Posted by dsolo01 at r82aap001195.nyr.cable.rcn.com on November 17, 1999 at 22:19:32:
I post this letter on this web site, because I really don't know where in Jersey to send this to. I am hoping that Kevin Smith gets a chance to see this letter, but it is really for my own piece of mind than anything else that I write it.
I like to be entertained, and I like it when people who see the world in sort of the way that I do find success. When I was a sophomore at Emory University, way before I sold my soul (also known as beginning law school in '98), I was introduced to 'Clerks' by one of my fraternity brothers, who was already a devoted fan. I was suspicious, to say the least, of a movie that takes place entirely in a convenience store in the middle of my home state. Add to that unusual premise the black and white, and the lack of any actor I'd ever seen, and I was sure I was in for two hours of what film school students would call 'vision', but what I call phantasmagorical boredom.
Oh, how wrong I was ! Clerks was brilliant. So brilliant, in fact, that I couldn't wait to get another dose of the originality and off-the-wall humor that was this Kevin Smith character. Here was a guy who wrote a movie about the stuff me and my friends talked about. The contractors working on the Death Star...I thought only my friends and I were bored and drunk enough to have conversations like that. I felt like I was watching pieces of my own life...only in black and white.
I was ever more excited with 'Mallrats'. I heard a rumor, the veracity of which I do not know, that you issued a public apology for 'Mallrats'. If this is so, I'm very disappointed. You basically captured my high school years in that movie. Getting excited about the new cookies at the cookie stand; conversations about if that stand is part of the food court or not...these are conversations and things I did in Bergen County at Garden State Mall. You had an interview after a screening at Emory. I couldn't get to it because my girlfriend at the time was in the hospital. However, I saw Mallrats nonetheless, and loved every minute of it.
'Chasing Amy', again, cracked me up...but this time you made it a little more real. Though some people I know questioned your audacity at having a gay woman 'straightened out', I still felt for the characters. This is the movie where you totally won me as a fan.
I'm writing this to tell you that I saw 'Dogma', and despite the hailstorm you have been weathering, it is worth it. It is a great and funny picture, and I feel like I got your message about faith. It really doesn't matter what the faith is, as long as you have it. (at least, I thought that was what the message was. Maybe I'm way off. If I am, please disregard this !) The having the faith is what is important, not what book you choose to call your 'Bible' or 'Torah', or whatever. Growing up in a family where one parent was Catholic and the other Jewish gave me quite a perspective on faith, and that it isn't the words you speak, but that you believe in your heart. This is the message, besides the humor, that I took away from 'Dogma', and it is the message my mother, a devout Catholic (who happened to love the movie) took away as well.
Most of all, however, 'Dogma', and really everything you have done that I've seen is entertaining. And not just once. I watch your movies again and again, because they never lose their value. I'm a fan, much the way it seems you were a fan of John Hughes. When you're a fan, your love for the movies grows with each viewing, not fades. This is the way I feel about your movies, and I anxiously await your next. I also think your devotion to your actors (in casting them in each movie, no matter how small the role...we notice), and the keeping of jokes from previous movies alive throughout is fantastic. Keep up the good work...you give us something to do on Friday nights !! From my fraternity brothers, my friends, my mother and most of all myself...thanks. Anyone can make 'em cry...it takes real genius to make 'em laugh !!
Sincerely,
David Solomon, Esq. (almost)
ps - the "No Ticket" Indy reference...perhaps the best yet.
(although "adventure, excitement, a Jedi craves not these things" is pretty phenomenal too...)