The Bullseye 07.22.06: Kevin Smith

Posted by Scotty Flamingo on 07.22.2006

The Passion of the Crap

Hello friends and welcome to the very first edition of The Bullseye! Have you ever hated a movie that everyone else seems to love? Don't you just wanna brain someone with a pipe when that happens? I know I do. There's nothing worse that having to sit quietly while someone fawns over some stupid movie that you hate. In polite society, you can't just bite someone's head off for their film tastes, but since this is the Internet, I can trash anyone I want, and hopefully maybe some of you readers can live vicariously through me.

Each week I will target a Hollywood film, personality, or TV show and blast away at it with all my misguided rage for your enjoyment. Either that or I'll get a ton of hate mail.

My very first target has a huge following. He is an acclaimed director, and coincidently, he just had a movie come out this week. This week, the Bullseye is on Mr. Kevin Smith.

I hate Kevin Smith. I always have. Even when Clerks was breaking out way back in the day, there was just something about the guy that rubbed me the wrong way. There just always seemed to be this air of pretentiousness about the guy.

Eventually though, I gave the guy a chance. I watched all of his films. I appreciated the raw charm of Clerks, but didn't find it as revolutionary as most. I found Mallrats to be an absolute bore. Chasing Amy was the best Smith film I had seen so far, but still wasn't anything I was gonna rush out to buy on DVD.

Dogma was a film I was curious about. It was controversial and it was Smith going in a new direction…a new direction with Jay and Silent Bob. I watched Dogma, and found it to be full of criticisms and observations that bordered on the cliché. The Catholic Church is too political! There's a groundbreaking opinion…back when Martin Luther expressed it. Jesus was black! This was shocking back when JJ painted Black Jesus on Good Times...maybe.

Finally, I watched Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and quickly realized why the duo should have continued to be regulated to cameos and small supporting roles. Jay was possibly the most unlikable and annoying lead in film history with his penchant for substituting F-bombs for punchlines. Actually, Jason Mewes chose to substitute the F-word for most of his dialogue period.

But it's not just that I don't like Smith's work. It's that the guy is constantly coming off like his shit don't stink. He criticizes other film makers who are far superior like Paul Thomas Anderson, Tim Burton, or Bryan Singer. This coming from a guy who wussed out of doing Green Hornet.

You've got Smith's foray into writing comic books. His work on Daredevil and Green Arrow got mixed reviews, but the one consistency of his work was delays. His recent mini-series Spider-Man/Black Cat: The Evil That Men Do was not just delayed for months, it was delayed for YEARS. Another mini-series, Daredevil/Bullseye: Target has YET to be completed. Such lack of professionalism is asinine, but it doesn't stop Wizard Magazine from kissing his ass every month.

Then there's the View Askewniverse debacle. Smith declared that he was ending it all with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001. No more Jay, no more Silent Bob, it was time to move on. It was a move I respected. Then came the announcement of Clerks 2. Now its one thing to milk a cash cow; hell I respect it. It's what I'd do if I had a series with a cult-following like Smith does. But don't go around acting like you are moving on to new horizons as an artist. Just say, "I'm a whore, I like making movies with my buds, and I sleep easy at night on a pile of money."

And while we're on the subject of Clerks 2, has ANYONE from the original gone on to do anything of note since then that wasn't Kevin Smith related? I remember that the guy who plays Randal was such a bad actor that even his voice work on the Clerks Animated Series sucked. Just the fact that I call him "The guy that plays Randal" and won't take the time to look up his real name should speak volumes.

Perhaps my biggest problem with Kevin Smith is not with Kevin Smith, it's with his fans. I had a friend tell me one night at a bar that "Kevin Smith has never made a bad film." I believe in free speech and all, but I think that such statements warrant some span of prison time. Smith fans have a devotion that is borderline cult like. They brush off any criticism with excuses like "Kevin Smith cares about the fans." Or "Kevin Smith isn't part of the Hollywood machine." Oh really? Then why did the guy run back to his gravy train as soon as Jersey Girl bombed?

I could go on. I could go on about Smith's childish retaliation against the Talkbackers on Aint-It-Cool News not once but twice. I could talk about his claims that Tim Burton ripped off the ending of Planet of the Apes from a Clerks comic book. However, I think I'll just leave it at the fact that I think Kevin Smith is an overrated, opinioned jackass that criticizes others without any sort of qualifications to do so.

Next week, I'll tell you why 24 sucks donkey.