Kevin Smith Hate Thread

[DominusOdium]

I used to be a big fan. Now I hate that stoner cuck.

Clerks is a lot of fun still and as a guy who around the same age, worked in a shitty store just like that... It's very relatable. It hinges mostly on Dante and Randal and they're about the best two characters Kevin Smith ever wrote. Maybe I am colored by nostalgia, but I like it a lot and saw it recently and felt the same. It feels like being that age in the mid 90s in the shit suburbs.

Mallrats isn't good but it's entertaining in its way. The original directors version is better, but it's not genius or anything. It's a fine dick and fart 90s comedy.

Chasing Amy has aged horribly. I'm really surprised when I see people defend it nowadays. It's not deep. It's not particularly realistic or honest. It's a fantasy soap opera story written by a guy who found out his girl was a whore and he's got a small dick. He doesn't really understand or say much about the faggot community of note. The performances, especially Joey Lauren Adams and Affleck try to elevate it, but it's still cringe.

Dogma is that guy you knew in high school who went off to college and came back from his first year of a philosophy degree and impresses dumb girls with his pseudo intellectual surface level takes on Christianity. What if God was a woman! The Bible was edited! Jesus was a nigger! I hate this movie. I loved it when I was a tarded kid 20s edgy atheist.

Jay and Silent Bob is fine. It's back to Mallrats type poo poo fart comedy with an extra dose of egotistical smirking at the camera, literally and figuratively. It's indulgent as fuck and his horse wife is ugly and sad to watch. Everything he'd do wrong from here on out is displayed in Strike Back, but nobody figured it out yet.

Jersey Girl isn't bad. Performances are fine. I never ever felt like rewatching it, but I like Affleck and he's good in it. The writing is mediocre.

Clerks 2 is the last thing he would do that was any good. Clearly he ran back to safety after Jersey Girl and he can still write Dante and Randall. It definitely smacks hard of his attempts to stay edgy as he gets old. Oh look! Donkey show! Har Har.

Clerks the Animated Series is probably the best thing he was ever involved with and he managed to fuck it up. He had alot of help writing and producing these so they're generally very quality and funny. Holds up well.

After this it's a free fall. Red State is Smith trying to be Tarantino and failing. Cop Out is Smith trying to be Brett Ratner and failing. Zack and Miri is Smith trying to be Judd Apatow and failing. Of these only Red State is good because his usual cheap production and bad direction of actors is hidden in the genre. It was also saved by him not being allowed to do his fucking stupid college film student ending.

After this, weed.

Tusk is unwatchable and stupid. Reboot is a depressing remake of one of his lesser movies, Jay and SB Strike Back, and it took me 4 separate tries to watch it in pieces. Loathsome and sad.

Yoga Hosers I turned off 5 minutes in and will never watch.

I really don't see how I can watch Clerks 3. It's not even the same person anymore. If I want to watch Dante get raped on screen I'll just go watch Vulgar.

 

[DMAN]

Weed is what REALLY fucked up his movies. I mean the old ones weren't anything outstanding that belong in the criterion collection or anything, but at least they were okay. I mean Dogma was actually an alright movie.

But then he started smoking pot and got involved with people like Seth Rogen, and started making movies like tusk. Yech.

Fuck out of here with that garbage.

He's trying too hard to be memey, but he always was.
Jay and Bob Reboot was a heinous pile of shit because of that reddit baiting cutesy shit.

I really don't see how I can watch Clerks 3. It's not even the same person anymore. If I want to watch Dante get raped on screen I'll just go watch Vulgar.

If Clerks 3 turns out to be as gay as Jay and Bob Reboot was, I hope his heart gives out in the middle of a rambling Q&A.
In the promo photo Dante is wearing a giant crucifix. Wanna bet he makes Dante a conservative Trump supporter who "sees the light"

The Clerks cartoon is his only work worth defending. Timeless art

I would be willing to call Clerks 2 a great movie if not for the forced female characters.
Dogma was good. That back and forth writing style works for Damon/Affleck or Dante & Randall.
But he tries to do it with women and his own daughter. Big time Bennington vibes.
Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and everything else he has done sucked dick.
I saw Red State, it doesn't really stand out to me much.

I watched most of Yoga Hosers because I'm a simp who likes staring at pretty girls. Johnny Depp's daughter is beautiful.
Didn't even understand what the fuck Kevin's role was as the sausage monster... it was like his daughter wrote it all and he just said OK.

I have been perpetuating a theory that all of Kevin's movies since his weed transformation have been ghost written by his daughter. As his way of making peace with the Harvey Weinstein connection. "Look! My daughter has been making all my movies all these years!! Isn't your mind blown, reddit? Happy international women's month!"

 

[WhereWeAt]

I used to be a big fan. Now I hate that stoner cuck.

Clerks is a lot of fun still and as a guy who around the same age, worked in a shitty store just like that... It's very relatable. It hinges mostly on Dante and Randal and they're about the best two characters Kevin Smith ever wrote. Maybe I am colored by nostalgia, but I like it a lot and saw it recently and felt the same. It feels like being that age in the mid 90s in the shit suburbs.


Jay and Silent Bob is fine. It's back to Mallrats type poo poo fart comedy with an extra dose of egotistical smirking at the camera, literally and figuratively. It's indulgent as fuck and his horse wife is ugly and sad to watch. Everything he'd do wrong from here on out is displayed in Strike Back, but nobody figured it out yet.

This is an all-around good take. The only disagreement here is over Jay and Silent Bob. I'd argue it's among his best movies because he just sticks to letting the characters make stupid inside jokes while Jay is a hilarious total asshole. It isn't pretending to be some kind of high art like his other movies, so I've always felt like it, along with Clerks 2, are his most earnest films. I never saw Tusk or anything that followed it, and the past few years on social media have reminded me how right I was.

 

[guest]

This is an all-around good take. The only disagreement here is over Jay and Silent Bob. I'd argue it's among his best movies because he just sticks to letting the characters make stupid inside jokes while Jay is a hilarious total asshole. It isn't pretending to be some kind of high art like his other movies, so I've always felt like it, along with Clerks 2, are his most earnest films. I never saw Tusk or anything that followed it, and the past few years on social media have reminded me how right I was.

Speaking of social media, all rephrase what I previously said: Weed AND the internet ruined Kevin Smith.

His movies were mediocre enough before I found out he was a guy in his 50s that literally sobbed over the ending of The Dark Knight rises.

 

[DominusOdium]

This is an all-around good take. The only disagreement here is over Jay and Silent Bob. I'd argue it's among his best movies because he just sticks to letting the characters make stupid inside jokes while Jay is a hilarious total asshole. It isn't pretending to be some kind of high art like his other movies, so I've always felt like it, along with Clerks 2, are his most earnest films. I never saw Tusk or anything that followed it, and the past few years on social media have reminded me how right I was.

That's fair. Jay and Bob is better than a lot of his work. He dropped the pretentious Chasing Amy and Dogma bit and made a goofy road comedy and it's lacking in the self consciousness that colors his work a lot of the time where he constantly tries to live up to Clerks or fit somewhere into Hollywood Ala Cop Out and Zack and Miri. It's dumb and mostly fun, even if I think it gets way worse whenever the girl squad is around.

 

[DominusOdium]

He's trying too hard to be memey, but he always was.
Jay and Bob Reboot was a heinous pile of shit because of that reddit baiting cutesy shit.



If Clerks 3 turns out to be as gay as Jay and Bob Reboot was, I hope his heart gives out in the middle of a rambling Q&A.
In the promo photo Dante is wearing a giant crucifix. Wanna bet he makes Dante a conservative Trump supporter who "sees the light"

The Clerks cartoon is his only work worth defending. Timeless art

I would be willing to call Clerks 2 a great movie if not for the forced female characters.
Dogma was good. That back and forth writing style works for Damon/Affleck or Dante & Randall.
But he tries to do it with women and his own daughter. Big time Bennington vibes.
Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and everything else he has done sucked dick.
I saw Red State, it doesn't really stand out to me much.

I watched most of Yoga Hosers because I'm a simp who likes staring at pretty girls. Johnny Depp's daughter is beautiful.
Didn't even understand what the fuck Kevin's role was as the sausage monster... it was like his daughter wrote it all and he just said OK.

I have been perpetuating a theory that all of Kevin's movies since his weed transformation have been ghost written by his daughter. As his way of making peace with the Harvey Weinstein connection. "Look! My daughter has been making all my movies all these years!! Isn't your mind blown, reddit? Happy international women's month!"

I actually really like Rosario Dawson in Clerks 2 even if she's way too hot for Dante. The work romance, infidelity, what you're supposed to do v what you want to do and the need to leave your hometown vs stay and make something with what you have.. Clerks 2 is really strong.

I thoroughly dislike his wife and her bad acting in it. And having her making out with a guy who looks just like Kevin says alot about him I think.

Clerks 2 is as good as Clerks in most ways. Jeff Anderson as Randall makes everything 100% better. Like I say the donkey show gets a bit too "Look, I'm still hip and with it!" but otherwise it's definitely his creative swan song. He never hit that height again. Not even close.

 

[DominusOdium]

Speaking of social media, all rephrase what I previously said: Weed AND the internet ruined Kevin Smith.

His movies were mediocre enough before I found out he was a guy in his 50s that literally sobbed over the ending of The Dark Knight rises.

I don't think it's a mistake that he became the braindead stoner making wacky walrus horror movies after his attempts to be a mainstream filmmaker or studio hack failed. He tried to sell out, couldn't and smoked away his ambitions.

 

[Lamont & Tonelli]

Oh look! Donkey show! Har Har.
...If I want to watch Dante get raped on screen I'll just go watch Vulgar.

Absolutely nailed it. The "porch monkeys" bit was funny, but I can't recall any other laughs. Vulgar is great.

The Clerks cartoon is his only work worth defending. Timeless art

"Bear driving a car! HOW CAN THIS BE?!?"

 

[DominusOdium]

Absolutely nailed it. The "porch monkeys" bit was funny, but I can't recall any other laughs. Vulgar is great.

"Bear driving a car! HOW CAN THIS BE?!?"

The recurring, unrelated flashback bit for instance.. Brilliant and well executed. Smith has never done anything like it anywhere else so I know it wasn't his idea.

 

[Smeckler's Powder]

Why are we walking like this?

 

[BootyJuice]

My ex used to write like this when she was super addicted to Xanax...

How was the slit?

 

[UnPRePared]

I can't disagree, even as a kid I recognized his almost Seinfeld shtick, it's repetitive and does in fact make me bite my own teeth *sniff*

You can probably imagine Kevin sitting there laboring over the script, "yeah people are going to say this movie is all killer no filler" Then he writes an early 20s woman to argue like a 40 year old comic book guy.

Kevin Smith fans are like The Big Lebowski people who dress up and make people call them The Dude.

Weed is what REALLY fucked up his movies. I mean the old ones weren't anything outstanding that belong in the criterion collection or anything, but at least they were okay. I mean Dogma was actually an alright movie.

But then he started smoking pot and got involved with people like Seth Rogen, and started making movies like tusk. Yech.

Fuck out of here with that garbage.

The thing with Smith is he is notorious about loving his own words. He HATES when people improvise; one of the few to do it was Chris Rock in Dogma, and his improv lines were actually a big improvement, because it sounded like HIM, not a mouthpiece for Smith.

I wish Smith could just learn this one thing: pick a character as your mouthpiece. Write Your movie. Then bring In a script doctor to rewrite all of your supporting characters and make them unique and defined. Guess what you just did there? You just made a movie with depth, not one that flagellates your ego.

What woke me up to that realization long ago was when he pushed for Jason Lee to play Fletch in "Fletch Won". I love Fletch, and I actually think Lee would've been great. And Smith was tapped to write it - he may even have written a script, but I've never found it. I thought "Man, he could write a great Fletch... But then everyone else is going to sound like Fletch, as well, and then it's no longer Fletch."

That's when I realized why Hollywood was never going to take him seriously. He branched out of his wheelhouse twice, with the Superman Lives and Green Hornet scripts - both which I contend were near great - and just gave up.

 

[satanssockpuppet]

Reboot is a depressing remake of one of his lesser movies

As someone who genuinely enjoyed "Strike Back" and J&SB in general, I could not believe how incredibly shitty "Reboot" was. It looked like he filmed it with his phone.

 

[DominusOdium]

As someone who genuinely enjoyed "Strike Back" and J&SB in general, I could not believe how incredibly shitty "Reboot" was. It looked like he filmed it with his phone.

It was like one of those beer commercials where oh look it's Wayne's World but everybody is 65 and it's all lit like a cheap TV show instead of a movie and it's on digital cameras meant for a sitcom.

And the writing was like a View Askew fan film

 

[satanssockpuppet]

It was like one of those beer commercials where oh look it's Wayne's World but everybody is 65 and it's all lit like a cheap TV show instead of a movie and it's on digital cameras meant for a sitcom.

And the writing was like a View Askew fan film

I had realistic expectations going in, but I did expect it to at least resemble a "real" movie. Even "Clerks 2" looked like a real movie, made by people who knew how to use cameras and microphones. I lasted twenty minutes, if that. If that was Kev's "love letter" to his View Askew fans, he must despise them, as "Reboot" was a remorseless piece of shit.

 

[Riccardo Bosi]

Unless you're a Kevin Smith uberfan who loves everything he does (in which case you're a shithead), people only like his movies because for the time, in the zeitgeist, it was the thing. You felt like you were watching a cult film even though you were not. It appealed to those around the 16-34 demographic. Almost everything he has made has aged like milk.

I'll give him one, though: Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, just because it's a silly comedy that doesn't try to be sincere. I watched the shit out of that one. The rest? I couldn't imagine having to sit through any of it.