Posted by Dirty RAT at spider-wm064.proxy.aol.com on September 02, 2001 at 04:45:31:
To start off Kevin, I just wanted to state that Clerks and Mallrats have been two of my favorite movies for a long ass time. It all started to go down-hill with that sappy piece of shit Chasing Amy, and suddenly the apparent knack for film making dropped choked and died with Dogma. (The Catholic church wasn't trying to stop the release because of it's religious content, they were trying to stop it because it plain sucked balls.) And now..I walked into Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back with open ears, and wishful thinking that Jason Lee would get more screen-time than the trailer suggested. But sure enough, what I expected rang very true with the finished product of the film. That movie plain sucked ass. Not just Dogma suck ass, at least there is still some charm and witty monologues there. But this movie was like, Wild Wild West stupid, yes THAT BAD! Nothing paid off in the damn thing, much like the annoyingly long ala Brian De Palma crane-shot in the beginning of Mallrats which got cut, but with JSBSB, the entire movie should've been cut! I know you just love your little visions to ring true, such as nerdy little basement dwellers trash-talking your movie just because they haven't made it in Hollywood. Ok, that's fine, you are in a position to speak, because your username is in RED I suppose. One of the most unpleasent scenes of the film was the stupid ass bong-saber or whatever the little site dwellers are calling them duel. I mean Jesus, Mewes twirling that thing around so mechanically and forced was about as much as I could take. Many people I discussed the film with felt that scene was so badly done that you should've ultimately reshot it. And bad locations just put a dark blanket on the movie....very bad, all that Ventura County looking stuff abviously shot in Southern California to double for Oklahoma and such. And the exteriors of the Diamond Exchange, shot in Santa Clarita near my home was stupid looking. Will all this acclaim and ass-kissing you still don't know how to hire a Location Manager or what? As many others have stated, the true-life junkie Mewes is not powerful enough an actor to carry a movie on his own, as simple as that. What he say may be funny and it's nice to see the character's intertwine in and out of the plot as in Mallrats, but looking at these two goofy bastards for about 2 hours is pretty horribe on the viewer, no matter how big a fan. No matter how funny the delivery of the line may be, Mewes will always be a Cue-Card sounding actor. Now moving on to Jennifer. I wish I was boning and Hollywood pretty boy that denies being a pretty boy merely judging physical characteristics, so I could land a job in a summer hit as well. Jennifer just plain did not fit in, she looked a good 10 years elder to the rest of the girls and just didn't have the body for the cat suit. You probably cut much of her dialouge, but I think you should've cut a little more for the safe side. Words of advice, if you insist on putting your wife in a film, for God's sakes give the girl some acting lessos prior to. All in all the movie sucked, I laughed once. And that was merely on account of Matt Damon telling the 1st A.D. to get his fucking hands off him, just because that seems to be so Matt Damon. Just like shit talking and denying it is so Kevin Smith. It was just so apparent, the films you claim to dislike, you want so badly to be offered a job directing-- such as that shitty choreographed Jewel Heist scene with the lazers, and the gun shoot-out at the end. Lots of shit you may try in future projects, but never really achieve. And for that very reason you can continue claiming to live in New Jersey, continue throwing your prematurely wrinkled wife in your films, continue hailing yourself as a much better writer than you truly are, and continue to joke around about your own weight-- when we all know the very thing eating at you about your physical appearance is eating at you about the quality of your films and the John Hughes you will never be.
I still consider Mallrats one of the best films of all time, but on the same breathe, you're right there with Ed Wood and Gus Van Sant, as the worst directors.
Thank you for your time.