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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Jersey Girl

  
 
PatrickMM
02:58 / 12.03.04
I saw an early screening of this flick, as Smith would call it, and came out rather unimpressed. Say what you will about Smith's previous films, they have a really unique voice and style. Smith is clearly an auteur, by the fact that his films uniquely express his personal vision, and have a thematic consistency. However, Jersey Girl is a really generic film, to the point where you even question when Smith himself wrote and directed the film.

The film itself has sort of been eclipsed by the J-Lo/Affleck saga, but when you look at the film, there's really very little J-Lo. Without getting into spoilers, she makes very little impact in her brief screentime.

Looking at it as just a film, it's really very generic. The plot twists are choreographed look before they occur, and come to think of it, there's not really any twists, things just occur as you expect them to occur. It feels like something I've seen many times before, and particularly the ending feels just completely underwhelming.

Liv Tyler and George Carlin are strong in the film, and the kid at least isn't annoying. There are some laughs, but there isn't any of the sort of storytelling monologues that were some of the funniest things in previous Smith works. Even Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which I generally disliked, had a lot more laugh out loud moments than this, which has more chuckle softly moments.

I don't mean to imply that just becuase this movie doesn't have Jay and Silent Bob, or drug humor, it's automatically bad, and I think Kevin is 'selling out,' which I'm sure will be the accusation from many an internet fan after this film is released wide. The film doesn't neccessarily need Jason Mewes, but it needs someone who's funny. And even the emotions are just really sacharine, and don't get me feeling anywhere near as emotionally invovled as, say, the second half of Chasing Amy. Amy, Smith's best work, vacillated between really lowbrow humor, and extremely complex emotional issues, and it worked really well, most notably in the Jay and Silent Bob scene. Here, it's all stuck in that sappy middle ground.

It's an enjoyable enough film, but it has no substance at all, which is a shame, since I love Smith's work, and he's one of the few comic filmmakers who seems to really respect his audience.

At the screening I went to, Kevin did a Q&A after, and he seemed pretty annoyed with the test screening process that the film went through, which may be a large part of why the film feels neutered. He was hilarious on the whole, and seemed to really be what the media image of him is. I'd definitely reccomend seeing him speak, but this film, I can't really push.
 
 
gridley
13:40 / 12.03.04
I think you're definitely right about this being his attempt at a mainstream movie (whether he admits it or not). But that's not such a bad choice on his part. This film will introduce a lot of kids to his work.

More of my opinions in my previous thread on the subject: http://www.barbelith.com/topic/16190
 
 
PatrickMM
03:25 / 13.03.04
Sorry about the double thread, didn't see yours. Looking over you post, I agree with most of the points. The use of pop songs did grate, especially such cliche, really light guitar stuff. It felt like the most generic soundtrack possible, not the bolder music choices of say Chasing Amy.

But, what can you do. It's a solidly entertaining movie, nothing more.
 
 
wicker woman
08:07 / 14.03.04
"Amy, Smith's best work, vacillated between really lowbrow humor, and extremely complex emotional issues, and it worked really well, most notably in the Jay and Silent Bob scene."

That's kind of different for me to read, because although I might tend to agree with you, most of the hardcore Smith fans I know tend to think Chasing Amy was the worst out of all the Jersey movies. I think they're just pissed because of how the film ended (trying to avoid spoilers, but I assume you know what I'm talking about.)
 
 
STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK
10:04 / 14.03.04
I loved Chasing Amy. I think it's his best (though not funniest) film.

I saw a preview screening of that when it came out- I was working in a comic shop at the time, and about ten of us all went along after work. There was a Q&A afterwards, but it almost degenerated into a fight after some American girl told Mr Smith she loved his films, but that "people in that social strata" aren't that articulate, so his dialogue was all wrong. Of course, the row of drunken comic shop employees were all very fucked off... as, it would seem, was Mr Smith (judging by his reaction), being both a comics geek and an ex-shop worker.

Anyway, a couple of questions later, the whole thing got closed down early. I think because us inarticulate comic shop workers were about to start a fight with someone who couldn't tell the difference between "strata" and "stratum".

I still love the film. It's not the KS I watch most (probably least, in fact) but I think it's his most mature, well-made work.

I'm kind of worrying about/looking forward to (in equal measures) Jersey Girl.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
17:32 / 14.03.04
Chasing Amy is without a doubt one of the most emotionally immature films I have ever seen. I don't really hold out much hope for Smith as film maker, or man of any talents whatsoever.

Would you persist in casting the Affleck?
 
 
CameronStewart
17:42 / 14.03.04
Kevin Smith in Crap Film Non-Shocker!
 
 
eddie thirteen
18:22 / 14.03.04
Didn't Kevin Smith sell out five or six years ago or something? The feeling I got was that he reached a Holden-or-Banky fork in the road, and decided it'd be more fun to be Banky, right down to making a crap cartoon out of a sincerely-felt film. I still crack up every time I see him make an appearance on a talk show, because he is really funny, but his movies since Chasing Amy...umm...yeah. He's always been a bad director, but his scripts saved him until they just turned into schtick. It's too bad. With Jersey Girl, it sounds like he's at least attempting to make a real movie again, although from what I've seen here and elsewhere, I think the only thing that could make me like it is George Carlin, who -- well, y'know, it's George Carlin, how bad can it really be. Maybe if it flops, he'll take some time off (a la Tarantino), stop reading so many fucking comic books (uh...unlike Tarantino, but Tarantino actually seems to benefit from reading them), and make something better?
 
 
Jack The Bodiless
11:46 / 15.03.04
Chasing Amy is without a doubt one of the most emotionally immature films I have ever seen. I don't really hold out much hope for Smith as film maker, or man of any talents whatsoever. Would you persist in casting the Affleck?

Oi, not this old chestnut again...

Affleck belongs to that stratum of movie stars who are perfectly capable of fine, even excellent performances, under the right conditions, but become largely mediocre when these conditions are not met. Affleck, like many others, appears to require a solid director and a script that he can identify with/relate to, hence his excellent supporting performance in Good Will Hunting and decent lead in Chasing Amy, and increasingly shabby performances since he became A-list.

You can call Chasing Amy emotionally immature if you want - it's probably the single most divisive movie Barbelith has ever discussed except perhaps The Hulk, or the Matrix sequels, and it's been called a lot worse. Of course, the fact that the plot closely mirrors the love lives of at least two of my closer friends, and that many (non-stoopid) people find it enormously affecting, does mean it's not the black and white case that it's made out to be.
 
 
Suedey! SHOT FOR MEAT!
12:31 / 15.03.04
Sure enough! This thread's not really about Amy, either. I couldn't resist the urge to post, though. I think I joined just after the whole Chasing Amy marathon, and it passed me by. If anything's going to be debated here let's try and leave it to Jersey Girl, from now.

Still think Amy's an awful movie about emotionally stunted manchildren who should know better, though. Oh hey - does that tie in to the whole comic store worker thing?

Just kidding.
 
 
Regrettable Juvenilia
13:03 / 15.03.04
Those of you with a historical bent can hear the clang of swords on armour and smell the blood of champions over at the field on which the last Battle of Kevin Smith was fought.

If anyone wants me I'll be over here fighting the temptation to give that "respects his audience" joke a little help writing itself...
 
 
PatrickMM
00:00 / 16.03.04
Chasing Amy is without a doubt one of the most emotionally immature films I have ever seen. I don't really hold out much hope for Smith as film maker, or man of any talents whatsoever. Would you persist in casting the Affleck?

As Jack said, I don't really see much truth in this. What is the definition of emotionally mature, because I'd say that certainly Mallrats is much more immature, as are the vast majority of Hollywood films, which don't really deal with any issues at all, and are much less emotionally challenging.

I think an important thing to keep in mind with Chasing Amy is to keep the distinction between the character and the film's message. One of my friends really hated on Holden, and was really offended by his treatment of Alyssa in the film. She said that he was immature, and a really bad person. Does this mean that the film is immature as well, or does it mean that Smith has created a well drawn character. I can identify with both of them toward the end of the film, and while the threesome idea isn't a good solution, I think it's perfectly in character for Holden at the time. Also, Banky's gay bashing is something I see all the time with my friends, so don't point to that as a sign of immaturity.

I think any film that creates this sort of debate is a good film, or at least a film worth seeing. If it creates such a fervor that people post just to say it's bad, and go on to defend its badness, it must be doing something right. No one goes online to debate the merits of the last Adam Sandler film, or for that matter, Mallrats (well maybe a few, but not without the good films, Clerks and Amy).

Anyway, back to Jersey Girl. I think that's a much more emotionally immature film, because it doesn't really contain the character arcs, with clear emotional motivations, that make Amy work. You can see the ending coming from the beginning of the movie, and it just feels completely unoriginal, in terms of narrative progression.
 
 
eddie thirteen
02:54 / 16.03.04
I will say, in re: Amy, that I originally thought that Chasing Amy was a much better film than it possibly actually is because I presumed that Smith had created (in Holden) a character whom he (Smith) did not entirely relate to, and was not in fact himself a...what was it? Emotionally retarded child-man? Uh...but you know, then he did Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob and wrote a miniseries about the Black Cat taking a shower or something and...well...if he's NOT an emotionally retarded child-man, he sometimes does an awfully good impression of one. I originally thought it was a film about an idiot fanboy becoming an emotionally functional adult -- *not* said idiot fanboy's terrifying brush with emotionally functional adulthood. I might have been mistaken.
 
  
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