# Kevin Smith **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 6, 2003, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609 "2003-07-06T19:24:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![alice\_in\_wonderland](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alice_in_wonderland/32/176_2.png) [@alice\_in\_wonderland](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alice_in_wonderland)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/41 "2003-07-07T15:45:41Z")
I watched _Dogma_ and laughed so hard I actually fell out of my chair. Literally. Out of the chair. On my ass. My friend did the same. We were rolling around on the floor of my living room laughing so hard that no sound was coming out. That alone makes me a Kevin Smith fan. You don’t like him? Fine - don’t watch his movies. But really, this “People who like Kevin Smith are lemmings - huh - huh - huhhuh.” - get over yourself. Really. ---
**Author:** ![KarmaComa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e36b37/32.png) [@KarmaComa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarmaComa)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/42 "2003-07-07T15:53:52Z")
Kevin Smith… pretty funny writer, terrible director. Just terrible. ---
**Author:** ![red\_dragon60](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ce73a5/32.png) [@red\_dragon60](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/red_dragon60)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/43 "2003-07-07T16:03:27Z")
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is absolute trash. But it is funny as hell! Not a weekend goes by without hearing “Man, Affleck was the bomb in Phantoms!”. Whenever I am in a mall, someone invariably says “And that kid is STILL on the damn escalator!” (Mallrats, I know)The sheer stupidity of J&SB makes it a beautiful thing. The only thing horrible about the movie are Tracy Morgan and Will Farrell’s apprearances. Kevin Smith also got studio execs to read Matt Damon and Ben Affleck’s movie script, which we know of as Good Will Hunting. So the man has done at least some good. ---
**Author:** ![World\_Eater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/f04885/32.png) [@World\_Eater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/World_Eater)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/44 "2003-07-07T16:53:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by featherlou \* > \*\*Hollywood (as an entity, not as a geographical location) makes TERRIBLE movies, but people lap them up like they’re gold-studded cocaine. \*\* Perhaps you should malign the people who _didn’t_ have a gun pointed to their head when they went and saw Independence Day. Hollywood will continue to pump out formulaic trash that is safer for their bottom line until people stop seeing said trash. \*\* > [@](#): > > Kevin Smith doesn’t make the best movies in the history of the world or anything, but they weren’t _Hollywood_, and I watched them just for that. \*\* I think a film should be judged on it’s own merits, but obviously YMMV \*\*quote] That said, he kinda is going Hollywood now, and I regret it. I blame Affleck. \*\* [/QUOTE] Well because he is getting more money and most likely has to appeal (in the eyes of the omniscient studio execs) to a broader audience. Some people consider that ¡§selling out¡¨, and some people consider it good business sense. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/45 "2003-07-07T17:26:16Z")
I love Jay and Silent Bob. Dogma is up there with Mallrats, and Chasing Amy is a close second. The OP asked what was the deal with the lunchbox??? K. Jay calls Silent Bob “Lunchbox” at least once in all of the films they are in together. That’s why I laughed at it, anyway, YMMV. KS is a pretty good indie director, as long as he doesn’t start getting preachy. Once that happens, the film starts to spiral. ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/46 "2003-07-07T18:28:51Z")
So far I’ve only seen Dogma, and I loved it. I also enjoyed his stint on Green Arrow. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/47 "2003-07-07T18:31:22Z")
What’s the appeal of this lunchbox? Well, I’d say it’s a couple of things. He’s a geek, and we tend to love our own. In fact, I think he’s maybe the first movie-maker to ever portray geeks as much besides objects of scorn or pity for the main characters. No, his geeks heap scorn on others, which is satisfying on an almost subliminal level. And because he’s a geek, he writes things that tend to resonate fairly deeply with other geeks, giving his movies a feeling of being completely and totally real no matter how preposterous the situation. You’re not the sort of person to sit around and get into debates about Star Wars? Well, you’re clearly not the target audience. Just because you can’t relate to something doesn’t make it worthless. The fact that someone can’t relate to the story of an uneducated black woman growing up poor and abused in the deep South doesn’t make _The Color Purple_ trash, nor does it make Alice Walker a waste of oxygen. The same goes for Kevin Smith movies, or rap music, or romantic historical mystery novels, or anything else. Finally, to me, there’s a certain earnestness to his work, except for the Jay and Silent Bob movie. I don’t know how to explain it, but the material always has an undertone of being…a labor of love, I guess. Like Smith is working out something fairly major and personal, and putting it out there for everyone else to see because it’s important to him. Those kind of books and movies have always appealed to me far more than formulaic “ooh, I bet this would sell well” stuff. Oh, and Smith and his characters remind me a lot of my big brother. He’s the kind of guy who will go see _The Hulk_ (I’m sure he’s already been), come home and give you a play-by-play of how it deviates both from the comic books and from the television series. The conversations are often inane, and sometimes exasperating, but they’re more often interesting, because he’s knowlegeable and very passionate about the subject. I love my brother, but we don’t get to see each other often, or even talk on the phone much, and watching funny movies about people like him makes me happy. ---
**Author:** ![Jonathan\_Chance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jonathan_chance/32/701_2.png) [@Jonathan\_Chance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jonathan_Chance)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/48 "2003-07-07T18:55:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CrazyCatLady \* > **What’s the appeal of this lunchbox? Well, I’d say it’s a couple of things. He’s a geek, and we tend to love our own. In fact, I think he’s maybe the first movie-maker to ever portray geeks as much besides objects of scorn or pity for the main characters. No, his geeks heap scorn on others, which is satisfying on an almost subliminal level.** All this is true, yes. But the grad students in _Twister_ come pretty damn close. I deeply identified with them FAR more than the soi-disant leads. ---
**Author:** ![CrazyCatLady](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/dfb087/32.png) [@CrazyCatLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CrazyCatLady)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/49 "2003-07-07T19:29:59Z")
The grad students in _Twister_ were geeks, but they were also crazy as fuck. Sane people do **not** see a tornado coming and hop in the truck. I think that one thing kept me from identifying with them at all, and from enjoying the movie. I had the same problem with it that the OP has with KS movies: I sat there thinking, “Who the hell acts like that? This is stupid.” (That is not to say, however, that I condemned the movie as having no redeeming value, just that I couldn’t get into it.) ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/50 "2003-07-07T20:12:53Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Binarydrone \* > \*\ ***DocCathode** , You are the wind beneath my wings. Your post is one of the best examples of understated humor that I have seen in a while. \*\* I’m very confused. I honestly thought the OP was ranting about retro lunchboxes-couldn’t understand the appeal, and was particularly confused by Smith making a lunch box. Now, I see he was ranting about Smith in general. As a cheap man, I don’t go to the movies often. Since I have no credit card(I don’t want one. It’s just too easy to give in and end up massively in debt), I can’t get the membership card needed to rent movies from shlockbuster and the rest. I don’t have cable. So, I’ve seen most Dogma, Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back, and most of Clerks. ``` I like them. IMHO Smith wasn't trying to make masterpieces or mythic epics. With the exception of the preachy bits in Dogma, he was trying to make funny movies. IMHO, he succeeded. ``` ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/51 "2003-07-07T20:29:49Z")
All yooze guys who don’t like Jay and Silent Bob suck ballz cuz you, in fact, suck ballz. (Remember what happened to all those other guys who dissed them on the Internet.) ---
**Author:** ![Doomtrain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/0ea827/32.png) [@Doomtrain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doomtrain)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/52 "2003-07-07T21:13:00Z")
Who the fuck is “magnoliafan”? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/53 "2003-07-07T21:18:01Z")
Kevin Smith explained: [http://www.fametracker.com/fame\_audit/smith\_kevin.shtml](http://www.fametracker.com/fame_audit/smith_kevin.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/54 "2003-07-07T22:03:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DocCathode \* > **I’m very confused. I honestly thought the OP was ranting about retro lunchboxes…** 😃 ---
**Author:** ![MrMyth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19b73/32.png) [@MrMyth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrMyth)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2003, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/55 "2003-07-07T22:28:26Z")
I’m still trying to figure out how a person who supposedly worked in a comic book store could actually use the term ‘Japanimation’. It’s called _anime’_, dude. ---
**Author:** ![TERRA\_Rising](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TERRA\_Rising](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TERRA_Rising)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/56 "2003-07-08T06:18:47Z")
I use the term “Japanamation” because THAT is what I usually use in real life. Anime is another word for the same thing genre. You say “To-may-to,” I say “To-mah-to.” Let’s call the whole thing off! ---
**Author:** ![Optihut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Optihut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optihut)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/57 "2003-07-08T06:57:56Z")
I get the impression that people like to look at the surface - namely the crude jokes - and form an opinion on Kevin Smith based on that. Apparently even the crowd of the Smith haters (kinda) agrees that dogma is somewhat thought provocing, though. I for one think that coming up with the ending for “Chasing Amy” is a pure stroke of genius: It’s unexpected, it’s realistical (as opposed to the happy end I was anticipating) and it’s a great line (quoting from memory, forgive any inaccuracy): “That was just a guy I once knew.” So, not anybody could come up with that, even though clerks seems like a pointless story about unimportant people living their equally unimportant life. But I still think it’s a stroke of genius to come up with that in the first place. Besides, it seems to be an homage to a french film from the 60s (Alas, I forgot the name), which was in black and white and was completely random just like clerks. ---
**Author:** ![robotic\_panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ed8c4c/32.png) [@robotic\_panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robotic_panda)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/58 "2003-07-08T07:17:04Z")
Just have to say… I was annoyed with “Chasing Amy”, but then again I also liked the ending, much like **Optihut**. It was realistic, unexpected, and just seemed right. The thing that annoyed me was the whininess of the girl. If I have to hear that nasal whiny “Hoooooooolden!” one more time… _grits teeth, prepares to cringe_ I love Clerks, both the movie and cartoons, and I don’t care what that makes me, just let me watch that part of the movie where the guy is watching the cat go in the litter box on the counter… the impressed look! It gets me every time. I’m laughing just thinking about it. Thats it youz guys… i’m off to listen to “Chewbacca” by Supernova. _“what a wookie…”_ ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/59 "2003-07-08T16:25:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Diogenes the Cynic \* > \*\*I liked the Jay and Silent Bob movie but I think he goes off the rails when he tries to be profound. There was nothing especially insightful about _Dogma_ and _Chasing Amy_ was insulting and gutless is its portrayal of the lesbian character (she’s REALLY bi, so Ben Affleck still gets to sleep with her. A truly honest movie would not have let that happen.) > \*\* Man, I must not have had a “truly honest” life, then. Seeing as how I’ve bagged a lesbian. I’m sure all the other people who have as well are totally wrong, as well. I’ve known plenty of homosexuals, and I’ve never known one that had never had any sort of experience with the opposite sex. Well, one, but he was 14 when he came out, and only 17 the last time I saw him. Naturally, he was named Dave, but that’s a sterotype for another time. Oh, and notice that their relationship failed in the end. If that’s not true about someone “converting” someone back, I don’t know what is. -Joe ---
**Author:** ![Merijeek](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f05b48/32.png) [@Merijeek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merijeek)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2003, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609/60 "2003-07-08T16:35:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by I Love Me, Vol. I \* > \*\*Everywhere you go, everywhere you look there will always be people in life who succeed way, way, WAY past any talent, ability or worth that they may have. > > You may have noticed this at work. Maybe you have a manager (or two or three) who aren’t even qualified to be a shipping clerk, yet they get to make big decisions and big salaries. > > Kevin Smith is like that–only worse. Even Alan Smithee would be ashamed to put his name on one of Smith’s “films”. > > The weird part is, his “product” is in broad daylight for all to see and yet he STILL gets money to make new and horrible facsimiles of motion pictures. This may or may not have something to do with him regularly blowing some tall, dark, handsome and rich actor from New England. > > Few directors have ever shown less ability to direct actors. The characters in his films seem to be surprised to find themselves involved in a story. And even the ‘witty’ one-liners about dicks and piss and shit and other schoolyard trash can’t help. Even the awfully edited reaction shots of his sidekick’s ‘shocked’ look that seem like they were filmed 4 years and 3 states away from the ‘action’ shot that preceded it can’t help. > > No, about the only thing that keeps this charlatan afloat (aside from the dick-licking) is the ‘word-of-mouth’ buzz passed faithfully from one lemming to another-- around and around the buzz goes-- until even sensible people are afraid to admit that Kevin Smith and his attempts at film just flat out suck. > > It’s like the Emperors New Clothes-- no one wants to say the dirty secret… but I’ll shout it from the rooftops… > > HE SUCKS. HORRIBLY. DON’T EVER, EVER, SUPPORT THIS MORON BY EVEN GLANCING AT A SCREEN SPEWING HIS SHIT! > > Cheers to those who aren’t afraid to admit this. May the rest of you either wake up, or be forced to wallow in 2nd grade bathroom humor the rest of your lives. \*\* Ah…the Internet. If you don’t like what I like, you’re wrong and I’m right. You must be retarded. Kids - just because you don’t like something doesn’t make it retarded. It doesn’t make it stupid. It doesn’t make it worthless. It makes it…SOMETHING YOU DON’T LIKE. -Joe [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/kevin-smith/186609.md?page=2)