Pajiba

I agree with Toto, Dustin. Enough is enough. Your misguided love for Kevin Smith has clouded your judgment. Smith's demonization of critics is no more legitimate than Sarah Palin bitching about the "lamestream media." Have you gone back and re-watched Mallrats, Clerks II or, god forbid, Chasing Amy? These are not good movies. Smith was a one-hit wonder with the first Clerks, which wasn't that good either but its extreme vulgarity was a minor amusement. I hate to tell you, but Kevin Smith is only still relevant on blogs like Pajiba, where guys like you and me with minimal actual filmmaking talent aspire to think we could have had a similar career as Smith's. For chrissakes, the man is touring the country with his co-star from a movie twenty-years-old. Please, please stop pretending that Smith has any artistic or contemporary relevance. He's two movies away from direct-to-DVD.

Have you gone back and re-watched Mallrats, Clerks II or, god forbid, Chasing Amy? These are not good movies. Smith was a one-hit wonder with the first Clerks, which wasn't that good either but its extreme vulgarity was a minor amusement. I hate to tell you, but Kevin Smith is only still relevant on blogs like Pajiba

I love this conceit.

I HAVE FOUND SOMETHING THAT I DISLIKE AND FOR YOU TO LIKE IT MEANS YOU ARE DUMB AND I AM SMART.

I have enjoyed almost all his movies with the exception of cop out and clerks. I think Chasing amy was brilliant (so does criterion, apparently) and Dogma might be his pinnacle. I never thought of Dogma so much as mocking Christianity, but as a satirical romp through mythology and our culture that had its own story to tell. I think of Dogma a singular cut above the rest of his work.

movies like zack and miri manage to be obscenely obscene while being warmhearted. thats a skill in itself.

Zack & Miri is one of the top ten romcoms of the last decade it has such honesty and heart and features people who have jobs that real human beings have in real life.

Smith puts himself out there in a controlled and yet honest way more than any person in Hollywood cause he knows he owes his success to people just kinda digging on his stuff and what it does.
I can always take and ignore shite from people who continue to put out things that are interesting and imbued with passion so he'll probably always have at leat a screed of my attention as he continues to put passion in being an entertainer be it in film or podcast, or genius tales about Prince or his wife's tolerance.

The tweet is a fucking terrible medium for him though as it reduces a natural racounteur to soundbites which ends up as self-promotion which is what the best raconteurs have always been - reduce Ustinov to 140 characters and he's just bragging about how clever he is.

Yes, "Cop Out" was indeed a piece of shit. But honestly, it wasn't nearly as horrendous as I'd been led to believe; it was certainly a tad more entertaining than the latest Sandler or "Fockers" atrocity. Now "Clerks 2", THAT was a terrible, terrible movie. But hey, even Albert Pujols swings and misses on occasion.

As a "cult favorite" Smith is in a no-win position. If he keeps making dick & fart joke comedies everyone calls him a one-trick pony. If he makes something different he's a "sell-out" who's in way over his head. What I like about him is how he really doesn't appear to give a shit about any of that, the guy makes his movies, makes people laugh and does so without being a pretentious self-important asshole.

suprasente FTW.

“But more than that, his go fuck yourself attitude is refreshing. Movie critics and bloggers may not yield that much real influence in terms of actual box office dollars, but it’s rare that a guy has the balls to tell them to go fuck themselves. And critics and bloggers need to be told to go fuck themselves every once in a while. That fat fuck is going to be a champion to the anti-press crowd; the shame is, he’s not going to get much press for it. At least not the positive kind.”

Oh so it’s ok if Smith tells movie critics and bloggers to go fuck themselves? Rowles your hypocrisy is astounding, you’ve got your nose so far up Smith’s ample ass that you know what he ate for dinner last night. You’re Smith’s “Boudini Brown,” you’re a carnival barker inviting the public to another one of Smith’s failures. Now you’re out and about portraying Smith as some sort of Hollywood outsider, the only problem with that is that he started out as an Independent that wanted so badly to be an Hollywood insider, but when Hollywood didn’t come knocking he played the Hollywood outsider card. And now he’s on his way to Sundance willing to suck the first cock that will finance his next failure. Sad, but Smith's career is going down faster than a Filipino hoe during Fleet week.

Agree with Pookie.

Smith is now an insider with nothing left to say. C'mon, a crappy studio buddy cop movie? Was there any better way to hammer the last nail into the coffin of his image as some sort of outsider who doesn't give a fuck? No, there wasn't.

Oh and let me qualify for all the overly sensitive types. I'll even use all caps like you did:

I FULLY RECOGNIZE THAT THIS IS MERELY MY OPINION AND NOT FACT.

I thought that was inherent in stating in a "Comment" section, but I guess I needed to clarify...

Perfect Tommy, your comment reflects my feelings exactly. Every letter.
Thank you for existing.

I love Kevin Smith, but I don't love Kevin Smith movies. I liked
Clerks when it came out, because it was one of the first movies
to dig into ethos of the 1990s that I was living through; the
destruction of the middle-class leading to lost people stuck in
dead-end jobs talking only about pop culture, the rise of the
internet and media mergers leading to the switch from news to
infotainment, and dick sucking. It hasn't held up for me only
because the pop culture-comment section-text your vote-juggernaut
is fickle and moves on, so it's no longer relevant. And dick-
sucking has moved to tea-bagging. What works about Clerks, the
real strength of Kevin Smith's writing, did not translate well
into his other movies. Even the much lauded Chasing Amy is
pretty silly and hard to take.


However, always a beacon of our times, Kevin Smith is now doing a
regular podcast, called SModcast (with his producer, not co-star,
crash!), which is really the medium for his style of
writing. Maybe filmmaking isn't necessary for him anymore, even
if he doesn't know it. What he really excels at, writing pop-
culture banter with sex humor, is perfect for the podcast format.
In movies, he just starts to get repetitive, but in a podcast it
works and makes sense. His popular twitter feed is also
appropriate for his style, if maybe a bit restrictive. So, even
if he does retire from film, I'm still going to be a Kevin Smith
fan, because he's a funny motherfucker, not because he's a great
filmmaker.


Regarding the anti-critic stance he's recently been lambasted
for, by who else, the critics, I think he has a point. Now,
don't get me wrong. Kevin Smith can be a whiny bitch, and most
of the time he's overly sensitive about things, and since the
"too fat to fly" incident he feels the need to call himself fat
every 3 minutes. But his critique of critic reviews was not that
critics shouldn't review his films. He's just saying that he
doesn't want to give them a free ticket. Production companies
bend over backwards to give all press a free screening so they
can have the reviews up for opening day. All he's saying is if
I'm going to pre-screen the movie for free, why not pick people
who want to see the movie, and not people who's job it is to see
hundreds of movies. Many critics will tell you that critic
screenings are a terrible place to watch a movie, because you're
in a room with jaded people who've seen too much and they're not
in the mood to relax and have a good time. They're actually at
work while they're watching. It's like seeing a comedian in a
room full of comedians. It's hard to get a laugh. Kevin Smith's
movies, which again I don't really like, are meant for a crowd to
go see. They'll be a little drunk or stoned and they'll feed off
the energy of the room. And if critics did have to pay to see
the film, they would then see it with audiences, which may
improve their view of the film. It's also possible that they
just won't review his films when they come out, and Kevin Smith
will just retire from film, which might possibly be good for
everyone.

@uda-

I'm the same. I have no interest in the other podcasts on his network. That's a little much. I do love SModcast, though, but I think Mosier and Kev compliment each other. One would not work without the other.

What I love about Kevin Smith movies is that he writes all the characters with the same voice. That makes it easier to understand.

But seriously, he's terrible.

wow, one thing is fo sho- people have something to say about Smith.

me too by the way. Sign of the Apocolypse No. 37: Smith making a movie focusing on the most offensive, least athletic aspect of Hockey, penning this piece of turd with the guy who wrote Tuesdays with Morie for the Hallmark channel who also mistakenly thinks he knows something about hockey that someone else didn't tell him.

37!!!??????

(re: Mitch Albom- I grew up in Detroit, read Albom religiously for 20 years, he instinctively knows leas about the sport than the average Red Wing fan.)