eXcentris

Just in case this hasn't been said:

Kevin Smith is a hack.

PatD

Kevin Smith gets way too much flack. I've never seen the Cheech and Chong movies, the Harold and Kumar movies, the American Pie movies, Porky's, ect. held to so stringent, unforgiving standards. Smith makes no pretense to who he is as a filmmaker. He never claimed to be the second coming of Kurosawa. In my opinion his stuff in the 90s was solid. He was ahead of the pop culture curve for a long time. His stuff in the 00s was a bit more hit and miss. His stuff this decade: the less said the better. But, few filmmakers have given me more belly laughs and goofy grins than Smith. I'd rather watch Chasing Amy or Dogma any day over anything Judd Apatow puts out.

MrRound2

I always liked smiths films. Red state was fantastic i thought but yoga hosers was terrible. But his comedies ive always enjoyed for what they are.....dumb comedies. I'd love a third Clerks film but if he took the time to make it right. If he rushes it then the quality would suffer greatly. And not involve his daughter shes not a good actress at all imo

GoldenJCJ

Michael Corvin

It's more than simple disappointment though. Just read this thread. Outright backlash, hatred and turning on the guy.

It's kinda weird.

He made a bunch of.movies I loved growing up and still find them funny. His recent output has been hit it miss but I'm not gonna get worked up because he makes a bomb that I didn't like.

melasnus

This.
He hit his peak with Dogma.
Then hit a wall and never recovered.
It's sad, really.

Another one who seemed headed to greatness was Robert Rodriquez.
His career took a similar arc, but for a different reason.

There is the difference.
You "grew up" with Smith.
Those of us who were ALREADY grown up when he hit the scene are more critical.

Coral

That's the problem... the viewer grew up (or had already grown up) while Kevin Smith stayed a child.

rocket1312

But again, why so much vitriol? I've never understood why he gets certain people so worked up. He hasn't been culturally relevant outside his tiny corner of fandom in at least a decade, yet everytime his name comes up there's screaming and shouting. He's so easy to ignore! Just ignore him! Why do people feel the need to always pop in and remind us that he had bad taste in clothes or that Jersey Girl sucks? Everyone already knows that. We've known it for decades.

james2025a

Well i used that turn of phrase, but I was already in my 20s by the time the original Clerks came out. So I didn't really grow up with them, I just grew older with his movies. But then so did everyone else.

I guess my tastes as a 20 something were more forgiving for juvenile jokes and styling. I can still enjoy it, as long as it feels original or some kind of intelligence behind it. But the problem is that 25 years of film making yet his movies havnt matured let alone his jokes.

Josh-da-man

I think the thing with Kevin Smith is that he really, really struck gold with Clerks in 1994. That's a movie that not only nailed the Generation X zeitgeist, but also rode the wave of 90s independent cinema along with contemporaries like Linklater, Tarantino, and Rodriguez.

But, I think, in a lot of ways, Smith ended up being a regressive filmmaker. His follow-up to Clerks, Mallrats, felt like generic mid-90s Hollywood fluff that, despite a few laughs in the screenplay, felt very "committee."

His next movie, Chasing Amy, returned to his Clerks comfort zone, which was raw and talky and fly-on-the-wall.

I realize a lot of folks here liked Dogma, but I think that was his ultimate fall as an artist. On one hand, it's sort of an interesting genre movie, but the religion themes he's playing with don't really work with the parade of dick jokes and shit monsters. It's ulitimately, like Mallrats, too polished-looking for its own good, and feels cartoony when it shouldn't. It's like a Troma movie with a Hollywood budget.

His Jay and Silent Bob stuff, outside of Clerks, too often comes off as indulgent and inside-jokey, and it's not surprising that it flounders at the box office.

I did like Zack and Miri Make a Porno, though. It mostly felt like a return to form; relationship troubles, a constant stream of scatology and sex jokes, character study.

I really think Smith should have stuck with writing, which is his strongest talent, or maybe gotten into producing, because he just feels like a one-trick pony as an auteur director.

melasnus

I think the reason is because he showed so much promise early on, but failed to grasp what was at his fingertips.
There is no outside force to blame...no producer, no studio.
It's all on him.

PatD

I remember him saying at a Q & A in 2009 saying that in Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Dogma that he poured his guts out on film. After that, he said that he had nothing to say.

But, you know what? You guys can say whatever harsh things about him as a writer/director, but he's a good-hearted human being. In 2015, my dad had brain surgery from a tumor. A few months after he was recovering, I was able to see Kevin Smith in Seattle and I asked him if he could do a get well video for my dad and he did:

TGM

tough not to like the guy. seems down to earth. my only gripe is I'm not sure he can be objective on critiquing the movies of he friends or franchises he grew up loving.

Michael Corvin

Very cool Pat.

That's for damn sure. Everything DC and Star Wars is fucking genius and groundbreaking with him. Of course that, in and of itself is it's own form of entertainment.

andicus

That is very nice, and I hope your dad did well, after his surgery.

dsa_shea

You do good things for yourself and those around you, like for his friend Jason Mewes, and you get talked down on. You do shitty things and treat people like crap, while only caring about money and you get loved. What a world we live in.

melasnus

You're misunderstanding.
NO ONE is saying KS is a bad person. in fact, far from it.
The topic under discussion is his movie-making skill.

d2cheer

Don't care that some in here don't think he is a talented movie maker.
Don't care that some in here don't think his movies are good.
Don't care that some in here don't think he has grown as a director.

Clerks II was one of the best comedies he has done. All is forgiven because he made that and it came at a time when me and my wife were having troubles and it fit the bill for us. Think Roof top dancing scene ( WE realized how much we cared for one another). Probably saved our marriage for a couple of years. It ended anyway but we found a way to tolerate each other for an additional few years because of that movie. Crazy I know but it happened.

And I am grateful.

PatD

I've never thought KS was that bad a comedy filmmaker. I revisit and quote his movies every so often. He's not Kubrick behind the camera, but I'm there for the characters and dialogue, not to fret over the mise en scene of each shot. Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II, and Zack and Miri Make a Porno were all huge laugh getters for me. Very few filmmakers (or creators) can balance wit and vulgarity with the same aplomb as Kevin Smith.

PatD

Clerks II is my favorite Kevin Smith movie as well.

The Antipodean

dex14

People were asked not to leak it. Whether people followed that I don't know. I tried looking on reddit and couldn't find anything. This was the only thing I saw reported in the local news: https://www.app.com/story/entertainm...se/1900644001/

Shannon Nutt

The only thing I've heard about Clerks III is what Kevin has revealed himself:

A) The opening scene was used for Reboot - where Jay and Silent Bob get ordered out of the Quick Stop by the police; and
B) The ending was a downer - with Dante and Randall still stuck working at the Quick Stop

Trevor

I’m cool with people liking his later films, just don’t understand. Chasing Amy is in my all-time top ten, Clerks probably top twenty, Dogma and Mallrats top 100. But I’d rather piss razor blades than watch Clerks 2 again.

But I’ll always enjoy Kevin Smith as a person/speaker. For me, he’s sort of like his generation’s William Shatner; a bit full of himself and one-note, but fun to see.

story

We already saw Scene A in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. As for Scene B, we saw that in Clerks II and it didn't strike me as a downer so much as they were taking ownership of something together and to be together. I can see how if you're still managing a little store at the end of a strip mall another 10-15 years later can come off as a downer, but it's also nice to have job security, small business ownership, and hey, you're still with your buddy. Now it's your roof to play hockey on.

And I loved Clerks II. Maybe it was because of where my high school friends and I all were at the time, in terms of relationships and next steps, but it rung very true for all of us. It got us talking quite a bit, too.