Kevin Smith

[Avaitor]

Talk about his movies, Q&A's, critical pieces, or whatever here.

There's plenty to talk about the man, but I want to focus on his Q&A's. I think his answers can be great when he focuses on a particular subject. The first one is proof of that. Like, his Jon Peters and Prince stories were amazing and worth the watch. They're about a half-hour long each, but the stories are hilarious, and he has great commentary on them along with his facts.

His rant on Dora in the second is another brilliant one. Who doesn't want to try watching it while high after seeing that? The second one wasn't as good as the first, since it was constructed a little looser, but there's still plenty of good bits from there. I might have to upload his piece on Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg for Foggle.

The third is where things started to get bad. He spends about 45 minutes talking about his dogs, and while it starts out a little funny, it all goes downhill when he mentions that Shecky isn't spayed. Then it gets disgusting. Then there's the part where he spends nearly as long talking about his prostate, and his story about Die Hard wouldn't be as entertaining to me if I wasn't a fan of the movies, since it just goes on. And on. And on. Like the others. I think there may have been four or five stories told. So few because he spent so long on each one going over every solitary detail.

The Showtime special is even worse, since it's about half the length of a regular one and thus can only hold two stories. The first goes absolutely nowhere. I think he tried to go into detail about how he got kicked off of the plane for being too fat, but that gets lost to unrelated anecdotes that serve no purpose and aren't even that funny.

The second kind of explains what's up with him, since it turns into a question of how he got Bruce Willis to do Cop Out, then goes into how he became a pothead. And then he starts going into various drug-related stories that again serve no fucking purpose but to maybe give us a laugh or two, and then goes into Cop Out for a bit, but he reverts back to pot somewhere in there. Even his nod to Red State seems out of place.

It's sad, because Kevin can be a funny guy. He has some good stories to share, and his delivery is a lot better than you'd expect, considering how little he speaks in the movies as Silent Bob. But as of late, his sense of focus and timing are completely fucked up. Weed can be blamed for a lot of that, but there might be more, as well.

[Dr. Insomniac]

I'll always love the guy for making Clerks. However, I will never forgive him for writing this.

[Commode]

I honestly think he's rather full of himself, really.  I mean, I still love his View Askew movies and other related media(the Clerks cartoon, the comics, etc.), but a lot of other things he does he does with the air that he's a comedic genius and one of the world's greatest directors/producers.  That recent Cop Out film that he did was kind of proof of this, since it failed critically and commercially, yet he made a big deal about how nobody understood it or whatever.

Part of this I attribute to him not really having much going on right now.  He's got his movie Red State finally about to come out, but what else of note has he done lately?  His most famous work, the Askewniverse, is pretty much dead on the water now, and I just kind of think he doesn't really know what to do with himself, except try to make it out that he's more important in the world of comedy than he really is at this point.

[Foggle]

I'll always love the guy for making Clerks. However, I will never forgive him for writing this.

What the fuck is this? Is this actually a Batman comic or just a terrible parody?

[Dr. Insomniac]

I'll always love the guy for making Clerks. However, I will never forgive him for writing this.

What the fuck is this? Is this actually a Batman comic or just a terrible parody?

It's a miniseries he did for DC. And yes, it is fucking awful.

[Lord Dalek]

Here's a topic for ya! Who's the bigger pompous overrated idiot: Kevin Smith or Richard Kelly?

[Angus]

Hmm, I had to look up Richard Kelly on Wikipedia to see what the heck he's been directing so I'll vote Smith.

[Avaitor]

I read Smith's article in Rolling Stone, and according to it, he's just about to retire. After Red State, he's doing a hockey movie and calling it quits after that to focus on his Q&A's and podcasts. Judging from his current work and regard to the industry, this seems like the right thing to do. He'll probably come back after a few years, but a break should be good.

What do you think of Kevin Smith retiring? Do you think that it's for the best? What do you think of his recent work as opposed to his earlier films? Or do you even care anymore?

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's a smart idea, honestly. He's clearly not in it anymore, and it would be best to just stop than to churn out tons of sub par material.

Though, I do hope the Clerks cartoon can get a second chance (with hopefully the same creative team) but otherwise I'm not really interested in anything he's doing.

[Avaitor]

Yeah, I'd like to see the Clerks cartoon get another chance. It deserves one.

I also think that he's been losing steam. Zack & Miri was alright, but when you get down to it, is more of an Apatow-like movie than a Smith movie. Even Kevin admits that. Cop Out also wasn't as bad as I was expecting it to be, had some good jokes and a decent soundtrack, but Kevin isn't really equipped for those types of movies, and you can kind of tell that Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis are on different wavelengths with each other. And the less said about Jersey Girl, the better.

Hell, even Clerks II lost a little of that edge from his earlier work when you give it some repeat viewings. At least, that's how I felt about it.

If he just wants to smoke pot and do podcasts all the time, then more power to him. He's done enough to earn a break to do what he wants.

As for his last movies, I'll give Red State a watch out of curiosity. I think it already got some negative reviews, but I'm still mildly interested to see how Smith handles a horror movie. I'm also surprised that he's making a movie like this, since he said that he didn't want another Dogma controversy to occur with his work now that he has a child, but that'll probably happen with RS.

The hockey one I might check out too if only to see if it compares to his other works in any way. It probably won't, but hockey is a personal subject to Kevin, and he might treat it right.

[Kiddington]

Yeah, Red State has already gotten a few bad early reviews; right now, it's sitting at 40% and counting on Rotten Tomatoes.

...and as far as his retirement goes, it is for the best; the man has clearly lost a step over the years. Cop Out was just a dumb movie; not as terrible as critics made it out to be, but certainly nothing that would take a master's degree to "understand". I still get a good chuckle over his tirade about that, and I think the fact that he can seemingly no longer handle criticism is another reason why he needs to step away.

@Avaitor: is "Hit Somebody" (the hockey movie) still in the works? I haven't heard any actual news about it in like a year or so. When is that one due?

[Avaitor]

@Avaitor: is "Hit Somebody" (the hockey movie) still in the works? I haven't heard any actual news about it in like a year or so. When is that one due?

He mentioned it in the Rolling Stone interview. I think after he's done publicizing Red State, he'll get to work on it, if he isn't already now.

[Avaitor]

I really hope this doesn't interfere with the return of the animated series.

[Lord Dalek]

Oh noes.

[Avaitor]

Well Clerks II was good, so who knows.