Clerks 3 is here I guess

[JamesTC]

Rewatched all the Jay and Silent Bob films in the last week. Going to watch Clerks III for the first time tonight.

Spoiler alert

Mallrats is still the best.

[close]

[Noodle Lizard]

Rewatched all the Jay and Silent Bob films in the last week. Going to watch Clerks III for the first time tonight.

Spoiler alert

Mallrats is still the best.

[close]

Interesting choice! I felt that Mallrats had aged worse than most of the others, although I never loved it all that much in the first place. For me, the first Clerks and Dogma are the ones which feel the most purposeful, but I'm also not to be trusted since I think Jersey Girl is sort of alright too.

[JamesTC]

Clerks III is a bit of a weird one. I enjoyed it. The sentimentally feels genuine. Unlike Jay and Silent Bob Reboot where it felt disconnected to the plot and forced. What initially felt like clunkily writing out a character ended up being the real heart of the movie. I assume Smith only had a limited amount of time with a certain actress and he really ended up making the best choice.

Find it funny that Smith made a big thing about it being Randall's story and it ends up coming all the way back to Dante.

And the ending...

Spoiler alert

...fucking hell. I can't believe that was what Smith went with. Brave of him. And it is actually funny, he was supposed to kill Dante in the first film and he eventually did by the third film.

[close]

The freezer in the Quick Stop looks like it does in the animated series! And an actual reference to it ("well played clerks").

It will date horrifically due to the fucking tedious crypto/NFT references. Honestly, my only major downer on the movie. At least Randall rips the shit out of Elias for it all. I just wish it was one joke rather a recurring one in the first half.

The first Jay and Silent Bob movie not to feature Jason Lee since Clerks.

Spoiler alert

Sarah Michelle Gellar quoting Jay is weird and wonderful.

[close]

Interesting choice! I felt that Mallrats had aged worse than most of the others, although I never loved it all that much in the first place. For me, the first Clerks and Dogma are the ones which feel the most purposeful, but I'm also not to be trusted since I think Jersey Girl is sort of alright too.

Been a long time since I've seen Jersey Girl. I never got the hate for it. Then again, I never saw Gigli.

[JamesTC]

Fucking hell, never knew Lisa Spoonauer who played Caitlin Bree had died. The film is dedicated to her.

[madhair60]

it was shit mate just admit you thought it was shit. just admit it.

[JamesTC]

it was shit mate just admit you thought it was shit. just admit it.

Jay ran around a hospital with his pants down shouting "I did a poo in the ICU"

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Did he perform "The Fannyman" from Silence Of The Lambs?

[JamesTC]

The Blu-ray has a couple of long documentaries on it. The first is a lovey dovey making of Clerks III with Kevin Smith bigging everybody up as you would expect.

Then there is a documentary which talks about all of the Clerks stuff (the films and the animated show). It is surprisingly honest when it gets to between Clerks II and III with Jeff Anderson really laying into the contract/payment problems and saying the original Clerks III script was just not good enough. It isn't like an Alien 3 tell all revelation but it is still well worth a watch.

Did he perform "The Fannyman" from Silence Of The Lambs?

I don't think so. I think Jay and Silent Bob Reboot was the last time he did that.

[madhair60]

would quite like to see those docs but didn't really want to spring for the blu. ah well, sometime I will.

[JamesTC]

would quite like to see those docs but didn't really want to spring for the blu. ah well, sometime I will.

The Three Decades of Clerks one is on YouTube

[checkoutgirl]

Tried to watch this at Christmas but the music at the start of it was so annoying I had to abandon it. Finally finished it yesterday and it's a 4/10 film at best, depending how generous you are.

The premise is like this is a copy of a copy of a copy. A film endlessly referencing itself in a perpetual loop. Groundhog Day without the clever plot device. A cat eating it's own vomit before throwing up and eating it again.

Smith seems absolutely fine with all this of course. Anyone with even a passing knowledge of post Red State Kevin will not be surprised by this.

As for the film, portions of it were actually quite enjoyable. If you removed the Gervais style short cuts to emotion littered about you'd have a fairly diverting if quite in jokey fanboy 40 minute film. He can still do humour, but everything else is quite painful.

We're well beyond the point of asking Smith to stop because he's not gonna. He's on some sort of mission from god or his dead dad or his cardiac surgeon or somewherethefuck to make mainly bad films until he drops dead.

The most we can hope for is he goes easy on sticking his daughter in every single frame he films and in that regard at least, I think he showed remarkable restraint, reducing her basically to an extra here. 

[checkoutgirl]

It is surprisingly honest when it gets to between Clerks II and III with Jeff Anderson really laying into the contract/payment problems and saying the original Clerks III script was just not good enough

It's surprising that the only one with the intelligence to spot a terrible script is a guy who runs a tile export company and has no interest in an acting career whatsoever.

Although it does make sense from the standpoint that he doesn't care if the film gets made at all so may as well hold them to ransom to get a better script.

Fuck me how bad must it have been before Anderson's intervention? I wonder did Smith have a moment of clarity about the quality of his work when Anderson told him that this effort was shit.

[Mister Six]

Wasn't the only way to get Randall out of retirement and back for this one was to make him the star of the show, even though it made no real sense for his character? That might explain why he's the one making the movie when the whole point of his limited character is that he doesn't want to do jack shit

Dante being happy and settled in his place with a (recast or offscreen) wife and kid, and Randall finally being pushed to do something (ie. make a film) due to a midlife crisis would actually make sense and be the sort of character development that can justify a second sequel. But I guess Smith was too stoned or too half arsed to care that much.

I don't think I've watched a Smith film since Clerks 2. Quite happy to leave it there, TBH.

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

Clerks 4: Old Cunts In A Shop

[dead-ced-dead]

I remember reading somewhere that Jeff Anderson has something like 3 or 4 screenplays that have been bought but gone unproduced. If this happened not long after Clerks during the spec script boom, it's possible he made quite a good living off that before setting up and running his tile export company. With the side hustle of occasionally showing up at conventions and charging $50-ish for autographs, I wouldn't be surprised if Randall has done very well for himself over the years, and therefore has the power to tell Smith to fuck off if he doesn't feel like a script is good enough.

I don't have much to add other than it's nice he seems to be happy and successful.

[Povidone]

With all the talk of him recycling material I'm susprised nobody has mentioned, well I'll spoiler tag this as I'm sure somebody cares enough...

Spoiler alert

...I mean I don't...I haven't even seen Clerks 3 but I just read a synopsis where I was amazed to learn that he'd reused his 'have the spouse die in labour' gambit from Jersey Girl.

Even more mental when you consider that both were hispanic actresses who were too big for the production

[close]

[JamesTC]

With all the talk of him recycling material I'm susprised nobody has mentioned, well I'll spoiler tag this as I'm sure somebody cares enough...

Spoiler alert

...I mean I don't...I haven't even seen Clerks 3 but I just read a synopsis where I was amazed to learn that he'd reused his 'have the spouse die in labour' gambit from Jersey Girl.

Even more mental when you consider that both were hispanic actresses who were too big for the production

[close]

Spoiler alert

She dies in a car crash. The baby is lost too.

[close]

[Povidone]

Spoiler alert

She dies in a car crash. The baby is lost too.

[close]

Ah well..it was a fairly cursory read. Point rescinded. Serves me right for not watching the film (not really).

[Shaky]

Finally watched this today after dreading it for all the obvious reasons but it wasn't nearly as bad as expected. Not objectively good, but a decent follow-up to the others. When not simply being asked to recite their old lines (which is about half the film, to be fair), O'Halloran and Anderson were actually very good. Not a film I could recommend to "outsiders" but having grown up with these two pricks, a couple of the film's scenes were surprisingly moving. There's actually a fairly bleak statement on friendship, hopes and the nature of aging underneath the whole thing which I'm not entirely sure was intended but it did stick with me for a bit.

[timahall]

That NFT film is on torrent sites now (just sayin').

[madhair60]

That NFT film is on torrent sites now (just sayin').

which?

[Famous Mortimer]

which?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KillRoy_Was_Here

[madhair60]

no, no, i mean which torrent sites. it's not on any of mine. KillRoy was not here.

[Old Nehamkin]

They've made a film about Kilroy?

[Elderly Sumo Prophecy]

I heard that he's stopped smoking dope now. I wonder what brought that on. Maybe he realised it was turning his brain into potato?

[checkoutgirl]

I heard that he's stopped smoking dope now. I wonder what brought that on. Maybe he realised it was turning his brain into potato?

Not sure if it's just speculation but I think he's was smoking night and day and it came to a head and he's living apart from his family maybe. He posted some odd stuff online about people wanting him dead and maybe they were right.

Dunno how he is now but hopefully ok. Just before everything got bad he did an odd appearance on the SteveDave podcast saying his career and the career of everyone in the room was down to him smoking weed. Which was quickly contradicted.

It's all very complicated.

[Ham Bap]

This happened last year too

https://people.com/health/clerks-director-kevin-smith-reveals-he-got-treatment-after-his-complete-break-from-reality-exclusive/