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.
Kevin Smith… pretty funny writer, terrible director. Just terrible.
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.
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.
**
I think a film should be judged on it’s own merits, but obviously YMMV
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That said, he kinda is going Hollywood now, and I regret it. I blame Affleck. **
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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.
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.
So far I’ve only seen Dogma, and I loved it. I also enjoyed his stint on Green Arrow.
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.
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.
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.)
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.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.)
Who the fuck is “magnoliafan”?
Kevin Smith explained:
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.
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!
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.
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…”
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
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