Daily Archives: July 16, 2006

Kevin Smith on Clerks II

Interviews

Kevin Smith is a talker. You probably knew this, however. His movies are full of dialogue — wonderfully effusive (and frequently profane) explosions of words. I caught up with him recently at a press day in advance of Clerks II, and this is what one question about the movie’s genesis produced.

“I really wanted to tell a story about what it was like to
be in my 30s, and I tried to do that with Jersey
Girl and I think I was kind of successful in what I wanted to do, but at
the same time it’s a movie that’s a bit manipulative, tends to be a bit mawkish
and what not,” says Smith. “So I wanted to do version of movie that was a little bit more in
touch with reality, which is odd because this movie does have a donkey show at
its epicenter. So I thought Clerks was a movie about what it felt like to be in
my 20s and I could use Dante and Randal as a way in, so suddenly it became
Clerks II. I talked about doing the movie back in 1998, and in the tale end of
the Dogma credits, which came out in ’99, it said, “Jay and Silent Bob will return
in Clerks II: Hardly Clerkin’.” And then I thought you know what, maybe I
shouldn’t fuck with the sacred cow. If I do a sequel to the first film, what if it
sucks and people retroactively go back and hate on the first film as well? So
it became Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,
but all the ideas were there, and the groundwork had been laid in my head, and
that Dante and Randal story was always kind of in the background. I figured I’ll
do it in comic book form or what not.”

“And then when I started thinking about
telling the story about what it felt like to be in my 30s I thought, shit,
that’s the story. It’s all coming together, it’s gelling now. Some people
online have been like, well, it’s obviously a reaction to Jersey Girl. Jersey Girl didn’t do well
so he’s going back to the well and retrenching. And they’ve missed the target
but hit the tree — Jersey Girl played a role but it wasn’t that. Because  I was already dialed into Clerks II while
making Jersey Girl, to some degree. Because I was like, “Man, the next movie I don’t want to
work with famous people or celebrities, I just want to work with people who are
unknowns. I don’t want to have to worry about In Touch or US Weekly putting them on the cover every
fucking week.” I mean, it’s weird when you spend two years of your life trying
to put togther a story and then you sit down to talk about it, and nobody wants
to talk about it. [Instead] they say, “Did you see the pink diamond, is it huge?” I’m like
yes, but, what does that have to do with anything man? When the backstory
overshadows the story, it’s just not cool anymore. As a storyteller it’s kind
of insulting — it’s like Jesus Christ, either the movie is as bad as you say and you have
nothing to talk about except these two or you find these two more fascinating
than the movie we put together.”

The Groomsmen

Film Reviews

Edward Burns burst onto the scene in 1995 with
The Brothers McMullen, a genuine Sundance success story that was shot on
a budget of $25,000 with cameras on surreptitious loan, as the story goes, from
his day gig at Entertainment Tonight or another one of those syndicated
tele-mag shows. He subsequently landed Cameron
Diaz, Jennifer Aniston, Heather Graham and Brittany Murphy for other early movies, then segued into
acting in studio projects, including Saving Private Ryan and, gulp,
Life or Something Like It. Burns’ bread and butter, though, has always
remained flitting tales of romantic nervousness and blue collar ennui set
amongst beer-swilling Irish Catholics, and so it continues with The
Groomsmen, his latest film.

The movie tells the story of a reunited group of lifelong suburban New York
pals — Paulie (Burns), older brother Jimbo (Donal
Logue), irrepressible cousin Mike (Jay Mohr), family man bar owner Dez
(Matthew Lillard) and T.C. (John Leguizamo) — who all gather in advance of
Paulie’s impending marriage to his pregnant fiancée, Sue (the aforementioned Murphy). All manner of would-coulda-shoulda
secrets, frustrations and resentments are trotted out and dissected, with each
character searching for their own sort of settlement.

If blithely tossed about $20 bills are the currency of early John Grisham (and anyone
who’s read The Firm knows what I’m talking about), tall cold ones are the
narrative crutch of Burns’ oeuvre; there’s never been a substantive male
conversation that didn’t revolve around and/or involve beer in his screen world.
In The Groomsmen we have to wait all the way until the second
scene of the movie, but then, soon enough, characters are swigging whilst
picking up one another from the airport, fishing, eating, reminiscing… you get
the picture.

A snapshot of thirtysomething reticence, the movie is all very familiar,
both in general and when placed up against Burns’ other work. But it’s also
decently acted, giving most of its male cast against-type roles to play around
with, and Mohr plenty of scenery to chew. Burns further indulges this with
longer set-piece takes and wide shots, providing an easy-to-swallow answer for viewers who’ve
wondered where The Brothers McMullen’s neo-masculine ambivalence has gone
in the past decade. (Bauer Martinez, R, 98 mins.)

Landmark Re-Ups the Westside

Ephemera

Landmark Theatres
— the nation’s largest theater chain devoted exclusively to art and
independent film, with 57 theaters in 23 markets — are collaborating to
create the largest independent film center in the country, aiming to
boost the Westside’s fading trendiness factor and help reestablish it
on the map as a destination for the film industry.

Ted Mundorff, Landmark Theatres senior vice president of film and
advertising, is touting the atmosphere and convenience of the
admittedly impressive sounding, renovated three-story venue, which will
be accessible both from the street and via a bridge that connects it to
Nordstrom and the Westside Pavilion shopping mall when it reopens with
the center in early summer 2007. The first floor will include several
new high-quality restaurants, while second and third floors of the
facility will feature 12 screens projecting independent films using the
latest in film and digital technology, as well as a lounge and wine
bar.

Mundorff also says that the new Landmark Film Center at Westside
Pavilion will partner with the Los Angeles film industry and area film
schools to “promote the education and training of those pursuing
careers in the film industry, and to provide a venue for screening the
works of up-and-coming filmmakers.” I seem to remember a lot of similar
noise being made about a planned national chain of Sundance-minted
theaters, so let’s hope the Landmark Film Center keeps their end of
that bargain, and experiences enough success that other companies start
taking a look at their business model. If interesting stories and
independent film are going to continue to be theatrically viable deep
into the 21st century, their funders and financiers need better
alliances with exhibitors and theater owners. Not to go soapbox on all
of you, but there’s absolutely no reason in the Internet age that true
film fans should have to drive two hours or more across the state — to,
say, Austin, Chapel Hill or Chicago — to see the best of independent
film.