Clerks2 Tagged Articles at Cinematical

I think it's safe to tell you, without spoiling the movie, that The Men Who Stare at Goats includes a couple of scenes with Jeff Bridges and George Clooney dancing around. The scenes are amusing and a little strange -- why are soldiers dancing? But they did fit consistently with the film as a whole. However, I was reminded of moments in movies that aren't musicals, but suddenly shift to some crazy kind of dance or musical number. I love these moments, and in fact I wish the dance scenes in The Men Who Stare at Goats were a little less toned-down and a little more "WTF?"

Okay, I'm kind of BS'ing you here. The Men Who Stare at Goats is a flimsy excuse. I really just wanted to write about surreal dance numbers in otherwise straightforward movies, because that can be so much fun. Last year's Adam Sandler vehicle Bedtime Stories was an annoying dud ... except for one glorious, shining moment where Guy Pearce launched into a song-and-dance number. Sometimes these dance moments are the best part of a movie, sometimes they spoil the mood and sometimes they're just one more weird aspect of an altogether bizarre film. Here are seven of my favorites.

What Silent Bob giveth, Silent Bob taketh away... or, at least, taketh down, which is why one can no longer give the Zack and Miri Make a Porno teaser a look-see until the MPAA gives it the once-over.

The online-only teaser, while filled with writer-director's Kevin Smith expectedly raunchy dialogue, does not actually feature any footage from the finished film, but according to Smith's recent News Askew post, that is a stipulation unseen by the Ratings Board, which must approve all marketing materials for any film.

"We're now officially submitting the teaser to the MPAA for rating," said Smith. "If they approve it, we'll put it back up." He does make a point of mentioning how a mere two years ago, he posted similarly crude internet-exclusive trailers for Clerks II with nary a complaint.

Until the MPAA hands down its formal red-band (or is it yellow-band?) decree, here's a link to our initial post on the teaser's arrival last week -- a post on which the teaser just so happens to still work...

[via /Film]

"Are you okay?"
"I'm disgusted and repulsed and ... I can't look away."

--Clerks II

After watching Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay with me, my husband remarked, "That may be the most deliberately offensive film I've seen." However, he also pointed out that he'd been laughing his head off most of the time. My first thought was that if the Harold and Kumar sequel was the most offensive thing he'd seen in awhile, maybe he needed to go to QT Fest with me next time, or watch some of those bizarre midnight movies at Alamo Drafthouse. (And what, did he forget we saw Borat together last year?)

But afterwards, I started wondering ... how many intentionally offensive comedies have we seen and loved? I'm not thinking about provocative or transgressive films that try to make you stop and think about your life. I'm talking about movies that, when they succeed, evoke that amazing moment in which your jaw has plummeted to the floor in disbelief as a bubble of laughter starts to force its way out of you and will send you to the floor along with your dropped jaw, in hysteria. I'll put up with revolting, sacrilegious, and downright repellent content in a film if it makes me laugh hard enough. Can I think of seven movies that meet such a high standard for offensive comedy? It's more like seven times seven, and difficult to pick only a few of my favorites. Feel free to share any movies that you think I neglected to include -- bear in mind that in some cases, I simply didn't like the movie enough to get past the offensive bits (the Jackass films), or although I liked the movie, wasn't offended (The Aristocrats).

The Ant Bully -- One of only 612 animated movies to be released this year in which animals talk and do silly things, TAB hits DVD packing a bunch of new animated shorts, a few deleted scenes and some family-friendly featurettes. Plus, admit it: You're curious about seeing a cartoon flick in which the voices are contributed by Julia Roberts, Paul Giamatti, Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep. Or maybe you aren't.

Clerks 2 -- Raunchy and funny I fully expected ... but kinda sweet, too? That I didn't really see coming. As is always the case with Kevin Smith's DVD, the C2 dual-platter promises 37 styles of supplemental goodness: Three commentaries, a bunch of deleted scenes, a feature-length documentary, a handful of featurettes, outtakes, internet shorts, and of course a bunch of vulgar little surprises.

See No Evil -- I surely didn't expect anything resembling "quality filmmaking" from the combined efforts of "WWE Films" and porn director Gregory Dark -- but I really wasn't expecting a low-rent slasher flick that was this outrageously unwatchable. Horror fans may delight in the few icky killings, but they're couched between a plot / cast / screenplay that's the absolute pinnacle of banality. Plus the killer is a big doofy dork who's not scary in the least. I'm not sure what extras Lionsgate is tossing onto this disc, but they could throw the entire collected works of Gregory Dark on there, and it still couldn't salvage this movie. (And just so you know, Greg once directed a movie called Hootermania.)

Supergirl -- Kal-El's hot little cousin makes her way to Earth and tangles with evil in the form of Faye Dunaway. Peter O'Toole, Peter Cook and Mia Farrow are somehow involved, if you can believe it. Director Jeannot Szwarc provides an audio commentary, should you just want to enjoy Helen Slater's Supertights without all that pesky dialogue.

Superman (4-disc Special Edition) -- One of the finest superhero flicks ever made gets a really fancy re-release that'll put the previous Special Edition (which is pretty damn solid) to Supershame. Choose between the original 1978 version or the re-jiggered 2000 cut, and when you're done with both of those you can pick through filmmaker commentaries, score-only audio tracks, documentaries, screen tests, deleted scenes, 1951's Superman and the Mole Men, and a whole bunch of classic Fleischer cartoons. (Someone please buy me this DVD for Christmas even though I'm Jewish.)

If you're the sort of DVD collector who loves nothing more than the kitschy little key-chains, chatchkes and doo-dads (and you're a big fan of Kevin Smith's Clerks 2), then you'll want to hit Best Buy on November 28. And make it during your lunch hour, because you'll be leaving the store with a decidedly unique Happy Meal.

Best Buy is offering an exclusive "Mooby's Fun Meal Box," which includes the Clerks 2 DVD, a cup, a visor, a Mooby's name tag ... and a box. Looks like this extra-special meal will set the Askewniversers back an extra ten bucks for the additional treats. ($29.99 MSRP, although that will undoubtedly go down during the week of release.)

Frankly I don't think the Mooby's toys are all that worthy of an extra ten smackers, but then again I'm not much of a memorabilia collector. The movie, though, is a winner, and I'll definitely be adding C2 to my collection soon.

[Thanks to JoBlo for the tip and the pic.]

Clerks 2 didn't seem to stay in theaters very long, but the film has made $24,041,057 domestically. For a production whose cost was in the neighborhood of $5 million, that seems like a respectable return on investment. Financially speaking, this keeps things within the parameters of Writer/Director Kevin Smith's prediction from his blog: "The flick should manage to get to $20 - $25mil theatrically, and eke out a minor theatrical profit, leaving all the DVD loot as total windfall."

Speaking as a fan of Smith's work, I would also say the film was a thematic success, bringing the films of the View Askewniverse to a more satisfying conclusion than had been achieved with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Clerks 2 is a hilariously foul-mouthed return to the character's introduced in Smith's 1994 debut feature Clerks, and -- unlikely as it may seem -- Dante, Randal, Jay , and Silent Bob all grow as human beings.

Smith has a habit of bringing his movies to DVD with more than their share of bells and whistles, and it appears Clerks 2 will continue that tradition when it arrives on November 28. There will be separate fullscreen and widescreen versions, each coming as part of a two-disk set and featuring:

• An audio commentary with the filmmakers and actors
• Deleted scenes and outtakes
• An extended version of 'The Donkey Show' (yes the scene that when discussed onscreen sent Good Morning America's Joel Siegel fleeing the theater in disgust, yet left me laughing till my spleen came out my nose)
• "Back to the Well: Making Clerks II" ninety-minute behind the scenes documentary
• "Train Wrecks" Production video Diary (presumably the same Video Diary material that was posted to the Clerks 2 website)
• "The Dance Sequence" featurette
• The complete MySpace.com fan credits list and trailers.

After making virtual lunchmeat out of Joel Siegel and his crybaby ways, Clerks 2 director Kevin Smith now has a new target firmly in his sights. Namely, the L.A. Weekly's Nikki Finke. As Erik reported this morning, Ms. Finke takes extreme umbrage with the fact that WeinsteinCo. sponsored a Clerks 2 promotion that resulted in 10,000 Smith fans getting their names attached to the flick's end credits. As is his normal M.O., Mr. Smith fired back on his own blog -- and the guy's seriously unhappy about Ms. Finke's comments.

What both sides fail to mention is that this is hardly a new trend. Peter Jackson used a similar approach a few years back, and you can see thousands of fans' names listed on the Fellowship of the Ring extended edition DVD. Right?

Nikki Finke calls it "a huge dis to anyone who's ever earned a legitimate credit on a film." Kevin Smith calls it a non-issue that nobody in the biz has complained about before now. Obviously it's just a difference of opinion, but Smith does nail Finke on one erroneous statement: She refers to Clerks 2 as a "failure," but the flick will certainly be well within the realm of profitability before the DVD hits the shelves.

And with all due respect to a fine writer, Ms. Finke might want to rent Airplane! and scan through those end credits to see how "sacred" the credit scrolls actually are.

I know a lot of you out there in Cinematical readerland are not big fans of View Askew filmmaker Kevin Smith. And while I understand where you are coming from and I don't blame you at all, I generally disagree with you on this one. I dig the guy and his work, and I'm glad to see him returning to Clerks. Sure, he can sound a bit abrasive and churlish from time to time, but he far more often sounds genuine, warm, and entertaining ... at least, when he is not responding to internet critics. I challenge anyone to listen to the commentary tracks on the Askew films and still dislike Kevin Smith. But hey, part of the glory of movies is we all have our different tastes and can violently disagree with each other via the internet (HINT: this is my incredibly subtle way of suggesting you use the comment feature at the bottom of this post).

In a recent interview with SuperheroHype, Kevin Smith finally closed the door tight on the persistent Green Hornet movie rumors. Yes, he said he was done with the project months ago, but rumors continued to insist he was merely pushing it back, not letting it go. Smith, however, again acknowledged his inability to properly handle such an action intensive flick. He likes what he does, he is good at what he does, and he doesn't want to ruin a Superhero flick because it isn't his strength. Said Smith: "I like to tell stories about people sitting around and talking to each other and what not. And that's really what I'm kind of good at and most people would argue that I'm not even that good at that to begin with. So the notion of doing Green Hornet is just not appealing to me."

The only time I don't feel bad about walking out of a movie is when I'm at a film festival. Sometimes there's something else I really want to see, and sometimes I'm just so dead-tired that my only options are to leave quietly or snore loudly. But when it comes to a movie I know I'm going to review, there's simply no choice: You watch the whole dang thing. And I'm talking about festivals that show films by Larry Clark, Gregg Araki and Catherine Breillat -- so I know what suffering is. And, apparently, so does Joel Siegel.

Anyway, here's the story, straight from the keyboard of Kevin Smith himself: There was a recent press screening of Clerks 2 in New York City. Apparently the flick's "ribald" nature did not sit well with the refined and delicate sensibilities of Siegel, he of Good Morning America and hundreds of terrible puns masquerading as movie reviews fame. About 40 minutes into the flick, Siegel decided to bail. (That really is strike one, because, as a movie critic, even a homogenized one like Joel Siegel, the very least that you're required to do is finish a freakin' movie. I sat through all of White Chicks and I didn't make a dime for that review; Joel Siegel can suffer through Clerks 2 for his $200k* a year.)

Kevin Smith's films have not exactly been burning through the box office of late, although until Jersey Girl most of them could be (and were) viewed as modest successes by Smith and his fans (yours truly included). This means he needs either a good box office return or a great critical reception in the manner of Chasing Amy  -- preferably both -- for his upcoming Clerks 2. To help with this goal, Smith has been inducting his fans into a personal marketing team, creating a contest to get the word out on his latest theatrical release. The deal is this: fans are to post Clerks 2 banners (which link back to the film's website) in every possible internet forum available to them: MySpace, websites, forums, message boards, etc. The fan who gets his banner in the most unique and/or impressive location will receive a guaranteed on-camera appearance in the very next View Askew film. Nine runners up will also get some manner of swag.

It is an interesting idea, and I'm curious to see how it turns out. Do you think it will help Smith generate interest in his film, or will it cause an irritated backlash against what could be perceived as internet graffiti? Clever or desperate -- or possibly a mix of both? I'll be impressed if a banner actually makes it somewhere other than message boards and movie/geek websites.