of his movies

his podcast is pretty amusing.

^^^^ this

The ones with his mom were really entertaining.

I heard he was speaking at IBR and was puzzled. Didn't know about the bicurious-ness.

http://www.bearotic.com/2010/02/12/kevin-smith-is-on-off-and-on-for-ibr-san-francisco/

he looks like a juggalo

YES! Why did I not notice this before?

I didn't know about the bi-curious thing either, but he's always been a pretty big supporter of the gays.

What amazes me about Kevin Smith is that internet criticism of his movies has hit enough of a nerve with him that he's gone out of his way to make fun of message board posters in least two of his movies! That is really astounding!

i ddint even know they still MADE those jeans

bet you guys can't wait for that hired-gun Bruce Willis-Tracy Morgan cop comedy he did

― Fusty Moralizer (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 14 February 2010 19:13 (Yesterday)

ZING FAIL

anyone who dresses like that in public should be shot

dressing like that is its own punishment

if he does it by choice, he must be enjoying the punishment. so yeah, shooting for the masochist

are those highwater JNCOs or megajorts?

Are those jeans or sweatpants?

So not even going to try to defend his clothing choices. But have you seen what Quentin Tarantino wears on any given day?

cop out looks so, so bad. why anyone would hire kevin smith to direct but not write a film (rather than the other way around) is utterly lost on me.

did jay & silent bob strike back or jersey girl have a musical dance montage? i wanna know if this trend goes further back than Clerks II.

clerks II being my vote for worst movie of the 00s

i wouldn't argue but have you seen "zack & miri make a porno"

btw why did we ban dom again?

ichlugebullets Are we not sure Kevin Smith wasn't just kicked off his plane for being an utter cunt with no redeeming artistic merit?

Racial insensitivity?

I actually really love Mallrats and the Dogma screenplay, if not the non-Alanis bits of the film itself.

I watched dogma recently, Affleck never had a chance

i wouldn't argue but have you seen "zack & miri make a porno"

i did, cuz I like the leads. that increase in cast charsima (with all due to respect to rosario dawson, who deserves better than 90% of the movies she's in) makes me rate it higher even if all of Smith's issues from inept camerawork to fubar character motivation are there in full.

I actually liked Clerks II more than Zack & Miri. At least Clerks II moved on from the first film, and the focus of the story and character was what they were doing ten years later doing the same thing and why. This was addressed emotionally, there was some development. And it actually had a conclusion, unlike the first one. (It's true tho - Rosario Dawson really deserves better.)

Z&M was Smith rehashing the same romantic comedy stuff from all his other movies with a higher profile cast, but I came out of the theater feeling like I'd killed two hours and that was it. Didn't hate it, didn't like it much.

Kinda think if KS never had a 'hit' w Clerks and just kept making films on a shoestring budget they would be a whole lot better than the stuff he's done as a Hollywood Director. Possibly even really good!

Truth.

Kinda think if KS never had a 'hit' w Clerks and just kept making films on a shoestring budget they would be a whole lot better than the stuff he's done as a Hollywood Director. Possibly even really good!

― Adam Bruneau, Monday, February 15, 2010 11:45 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

so hard for me not to read anything with "quotation marks" in it as a hipster runoff post

LOL.

Yeah sorry ever since i saw that damn site i'm doing it so much more than I need to....

dude should go back to his original job playing guitar in pantera:

http://www.anus.com/etc/dimebag/pantera2.jpg

think u mean drums

oops my bad

fuck this fuckin guy

who?

shakey hates fat people

shakey mo lagerfeld

i'm not a huge fan of his work but he seems like a pretty mellow bro on the whole wkiw

I can't believe how big he's gotten. When I first heard this story I was like damn he's not even that big and then I saw the MacWorld pics and was like uh oh I guess he is.

Probably all that pot and the subsequent munchies. In his podcast he frequently talks about how much weed he has smoked since Zach & Miri tanked.

Kevin Smokes Zach and Miri's Pot, and Everyone Else's

silent blob

it's the jnco's that make him look phat.

nah I think its all the fat that makes him look fat

Z&M was lousy, but it's weird to think that he's especially depressed about how that movie did, considering that it technically had the best box office of his career, and did way better than the 2 movies that preceded it. maybe he just thought having a more bankable schlub as his lead raised his/the studio's expectations?

dude probably cares that the critical consensus is that the movie was str8 garbage

i mean i guess the movie made sum $$$ but a) it underperformed compared to other rogan/apatow/stoner comedies and b) most ppl basic think it sucks. its not like there arent things 2 feel shitty about

Kevin everyday getting closer & closer to:

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/9/9d/Comic_Book_Guy.png

"Come back! Those are prescription pants!"

does he still own a comic book shop?

Z&M was the beginning of Seth Rogen's box office slide - up until that point every movie he opened did really well. I remember that video interview Smith did where he felt terrible that his movie was the worst-performing Rogen film to date by far - only making $10M that weekend - little did he know that Observe and Report and Funny People wouldn't do great, either.

I think Morbs owes someone a high five.

i'm not a huge fan of his work but he seems like a pretty mellow bro on the whole wkiw

I don't even think 'clerks' is watchable and 'dogma' is one of the worst things I've ever seen...but still, wkiw

he just seems like some random nerdy dude from nj who accidentally bumbled his way into making hollywood movies and they just sorta ended up like the film equivalent of this:

http://www.driverside.com/images/cms/2/2425.jpg

"every Seth Rogen movie" up to that point was 2 starring roles and a few prominent supporting roles, it's not like Z&M was the iceberg that sank his spotless superstar career

i can't fathom how anyone can hate clerks

*disables whiney's fathoming ability*

i saw clerks for the first time a year or so ago and it was lame

it's slow and poorly paced, most of the actors are terrible, a lot of its jokes feel a lot more played out after 15+ years of nerd lolz become a genre unto itself? i mean i don't hate it personally, but i'd rather watch like half his other movies on any given day. xpost

i'm sure i would have thought it was hot shit when i was 21

it barely gets by on the fact that it was made for like $12, otherwise fuck this fattey

do you clowns hate Slacker and Stranger Than Paradise too

I think they're certainly overrated

but at least the jokes are funny

only seen slacker once--kind of don't remember it?

does he still own a comic book shop?

I know he sold off the one on the east coast, and I think he sold off the other one as well - but I'm not 100%. As far as Z&M, from what Kevin has discussed on his podcast - the studio was expecting Rogen to bank much, much, much, much more than he did. Sounds like the studio got super excited and basically told Kevin it was going to be huge, Kevin raised his expectations, but was obviously deflated when it didn't perform anywhere near Apatow numbers. He tells a kind of funny/sad/touching story about his wife reading him the opening weekend figure digit by digit and his accompanied thought process:

Wife: 1...
Kevin's monologue: 1... 100? We did 100? Holy shit! Wait, no way, that's ridiculous. Okay, 10 million is still really fucking great.
Wife: point...
Kevin's monologue: Oh fuck.

nah, think he still owns the Jersey one, but the LA one went bust and he sold it to the video shop that was renting some space in it, or something

You're right, I was confused.

I like Zach and Miri. It wasn't as aggressively stupid as Clerks II, at least.

i can't fathom how anyone can hate clerks

― a wrinkle in paws (Whiney G. Weingarten), Tuesday, February 16, 2010 8:22 PM (2 hours ago) Bookmark

I don't hate Clerks. Shit, I even chuckled at certain parts of Clerks II. I definitely don't like it nearly as much as I did when I was a teenager and I feel the same way about Slacker which was my favorite movie at one point. I haven't seen it in years but it just seems like it would be really boring now.

That said the 36/37 dicks thing and "Try not to suck any dick on your way to the parking lot!" will never not be classic. It does have some great moments including Dave Pirner playing hockey on the roof of a convenience store which not many movies can boast so, yeah.

Slacker owns Clerks x 1 million

I like the Clerks animated series more than I like Clerks the movie. I think I was already past the point where I would find Clerks the movie endearing by the time I saw it.

pussy troll scene in clerks 2 is kinda the best thing he's ever done though.

i found the lord of the rings vs star wars bit amusing

and tbh i always get lols from jay & silent bob strike back

tbh i don't really get anyone's rabid dislike of kevin smith. even if you don't like what he does he seems pretty easy to ignore.

ok, maybe if he was sitting in front of you on a plane it would be hard to ignore him.

i didn't hate him until Clerks II, which was like being raped by an old dormmate at a 10th year college reunion while he cries drunkenly about how much he misses school

glad you got something out of the lord of the rings vs. star wars debate, though. someone should have.

clerks 2 > dogma tbh. dogma is a steaming pile.

I loved "Dogma".

^^ me too. And the animated series.

I guess we disagree on 'Dogma'. Damon/Affleck aside it really grated.

i can fathom how someone can hate something

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD_uMlmGEZE

on some level the best scene in Clerks II (it has Rosario Dawson dancing), while suggesting the cavernous hell that is the rest of the film (let's just keep zooming into Dante's admiring face why don't we).

do you clowns hate Slacker and Stranger Than Paradise too

wtf at this. seriously

jim jarmusch and kevin smith are like THAT

why do y'all hate freedom

I don't mind Clerks but suggesting it's on the level of either Slacker or Stranger Than Paradise is pretty o_O (unless there's a director's cut of STP with hilarious necrophilia jokes and Star Wars references I haven't seen).

ya and also uh the fact that those two movies are full of visual ideas and actual like CINEMATIC STUFF

Rockist.

Fake Morbius xp

c'mon each and every one of ya'll know very well that jason mewes re-enacting the buffalo bill scenes from silence of the lambs is the greatest cinematic moment of the last 400 years.

suggesting that Kevin Smith is capable of - or even remotely interested in - understanding and using and playing with the language of film the way Linklater and Jarmusch do is just bizarre.

ok, second after the animal crackers scene from Armageddon.

When he sticks to irreverence, he shines. That is why Clerks and Mallrats can consistently make me laugh. Chasing Amy is fairly dull with two annoying leads (Affleck and Adams, not Jason Lee who was the best part of that movie), and Dogma is funny at times, heavy-handed and condescending at others. J&SBSB is pure irreverence, but some of the jokes are just lame

'palpable' OTM 8 years ago actually, but should have also stressed that J&SBSB is for the most part jokes that aren't lame.

actually, i take what i said back: it's third after the animal crackers scene from Armageddon and Kevin Costner drinking his pee in Waterworld.

but it's up there.

did jay & silent bob strike back or jersey girl have a musical dance montage? i wanna know if this trend goes further back than Clerks II.

j&sb ended with the cast dancing to morris day and the time. not sure if that counts.

im a huge linklater guy and hardly like andy kevin smith movies, but still

clerks >>> slacker

(it's kind of weird to me that andy kevin smith won't use his first name, but we all have our quirks)

it's kind of weirder that you insist on it, like you're putting him in his place

a celebrity who insists on being called something other than their birth name!?! MY WORLD IS SHATTERED

lol

I'm calling you Mo from now on.

eh some of his older stuff is ok, but yeah, whenever he veers out of pure comedic stuff (clerks, mallrats, J&SBSB) he normally fucks it up pretty badly.

that said slacker is way way more unwatchable and dreadful than any of his worst films (note: have not seen zack and miri)

The hell?

http://www.latimes.com/videobeta/?watchId=ab375a5b-2c9c-476a-bc75-22ae0c265246

Good:
Clerks
Mallrats
Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

Meh, with flashes of good bits:
Dogma
Chasing Amy

Terrible:
Clerks 2
Zach & Miri Make A Porno

Terrible, stretching towards new levels of hell:
Jersey Girl

xp I suppose it's a coincidence that the commercial that played before that video prominently featured a whale.

Madonna pap-smear and old anarchist sequences in Slacker >>>> anything Kevin Smith has ever made

Madonna pap-smear

stopped reading here

STARTED reading there!

the drummer from the Butthole Surfers tries to sell some locals Madonna's pap smear:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoCuUgxMU_Y

do people who say mallrats is good say this based on some pleasant memories from the 90s or a recent viewing? cuz that movie seemed pretty ghastly to me.

only arguably funny thing i can remember is ben affleck talking about the new kids during sex, otherwise all I recall is Kevin Smith making bug-eye faces at boobs, somebody farting on their hand, jason london being upset about something and stan lee.

the best thing about Mallrats: ILX's own Eazy is in it (for about .5 seconds)

can we change thread title to "andy kevin smith" pls? keep forgetting who he is without his first name

Don't get the hate for either Clerks II or Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which were better than anything he's done by miles except the animated series.

thought Zack and Miri started out well and quickly turned into shit. any sort of sentimental scene was painful to watch. clerks 2 had some funny stuff but the donkey show stuff was stupid and too much a part of the story. also more terribly awkward sentimental stuff. and wtf at dante and rosario dawson? i'd appreciate at least a believable couple.

basically... stuff. sorry, that was pretty poorly written.

Don't get the hate for either Clerks II or Zack and Miri Make a Porno, which were better than anything he's done by miles except the animated series.

I challenge you to name five good things about Clerks II NOT INCLUDING the opening b&w-to-color scene (which was actually pretty witty and satisfying) and Rosario Dawson dancing.

god that movie had so many fucking musical montages its insane

though the most embarrassing thing might be how Mooby's has only four employees (there's even a framed photo!) and closes at dinner time (remember that's when they set up the donkey show and Dante goes on his meditative drive set to Smashing Pumpkins - though then again they left the place unlocked when the donkey show started so maybe they were still open) suggests that KEVIN SMITH has somehow lost all observational knowledge of the fast food industry despite clearly still eating a fuck ton of it.

i love how traumatized u were by clerks ii

i loved the scene where they were gonna have a heart-to-heart and made Jay cover his ears

seriously cannot think of a film in the last decade i have more contempt for, and I think I hit that realization BEFORE randall's Oscar moment at the prison

haha xpost if only we didn't have to hear it

Gah, this is just bringing back memories of how horrible this movie was.

So I'm listening to his podcast about the whole Southwest incident and the only thing I have to say is that an ilxor must work for Southwest.

explain?

he was in seat 51

He pretty much seems to think that it was just someone who hated his movies that got him bounced from the plane. He had a run-in with a snarky employee in the jetway and he thinks it was that dude that got him thrown off, because there was another guy on the plane that weighed much more than Kevin and nothing was said to him.

Obviously this is all one-sided, but from all the evidence he presents it really does seem like someone was specifically getting back at him.

Not to play captain save a fat director, but his evidence:

a) The woman that actually thew him off the plane kept telling him it was the pilot's decision, even though where he was sitting wasn't visible from the cockpit.

b) She kept telling him it was a "safety issue", but no one ever explained to him what that meant.

c) She came all the way from the desk at the gate on to the plane to ask him to leave, it wasn't any employee that actually worked on the plane itself.

d) He had the armrests down and seat belt on, which he was told by someone else was the indicator of being "too fat".

e) There was a guy on the plane much larger than him, but he was allowed to stay on.

man, if that's true, i hope the dude that got him thrown off is like some Aint It Cool News nerdball who works part time as a airplane dude and just wanted some smug satisfaction

Publicity Stunt!

if it was a nerd vendetta i'm pretty sure he would have been tossed while airbone with passengers being told "no ticket!" after.

lol airborne

there is nothing lol about Kevin Smith's airbone

Have we talked about his new cop buddy movie coming out next week?

There was chatter about it on the 30 Rock thread, where people thought it initially looked funny then became progressively more dismayed as more trailers came out.

American airliners have gotten shittier and shittier over the years. Last flight I was on they had room for 80% luggage and didn't tell anyone til we were on the plane, and it delayed takeoff and upset alot of people. I think this whole thing is something that probably happens all the time but now that it's someone famous it's all over the news.

Btw no way in hell Clerks is better than Slacker.

Clerks seems more earnest than Slacker if that counts for anything. Isn't one of the actresses hiding the script in her lap?

Jason Mewes is a dude.

jay looks like a younger, hungrier julia roberts!

d) He had the armrests down and seat belt on, which he was told by someone else was the indicator of being "too fat".

???

Ie, if you can't put the armrests down and your seat belt on, you're too fat.

but unless that's a typo dude is saying Smith DID have the armrest down and the seat belt on, hence the confusion

I keep waiting for Kevin Smith to get the technical beats down - timing, editing, blocking, etc. - but his movies remain clunky as fuck. They all (but particularly the last couple) need someone to pull that cinch-sack cord much tighter; crud like "Clerks II" and "Zach" are slack city. And both of those had potential, too. Even the trailer for the new one exhibits all sorts of awkward shittiness. It's such a shame, because Smith is such an affable guy, and a great talker/raconteur, but that's no excuse for your movies looking like ass.

yeah... and he's not dumb. so he has to know all this but a) doesn't care or b) is too much of a control freak to let anyone step in and mitigate some of these issues

in his defense, I can't imagine tighter film-making would have made much difference.

so he has to know all this but a) doesn't care or b) is too much of a control freak to let anyone step in and mitigate some of these issues

He comes off as very sensitive and defensive when it comes to criticism, so that's probably holding him back from any kind of improvement.

X-post: he DID have the seat belt on and armrests down, which is why it was confusing! No one was able to explain to him why he was a "safety issue". As far as he was aware, he was fine.

fair point (tho i've not watched anything he's done since J & SB Strike Back and can't claim to love any of the ones i've seen)

xxpost

i didn't hate Dogma though! so I guess... that's something?

clerks & mallrats (<-admittedly dumb) are ok by me

hahaha I am loving the logic on display there

"sir, you fit into the seat and have your belt on, I'm afraid this means you are far too fat too fly; in fact everyone on the plane is morbidly obese, so please will you all stagger to your feet and lumber through the front exit, thank you"

Too Fat to Fail

Haha. This is why he thinks it was someone who didn't like his movies.

Anyway, I listened to the whole podcast and figured out why he's been taking this so personally. After he got removed from the flight, he was put on another flight and sat next to this young woman who was treated like shit by Southwest for being overweight as well. First she was pulled aside by a female employee and told that in the future she needed to buy two seats since she was large. Then she was instructed to sit next to Kevin Smith in the unspoken "fat people section" (she wasn't aware of who he was at the time). Anyway, this poor girl had been humiliated and driven to tears by Southwest and this is why Kevin isn't letting it drop. He candidly said that his hours long bitch session via Twitter was to get his frustration out and it would have been dropped after that, but after seeing this girl treated like shit he isn't going to let it go. I mean, misguided probably, but dude isn't all horrible.

And with that I've officially spent way too much time thinking about this and defending the dude.

wait wait they put the fat people who allegedly should have bought two seats TOGETHER?

maybe they thought they would merge together into one gigantic fat person

I think they put them in the two outer seats of a three seat row, with no one in the middle.

http://patriotroom.com/images/upload/fat.jpg

I am imagining the new Southwest ad campaign now:

Southwest Airlines: Your bags fly free but your fat ass has to pay double

if kevin smith is fighting for embarrassed fat people everywhere and not just an explanation for why he was bumped around, what exactly does he want from them?

extra fries

omg I am so sorry, that was horrible

Southwest Airlines: No Fat Chicks

He said he wants Southwest to apologize to this girl and to either change their policy towards fat people (his words) or at the very least train their employees to be a bit more sensitive about how they handle it.

one day I will be able to resist the siren song of the easy joke

You Are Now Free To Graze About The Country

that is not a goal i support, dan

You Are Now Free To Eat A Sack of Donuts

Okay that was good.

Kevin was making up new titles for his movies on Twitter... Jay and Silent Bob Strike Snacks, Mallfats, Hot Dogma, Chasing Seconds, Zach & Miri Make 8 Lunches.

(xxpost)

Grazing Amy

honestly i'd much rather make fun of the fact that the guy shot his wife being molested by superman for playboy

i mean ANYONE can eat too much. i do.

whereas I shot my wife being molested by Superman for Playboy

I shot a man in Reno being molested by Superman for Playboy.

Fat jokes? Really, guys?

Admittedly, I don't remember much from Clerks II except laughing, but all the so-called sentimental stuff in Zack and Miri was awesome, esp. the sex scene where everyone's grossed out by sex with love. It's the best thing Seth Rogan has had anything to do with except Superbad, imo.

apparently the song by Live backing their sex with love was originally meant for the Mallrats soundtrack but never released. Kevin wanted the perfect song to heighten the moment where seth rogen and elizabeth banks have sex with love in front of their friends and this unreleased Live song was the one.

on the hand one i'm like 'wtf companies don't need to accomodate your fatness' but on the other hand i'm like "the seats on airplanes aren't exactly very big, even my scrawny ass feels cramped' and really DISLIKE at the way they were ostracized for it.

of course the right will reply by saying "oooooooooooooomg PC POLICE - HE'S FAT AIRLINE DON'T GOTS TO DO NUFFINGS."

k.smith's rules for planes:

a) if the pilot can't see you they can't kick you off
b) if the plane wasn't designed for your fat ass, they need to show you the schematics
c) desk attendants aren't real employees
d) you're only too fat if you think you are
e) they need to kick the fattest people off first

he also wants bacon-wrapped deep-fried Oreos replaced as the default snack

fat fat fat fat fat fat mallrats fat lol

thought Zack and Miri started out well and quickly turned into shit.

Made it exactly 9min and 8sec into it before exclaiming "wow, what a piece of shit!" Badly-directed piece of shit too

Southwest Airlines incident got more press than Cop Out is getting

is anyone from ilx gonna bite the bullet and see cop out?

maybe

i will see the shit out of it, in 5 months, on cable

yeah, i'm gonna netflix stream the shit out of it i'm sure

it's pretty funny

saw Armond using the M-word on Tracy Morgan, which has always crossed my mind on the few occasions i've seen him.

meshuga?

seann wm scott is funny in this

what's the m word??

I'm not sure, but Armond's New York Press review twice refers to Morgan's acting as "coon antics".

minstrel

mexican

moofy

holy shit @ coon antics

hoos antics

punantics

I didn't think the necrophilia joke was funny in Clerks. It was sort of like parts in Bruno where the only 'funny' thing was "oh no, he did not just go there!"

morbsy

gabe is seriously the best

http://videogum.com/169241/the-hunt-for-the-worst-movie-of-all-time-chasing-amy/franchises/the-hunt-for-the-worst-movie-of-all-time/

"I also saw an interview with Kevin Smith one time where he explained that he didn’t watch classic movies because he didn’t need to, because he had seen new movies directed by people who had been influenced by classic movies. Something to the effect of “Joel Schumacher is my film school.” What a wonderful, creative person with a deep appreciation for the medium in which he is working. What an honor for everyone."

lolol well done

it makes me happy just to read that url

There's nothing more mysterious than taste in comedy.

i would start off with "being an adult that wears jorts"

I lol'd

This, of course, is Kevin Smith’s trademark “comedic dialog.” You can always tell when it’s Kevin Smith’s trademark “comedic dialog” because it doesn’t sound anything like the way human being speak to each other, it’s annoying, everyone sounds like an asshole, and multiple characters share encyclopedic knowledge about whatever obscure topic Kevin Smith was clearly amused by for the 15 minutes he spent writing the script.

That's actually my favorite part about Kevin Smith movies, tbh

hence why he should have stopped at clerks

Kevin Smith talks in his podcast all the time about watching classic older movies, so I'm not sure what he was on about there.

classic older movies

What, like Animal House?

Heh, no, I seem to recall him talking about Citizen Kane and Hitchcock on a couple occasions. But I'm not going to get roped into captain save a fat director again on this thread.

Citizen Jorts

The Man Who Ate Too Much

I seem to recall him talking about Citizen Kane and Hitchcock on a couple occasions.

just a fat guy, learnin about other fat guys

In addition to expletives, the book includes very candid details about Smith's love life with his wife.

"I put it all out there," Smith said.

When asked about whether he considers the book's detail to be pornographic, Smith said, "Those are the things we do together. It feels weird like, so many people spin and sell in this world and put gloss on something. To just step out a little bit, all you have to do is be candid. All you have to do is be like, 'These are the things I do,' and people go, 'I do those things as well,' and suddenly, boom, (people relate)."

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57400763/kevin-smith-on-memoir-expletives-candid-content/

i'm sure 270-pound jort aficianado kevin smith is deeply ashamed to have the world know the intimate details of his private life plowing a playboy model

Kevin Smith kind of otm?

"You want to feel about art the way you feel about, like, the chick in high school or that dude in college or that person that you meant that took your breath away, the person that, like, separated you from your friends, not intentionally in a Yoko Ono kind of way…

But, just kinda like, ‘Oh, my god, this person’s fascinating.’

Like, for me it was a chick. Like, oh, my god. Everything she says is amazing. I don’t want to hang out with my friends, I’d rather hang out with her. And so you push your friends over for a little bit.
Like, ”You want to go out?”
And your like, ”No, man I’m going to hang out with this chick she’s fucking amazing.”
And she enlightens you. She teaches you things.she’s fucking beautiful, and she’s sexy, and she fucks like the demon, you know.

She’s everything you’ve dreamed about and she’s interested in you for some reason. She’s turned the fucking sun onto you, for some unknown reason. You don’t ever want to let that go, man, because once you’ve been standing in the light of the sun, shit, you never want the moon and shit. So you work so hard to stay around that and you love being around her. And you just do things together. She’s the kinda broad that she’s like, your like

‘Hey, man, you wanna go to Denny’s’
She’s like ‘Fuck yeah, I love moons over my hammy.’

And your like ‘Ugh, I got one of the good ones.’"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NdK0xWnGJA

i don't know why i listened to this but it reminded me that this guy is a pointless hack in the worst way

He's just pitiful. And really, much as I liked Mallrats and Clerks back in the day, such a poor film-maker. And such a bad advert for smoking weed, too.

"This could end my career." Too late, dude!

http://www.avclub.com/articles/actually-kevin-smiths-next-movie-will-be-about-a-m%2C103359/

Actually, Kevin Smith's next movie will be about a man surgically transformed into a walrus

this guy needs to be kept away from all recorded media, he shouldn't even be allowed to have crayons and paper

Keep him away from the weed, the rest will take care of itself.

^^^

whoa!

After the first show this evening, I had a massive heart attack. The Doctor who saved my life told me I had 100% blockage of my LAD artery (aka “the Widow-Maker”). If I hadn’t canceled show 2 to go to the hospital, I would’ve died tonight. But for now, I’m still above ground! pic.twitter.com/M5gSnW9E5h

— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) February 26, 2018

LADs

that's the kind of heart attack that killed my father in law a few months ago. he is lucky to be alive.

yeah, v scary

He's working on a new Jay and Silent Bob movie, in case y'all needed something else to be depressed about.

well i'm glad he's alive

We could use a new jay and silent bob movie

I'm with flappy, I will not be seeing this movie, but I am glad he didn't die

well i wouldn't say glad exactly

i thought it might have been this thread where i talked about the episode of smith's fat man on batman podcast where he interviewed History's Greatest Batman kevin conway and got conway to use his batman voice to tell smith that smith is a good person, which made smith burst into tears in response, but apparently it wasn't

it remains one of the most cringingly awful moments i've ever had the misfortune to eavesdrop on

Yikes.

I thought it might have been this thread where I mentioned watching Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back as a means of alleviating insomnia but was stimulated to full wakefulness by the deep embarrassment I was feeling for Kevin Smith and all the poor bastards he roped into starring in that thing.

kevin conroy not kevin conway, wtf me

i guess it's impressive in a way that smith has managed to carve a career out of such base materials but at the same time... it's not

Even while I was enjoying Clerks and Mallrats twenty years ago, it was in spite of the presence of Jay and Silent Bob.

My heart goes out to his children, Jessica Rabbit Smith and Funko Fleshlight Smith

both of those are probably more socially-acceptable than 'harley quinn smith' tbh

(also, lol)

the shock of how utterly terrible Clerks 2 was has still not worn off with me

the animated series was still great though

i still feel embarrassed on rosario dawson's behalf

yeah the series actually had some good moments though I'm assuming it hasn't aged well

presumably some non-KS writers were involved

it was weird and postmodern in a way that animated shows really weren't back then. I suspect a lot of people working for Adult Swim right now were heavily influenced by it. I also give it credit for calling Seth MacFarlane a hack all the way back in 2000.

yeah some of the gags I recall aren't too far from the Rick and Morty wheelhouse really

I still think about this clip from the cartoon all the time. Also I am clearly crazy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeyU7uVOTic

i loved the animated series when i saw it ~15 years ago.

saw J&SBSB in the theater, it was a decent stupid comedy, but really felt like throwing random ideas at a wall. haven't seen a thing he has done since. Will Ferrell's cameo in that was hilarious

Who is driving? Bear is driving! How can that be?

The "Good Will Hunting 2" scene in J&SBSB with an annoyed Gus Van Sant waving off Ben Affleck while counting money is great.

whoever told KS he should do anything *but* manic comedy should be shot out of a cannon

Yea I've probably seen J&SBSB like four times (it used to be on TV all the time) and I can't for the life of me remember the plot. they steal a monkey or something? I don't know. maybe that's why the animated series worked, you don't really need a plot and can do weird tangents and resets whenever you want

I thought about that when I watched Zach & Miri, which I thought was one of the most poorly conceived and written movies I'd ever seen, just an utter waste of an idea that you'd think would be funny in the hands of literally any other director. It bothers me to no end when guys like this (and say, Seth MacFarlane) spend their entire careers making fun of pop culture and movie clichés but when they get the chance to make their *own* movie they stuff it with the exact sort of filler that they made fun of for a decade, except they're even worse since they have no idea what they're doing and won't bring in people who do.

I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed Red State. Don't @ me.

surprised y'all are defending the animated series. tbf, I haven't seen it since it aired and don't remember details, but I remember it basically being Family Guy - lots of lazy parodies and pop culture references just for the sake of having them. maybe I watched the wrong episodes

I mean there are only like 6-8 of them iirc so

well, I think I watched two before deciding it wasn't for me

I feel like Kevin Smith's deal with the devil had an expiration clause in 1999

better him than Ed Burns

having references alone doesn't define a show. like anything else it can be done well or it can be done annoyingly. for instance MST3K does it well almost all the time. fwiw i didn't mind Family Guy for the first couple of seasons (at least until it was cancelled the 2nd time)

one of the main gags i remember from the animated series, Clerks did the Judge Reinhold joke years before Arrested Development:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_JNuIN33Wk

oops i meant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGbgAisf6_c

yeah the series actually had some good moments though I'm assuming it hasn't aged well

presumably some non-KS writers were involved

― Simon H., Wednesday, May 30, 2018 11:13 PM (yesterday)

showrunner was a late-period Seinfeld writer (who later took over Veep after Iannucci left and made it dumb), who brought on other TV professionals (including Paul Dini!)

whoever told KS he should do anything *but* manic comedy should be shot out of a cannon

― Simon H., Wednesday, May 30, 2018 11:35 PM (yesterday)

I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed Red State. Don't @ me.

― Eliza D., Wednesday, May 30, 2018 11:39 PM (yesterday)

yeah, I liked it well enough. not a really good horror movie, and the two Louis Theroux docos are a better take on Phelps, but it definitely succeeded in not feeling like "a Kevin Smith film"

Eliza otm

Yoga Hosers is the worst movie ever made

got 3 minutes into that and shut it off

you just love to see it

https://66.media.tumblr.com/bb47f4fc66440ac2d51453232bade566/6c2e272b6cbbdf4e-82/s500x750/1a071c111a703692eb49984d8d35bf2cd037fd2c.jpg

Kevin Smith is dead, that is actually four small children stuffed inside a coat holding up his impaled head

Aw, the first thing I saw was "Kevin Smith is dead." I thought, gosh, that's harsh.

Hasn't he lost a ton of weight since his heart attack? I mean, I hope so.

http://newsneednews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/ccelebritiesfotoKevin-Smith-Weight-Loss-Instagram-Post-Before-And-After-Photo.jpg

is he still rocking the jorts though

Wide World of Jorts. Years ago, a paparazzo snapped the infamous shot on the left of me wearing my giant jorts at my all-time heaviest. The photo on the right was taken at the same gas station today. Story here: https://t.co/MBXEo3EuNo pic.twitter.com/XrAtOxXgnS

— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) August 5, 2018

Good for him. The people who I know that have lost a ton of weight, they say it's one of the hardest things they've ever done.

Those jorts are worse than any of his movies

honestly respect for all of those fashion moves

today I learned that Kevin Smith shaves his legs

if they're like 4 inches from the ground they're not jorts

what is or is not a jort is kind of like "define pornography". there can be a thing line between erotica and porn, but you know it when you see it. kevin smith wears jorts that are as long as my ankle-exposing chinos

i'll see you in jort court

I can't define jorts them but I know them when I see them on Kevin Smith.

(ie When most of the bottom half of Kevin Smith's body is obscured by clothing.)

This guy has never had an ounce of talent. When I was at my indiest moment of early-90s moviegoing, I still thought Clerks was trash.

Sheesh, sounds like someone snoochied on the wrong side of the boochie this morning.

I think he is a very talented storyteller. Like, literally standing on stage telling a story. Not in any other medium though.

I would like to refer everyone to this far superior thread: Defend the Indefensible: Kevin Smith

i remember liking clerks at the time but i was kind of the perfect demo for it. my mistake was presuming there would be better things from him to come

Clerks > Slacker

Duece Bigelo, Male Gigolo > Clerks

Only one of those films has amy poehler screaming profanities (as a Tourette’s sufferer unfortunately, speaking of things that were once socially acceptable).

I think he is a very talented storyteller. Like, literally standing on stage telling a story. Not in any other medium though.

ditto

though I really liked Clerks the Animated Series

just lmao at the new Jay & Silent Bob trailer, the movie appears to basically be Mad Libs where the only acceptable words are "ASS!" "SHIT!" and "PENIS!"

Some people go for the low-key midlife crisis because they recognize on some level that the inherent sadness of turning it into a public spectacle would elicit unwanted pity, possibly even contempt. That's what some people do.

in fairness to kevin smith i can't help but imagine that he has many fans who haven't really cared about a film of his since clerks 2 and in order to give his career a little jolt he has no other option than to have recourse to a retreat into view askewniverse nostalgia

People cared about Clerks 2?

i completely forgot about the existence of zack and miri make a porno and cop out

(which both did better than clerks 2, as did jersey girl lol)

troll scene in clerks 2 is one of the funniest scenes of the past twenty years id say

Mewes has aged into a meth-head's mugshot. And the weight loss makes Smith look terminal, too. That was just one of the reasons that trailer was extremely hard to watch, though.

i believe mewes main poison was opiates.

he's been sober for about a decade tho, so, good for him

shame on Method Man for sullying the memory of his greatest line reading of all time

he's been sober for about a decade tho, so, good for him

Absolutely; it's just weird to see these kind of adolescent antics from a dude who looks about sixty.

(insert "hello fellow kids" photo of Steve Buscemi here)

Again,going to white knight a little here,for mewes at least this is literally his only shot to make some money.dude with a record and no resume isnt going to be able to make much money without tagging along with smith

this guy is just the worst but Red State was serviceable

I was at a Sony E3 party at the downtown LA Standard right when it opened. they hired Jane's Addiction to reunite and Mewes was at the party literally at the same time there was a warrant out for his arrest in Jersey

yeah Smith's tendency to put his buds like Mewes and Clerks Randall in his movies is one of his most endearing qualities. I actually kinda like Smith as a person. it's just the movies I hate.

they're fine

Sweet tribute to the guy who owned the video store and convenience store where Smith worked and filmed Clerks:

Tarlochen Thapar, the owner of @quickstopgroceries, has passed away. Thapar came to America from India in the 60’s/70’s, working tirelessly until he could afford a small business in Leonardo, NJ: a video shop beside a Cumberland Farms. When the Cumberland closed in the early 90’s, his little video biz lost its anchor - so Mister Thapar convinced Cumberland Farms to let him take the store over instead, renaming it @quickstopgroceries. Mister Thapar hired me in 1989, both of us sitting on tiny step stools behind the counter of RST Video. Working at a video store was my dream job, but it came with a cost: I had to also work at the convenience store next door, which also belonged to the Thapars. Thank God for that caveat, because it changed my life. In 1993, Thapar let me shoot my first film in #QuickStop at night when it was closed. So without Mister Thapar, there’d be no Clerks (which @variety just included in their 100 Funniest Comedies list). Because this sweet soul from a world away came to America, *my* American Dream came true. Schoolhouse Rock taught me about the The Great American Melting Pot in song but Thapar showed me the beauty of the concept in real life: America brought us together, and what a tasty meal we made! I’ll miss you, Mister Thapar. Thank you for making your lifelong journey to Jersey - because this Jersey Boy (and anybody who ever enjoyed his black & white convenience store comedy) benefitted big time from your bravery. I still remember our 1991 conversation about reincarnation and I hope you were right, Boss - because that means I might see you again one day. And when we do, we’ll sit on tiny stools and talk movies... ❤️ #KevinSmith

https://www.instagram.com/p/DRcqkfQDwze/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

aw! <3

I don't have much to say here, except that when I was trying to break into the movie industry, I got a lot of encouragement from Kevin. We had a number of interactions, in different contexts, during the early '00s. His stock was a little bit higher than it is now, but he was really sweet and humble and approachable. When I was just starting out in movies, he was a savvy, helpful, encouraging, and extremely generous mentor figure to a lot of young wannabe film nerds. I know that time hasn't been kind to his oeuvre, but I think as a benign '90s Movie Guy guy in the Miramax mold, Kevin typified a kind of hokey, homemade, earnest, indie filmmaking passion-project attitude that (sadly) has left him behind. While a bunch of his peers have gone onto bigger projects, and the kind of filmmaking he participated in has migrated to iPhones and YouTube, he's kept a pretty good head about him.