worst Kevin Smith movie

I have seen all but Cop Out, and it really has to be Zack and Miri Make a Porno.

Mallrats

haven't seen the latest 4

I haven't seen Cop Out or Zack and Miri, but the latter is such an astonishingly unappealing premise that I gotta vote for it.

Jersey Girl, but I (alone in the universe) like 'em all.

I can't believe how much me and my friends liked this guy in the 90s. Maybe it's a high school thing. I was working at a music/DVD shop over Christmas a few years ago, and the staff there were obsessed with him. They were quoting Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back constantly. Even though I didn't know anybody but understood the references and could have used it as an icebreaker to bro down at work, I couldn't bring myself to laugh or comment. It was grim.

imo the worst is Clerks II - really speaks to KS's cluelessness that he thought what people liked about Clerks to begin with was that 'Dante' and 'Randall' are such indelible characters played by such charismatic actors that people would like to revisit them a decade later and see how they're doing. but Zack And Miri is close and Chasing Amy is pretty horrible, especially considering how many people i knew who thought it was his 'good' movie at the time.

I'll rep for Clerks II actually. It does draw a lot on nostalgia, but it's probably got some of his best stuff.

Jersey Girl was kinda decent imo, think most of the stigma against it came from Bennifer backlash

I liked Clerks II, because i think it aged the characters from like sad 20something fuckups to REALLY SAD thirtysomething fuckups.

yeah i didn't mind jersey girl but i was expecting it to be horrible.

i think the answer is obv Cop Out

I dunno. Shacking up with Rosario Dawson kind of limits how sad someone can really be.

xpost

of the ones I've seen, Dogma

this is a v difficult question

Cop Out. I like all of Kevin Smith's stuff, so maybe that precludes me from this but Cop Out was straight unwatchable.

thread partially inspired by watching Cop Out and thinking it was okay and that he's done much much worse

dogma is dumb and boring and faux-deep, but chasing amy is intolerable, so i'm leaning toward the latter

Mallrats

haven't seen the latest 4

― a nan, a bal, an anal ― (abanana), Monday, January 17, 2011 2:25 PM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

mallrats is my favorite!

im kind of interested in how these films break down in terms of 'ideologically bad' vs. 'just plain terrible filmmaking'

yeah i think mallrats is prob the last one id vote for too

p sure I've not seen the worst of this man's oeuvre

tho i hated dogma, so I'll vote for that

underlying philosophy is objectionable vs. man this dude doesnt know how to edit

Most of em bring the lols imo

I haven't seen Zack And Miri Make A Porno or Cop Out but from the others it has to be Clerks II, I think. The only good part about that movie was the Jay doing Goodbye Horses bit.

I actually think I'd rate the others:

Mallrats
Clerks
Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back
Jersey Girl
Chasing Amy
Dogma

Jay and Silent Bob saved by the parts with Suzanne the Orangutan imo

wtf is "cop out"

i think what makes chasing amy so bad is the profound level of pretense it has abt saying something *true* about *lyfe*

and that joey lauren adams is really gd irritating

Cop Out is a Bruce Willis/Tracy Morgan buddy cop movie released last year

yeah also all the dramatic shouty scenes about what a slut joey lauren adams is and the totally overwrought let's have a threesome then maybe i can accept what a dirty whore you are scene

that movie is gross

so gross

Cop Out is a Bruce Willis/Tracy Morgan buddy cop movie released last year

seem to recall that the working title for this was Just a Couple of Dicks or something similiar

yah chasing amy is bad but i think dogma is just as bad in smith apparently thinking he has something new and interesting and insightful to say about religion

Haven't seen Cop Out yet, so I'm going to have to go with Zach and Miri. Pretty awful stuff. Clerks II had moments. Jersey Girl was redeemed by some genuine moments of sweetness (the same stuff that saved Chasing Amy imho) and Carlin. Mallrats will forever be my favorite.

guys what if god is ... a woman?

Dogma is pretty ridiculous but i think it's up there w/ Mallrats as his funniest movie anyway

mallrats def the one i can still watch without feeling weird about having loved it 10 yrs ago

prince loves dogma, dunno if that changes anything for anyone

he has something new and interesting and insightful to say about religion

fwiw, this really isn't the impression he gave off in interviews about the film, it was more "I'm trying to point these out to my core audience who probably couldn't be bothered to care about the inconsistencies wrt to religion" than "this is NEW and INSIGHTFUL".

Max otm re Mallrats. I still think it's p good.

i only saw dogma the one time...maybe i was too distracted by being irritated by its pretensions to theological significance but i didn't think it was that funny. matt damon is kind of funny, i guess.

the whole thing about ass-to-mouth in clerks 2 was probably the moment where i was like "jesus f-ing christ what is wrong with this dude" and then all of a sudden every other movie he made seemed similarly gross

except mallrats and to some extent clerks

guys what if god is ... a woman?

or a stranger on a bus

i love mallrats; you just have to fast forward all the jason london/claire forlani scenes. jason lee and shannen doherty are a++

http://wondermark.com/c/2008-06-10-415night.gif

thread needs shakey mo

for me it's like
guilty pleasure movie, will lol when it's on tv: Mallrats, Dogma, J&S Strike Back
thought were decent but don't need to see again: Clerks, Jersey Girl, Cop Out
wrong on so many levels: Clerks II, Zack & Miri, Chasing Amy

what 90s movies would one describe as being similar to kevin smith's. im trying to think of comparable stuff

Even rewatching the KS movies that I originally liked, what originally came off as quirky or charming now just feels clumsy and inept. I think that was the most disappointing part of Zack & Miri or Clerks II, it's like...you've directed a half-dozen movies, you should know how pacing and framing and humor work by now.

This thread just reminded me of this, which will never not be funny (especially the fact that it inspired Kevin Smith to go on a tirade against SomethingAwful). After seeing J&SBSB I totally believed this, by the way:
http://www.somethingawful.com/truth-media-reviews/truthmedia-review-clerks/

"only" 600 theaters, what a world

J&SBSB was where I got off the Smith train forever, but on reflection Dogma is a terrible joyless mess, and Chasing Amy is hateful garbage with no recognisable characters

Recently saw him and the employees of his J+SB comic book store being all over the top enthusiastic like a bunch of 14-year olds (there's a TV series on Discovery I think) and I was all "oh ffs, grow up, they're only comic books" but then I realized he's always been 14.

The Tell'em Steve Dave podcast is easily the funniest thing he's ever been part of, which makes sense since, all the Clerks characters are based on Walt and Bryan.

This ****in' guy...

http://comicbook.com/2014/09/29/kevin-smith-reveals-clerks-iii-now-has-financing-due-to-tusk/

And honestly, that would not have happened. A year and change ago I was trying to ****ing desperately get Clerks III made for the 20th anniversary. And that desperation, I must have reeked of it, because I couldn’t ****ing find money and s***. But it was Tusk, it was people going ‘Holy F***! What else do you have?’ And I was like, ‘Clerks III’, done. So everybody that’s like, ‘He failed, he failed,’ thank you I failed into Clerks III. So, never trust anybody when they tell you how your story goes, man. You know your story. You write your own story.”

I literally don't understand this. How did making "Tusk" get him the greenlight for "Clerks III?"

He made Tusk on a teeny budget which was recouped on a advanced sales, and someone was impressed.

I wonder if he's gonna make one every ten years, like a Before Sunrise but with ugly people and umpteen comic & Star Wars refs.

I liked Clerks II, so I'm part of the problem. But Tusk, dear lord!!

I honestly wish more things I like would have wacky check-ins on the characters every ten years

Honestly wish all popular culture would be reduced to fan service tbh

He made Tusk on a teeny budget which was recouped on a advanced sales, and someone was impressed.

Sure, but when was this not the case with Kevin Smith? He's had a couple of bigger budget turds, but most of his shit is cheap, fast and I imagine ultimately recoups. So why there would be any resistance to a sequel to one of his most surefire shit-brands "Clerks" ? This is the dude who has somehow gotten funding for almost a dozen shitty movies, the most recent being another horror movie before Tusk. Amazing to me that Tusk could get made and distributed before a Clerks III.

Anyway, this guy is a chump, but I love his anecdotes.

"Yoga Hosers:"

The film centers on 15-year-old yoga nuts Colleen Collette (Lily-Rose Depp) and Colleen McKenzie (Harley Quinn Smith), who have an after-school job at a Manitoba convenience store called Eh-2-Zed. When an ancient evil rises from beneath Canada’s crust and threatens their big invitation to a Grade 12 party, the Colleens join forces with a legendary man-hunter from Montreal named Guy Lapointe (Depp).

According to Kevin Smith, the third and final film in his True North Trilogy will be entitled Moose Jaws which he credits the film as "Jaws with a moose". Last heard, Kevin Smith mentioned the script was half-way done, and he plans for it to be his next film, hoping for production to start in 2015, along with Clerks III.

Recently saw him and the employees of his J+SB comic book store being all over the top enthusiastic like a bunch of 14-year olds (there's a TV series on Discovery I think) and I was all "oh ffs, grow up, they're only comic books" but then I realized he's always been 14.

Yeah, it's so weird that dudes that get paid for a TV show would be overly enthusiastic to promote that show.

HE NAMED HIS DAUGHTER HARLEY QUINN

Clerks III actually happening

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_lFOqQDRx0

for those who don't wanna watch the trailer, Randall has a heart attack (like Kevin Smith did) and decides to make a movie about the Quick Stop, starring him and Dante

half of the film will be characters winking at the camera and talking about how meta the whole thing is

gonna go out on a limb and say this will be worse than Dogma

I like how there's a reference to the alternate ending of the original. I remember watching Siskel & Ebert when they reviewed the LaserDisc release where that scene premiered and they actually played the whole clip prefaced with a warning that it was terrible and Smith was right to have deleted it.

That was appalling

They all look so old

Surely this is beneath Rosario

They all look so old

I saw Clerks the first weekend it was on in London, at the end of a shitty shift working at a shitty WH Smith's, and when Randall spat in the customer's face I felt euphoric. I loved the movie then, but I know I'd probably hate it if I saw it now. I'd begun to hate it when I saw Clerks II on a work trip in the US and did not laugh once (or was it the Jay And Silent Bob movie?). This new one just looks sad and terrible, like hanging out with friends you don't fit with any more and having to grimace a smile during every revisited in-joke.

At least we can all agree that Dogma was total shit.

The idea of watching a Kevin Smith film in 2022 is so uniquely depressing. The only way I can imagine it is in a bed made on a velour couch, unshowered for weeks, having eaten nothing but Chex Mix for god knows how long.

of all the songs to use in the trailer

know I'd probably hate (Clerks) if I saw it now

Caught it starting on TV a few weeks ago, surprised myself (pleasantly) by leaving it on all the way through.

I'll be honest I will probably wind up seeing this out of morbid curiosity. most likely it'll be on streaming in two years when I'm wickedly hungover but I'm sure I'll see it eventually

fwiw I do like Kevin Smith, he's not really a great talent and I don't think any of his movies are particularly good (in fact most of them are flat out awful) but I think he's a genuine guy and an entertaining speaker. also I will go to the mat for Clerks: the Animated Series, which I still think is mostly as clever as the Simpsons ever got

I still remember seeing Clerks for the first time; I think it was out for a few years by the time I was old enough to see it but it still felt like a game changer, the first time I ever saw a movie and thought "my friends and I could've made that over the summer". I mean that in a good way of course. very much one of those "who cares what the critics think, this is awesome" sorta things. also still the only movie I've seen that actually captures what working retail is like

Clerks 2 otoh was awful. in fact there are several scenes that I had to look up later on because I can't believe they actually happened - the one where they leave work during a rush to go go-karting, which even in comedy movie logic makes zero sense, and the "porch monkey" scene where Wanda Sykes walks in, god it's all so embarrassing and stupid. but on the plus side it made me appreciate how hard it must be to actually film funny scenes, because this movie sure as hell couldn't do it (maybe most of this was funny on paper). that said it did kinda hit a touching note at the end, I'm not sure how many other movies explore this idea of turning 30 and drifting away from the people you used to spend all your time with. that of course is a very real thing and was the thing which prevented me from thinking it was the worst movie I'd ever seen.

this movie looks like it could be even worse, none of the characters look right (is it age or just a ton of makeup?) and Kevin Smith is notoriously hamfisted with meta humor. I agree with Stevie's take, it reminds me of seeing old friends from high school who you just have nothing to say to anymore. but I'm sure I'll still see it.

Kinda envy these characters for living in a world where Kevin Smith never made a movie.

Chasing Amy should have walked this.

Dogma was funny and fought above it's weight class. CA was offensive

god I just remembered that the central plot of Clerks 2 revolved around whether or not Dante would move away to live a "normal" life with his girlfriend or stay with Randall and his new flame played by Rosario Dawson. while he agonizes over this it becomes revealed that Dawson's character is pregnant, essentially making the decision for him. and her pregnancy was revealed in the trailer!! it's just sloppy, practically Tommy Wiseauian filmmaking

I recall liking "Clerks" when it came out, and Smith the raconteur can be pretty great. But Smith the filmmaker is terrible, and, begging disbelief, Smith the writer is even worse.

all of the characters in kevin smith movies are kevin smith

Kinda envy these characters for living in a world where Kevin Smith never made a movie.

idk I kinda picture Randall constantly making references to the titles of other Kevin Smith movies then looking straight at the camera

Dogma was pretty funny to me at the time, though I remember it also has a lot of awful moralizing speeches. A several people on reddit were saying they don't have high hopes for Clerks 3 because all his movies after Clerks 2 have been bad. It's like, first, I can't believe Clerks 2 isn't lumped in with those bad movies, and second, it's hard to imagine what the worse movies than it would be like

"I like your jersey, girl" *stares at camera for 10 seconds*

"oh, we're just Clerks? well you're Clerks 2!!"

Out of all these titles the only one I've seen was Dogma, at home on a DVD checked out from my public library, so I didn't pay a cent to see it. I appreciated it in the same spirit that I'd appreciate a goofy novelty song on the radio, like hearing an Alvin & the Chipmunks Christmas Album. Or to draw a closer analogy, like a movie that got made just so a bunch of Hollywood chums could get together and have a good time making a movie on someone else's dime, like Smokey and the Bandit II. On that level, it was fitfully amusing and hard to get angry about. I even liked the stupid Catholic theology plot.

i saw dogma in the theater when it was released with my cool fun cousins and we had a decent time. we may have had a couple of beers. haven’t seen it since, but I fully believe it’s probably p bad.

I really only liked Clerks and parts of Mallrats. def a time/ place thing for me.

I seem to remember thinking Dogma was good at the time, but now all I remember is a guy in the cinema proposing to his gf near the start of the film, her turning him down, and him seething next to her for the next half hour before shouting something at her and walking out of the auditorium.

Chasing Amy is downright offensive. Mallrats... I really wanted it to be funny. But in retrospect it's just a bunch of weak anal sex jokes, and most of the actors in it can't act (that London kid... jeez.)

lol proposing in a theater as a Kevin Smith movie begins wtf

At the Camden Town Odeon, too.

"Will you snoochie my boochies til death do us part?"

get this what if jay and silent bob smoked a really big blunt

always forget that mallrats guy is the twin brother of the dazed & confused guy and not just the same guy

and by “always” I mean the 3 times it’s crossed my mind since 1996

Has anyone, even his fans/defenders, seen those “Hockey Hosers” movies with his daughter?

Huge LOL at the moment when, after the entire trailer has been the same 4 actors actors reenacting the same old scenes from the same old Kevin Smith movies, the text appears: "WELCOME TO A NEW ERA"

"Yes, I will feed the dog, Ma!" [Gives camera a "see what I did there" look]

always forget that mallrats guy is the twin brother of the dazed & confused guy and not just the same guy

today I learned

Or to draw a closer analogy, like a movie that got made just so a bunch of Hollywood chums could get together and have a good time making a movie on someone else's dime, like Smokey and the Bandit II. On that level, it was fitfully amusing and hard to get angry about.

yeah this is what it kinda boils down to for me, Kevin Smith's early movies worked because they seemed like a lot of fun to make. they're like those shitty SNL sketches that eventually devolve into the actors just trying to make each other laugh. Clerks 1 worked because all four of those guys seemed like they probably did spend a lot of time together, plus most of it was just Smith appropriating stories from his own life. By Clerks 2 it felt like the guys hadn't seen each other in years, Clerks 3 will probably somehow be ever worse

"I loved the movie then, but I know I'd probably hate it if I saw it now."

I remember an old Judge Dredd story in which there was a leak at a chemical plant that causes hundreds of deaths. And then there's a riot - not because people are angry at the leak, but because the deaths mean there are job vacancies at the chemical plant and in the grim world of Mega-City One everybody wants a job. Not so much for the money but for the sense of having something to live for. And recently there have been protests in India because the armed forces want to get rid of jobs-for-life-plus-a-pension and bring in fixed four-year terms. Quoting the BBC:

Young people in India's smaller towns and villages prepare for years to become soldiers in the armed forces as the job brings prestige, a regular income and for some, a way out of poverty. The new Agnipath scheme is aimed at people aged between 17.5 and 21 years. It says that successful candidates will join the armed services for four years, after which only 25% of them will be retained. The soldiers will go through training for six months and then will be deployed for three and a half years. During this period, they will get a monthly starting salary of 30,000 rupees ($384; £316), along with additional benefits which will go up to 40,000 rupees by the end of the four-year service.

Imagine young people rioting because they want to be in the armed forces. That's what I think of when I think of films like Clerks and Reality Bites etc from the 1990s. To a much lesser extent Clerks because the characters were aware that they were failures and were trying to cover it up, but they were self-aware. And of course Kevin Smith himself tried to be a success. He tried to steer his own path. I can admire that. It's just that his films attracted a certain kind of person who didn't get the characters' self-awareness.

It's the same with On the Road. They all feel like period pieces from a time when everybody dreamed of working in a record store forever.