Without Fear

Not the greatest director but a guy close to my adolescent heart.

1. Chasing Amy

2. Clerks

3. Dogma

4. Mallrats

5. Zack and Miri Make A Porno

6. Jersey Girl

7. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back

8. Clerks 2

9. Cop Out

NA – Red State

Thoughts.

Man, you list all his flicks like that and it’s suddenly not so impressive. There’s only one classic movie on that list and it sits at the top. Clerks is close, maybe even there, but it doesn’t quite feel as definitive.

But the rest of the list isn’t bad, it’s just not cinema defining. There’s a lot of good flicks there, and a lot of laughs. But it’s a simple list. I mean no disrespect saying that.

Dogma could have been such a dominant flick, and if a smarter and more mature director had handled it I believe it surely would have been. There’s some rock solid gold in there and then there’s Silent Bob and a shit monster and a lot or purile stuff that just drags it down. Especially the more it ages. I like this movie, a lot, but it could have been masterful.

Mallrats is one of those flicks I watched on loop as a teen. It was just like candy, so easy to take in. There are plenty of faults but who cares when you have Jason Lee doing what he does there? Spout all the theory you like at it, Lee nails that flick.

I really wanted Zack and Miri Make A Porno to be on the same level of Chasing Amy and you can see it wants the same thing. It just doesn’t quite get there. Heartbreaking, really. Again, the immaturity drags it down. That whole taint intro just lost me.

I’m honestly torn with Clerks 2, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and Jersey Girl. Those films all just about tie because any given day I could rotate their order. They wouldn’t climb any further on the list, and certainly wouldn’t sink any lower, but they have the ability to shuffle.

Clerks 2 made me laugh. It’s nothing special but it does what it sets out to do, it makes me laugh. I also like the heart at the end of it. Donkey scene is another in a long string of examples where Smith just couldn’t help himself. Shame.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was the Mallrats for my uni days. Perfect hangover fare. It’s got plenty of insider laughs, and the Good Will Hunting sequel will always make me laugh, but otherwise it’s thin.

I don’t hate Jersey Girl. I kind of like it. There’s some very quality real moments in there and Affleck can act, dammit.

Cop Out was simply dire. The script was just so bad and cliche and terrible and superfluous. A movie I will most likely never watch again. If I’m lucky.

The sequence in Zack and Miri where Rogen gets dragged out of the room by the porn star to The Pixies’ ‘Hey’ is probably Smith’s greatest cinematic moment. It’s a Scorsese moment, man. It shows me what Smith really could do and be and then it breaks my heart because he never really gets there anywhere else. Chasing Amy excluded, obviously, because that is the greatest movie ever made.

I’m not being sarcastic, Chasing Amy is a phenomenal. That flick has unbelievable heart and just nails every scene. Pound for pound one of the best scripts of all time.

I haven’t seen Red State yet but I listened to all the film school podcasts about it and I’m pretty pumped for it. Could be very cool.

That’s my list, I’m really interested to see if you even have one for Smith. Let me have it if you’ve got it.