Kevin Smith thoughts

[inturnaround]

inturnaround: I think the polarity has to do with his posturing ("I'm an indie rebel! Yes still!"), his complete lack of growth as an artist and finally the fact that a lot of his fans are terrible, terrible ambassadors for his work. The last point is a bit unfair to Smith himself, because he doesn't have any more power over how douchey his fanbase can be anymore than Phish or the Decemberists or anyone else who has a lot of insufferable, vocal fans do, but I think it's a large factor in the hatred.

Well, he admits that before Red State, he wasn't indie at all since Clerks. He's been a studio filmmaker.

And yeah, some fans can be douchey. But I'm still a fan and I can say that there a lot who aren't that way at all. I guess maybe the most obvious ones can be.

If you ever do watch Red State, though, you will see growth there. It's not a typical Kevin Smith movie. In fact, except for a few flourishes like the monologue at the end, it doesn't feel like one at all. I'd be interested to see what people who don't like most of his movies thing. It's on VOD starting this Labor Day for 6 weeks.

[TimBuktu]

I don't want to come off like a jerk, but I find everything he does to be offensively bad. I have the same visceral full on hatred of everything he does that is reserved for Family Guy and Carlos Mencia. I thought that Dogma was possibly the worst thing I've ever seen in my life, for example. I hate the guy with a passion reserved for a very small number of things. I hope that helps.

[SeanX3]

Yep. I was completely non-plussed by people's reverence for Dogma. I watched it on the advice of a bunch of people and was shocked at how bad it was—badly conceived, badly written, badly acted, badly directed, badly edited, badly executed all round. Not even diamond-in-the-rough bad, just woefully sophomoric pseudo-intellectual bad. Have not noticed any uptick in creative strength in his career since, and then his WTF was one of the saddest WTFs. That comment about lousy ambassadors is telling all right: he needs to surround himself with better people.

[Monty]

The first time I saw Mallrats was one of the coolest movie-going experiences I've ever had. I saw the sneak preview at San Diego Comic Con in 1995, before movie previews were a common thing there. So I got to see it:

1) In a theater full of people really excited to see the second movie from the guy who did Clerks
2) In a theater full of comic book fans who loved every comic book reference
3) In a theater in a mall, which helped tie in to the movie's setting
4) One row behind Stan Lee, who seemed to enjoy his own cameo a lot

It was absolutely terrific. Everyone in the theater had a great, great time. We were so appreciative that the studio guys decided it was going to be a huge, huge movie. But then when it came out, it turns out hardly anybody saw it in the perfect situation like I did. I'd told all my friends how great this movie was, and in a regular setting, it just wasn't the same.

[Couldn'tThinkOfaName]

I liked Dogma for the shit monster.

[TimBuktu]

Mallrats was shot in a the Eden Prairie mall, about 15 minutes from my house. Kids I knew were in it. Even that couldn't save it for me. I actually watched the bunny costume scene being filmed, which I remember not from the movie, but from watching a guy in a bunny costume in a mall near my house.

[mediocre]

I was a huge fan of Smith as a teenager. All the way up until Jay And Silent Bob Strike Back I thought him genius. I defended J&SBSB as stupid but intentionally so, and a long in-joke/farewell to his Askewniverse fans as it was intended to be the end of the series. After I started recognizing his flaws as a writer/filmmaker which are too oft-repeated to go over again it became harder to overcome them when watching further works though. That coupled with the simple fact of growing older, my tastes and humor maturing, his dick and fart jokes juxtaposed with histrionic "smart" bits seemed more and more forced. I realized that every reason I HATED Juno (no one talks like that, etc) were the same reason a lot of people hated Smith. I haven't even seen anything of his post Zach and Miri (which was okay at times, embarrassing at others, and I found his attitude of 'I discovered Seth Rogan to be a bit much') and even the podcast became of little interest to me after it became "Whats in the news today, Mos?" for 60-90 minutes. Kevin Smith was very much a man of his era. He was a voice for comic reading, internet using, afraid-of-girls geeks of the 90's. But the 90's was a long time ago. The long and short of it is, I grew out of him. As did many others, and my feeling is that the embarrassment some feel about maybe having been fans of his at one point leads to a lot of the heat against him, people overreacting to their own shame over having been fans and/or defenders of his in the past.

But then again, I shamelessly love The Decemberists, so what would I know?

[mattmanser]

Kevin Smith is okay.

[smellyhipster]

I'll post a link to the finished piece when it goes up. Essentially I think I boiled it down to [in relation to his podcasts] there being too much content available and nothing to say. If he's on at least 4 shows, 5 days a week, at 1 hour a pop, that's 20 hours of talking about himself, or at least shooting the shit. It's a little vain.

[nick]

I'll post a link to the finished piece when it goes up. Essentially I think I boiled it down to [in relation to his podcasts] there being too much content available and nothing to say. If he's on at least 4 shows, 5 days a week, at 1 hour a pop, that's 20 hours of talking about himself, or at least shooting the shit. It's a little vain.

Maybe, but that in itself is no different from what Stern does. Not to mention half the morning radio shows in most larger cities in America.

[TimBuktu]

I think Kevin Smith was a product of the era where how little you made your movie for was more important than how good it was. Indie film cranked out a ton of complete bullshit that people swallowed up because someone paid for it on their credit cards. It was part of the advertising, part of the hype. Robert Rodriguez etc. Clerks was an extended student film to me.... and the Juno/Kevin Smith dialogue comparison is spot on. He writes like no human on earth has ever spoke, no one has soliloquies come out of their mouth in a conversation at a convenience store.

[Big Box Of Money]

I think Kevin Smith was a product of the era where how little you made your movie for was more important than how good it was. Indie film cranked out a ton of complete bullshit that people swallowed up because someone paid for it on their credit cards. It was part of the advertising, part of the hype. Robert Rodriguez etc. Clerks was an extended student film to me.... and the Juno/Kevin Smith dialogue comparison is spot on. He writes like no human on earth has ever spoke, no one has soliloquies come out of their mouth in a conversation at a convenience store.

So let me get this straight, Kevin Smith continues to direct Hollywood movies to this day because no one is willing to come clean that they only liked Clerks because it made them seem cool in 1994?

I think some people actually thought the film was funny.

[scamboogah]

No, you're getting it all wrong. Kevin Smith continues to direct Hollywood movies to this day because everyone is impressed that he was able to get credit cards.

[SeanX3]

I think some people actually thought the film was funny.

Even people with second-rate taste deserve their hero.

[aenemaTron]

Not to defend Kevin Smith, but John Carpenter started his career with Dark Star and Halloween, one of which was a student film and the other might as well have been one. It's a complex thing, there are a lot of directors out there who've made careers out of not losing money, but Kevin Smith helped create this "geek/nerd" explosion that we have now. It's a cultural foothold that he's going to have forever. There wouldn't be so many hataz if he didn't have a legitimate fanbase.

[TimBuktu]

I'll just quit. Kevin Smith is one of those "things" that I get mad about people liking at all. I feel like he's completely devoid of talent or even skill. I've never found anything he did even remotely funny. And with that I've got to run.... this kids sand castle isn't going to kick itself.

[Umlaut]

Clerks is okay for what it is. I think the point Tim brings up about a lot of hype getting generated by how cheap a movie can be made is pretty dead on. Watched through the lens of "This was made for $50 by a group of nobodies in 1993", Clerks is an enjoyable enough 90 minutes, especially before you knew everything that he would make for the next decade or so, and especially if you were 13-14 when you first saw it. Ditto Mallrats, though it was made for a bit more money, it was considerably more silly in a way I liked.

It's when he got to Chasing Amy and Dogma that he really loses me completely. Over-serious, ham-fisted, preachy bullshit with horrible stories and characters that defy you to care about them. Dogma may be less bad because of Alan Rickman and Chris Rock, but everything about Chasing Amy can fuck off, besides the fact that now I can do a pretty serviceable Joey Lauryn Adams impression (just say "I'm fucking gay, Holden!!" in a squeaky baby voice... this always crack me up).

Then you get to Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, which seems like an invitation for more silliness like in Mallrats, except it is all so lazy and hacky that I got mad at that movie at the age of 16 or so and knew that I was already growing out of Kevin Smith. Especially egregious in this movie was Chris Rock's whole scene, that character was so lazy and just the worst trying-too-hard-to-be-"ethnic"-and-subversive kind of jokes that made my eyes roll clear out of my head.

Of his later output, I actually liked Zac & Miri Make A Porno a whole lot, because I was able to more or less forget it was a Kevin Smith movie for a lot of the time, and Craig Robinson is incapable of being not hilarious. But everything about Kevin Smith personally nowadays is just terrible and cringe-inducing, especially him on podcasts (his smoking pot in front of recovering addict Marc Maron was in incredibly poor taste to me and his interview was even worse). He was also awful on Real Time with Bill Maher earlier this year. He's really just the worst.

[TimBuktu]

One more thing... it's surprising to me that he just picked up smoking pot recently. He has written like a boring pothead who is convinced he's revealing earth shattering truths since he started.

[CarolineEAnd]

If this is just becoming a trash Kevin Smith thread......

*ahem*
The trailer to Red State seems so disgustingly pretentious and self-indulgent that it makes me like the Westboro Baptist Church more than Kevin. Really, you're going to put "From @ThatKevinSmith" in the trailer? That's going to age well. The whole thing reminds me a bit of this Onion article. He's selling it like this statement on religion but it's just a fucking Kevin Smith movie. It should be called "I'm Kevin Smith and I Hate Religion Almost As Much As I Love Myself." Nothing seems smart or witty or funny or transcendent or intellectual about it. Almost like it's BRAGGING about how un-smart and un-transcendent it is. But then he tries to sell it as a smart and transcendent comment on religion. The trailer makes me feel nothing but negative feelings towards Kevin Smith. Ugh.

Wow, been meaning to get that off my chest, I guess.

[TimBuktu]

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