Posted by jkm822 at 208.140.189.12 on September 10, 2001 at 14:15:26:
In Reply to: downward spiral posted by dmcfan on September 10, 2001 at 13:30:11:
Clerks: genius.
Mallrats: Underappreciated to an amazing extent. This was the John Hughes flick of the 90's, as far as I'm concerned. It's my favorite of the entire group, and I don't care what anyone says, it's funny as hell.
Chasing Amy: It may be a masterpiece. It may be a work of art. But it's the most depressing of the bunch, and when I watch a Kevin film, I'm usually not going for deep. I'm going for dick & fart jokes and amazingly funny and intelligent dialogue. Hence my favoring of Clerks and Mallrats over Chasing Amy, which is very much bound up in the horrible nature of what romantic relationships can do to a person. I've LIVED horrible relationships; I don't need to watch someone else's.
Dogma: Also underappreciated. Between the fervor by the Catholic church not to see it, and the fervor by the people who wanted to piss off the Catholic church by telling everyone to go see it, I think the fact that it's an intelligent and funny film sort of got lost. The characterizations were great, the acting (in most cases, anyway) was stellar, the dialogue was the witty, intelligent dialogue that I look for in a Kevin film, the plot was well defined... no problems. The only downfall, as far as I was concerned (and before anyone pisses and moans about me sucking Kevin's dick, I felt this way before I ever heard about his problems with her) was Linda Fiorentino's portrayal of Bethany. It just didn't fit with the tone of the movie; she was melodramatic, bitchy, and whiny. But hey, mistakes were made. Still, all in all, a great film.
J&SBSB: Lost of cameos, lots of dick and fart jokes, better camera work. And... well, as fun as it is, that's about all there is to it. As far as the final feature film send-off of the Jersey "trilogy" characters goes, I found it a little bit disappointing. I enjoyed it, don't get me wrong, I guess I was just hoping for more. But when you keep in mind that it was a film meant to be carried by Mewes's character, who's chiefly known for cursing and being generally not very bright, I guess it's not too surprising. I guess I was just expecting there to be a little more in the way of a send-off for all the other characters we've come to know and love over the years. And far more in the way of dialogue.
But at least we have the animated film to look forward to, and IMHO, Green Arrow is where Kevin put all the great dialogue that should have been in J&SBSB. So it's not as if we're destitute, as far as classic Kevin Smith stuff goes.
Jill