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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

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22:12 / 22.08.01

I saw it last night.

Maybe the funniest movie I've ever seen. Its 80% screwball comedy. "Blazing Sadles" meets Cheech and Chong. The other 20% is inside jokes. Still, even if you don't get the Kevin Smith inside jokes, 80% funny is still at least 40% more funny than most comedies.

I've never laughed so much at a movie. My stomach hurt after about 30 minutes.

Its not as raw or original as Kevin Smith's other films and the dialog is not as intelligent but it is what it is and that is a straight up stoner adventure.

Complete with some funny ass cameos from Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Matt Damon, Ben Affleck etc. etc.

Its definetly not for everyone but I liked it.

23:00 / 22.08.01

Goddamn. That's good enough for me. I love Kevin Smith. Is it the greatest of the five? It sounds like it amply lives up to promise, and such.

????

23:17 / 22.08.01

Oh, here we go again...

(a note for the unitiated: any discussion of Kevin Smith and/or his films has historically brought out... extremes of opinion on this board...)

Ganesh

12:27 / 23.08.01

Even funnier than 'Porkys'?

13:06 / 23.08.01

Nothing's funnier than Porkys.

[ 23-08-2001: Message edited by: Dee Vapr ]

23:43 / 23.08.01

I would not say its the best. It does not say anything or do anything or make any comment on society other than that Hollywood is shit and that the Internet is mostly shit and porn.

Of course, we all already knew that.

Its just a fucking comedy. Its funny. I dig it.

"Chasing Amy" is probably my favorite of his films but it depends on my mood.

It is the best directed of his films in the sense that you don't notice the lack of directing. Most of his films are just a series of long static shots and long dialog. This is much faster paced. By far the best editing Smith and his gang have done.

You have to respect the guy though. The studios offer him 40 million and he says, no, I'll make it for 20. He'd rather work on a small budget and break even than spend 60 million, end up losing 20 million of that but win some awars.(Like "Magnolia" did.)

Our Lady of The Two Towers

07:10 / 24.08.01

'Chasing Amy' is the best film just so long as you steel yourself for Smith's ex-girlfriends really annoying voice which she uses to express emotion.

Regrettable Juvenilia

07:17 / 24.08.01

I'm having to re-assess my opinion of the Fatbeard Smith ever since I watched 'Chasing Amy' for the second time a few weeks ago and discovered to my horror that I still liked it...

Sandfarmer: how much screentime does Eliza Dushku get? (I know, I know, I'm a sad geek, kill me...)

20:55 / 24.08.01

She's in it enough. Small role. She's very, very, did I mention, very sexy in it. She and the other vixens are kind of a Charlie's Angels parody. Nice scene with her in lingere. She's kind of the lead bad girl and Shannon Elizabeth is the lead good girl. They have a cat fight that is pretty fucking funny.

15:57 / 25.08.01

I saw it last night and thought it was hilarious, the funniest movie he's done yet; I don't think I stopped laughing for more than 30 seconds at a time. I was stoned though...

Ronald Thomas Clontle

19:58 / 25.08.01

I wish I was stoned when I saw it, I probably would have liked it more.

I thought it was alright, it had a lot of funny parts, but it mostly felt like a documentary of Kevin Smith's vacation in Selfawaria. Was it just me, or was nearly every funny joke in the film a selfreferential gag? Is there even a remote possibility of a person who hadn't seen his four previous films, plus his comics and website, understanding the film?

I mean, I don't have a problem with the film being all in-jokes, I just can't imagine a film more selfreferential in all of history ---it blows up the postmodernomitor...

Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, James Van Der Beek, and Jason Biggs had the funniest bits, I'd say. "Dude, you WATCH Dawson's Creek?"

Oh, and seeing Dante and Randall (from Smith's first and best film, Clerks) was a big highlight.

23:35 / 25.08.01

>>>it mostly felt like a documentary of Kevin Smith's vacation in Selfawaria. Was it just me, or was nearly every funny joke in the film a selfreferential gag? Is there even a remote possibility of a person who hadn't seen his four previous films, plus his comics and website, understanding the film? <<<

This is one of the many many things that annoys me about Kevin Smith - instead of maturing as a filmmaker and telling different stories, he's just disappearing further and further up his own arse.

Hopefully he'll completely ingest himself and disappear with an audible cartoon "pop"!

I will say, however, that I bought the Clerks animated series DVD and quite enjoyed it - there's some funny jokes in there (likely due to the fact that he had a team of writers, instead of just himself).

00:24 / 26.08.01

quote:Originally posted by The Flyboy:

Sandfarmer: how much screentime does Eliza Dushku get? (I know, I know, I'm a sad geek, kill me...)

No sadder than me, babe, I was wondering the same thing.

04:02 / 26.08.01

i saw the flick today, LOVED it, but why wouldn't i... anyway, yeah i thought "heh heh funny LOTTA injokes" but much to my suprise my roomate, who's only seen half of Dogma and the first 20min of Clerks thought it was the funniest flick he'd seen all summer... so there we have it, to the people that get the injokes, it's injoke heavy but those who don't get the injokes, find all the rest of the humor funny... i guess, i dunno i'm drunk right now

04:25 / 26.08.01

quote:Originally posted by FLUX = Negasonic Teenage Warhead:
---it blows up the postmodernomitor...

Ahhhhh...

Ganesh

07:35 / 26.08.01

<sigh>

I am so biting my tongue here...

12:21 / 26.08.01

I haven't been so keen on Smith since Dogma was revealed to be so momentously shit..

After that and the Clerks series going down the pan, would it be reasonable to suggest that he's concentrating on his strengths and - for better or worse - going for the dick joke jackpot?

I probably won't like it because ..well.. I've always liked the less crude aspects of his humour, but then obscure in-jokes are my bread and butter and Silent Bob is a cool dude, so who knows..

13:17 / 26.08.01

Don't bite that pretty tongue, Ganesh. The guy's pretty much indefensible. Funny moments or no, one cannot polish a turd.

18:50 / 26.08.01

I really didn't think the movie was very funny at all. I liked the first three movies, but this and Dogma were crap. This one more so than Dogma, probably because of its... wankness? It looks like it must have been a fun movie to make, though. Supposedly it's his last with the Jersey characters before he moves on to doing new stuff, and in a way this sort of ties off the whole series pretty well. Here's to hoping Smith can do something good next time.

03:37 / 27.08.01

In his new movie, Smith wears an invisibles badge on his jacket.

16:42 / 27.08.01

it wasn't the invisibles but it was cool seeing daredevil in it.

wonder if quesada is gonna let grant fuck with the next x-men script. is that an invisibles pin on wolverine's jacket?

Ronald Thomas Clontle

17:16 / 27.08.01

quote:Originally posted by [YNH]:

Ahhhhh...

ah! ah! what? what? you're making me nervous.

23:57 / 27.08.01

It does has a lot of in jokes but Jay is just fucking funny without the jokes or the thin plot. That fucks just funny.

My wife saw it with me. She's never read comics or watched the first four movies over and over. She generally prefers dramas and thrillers. She loved the movie and wants to see it again. She liked it for the slapstick and sillyness. She liked Jay, Will Ferrel and the monkey. Those are things that are funny even if you've never heard of Kevin Smith before. If you take out all the in-jokes, you still have more comedy than most "comedies". Its better than Mike Meyer's films anyway.

Comedies are very polarizing movies. The difference between brilliant and just fucking stupid is a fine line with comedy.

WoodY Allen and Mel Brooks have both made some good comedies but to compare "Blazing Saddles" to "Annie Hall" would be obsurd.

Kevin Smith makes small budget movies for a small audience and it pays off. The fucker is like 32 and makes the movies he wants to make and still makes a decent living. He's doing something right.

Jack The Bodiless

00:04 / 28.08.01

quote:Originally posted by [YNH]:
The guy's pretty much indefensible.

Indefensible. Yes. Excellent how you can deconstruct an opposing argument by pretending that it's impossible to have made it in the first place.

03:19 / 28.08.01

I didn't see any argument being made, Jack. Tell me, exactly, how one can defend dick/gay/fart jokes or gratituitous objectification and I'll buy you a pint. It'll be American swill, but hey; so's our man

Flux re: Ahhhh and y're nerves... I thought about making some post post, but you encapsulated the obvious in a few words. I'm like the violence critic who plays Tribes online or whatever; recombinant culture is my vile passion.

[another edit to protect my spelling bee title]

[ 28-08-2001: Message edited by: [YNH] ]

Ganesh

06:27 / 28.08.01

quote:Originally posted by Sandfarmer:
Comedies are very polarizing movies. The difference between brilliant and just fucking stupid is a fine line with comedy.

Also a somewhat subjective one, I expect. I'd say that, at best, Kevin Smith's stuff tramples heavily along that line - and the Jay character, in particular, was always well into 'fucking stupid'. But hey, maybe I'm missing his subtle intricacies.

12:44 / 28.08.01

My feelings on Smith's movies have always been that I'll either like it or it'll bore the crap out of me. And which side it's on depends on how the film interacts with what I myself have gone through.

The great thing about Clerks for me was the similarity between the flick and things I've done or friends have done. I missed Mallrats. But, I did see Chasing Amy, and was bored to death. Dogma on the other hand, I loved. Partly because I was raised Irish Catholic and so could identify with various things in the film. I've talked with other people about his work, nd that's pretty much what it comes down to. If the subject matter reflects the viewers life in some way, they like it. If it doesn't, they despise it.

I think all of his movies are just giant in-jokes. If you can identify with what he's talking about, it works. If you can't, then it doesn't.

Jack The Bodiless

13:10 / 28.08.01

I think the thing with Jay is that - as you just said - if you've never met someone like him, you won't understand who Smith's taking the piss out of. I currently know at least six people very much like him, and I think he's fucking hilarious.

Mallrats is one of my favourite movies ever - partly because it's both taking the piss out of eighties teen comedies, and partly because it's seretly admitting to a burning love of them. I am Jack's gleeful identification with this phenomenon.

And [YNH] - wasn't attacking your arguing skillz, as I sense there's no actual argument going on here - more a recognition that we're walking on an old battleground - but people using words like 'indefensible' just makes me chuckle. Sorry...

Ganesh

13:19 / 28.08.01

I've known people vaguely like Jay. Hang on...

...

Nope. Still the wrong side of 'fucking stupid', I'm afraid. Mind you, I think 'Mallrats' is possible the crappiest thing he's ever done, so there's the ol' subjectivity of humour for you, again.

[ 28-08-2001: Message edited by: Ganesh ]

13:33 / 28.08.01

I just wanted to see more of what Ganesh had to say, Jack. You must really hate America beer.

Ellis

14:27 / 28.08.01

Mallrats I used to love, adore and watch a lot, but I watched it on the TV last week and it just bored me, perhaps because I have seen it so many times, but the whole thingg seemed to revel in its infantile-ness.
Still made me laugh though.
I think if you're in the mood it is hilarious, but when you're not you just want to kill Brody.

Chasing Amy was good, funny, but really... moralistic.

Clerks was hilarious, still his best film.

Dogma was just a dirty stinking pile of pants, although I suspect that was because part of the ending (Bethany's character being attack by the shit demon) was cut. But still, the whole thing seemed very uneven.

Why does his movies always have a Straight man and comic sidekick?

Jack The Bodiless

14:45 / 28.08.01

quote:Originally posted by [YNH]:
I just wanted to see more of what Ganesh had to say, Jack. You must really hate American beer.

Well, yes, being the right-thinking alcohol-dependent that I am... but all right, then.

You don't need to defend dick/fart jokes. Either they're funny in the context of what you're watching/reading, and who's watching/reading it, or they're not. That's it.

Gay jokes are obviously more problematic, but only in the sense that they're capable of being offensive. But Smith's humour in this regard is so intentionally puerile (bearing in mind the mentality of the characters he has spouting this stuff) that you'd usually have to be more than a little over-sensitive to find this stuff offensive. None of my gay friends seem to have a problem with any of the rubbish that Jay comes out with - they're usually too busy spitting beer out and exclaiming "Bloody hell! That's just like Boz/Rick/Dopey Neil/whoever!"

Gratuitous objectification of what, exactly? When? What was the context? I mean, I'm totally against gratuitous objectification of Marillion fans/goths/balding men, but have no opinion on the gratuitous objectification of gratuitous objects (I think they're just asking for it).

Regrettable Juvenilia

15:08 / 28.08.01

Well... much as I enjoyed Chasing Amy, I think it's a bit hard to deny that the Alyssa character is gratuitously objectified.

SPOILERS

The bit at the end where she gets sick of taking this crap and slaps Affleck ("I'm not your fucking whore") could be seen as a strangely meta (bear with me) admission that the film has been objectifying her throughout, were it not for the coda tacked on to reassure you that it's okay, she forgives him, maybe they'll even get back together...

See, this is why Smith pisses people off: when GLAAD accused his latest film of being offensive, part of his response was "me? homophobic? but I made Chasing Amy!" Now, one can argue that there is the occasional good point made about male homosocial relationships shading into homoeroticismn, and insecure homophobia on the part of Banky, etc etc. But these are outweighed by the seriously dodgy shit - like the scenewhere Alyssa is hangin' with her dykey friends (who just *happen* to look that bit more like what dykes are generally believed to look like than Alyssa does), and she tells them she's seeing a guy. Their response is shown to be highly intolerant, to make the point that those darn lesbians, they're just so bigotted in their own way, they don't understand that sometimes a woman just needs a bit of Affleck-cock.

And this is the other problem: there is a very real level on which this is a film that says "Hey guys! Aren't lesbians, like, cool! Shame we can't sleep with them. Except, if you tel one you love one enough, you can!"

(Before anyone starts, I'm sure you could make an intelligent, sensitive, challenging film you could make about two people falling in love despite what at least one of them thought their sexuality was - but this really isn't it).

I dunno. It's insidious. I think that's the word for it.

Ronald Thomas Clontle

15:27 / 28.08.01

I guess I pretty much agree with Flyboy on this one --I think Chasing Amy has a lot of funny bits, but the 'oh, she's suddenly straight again' thing annoys me to no end, along with the 'hey, lesbians/gays can be intolerant' too thing...
Smith does the same thing with his militant black characters in Chasing Amy and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. I don't think Smith is really very racist, sexist, or homophobic so much as he works overtime to defend a person's tendency to be that way in a roundabout way - does that make sense? I think that getting into this odd white-male guilt/defensiveness is sort of futile and messy. It just makes him look foolish.

Jack The Bodiless

15:40 / 28.08.01

Don't agree. For a start, the comment about Alyssa's friends is (forgive me) fucking out of order in and of itself. So they're what we think most lesbians look like, are they? I didn't see them as being any more or less attractive than a lot of other women I know - crucially, I didn't see them as just being lesbians. What the fuck does it matter what someone looks like?! So Alyssa is reasonably gorgeous. Presumably that's why Holden was interested in the first place, before they spoke...

This whole thing about Alyssa being gay, until suddenly she's straight... Jesus, I don't know where to begin. If you seriously think that human sexuality is that monochrome, that regimented, then you really need to get out more and meet some interesting new people. So Alyssa fell for Holden? Big fucking deal. You're making as big a deal of it as her mates in the movies did, the people The Superfly Boy's doing the

about.

And the coda, Fly - I never read that as "I'll see you for a coffee sometime" - she cared about the bloke, and he fucked up. They hadn't seen each other for ages - and the implication is that he and Banky hadn't either, so they 'split up' as well. There's no reason why, after a traumatic break-up and some time to reflect, two people can't be friends. What kind of ending would you have preferred? Holden hanging himself with dome pink ribbon, while a Platoon-style voiceover explains all the naughty things he did during the course of the movie. I think losing the woman he loved may have taught him enough about being a paranoid prick...

As an aside - what militant black characters in Chasing Amy? Hooper was taking the piss. He was gay, too, by the way. Is that OK? I mean, was he handled right? Because obviously there's only a set, specific way to do these things without leaving a bad taste in someone's mouth. Has anyone here got a copy of the manual? Or did we leave it in the Head Shop?

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