Kevin Smith

Clerks

Dogma

Salutations and sup, dudes? We’ve made it to a muggy, malaise-y May, and even though I haven’t seen sunshine in quite awhile, I have seen a lot of good movies lately. Like everyone else, I’ve been utterly consumed by my obsession with Luca Guadagnino’s latest erotic-tennis-drama and Zendaya-star-making-vehicle Challengers, but this week I also explored the works of a filmmaker who feels like an old friend somehow—even though I’m new to watching his movies. Writer-director, actor, producer, innovator of mumblecore, comic book nerd, accidental fashion icon, ultimate fanboy success story, New Jersey legend, and all-around super nice dude Kevin Smith is the subject of this week’s double feature, not just because I was curious of his movies, but because it feels like I already know this man personally. Since he began making indie mumblecore films in the early 90s, Kevin Smith has been an immensely likable, down-to-earth artist and proud geek who’s work echoes his humble, scrappy, messy, often-stoned sensibilities. Smith has been through several personal and career transformations—from his weight loss journey to his entanglement with once-titan of Hollywood Harvey Weinsten (who made a lot of Kevin’s early films possible but has now been condemned by the filmmaker), to his complex relationships with being a pothead and a Catholic—and through all of his evolutions, he has always been an observant curator of charmingly-inane films that often champion misfits and slackers. I had the pleasure of seeing Kevin Smith speak in 2017, at a ceremony at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre celebrating the legacy of comic book god Stan Lee, and his speech was so thoughtful and funny and touching that it made me go, “Huh, maybe I should check out some of his movies.” My favorite of his films—Zack and Miri Make a Porno—is one of his greatest financial flops, whereas my least favorite film of his—Tusk—has become a cult-classic among fans of horror and comedy. And I suppose I can appreciate the brilliance of casting Justin Long at one of his hottest moments only to turn him into a grotesque human-walrus hybrid creature, so I can’t even fully hate it. Though he is known for his slacker and stoner-adjacent stories, Smith’s tastes and narrative methods are so diverse and so expansive that you can never really predict any of his premises—he’s just an appreciator of pop culture and nerdisms, which as a pop culture nerd, I can really appreciate. The highly-adored and oft-quoted dynamic duo of Jay and Silent Bob (played by longtime collaborator Jason Mewes and Smith himself) are perhaps his best-known contributions to culture, as these characters appear in nearly every single one of Smith’s movies—as well as making cameos in other films like Scream 3. Like many other filmmakers, he is the product of the creators who came before him. Smith credits fellow mumblecore directors like Hal Hartley, Richard Linklater, Spike Lee, and Jim Jarmusch for motivating him to make magical movies about mostly nothing, but both of tonight’s films prove the depth and breadth and ever-evolving nature of this auteur’s work. Smith saw Richard Linklater’s first film, Slacker, when he was 21, which inspired him to embark upon his own filmmaking journey—beginning with tonight’s first film: Clerks. Clerks is where we first meet Jay and Silent Bob, as well as two other reoccurring characters in the Kevin Smith Cinematic Universe—Dante and Randal: the leads of Clerks. Kevin Smith saved and scraped and sold his beloved comic book collection to create his 1994 debut film Clerks, accruing just over $27,000 to make this special project. Using a black-and-white camera and an Always Sunny in Philadelphia font, Clerks introduces us to Dante (Brian O’Halloran), a young slacker in his early 20s who works at Quick Stop Groceries in Leonardo, New Jersey. Dante is forced to go to work on his day off—sparking an abundance of aggravation and melancholy in this protagonist. Randal (Jeff Anderson) works next door at a very small video store, but often goes over to the Quick Stop to chat with and bother Dante. Clerks shows us a day in the life of these service workers: how dumb yet demanding the customers are, how uniquely torturous the mundanity and minutia of clerk work is, and how life gets in the way of their loosely-assigned responsibilities. A traveling salesman is giving Dante trouble, by talking all of his customers out of buying cigarettes that will kill them and eventually forming an angry anti-tobacco mob, until Dante’s girlfriend, Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti), comes to the rescue and tells this crowd to think for themselves and stop being sheep. Dante and Veronica have a really sweet dynamic, with one scene of unexpected tenderness showing Dante painting her nails, until they begin to discuss the people they’ve slept with before meeting each other. Dante becomes upset when Veronica reveals that she’s given thirty seven guys (including Dante) oral sex, to which Dante yells out “My girlfriend sucked thirty seven dicks!” prompting a customer to respond, “In a row??” A bodega cat watches from across the store and judges them. Loitering and dealing drugs outside is Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith), two best friends who don’t have much going on besides smoking weed and looking for women that will give them the time of day. Dante helps a customer free his hand out of a Pringles can, he observes a man struggling to search for the “perfect dozen” of a carton of eggs, as well as a woman going milk carton by milk carton to find one with the furthest expiration date possible—all normal occurrences for the Quick Stop. Each vignette of a customer interaction and each skit of Dante having to do some form of dirty work was surprisingly entertaining, each moment was way funnier and smarter than I’d assumed Clerks was capable of. Truly the only conversation that made me zone out was one between Dante and Randal where they discussed Star Wars—but for a movie made by such a nerd there were thankfully very few nerdy interactions here. Dante and Randal argue over which store gets the more idiotic customers, they play a game of hockey on the roof, and they go to an old classmate’s funeral all in the span of one shift at their respective jobs, and I really found myself compelled by this story that I’d already made negative assumptions about. It’s not Kevin Smith’s fault, but male-dominated mumblecore (which is the majority of this subgenre) can be so headass and patriarchally-stifling because it appears that when you just let a man talk, uninterrupted, what he has to say is boring. I didn’t find this to be the case with Clerks, though some moments had an air of schoolyard sexism, the script felt very innocent and exploratory and mostly kind to its subjects. Maybe I’m just a snob, or a misandrist, but I didn’t expect Clerks to be funny, or entertaining, or full of so much exquisitely-pleasing vocabulary like “perspicacity” and “caustic”. Though I am a fan of bro-centric bro comedies, I tire of pretentiously-depraved and obnoxiously-disgusting bro-downs that take themselves too seriously (a la Harmony Korine and Larry Clark) and Clerks was just a lot of fun to this female slacker. Maybe it’s the Challengers hype talking, but Dante and Randal had a fascinating, even homoerotic dynamic, and each of the characters Smith presented us with, be they misfits or upstanding members of society, had something interesting and thought-provoking to offer. Clerks is, dare I say, better than Slacker, in that it actually made me laugh and jump and feel feelings—something I certainly didn’t expect when embarking upon this Kevin Smith expedition. I also didn’t expect any existential and religious turmoil in my viewing, but that’s what tonight’s next film, Dogma, brought to the table. While it has a lot to offer, Clerks is ultimately a very simple movie, but Dogma, Smith’s star-studded, big budget 1999 meditation on Christianity and the afterlife is anything but simple. When choosing my Kevin Smith double feature, I consulted with my friend and frequent collaborator of Kevin Smith’s, Ming Chen, and he suggested Mallrats, Chasing Amy, or Dogma—and while they all had elements that tempted me, the premise of Dogma was just too convoluted and curious and ambitious for me to pass up. Kevin Smith, like so many artists throughout time, has a lot of Catholic guilt and religious trauma. And like Almodóvar and Scorsese, Smith has worked on these religious hangups through therapy, and through filmmaking. Dogma opens with several disclaimers, and yet the Catholic church was still appalled and offended by this movie. It reads:

“Disclaimer: 1) a renunciation of any claim to or connection with; 2) a disavowal; 3) a statement made to save one's own ass.
Though it'll go without saying ten minutes or so into these proceedings, View Askew would like to state that this film is—from start to finish—a work of comedic fantasy, not to be taken seriously. To insist that any of what follows is incendiary or inflammatory is to miss our intention and pass undue judgement; and passing judgement is reserved for God and God alone (this goes for you film critics too... just kidding). So please—before you think about hurting someone over this trifle of a film, remember: even God has a sense of humor. Just look at the platypus. Thank you and enjoy the show.”

Dogma begins with iconic pioneer of filthy comedy George Carlin, playing a Catholic cardinal, who announces at a church in New Jersey that he is working to rebrand and revamp Catholicism. He introduces a new symbol, “Buddy Christ”, a replacement for the grotqesquely-bloody crucifix with a smiling, thumbs-upping Jesus. Meanwhile, in an airport in Wisconsin, trickster fallen-angel Loki (Matt Damon) is casually convincing a nun that god does not exist. Loki’s friend, a fellow fallen angel named Bartleby (Ben Affleck) rolls his eyes and wonders why his friend wants to spend his eternity messing with poor, unfortunate, hopelessly hopeful humans. Through various explanations of Christian lore we learn that Loki and Bartleby were angels who were banished from heaven for pissing off god, and now through this Catholic revamping, they may just have a loophole back into paradise. With a little help from the demon Azrael (Jason Lee) and his evil hockey-playing minions the Stygian triplets, all Loki and Bartleby have to do to re-enter heaven is make it to New Jersey, where a church is being rededicated. Somewhere in Illinois, a woman named Bethany (Linda Fiorentino) who works at a Planned Parenthood with her friend Janeane Garafolo is having a crisis of faith. She still goes to church, but she’s not sure if she believes in god anymore, until the voice of god, Metatron (Alan Rickman), appears and requests Bethany’s help with a teeny little holy crusade. Bethany must stop Bartleby and Loki from entering this church and thus entering heaven, for if they are granted entry then god would be proven wrong, and if god is proven wrong, than the great experiment of human existence will end. Bethany is skeptical, until she is attacked by the hellish Stygian triplets—a violent encounter that is put to an end by superheroes Jay and Silent Bob. With a target now on her back, Bethany enlists the help of Jay and Silent Bob on her holy crusade, to which they begrudgingly agree. The three embark upon a holy odyssey to New Jersey, and along the way they receive assistance from Rufus (the 13th apostle, played by Chris Rock), Serendipity (a muse who has writer’s block, played by Salma Hayek) and eventually, god, herself (whom I will not reveal because it’s too fun and of-its-time to spoil.) On their journey they encounter trials and tribulations and a giant shit demon (presumably as an homage to the shit monster in Clerks II), and on Loki and Bartleby’s journey, they have a blast killing various kinds of sinners. It all makes for a thrilling, hilarious, absurdist adventure that I’m sure seemed sacrilegious to some but just seemed faithfully silly and well-researched for a Biblical story to this sinner. There are undoubtedly references and jokes and ironies that I missed out on due to my lack of knowledge of Christian mythology, but I thoroughly enjoyed Dogma, for all of its rightfully-ridiculous portrayals of characters in the Bible and humanity’s tricky relationship with religion. It is far from the most incendiary or critical of depictions of organized religion and faith, and yet Dogma still caused a lot of controversy when it was released. Kevin Smith has since backed off of Catholicism and no longer claims to be religious, but just like his ever-shifting relationship with weed, who’s to say that Smith won’t be touched by an angel ever again? I’m not sure why I was so off-put by Kevin Smith’s films—he always seemed like a perfectly nice and humble king of geeks—but I am so overjoyed to report that I really really enjoyed tonight’s films, and will certainly be exploring more of this writer-director’s filmography. I may not be as successful of a nerd as Kevin Smith, but with Jay and Silent Bob as my witness(es), I will be a successful nerd one of these days… As the patron saint of fanboys, Kevin Smith is a thoughtful artist and filmmaker and altogether curator of iconic, non-annoying bromances, comedies, and thrillers. Thanks for reading along this week, nerds, in Stan Lee’s name, amen. 😇