Nov 29 2008
Kevin Smith
For some reason, in both things I did this week for Den of Geek (the weekend box office report, back after a short hiatus, and a review of Zack and Miri Make A Porno), I talk a lot about Kevin Smith as a filmmaker. Maybe it’s because I talked about Kevin Smith’s new movie, but for some reason even before that I’ve really been thinking about him and his troubles lately. Maybe it’s because I empathize with the guy for the same reason I empathized with the Ramones: he was the first guy to do vulgar guy comedy on a big scale, yet he gets absolutely no respect when you compare him to Judd Apatow, who is like The Clash in that he took the Smith formula and made it popular.
The Ramones, over the years, went more and more pop in their style, either due to mellowing as they age or because they were trying to score that elusive hit record. They worked with Phil Spector, they added more instruments, they tried everything. Kevin Smith is right there at that moment himself. He’s changing. He’s trying to grow, trying to leave behind the Askewniverse and become a filmmaker who can succeed without the help of Jay and Silent Bob.
Unfortunately, in the process he’s becoming Judd Apatow, but with a little less filmmaking prowess. This might be deliberate (guy-themed romantic comedies with dirty mouths but a secret heart of gold) or it might be accidental (Seth Rogen is instantly recongizable as an Apatow Repertory Company player instantly, so working with him automatically makes your movie seem Apatowish). That’s not a bad thing, and Smith’s movies have always had kind of a soft and mushy heart at their core, but it makes the originator look like an imitator.
That’s kind of sad. Without Clerks, there is no 40-Year-Old Virgin. Kevin Smith ought to make $60 million dollars on a movie just once in his career. He deserves at least one unqualified success.
I haven’t seen much of Smith’s work since Dogma, which was sheer awesomeness. I kind of avoided watching Clerks 2 because I love the first one too much, and I was afraid the sequel wouldn’t be able to live up to it, especially since so much time has passed. Maybe it’s just me getting old, but the Zack and Miri trailers just made me squeamish and even knowing it was a Kevin Smith flick couldn’t erase that. I always loved the Smithiverse of his earlier works–it was like seeing performances by a repertory theater group; same core of actors, just playing different roles with Jay and Silent Bob the one constant. I always thought of them as a series of vignettes about one slightly wacky neighborhood, not as a repetititve formula, and so they never got boring. I can understand his desire to move on to other things, but at the same time, part of me really wants to see more of the same.
I felt that way, too. I always felt comfortable in the world, as interconnected as it was.
Especially the movies pre-Dogma where everything synched up so well. Dogma kind of sticks out as a random movie, but Jay and Silent Bob works more in the Askewniverse, as does Clerks II. I was waiting to be disappointed by it, too, but aside from one sequence, it was a really good addition. Better than Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, actually.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was a disappointment, that is true–I think that was the last KS movie I’ve seen, and that could be part of the reason why I’ve hesitated since.
Oh, and did I happen to mention that Elizabeth Banks was born and raised here? Well, not here-here, but in Pittsfield, MA, which is not all that far from here. The local paper had her on the front page when both “W” and “Zack and Miri” came out.
No, you did not! I think she’s very awesome, though.