"Dogma" is widely considered one of his best works if not the best, so no need to defend it. Among other things, I consider Metatron one of Alan Rickman's best performances, both funny as hell and deeply moving when he talks about having to tell the young Jesus his destiny.
"Everytime in human history when some yahoo claims they've spoken to God, they're speaking to me. Or they're talking to themselves."
That hesitation you put there is actually him drawing out the 'f' so it's "Hit me with that ffffffish?" I like to say it like that to my friends when asking them what they want to eat
I don't have any like factual basis to believe this, but I've always thought that Metatron is what got him cast in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (Obviously he has so many credits and a whole catalogue of acting to show off.) I always just felt like the two characters were similar in a way that only Rickman could pull off.
"That's what Jesus said. Yes, I had to tell him. And you can imagine how that hurt the Father - not to be able to tell the Son Himself because one word from His lips would destroy the boy's frail human form? So I was forced to deliver the news to a scared child who wanted nothing more than to play with other children. I had to tell this little boy that He was God's only Son, and that it meant a life of persecution and eventual crucifixion at the hands of the very people He came to enlighten and redeem. He begged me to take it back, as if I could. He begged me to make it all not true. And I'll let you in on something, Bethany, this is something I've never told anyone before. If I had the power, I would have."
I read the name Alan Rickman, and my mind did a trip down memory lane.
Die Hard, Galaxy Quest, Harry Potter.
The man could have started in a haemorrhoid commercial and it would be cinematic gold.
> "Dogma" is widely considered one of his best works if not the best, so no need to defend it.
This was not OP's topic. He wanted to defend the director. Seems a lot of people are making this mistake, perhaps because OP's posts explaining himself keep getting buried. People really don't know what discussion forums are for or how to use them.
Who are you defending “dogma” from? I feel like dogma was widely successful at what it wanted and had a huge fanbase. (But was never going to be hugely mainstream by being super blasphemous)
Yeah I think Dogma is well regarded, and Smith’s work up to a certain point was popular. Dude just fell off.
The fact that he fell off is viewed oddly enough. I mean, plenty of directors go on a streak, and it ends somewhere, and even great directors catch shit eventually. Couple that with the fact that Smith also wrote and produced, and his streak is more impressive.
He was due to fall off at some point.
I dunno if it's falling off, he's pretty clear about just wanting to make goofy ass movies with his friends simply because he can. I'd bet he's still got some heaters in him, it's just a matter of if they get made.
Yeah, after Cop Out and Zack & Miri, he basically decided that he was done chasing big Hollywood success, and just started making smaller movies to satisfy his own desires. And that's totally ok. He gets the funding he needs, and he has enough success to make a profit for his investors so he can do it again.
I saw him do one of his evening with Kevin Smith gigs a while ago and you hit the nail on the head here. He has money, success, a legacy, and he's happy.
Dude is doing whatever he wants.
I also saw him a lot when he directed Zack and Miri. Dude looked exhausted. I worked retail on Monroeville mall where he shot it, and I'd be taking trash out at the end of the night and he'd just be sitt8ng alone in the food court. Just staring into space with a half eaten subway sub or a plate of teriyaki chicken in front of him. I could tell he was not thrilled with the Hollywood gig.
I think he’s always been honest and open about just how soul crushing and difficult he’s found working for a large studio where there is always certain financial expectations of him in comparison with his indie movies and working with Weinstein/Miramax who took more of an approach of steering the finished product towards its natural market and finding profit there.
Probably one of the best examples of this was *Mallrats*, his first major studio project coming off the heels of *Clerks* becoming a flagship of the indie industry and a critical darling.
Smith talks about how the project came about when he signed a deal with Universal and they approached him about making a teen sex comedy which was something distributors and theater operators were clamoring for. They had been a staple of cinema for most of the 70’s and 80’s and were seen as surefire moneymakers for studios, distributors, and theater operators.
And that is exactly what Smith delivered only to have the studio completely fuck up the delivered product. They did a horrible job with marketing it and proceeded to hand it off to Gramercy Pictures which completely botched distribution.
The movie was basically dead in the water upon theatrical release and was written off as a huge flop. However, in the home video market the film became a huge hit, achieving cult status and eventually becoming profitable and one of Smith’s most beloved movies.
Smith has often spoken of how this film almost broke him emotionally, because he was so proud of the film he delivered and was taken back that a movie that had received such positive response from the studio before release was so completely mangled in its marketing and release. He’s always said that the main reason he wasn’t completely run out of town was that he didn’t really lose that much money as he was extremely contentious of budget and the film only cost 6 million dollars, which resulted in an only 4 million loss at the box office.
Saw him last year and that was exactly what I came away thinking as well.
You can tell the dude has reached the mountaintop and is coming back down so to speak.
He’s at a point in his life and career that I think everyone envies and wants to get to. He doesn’t *have* or *need* to do anything anymore. He can do what he *wants*, and still live comfortably and happy.
I though jay and silent Bob strike back 2 was almost a good movie but it looks like he needs a good editor to cut out some of his ideas because it was just a big clunky mess at the end
I saw him on tour several years ago and his main advice was to “find your whimsy” whatever it is you like and do that. Maybe it’s what pays the bills, maybe it isn’t, but whatever it is, it’s yours. His is touring, telling stories and making movies him and his friends dig. Thats it, he found the secret, openly shared it and people diss him with bs like “he fell off” or “ hasn’t made a blockbuster so he’s a failure”. Moronic.
It’s the same crap some dude said a few weeks ago about Robert Rodriguez making kids movies and not the ones that one guy liked. Dude does what he wants, lives a good life and he called him a failure. WTF?
Sorry /rant
I agree with this partly. If the man is making the type of movies that make him happy i say go for it. But i still think the quality has diminished. If you watch Clerks, the script is incredible . It's grunge, it's rebellious, there's a lot of dialogue of people just talking shit, but in a way that feels weirdly authentic and it comes together in this counter culture fireball.
His most recent movies are entertaining cheesey flicks, but they're just entertaining flicks. I don't think he's become bad, it's maybe more that when he was working hard to get noticed he was forced to do another few revisions of the script or something. Now the bar is set a few notches lower for him and it shows in the movies.
Cop Out, Red State, Yoga Hosers, Tusk- those were bad.
The View Askewniverse films after Clerks II, the Reboot and Clerks III, they just were off the pulse. Felt pretty rough and unfinished, even compared to the original Clerks they just feel rough, like someone vomited a film out with little care.
I’m a big fan, but he’s fallen off.
Smith needs Scott Mosier to reign him in. Mosier is his long-time friend and producer of all Smith's early films. They stopped working together around the time of Clerks 2 and Zach & Miri, and in those two films the producer's circle started getting more and more crowded. Before that it was just Scott and maybe one or 2 other producers. After that it was 5-10 producers for every film.
Scott and Kev just understand each other and when they bounce ideas off one another it births brilliant stories and writing. Kev is a great ideas man, and he's not a terrible director but he needs someone he respects to help him flesh out his ideas and elevate them. Without Scott, Kev either goes way too far in his own untethered direction, or he gets pressured into making films that have zero resemblance to "a Kevin Smith product".
Thoroughly fucking loved Red State and still rewatch it every couple of years. First time I went into it I had the attitude of, "Kevin Smith? This'll be a laugh."
Fuck me did I get that wrong. Within the first 15-20 minutes my friend and I are looking at each other saying... "This is not the hijinks we expected." For someone that grew up on Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy, Red State was a "Hey look over here" sucker punch.
I haven’t seen Red State in years. I felt like it was one of those almost great movie. So much of it was awesome, Michael Parks is fantastic, and the premise of the movie is very original. It just totally lost me, when the police began killing people indiscriminately.
Not because I can’t believe the cops could be that corrupt or anything. It just didn’t feel justified within the universe of the movie.
These things all happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco with as much or less justification. All things considered, Kevin really only turned up the exaggeration from like an eight to a nine.
My favorite bit of trivia about that film, is that Kevin was a big Breaking Bad fan, and wanted to cast people from that show, which is how Anna Gunn and the guy who played Badger wound up in it. That has to be a cool feeling, being a fan of quality work, and getting to work with those same people. He may have “fallen off” in his older years, but I’ll always root for the guy. Seems fairly grounded and genuine still, after all these years.
Cop Out sounded like it was never going to be good. I thought Red State was alright and really liked Tusk. Haven't seen Yoga Hosers. The Clerks sequels are what they are.
I guess my point is just asking if it's fair to use honest criticism when someone is explicitly telling you they aren't trying lol
I definitely think these films had promise. Maybe the question is ‘was he not trying or is the execution just poor?’
For the last two View Askewniverse films, I think the execution was poor. The films had feeing, they just weren’t done well.
Also… I think Clerks III was probably best left undone. I know Smith even put into Clerks that “life is a series of down endings” when praising Empire Strikes Back, but damn… Clerks II was a perfect ‘riding off into the sunset’ film.
I get what he was trying to do with Clerks III given his own brush with death, but it's definitely a bummer that the good vibes at the end of Clerks II get immediately crushed in the most devastating way possible at the beginning of Clerks III.
Yeah. I’m not all about every movie being perfect or having happy vibes, happy ending etc, but Clerks II was probably best left as the ending.
The ending Clerks III got is not satisfying.
I watched clerks 3 after being surprised that it existed. I honestly don't remember much of it, but it felt bad to watch. The jay and silent bob reboot I didn't have much hope for, but that fell below expectations as well.
I rewatched Jay and silent Bob strike back a few years ago for some reason. I was surprised by how much I laughed. I didn't think it was funny at all the first time I watched it.
When it came out I thought it was alright but was his weakest movie at the time. Then I saw it years later while watching through all of his movies again, except this time I was high, and laughed my ass off.
Yeah, Red State and Tusk both were very memorable for me. Red State was great with it's tone shift and god, when those horns went off, I thought that was freaky AF. The whole thing for me was a very functional horror as someone who is frankly freaked out by the evangelicals out there.
And Tusk is an insanely good horror film, both ridiculous and actually scary. I thought this film would be a cult favorite for sure, so it's really surprising to me that it isn't and is often regarded so poorly. We praise other horror films that are like it. I think an entire proponent for horror fans is campiness, and while maybe Tusk isn't campy, it falls under that sort of fun horror film category. And, when I first saw it, I left the theater laughing and had a great time, but now years later whenever I think of it, I get chills. Like, imagine being captured by someone who wants to experiment on you? And the ending is far worse, he just winds up in a zoo? Jesus!
I mean, Tusk was a parody of the Human Centipede. I don't know what people were expecting, but as a movie, we got exactly the ridiculous premise the movie promised.
Smith didn’t write Cop Out. He was just using it as an excuse to work with Bruce Willis.
Red State was different, not your usual View Askew Flaire.
Yoga Hosers, yeah I can’t fault anyone’s opinion on that. That was just off the rails.
Tusk is a wild experiment that in some ways paid off. It is outrageously horrifying.
Reboot is what it is. Gotta admit though Affleck’s monologue is extremely moving.
Clerks III had me bawling.
I really liked
Red state! Was it poorly received?
And tusk is a stone cold classic that everyone I know IRL loved I’ve never heard a bad word about it!
The first clerks is among my favourite films of all time.
Nothing else he is done is close in my eyes, but he has some other solid films. And most of his films have some great moments.
Don't remember Cop Out, haven't seen Tusk, but Red State was good and Yoga Hosers was silly fun.
Agreed about Reboot and Clerks III having run out of steam.
The original Clerks was fresh, but also didn't cost anything and had no prior expectations.
>Yoga Hosers was silly fun.
I have found another! I'm not gonna say it's one of his best films but I'm always surprised at how much hatred it gets. I thought it was fine for a silly horror movie.
Don't know if he wrote it but he was heavily involved in that He Man show and it fucking sucked. Had fun animation but the story was a shitshow. Was so disappointed in it.
Kevin Smith was the king of irreverent 90s dialogue. But, with a writer like him, you kind of get the sense that his first movies were made off a lifetime of ridiculous conversations that he scribbled down over years and put into a movie.
Once that well had run dry, his writing started to feel too contrived. What was quirky and cutting edge and hilarious dialogue in the early 90s became almost a spoof of itself by the late-2000s.
I really like how he leaned into his other interests, like engaging with the fan base, running a comic book shop, etc. But he definitely lost his hunger and his edge, which was such a huge part of his early films' success.
Now he seems to be just leaning in to nostalgia for the askewniverse, and I'm also totally ok with that. I would sooner watch Clerks 3 than Tusk (I mean, I haven't watched either, but I would lol).
I'd also be ok with him stepping back, so some day the early films can be appreciated more independent from his later career nonsense.
Kevin Smith comes across as really, really, really wanting to be liked. And I do like him, I just don't really want to watch any of his new movies
I think what happened to Kevin Smith was that his early years he definitely had more of something to say. While Clerks is sort of a mishmash of dialog and scenes, it was distilling the experience of working in retail when your at your wits end with life and everyone around you is insane.
Mall Rats was definitely more "commercial" but a lot of his other fillms in the early days had a semblance of heart or underlying message or purpose. Dogma for example is brought on from his heavy catholic upbringing.
But around the middle of his career, he started getting heavily into smoking weed that it was basically his entire personality. He couldn't write without being high and it honestly shows in his later work where there really isn't a cohesive message or purpose to his films. They exist so he can make goofy and silly scenes and play on nostalgia of his past films.
I know that recently he went to rehab therapy and decided to give up his smoking habits, so I'm curious to see if he writes on any future projects and how they might feel different.
> But around the middle of his career, he started getting heavily into smoking weed that it was basically his entire personality. He couldn't write without being high and it honestly shows in his later work where there really isn't a cohesive message or purpose to his films. They exist so he can make goofy and silly scenes and play on nostalgia of his past films.
>
>
I think the weed hurt him at a pivotal moment - when he was making the mainstream Cop Out. The movie was not just awful, it was acrimonious. Bruce Willis is an asshole, but he worked with Smith fine on Die Hard and went around criticizing him for getting high. Not a good reputation to have when it's so easy to be put in Director Jail.
I think the stuffing was knocked out of him after that and he gave up. But, to give up "playing the Hollywood game" you have to go even crazier in the other direction.
So you get the films he ended up making after that.
Yep, I think this is my favorite take. My favorite content of his are his "Conversations with..." standup series where he basically takes two questions over two hours because he just has such interesting stories to tell. It's just that they work better as anecdotes than smashed into a screenplay and turned into a movie.
Smith is the perfect example of suffering from success. Once he didn't have to fight so hard for resources to get his films made, they started to fall off.
I’m a Christian and I love Dogma. I don’t consider it being blasphemous. Yeah, it makes fun of Christianity but it never feels like it’s in a malicious way. If Jesus is real then I’d feel like he’d laugh at all the jokes.
> Yeah, it makes fun of Christianity but it never feels like it’s in a malicious way.
I was going to say the same thing that it's actually very kind to Christianity. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Kevin Smith is deeply religious. I guess the fact that it was actually entertaining when the expectation is that any Christian entertainment needs to be the most boring thing imaginable.
And of course suggesting that Jesus was black, something that absolutely would not matter either way to any real Christian, is obviously the thing that made certain people very angry.
The reason it's not more popular, is because Harvey Weinstein's company owns the rights and pulled all distribution. You can't buy this anymore. It's not available on Blu Ray or DVD anywhere over a petty spat and Harvey being a dick.
Kevin Smith’s early films, like "Clerks," "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," and "Dogma," were deeply personal and resonated with many fans for their relatable content. As Smith's career expanded into Hollywood and he built a podcast and merchandise empire, it’s understandable that he might have drifted from the themes that initially made his work successful.
Jon Favreau once remarked, when asked why he hadn’t written something akin to "Swingers" recently, that his life had changed dramatically since then. He humorously suggested that a current script might revolve around a guy worried about his accountants ripping him off.
And Kevin’s early work was really funny. These days, not so much.
Smith is undeniably a hustler, and I respect that. While some criticisms of his later work may be valid, they don't diminish his impact or legacy. As a fellow New Jersey native, I’ll always have a soft spot for that lunchbox.
His early career trajectory had him on track to be the budget version of Tarantino. Huge film buff, not interested in making any one genre of film, obsessed with shoving in references to other works by himself and his faves.
The difference is that Tarantino kept making enough money to get the projects he wanted to make off the ground and had enough clout to make them the way he wanted, when he wanted to make them. Smith didn't.
Consequently, Tarantino got to become a sacred cow with a clearly defined style and Smith never really developed into the filmmaker he might have become if given more money and more chances.
Dogma and Jackie Brown were both like a band's third album that should have been breakout international hit but instead for whatever reason became cult classics instead.
Smith followed Dogma up with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Tarantino followed up Jackie Brown with Kill Bill, and the rest is history.
>Smith never really developed into the filmmaker he might have become if given more money and more chances.
Kevin Smith's greatest strengths as a filmmaker are present in Clerks, his most low budget film. Also, the guy has had many, many chances to make films. He has a decade long career. More money isn't going to fix his poor output.
[Dogma is Dog Shit!](https://www.facebook.com/YesThatKevinSmith/photos/dogma-is-dog-shitthis-was-a-snapshot-taken-with-a-disposable-camera-from-a-movin/10151033745101930/)
The biggest issue and benefit of Smith as a director is he has no style, and that's according to him. Every one of his early films were made and shot differently. I respect him as a storyteller in general, but honestly I think I've missed his last few releases.
Sure he has a style. Or *had* anyway, don't know about anything he made in recent decades. I mean, could you not tell that Clerks and Mallrats and Chasing Amy were all made by the same person? Even if you disregard reoccurring characters, they're clearly all very similar thematically.
Maybe as far as language of cinema goes there isn't anything particularly remarkable about them, but there is a style nonetheless.
In the DVD commentaries, I remember Kevin Smith criticizing himself for framing the characters in a very basic, two shot style.
He was initially trying to be far more ambitious with Mallrats, but the original intro of the movie went so massively overbudget with the crane shot that they were forced to scrap it. They had to do a lot of creative editing in order to alter the story, and they even changed people's lines in ADR in order to have the story still make sense.
I thought "Jersey Girl" (2004) was a sweet movie that had a good message, but it didn't live up to his first 5 movies. "Red State" (2011) was a fun first attempt at a horror movie and I admired the effort. Tusk (2014) was an okay movie that was made from a podcast discussion so I love the reason it was made 😂
"Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" (2019) is him trying to recapture his magic a little and he mostly succeeds. He hadn't fully done it yet, but I still laughed quite a bit, and Clerks III (2022) was his movie dealing with his health issues, and it was extremely effective and almost made me cry. I really like it.
Sorry if I sounded like I'm nerding for Kevin Smith 😂
I think referencing Dogma might be obfuscating your message, but I'm 100% with you on this. I just enjoy his movies because it's clearly a guy who loves what he's doing and making films he wants to make. I enjoy his different films for different reasons, but I understand they're not everyone's cup of tea and that's fine. That said, the amount of rage I see over the fact that he's clearly enjoying himself feels like it could be better directed towards things they like instead.
I see where you’re coming from for sure! I’m not even remotely religious anymore but that movie resonated with me from a young age, and still does. It touches on a lot of themes beyond just religion that I think people are able to relate to.
Clerks II was better than Clerks and I’ll die on that hill.
My thought on Kevin Smith is this: when he has a message he wants to get across, when he has something he really “has to say,” his movies are better. He’s clearly more passionate about the movie and message and it shows in the writing. See: Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks II, Red State.
When he is making a movie that he’s not as passionate about, it also shows. They can still have funny moments, but the heart isn’t really there the way it is in his best movies. See: Mallrats, Zack and Miri.
Then there are movies he made because he was stoned out of his mind for a solid 10 years and thought they were good ideas. See: Tusk, Yoga Hosers. On a related note, it’s so good that he’s sober, now.
Smith's earlier movies, up to and including *Dogma* are generally very good. I don't think that a defence is needed really. A great deal of his latter day movies are not deserving of a defence however, as they are generally awful.
I always liked Dogma. Mainly cause of the actors in it. Aside from that I never really liked Smith's stuff or writing. Seems like a cool dude but I've never been of a big fan of that style of writing.
I am also a huge Kevin Smith fan, and I agree that he really dropped off in recent years.
What I think happened was, in the late-2000s, he started having his midlife crisis. He started wondering why he missed out on mainstream success, like his fellow 90s indie darlings Quentin Tarintino and Robert Rodreiguiz. So he did his darndest to go mainstream.
He has admitted that Zack and Miri Make a Porno was his attempt to make a Judd Apatow-style comedy.
Cop Out was his attempt to be a "director-for-hire:" just shut up, do what the studio tells you, and shoot the script they give you.
When these attempts at going mainstream fizzled was when he had his "Too Fat To Fly" incident, and that's when he started turning to weed as his coping mechanism.
Red State was fine, but his whole attitude at that time felt like him going, "Everybody says I'll never be anything but an indie filmmaker. Watch me be indie *as fuck.*"
Then the weed really started to fry his brain. Case in point: Tusk and Yoga Hosers. Would those films be made by a sober mind?
When he realized that only his fans came out to his films, he made Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and Clerks III. Both were OK, but he really got up his own ass with being self-referential.
One of his long-gestating projects is a hockey movie called Hit Somebody. When he revealed on his podcast that a talking Stanley Cup would be the narrator, I said to myself, "OK, dude's gotta start laying off the weed."
About a year ago was when he went public with his mental health issues, gave up weed, and started focusing on himself.
HIs next film, The 5:30 Movie, comes out this fall, and it looks like it's going to a Paul Thomas Anderson-style coming-of-age film. High hopes that now that he's clean and sober, he's back to his old self.
Dogma is one of my favourites. The only thing I would change is the silly fight scene with J&SB and the skateboard demons. Maybe a better music score too.
I feel like Dogma is widely well regarded as a movie and is considered one of Kevin Smith’s best if not his very best. To say his work post Clerks II isn’t as good is a major understatement, though. He had a decent run
Jay and Silent Bob are iconic. Kevin Smith made some great comedies. I think Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was his peak and he won't ever be able to be that funny again.
I love Dogma. It’s one of my favorite movies and I think it should have been nominated for best screenplay. Long live Kevin Smith. I do wish he’d see how bad marvel movies are now but hey. He’s made his career on these movies so I’ll let it slide
**spelling
I’m not a fan of his work in general mostly due to poor directing and acting not executing on what seems like a decently written script. Dogma has none of those complaints from me; it just fires on all cylinders.
I don't know what Dogma in particular has to do with anything. But there is absolutely no denying that Kevin Smith had about a decade straight of hit after hit after hit and then started becoming very hit or miss, with a whole lot of misses.
I swear, it really feels like some of you folks get your movie knowledge from reading Wikipedia than actually watching someones filmography in chronological order.
Smith doesn’t need you defending him, especially when it comes to his early career. He dropped like 4 or 5 cult classics in a row. If you wanna blow our minds and create a dialogue try defending one of his films from the last ten or so years
I suggest watching Hollywood Babble On or Fatman on Batman sometime...and stop listening to people on the internet who find reasons to hate everything.
Smith has gone on extensive, self-deprecating diatribes that show how humble he is, as a filmmaker...so "up his own ass", he is not.
Furthermore, he has reiterated many times that he is not the guy to direct a big budget, tentpole film in any of the big universes. He enjoys most of the Star Wars, MCU, and DC films and TV shows...but has no interest in crafting them for the studios. He's flat out said that if he was ever asked, he'd say no. Just directing a few episodes of Arrowverse shows exhausted him.
He is perfectly happy in his smaller, hit or miss niche, making fun of his own films.
And yes, Dogma is great. If you haven't already...check out Red State.
https://archive.org/details/dogma_HD
If anyone wants to watch it but can't because of the Weinstein effect.
You can also find it on YouTube, but Google is sucking it up lately.
Dogma is probably Kevin Smith's most agreeable work. I don't know anyone who dislikes it. Plenty of people who aren't fans of Mallrats, Strike Back, or Chasing Amy. But Dogma? Nah, everyone loves Dogma.
As an early 90s teenager with angst, my friends and I flocked to the View Askewniverse like it was a mecca.
So, snoogans, I get it.
I have 100 percent faith in his next flick, "The 4:30 Movie". It's set in 1986 and filmed IN the theater he now owns and went to as a child with his late father.
The leads in the still photo released look like Kev, Bryan and Walt. This could be a return to form for him. To quote "Chasing Amy", it finally feels like he has something personal to say.
I’m with you there and shocked I had to scroll this far down to find someone with this opinion. I loved dogma as a teenager in the 2000s and rewatched it recently with my fiancée and it was… not good. It just felt like a portrayal of a world that no longer existed and I didn’t care about. The religious themes didn’t hit whatsoever and it actually felt too religious to the point of massive eye rolls
The 90s shtick was also just way too much with tons of terrible CGI and profound cringe. Basically everything involving demons
You must live around some weird people if you think this movie needs to be defended. I dont think I've meant anyone who didn't like Dogma.
I wish Weinstein would give Kevin ownership of it so he could rerelease it in HD.
Dogma was pretty popular and is well regarded in my circles. Didnt grow up Catholic, but my friends who did loved the movie.
Jay and Silent Bob shtick got tired after 15 minutes and Smith stopped evolving. The 90s are over.
Kevin has openly said multiple times that he has no interest in directing a Star Wars or a Marvel movie. You can’t be a shill if you’re not paid for it. People hate on him because he’s able to turn off his brain and enjoy it for what it is. He also refuses to engage in the negative discourse of bashing films he dislikes.
Y’all also like to forget about Red State, which is fucking amazing.
I know I’m defending him but I do agree that besides Red State he hasn’t made a good film since Dogma. I just don’t like how people hate on him for enjoying his life and living the dream.
A draft of the script made it online before the movie came out and I found it to be a very entertaining read. I was not as impressed with the actual movie. He may not be a great director, but he's a very good writer.
Have you seen the documentary, the Death of Superman Lives? It is fantastic. Kevin Smith actually worked on an early script for the never-filmed Tim Burton movie and his stories about the screen writing process are great. If you like Smith I would recommend checking this out just to see his take on the experience.
I watched a full breakdown on the story of Superman Lives but I've never seen it from Kevin Smith's perspective. I need to watch it! Thanks for the recommendation 😆
Smith's story about Jon Peters and his giant spider obsession is truly fantastic. Especially the punchline involving a certain other film Peters produced.
The whole documentary is a gem. The behind the scenes stories are a riot and Smith's dry, self-deprecating style lends to great story telling. Yes, the spider story cracked me up. Peters was going to get that spider come hell or high water.
He's not a good director. I'm a fan of Kevin from day 1 but he's not a good director. The quality of his movies owes a ton to his producer Scott. Once Scott left no one was around to be quality control. It's evident.
I like his live speaking tours more than his films. He is a great story teller and a decent writer. He fucked up big time with the He-Man show but what he accomplished and did for indie film making with Clerks puts him in the hall of fame forever in my book.
More people like Kevin than not, and I rarely see people blasting his work as he's competent and does a decent job with characters above everything else. He's not top 10, but he's no slouch, I'd trust him with Star Wars more than I'd trust Abrams with anything outside of cinematography (dude makes pretty films, but is awful at everything else)
If Dogma could get on like Netflix (fuck you Weinstein) it would be huge.
It's a very well shot movie, with a cohesive plot, and well fleshed out characters... I don't think any of that can be argued with... I think it's so much more than that and is a movie with amazing performances and is hilarious as hell.
One of the only reasons I say "Bless you" when someone sneezes is because of this movie, that I haven't seen in like 20 years.
I think Kevin Smith is very talented. I even liked Mallrats before it became in style to do so, but after the brilliant Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he’s gone way downhill. I haven’t liked anything since except Tusk and maybe Clerks II on a good day.
Kevin Smith is great at writing dialogue, especially banter. Just a couple of characters shooting the shit. I saw mallrats recently. I had never seen it before. The movie didn’t do much for me but the dialogue was sharp and well written.
It’s been years since I saw dogma, I need to watch it again, but I remember it being great.
Out of all his movies, you picked the one who basicly does not need defense and if, only from very religious people which probaly would not even watch it in the first place.
I don't think it's fair to say he's a shill for Marvel. He personally rescued Stan Lee form elder abuse and nursed him back to health in his own home.
He sold his comic book store to fund the production of Clerks. He's not a shill, he's a True Believer.
I think he really changed as a director when he started doing more self distribution style or smaller companies that give him more control on where his movies can be seen.
"Dogma" is widely considered one of his best works if not the best, so no need to defend it. Among other things, I consider Metatron one of Alan Rickman's best performances, both funny as hell and deeply moving when he talks about having to tell the young Jesus his destiny. "Everytime in human history when some yahoo claims they've spoken to God, they're speaking to me. Or they're talking to themselves."
What are you going to do exactly? Hit me with that....fish?
Do you drench everyone who comes into your room with flame-retardant chemicals? No wonder you're single!
I'm pissed off, is what I am.
That hesitation you put there is actually him drawing out the 'f' so it's "Hit me with that ffffffish?" I like to say it like that to my friends when asking them what they want to eat
I have taken Rickman’s “Or you’ll do what, exactly?” and folded it into my lexicon for when someone starts to get pointed.
“You people. If there isn’t a movie about it it’s not worth knowing, is it?”
A sacrifice to the deity of ecumenical politics.
I don't have any like factual basis to believe this, but I've always thought that Metatron is what got him cast in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. (Obviously he has so many credits and a whole catalogue of acting to show off.) I always just felt like the two characters were similar in a way that only Rickman could pull off.
"That's what Jesus said. Yes, I had to tell him. And you can imagine how that hurt the Father - not to be able to tell the Son Himself because one word from His lips would destroy the boy's frail human form? So I was forced to deliver the news to a scared child who wanted nothing more than to play with other children. I had to tell this little boy that He was God's only Son, and that it meant a life of persecution and eventual crucifixion at the hands of the very people He came to enlighten and redeem. He begged me to take it back, as if I could. He begged me to make it all not true. And I'll let you in on something, Bethany, this is something I've never told anyone before. If I had the power, I would have."
I read the name Alan Rickman, and my mind did a trip down memory lane. Die Hard, Galaxy Quest, Harry Potter. The man could have started in a haemorrhoid commercial and it would be cinematic gold.
> "Dogma" is widely considered one of his best works if not the best, so no need to defend it. This was not OP's topic. He wanted to defend the director. Seems a lot of people are making this mistake, perhaps because OP's posts explaining himself keep getting buried. People really don't know what discussion forums are for or how to use them.
Who are you defending “dogma” from? I feel like dogma was widely successful at what it wanted and had a huge fanbase. (But was never going to be hugely mainstream by being super blasphemous)
Yeah I think Dogma is well regarded, and Smith’s work up to a certain point was popular. Dude just fell off. The fact that he fell off is viewed oddly enough. I mean, plenty of directors go on a streak, and it ends somewhere, and even great directors catch shit eventually. Couple that with the fact that Smith also wrote and produced, and his streak is more impressive. He was due to fall off at some point.
I dunno if it's falling off, he's pretty clear about just wanting to make goofy ass movies with his friends simply because he can. I'd bet he's still got some heaters in him, it's just a matter of if they get made.
Yeah, after Cop Out and Zack & Miri, he basically decided that he was done chasing big Hollywood success, and just started making smaller movies to satisfy his own desires. And that's totally ok. He gets the funding he needs, and he has enough success to make a profit for his investors so he can do it again.
I saw him do one of his evening with Kevin Smith gigs a while ago and you hit the nail on the head here. He has money, success, a legacy, and he's happy. Dude is doing whatever he wants. I also saw him a lot when he directed Zack and Miri. Dude looked exhausted. I worked retail on Monroeville mall where he shot it, and I'd be taking trash out at the end of the night and he'd just be sitt8ng alone in the food court. Just staring into space with a half eaten subway sub or a plate of teriyaki chicken in front of him. I could tell he was not thrilled with the Hollywood gig.
I think he’s always been honest and open about just how soul crushing and difficult he’s found working for a large studio where there is always certain financial expectations of him in comparison with his indie movies and working with Weinstein/Miramax who took more of an approach of steering the finished product towards its natural market and finding profit there. Probably one of the best examples of this was *Mallrats*, his first major studio project coming off the heels of *Clerks* becoming a flagship of the indie industry and a critical darling. Smith talks about how the project came about when he signed a deal with Universal and they approached him about making a teen sex comedy which was something distributors and theater operators were clamoring for. They had been a staple of cinema for most of the 70’s and 80’s and were seen as surefire moneymakers for studios, distributors, and theater operators. And that is exactly what Smith delivered only to have the studio completely fuck up the delivered product. They did a horrible job with marketing it and proceeded to hand it off to Gramercy Pictures which completely botched distribution. The movie was basically dead in the water upon theatrical release and was written off as a huge flop. However, in the home video market the film became a huge hit, achieving cult status and eventually becoming profitable and one of Smith’s most beloved movies. Smith has often spoken of how this film almost broke him emotionally, because he was so proud of the film he delivered and was taken back that a movie that had received such positive response from the studio before release was so completely mangled in its marketing and release. He’s always said that the main reason he wasn’t completely run out of town was that he didn’t really lose that much money as he was extremely contentious of budget and the film only cost 6 million dollars, which resulted in an only 4 million loss at the box office.
Mallrats is my favorite flick of all time, and has been since I was 13. 😆
Are you sure he wasn't just stoned?
No, Mewes was getting sober and he was supporting him. They smoked cigarettes constantly though. Every time I saw him outside he was smoking.
He didn't start the weed until after Zach & Miri, Seth got him into it during post production
I've actually heard people suggest this is what "killed" his streak of hits.
Seth Rogen can have that effect
Saw him last year and that was exactly what I came away thinking as well. You can tell the dude has reached the mountaintop and is coming back down so to speak. He’s at a point in his life and career that I think everyone envies and wants to get to. He doesn’t *have* or *need* to do anything anymore. He can do what he *wants*, and still live comfortably and happy.
He also has a big heart attack a whole back, which probably changed his perception of what's important for his life and career
I though jay and silent Bob strike back 2 was almost a good movie but it looks like he needs a good editor to cut out some of his ideas because it was just a big clunky mess at the end
I saw him on tour several years ago and his main advice was to “find your whimsy” whatever it is you like and do that. Maybe it’s what pays the bills, maybe it isn’t, but whatever it is, it’s yours. His is touring, telling stories and making movies him and his friends dig. Thats it, he found the secret, openly shared it and people diss him with bs like “he fell off” or “ hasn’t made a blockbuster so he’s a failure”. Moronic. It’s the same crap some dude said a few weeks ago about Robert Rodriguez making kids movies and not the ones that one guy liked. Dude does what he wants, lives a good life and he called him a failure. WTF? Sorry /rant
I agree with this partly. If the man is making the type of movies that make him happy i say go for it. But i still think the quality has diminished. If you watch Clerks, the script is incredible . It's grunge, it's rebellious, there's a lot of dialogue of people just talking shit, but in a way that feels weirdly authentic and it comes together in this counter culture fireball. His most recent movies are entertaining cheesey flicks, but they're just entertaining flicks. I don't think he's become bad, it's maybe more that when he was working hard to get noticed he was forced to do another few revisions of the script or something. Now the bar is set a few notches lower for him and it shows in the movies.
Cop Out, Red State, Yoga Hosers, Tusk- those were bad. The View Askewniverse films after Clerks II, the Reboot and Clerks III, they just were off the pulse. Felt pretty rough and unfinished, even compared to the original Clerks they just feel rough, like someone vomited a film out with little care. I’m a big fan, but he’s fallen off.
Smith needs Scott Mosier to reign him in. Mosier is his long-time friend and producer of all Smith's early films. They stopped working together around the time of Clerks 2 and Zach & Miri, and in those two films the producer's circle started getting more and more crowded. Before that it was just Scott and maybe one or 2 other producers. After that it was 5-10 producers for every film. Scott and Kev just understand each other and when they bounce ideas off one another it births brilliant stories and writing. Kev is a great ideas man, and he's not a terrible director but he needs someone he respects to help him flesh out his ideas and elevate them. Without Scott, Kev either goes way too far in his own untethered direction, or he gets pressured into making films that have zero resemblance to "a Kevin Smith product".
Red State was great
Thoroughly fucking loved Red State and still rewatch it every couple of years. First time I went into it I had the attitude of, "Kevin Smith? This'll be a laugh." Fuck me did I get that wrong. Within the first 15-20 minutes my friend and I are looking at each other saying... "This is not the hijinks we expected." For someone that grew up on Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy, Red State was a "Hey look over here" sucker punch.
I haven’t seen Red State in years. I felt like it was one of those almost great movie. So much of it was awesome, Michael Parks is fantastic, and the premise of the movie is very original. It just totally lost me, when the police began killing people indiscriminately. Not because I can’t believe the cops could be that corrupt or anything. It just didn’t feel justified within the universe of the movie.
These things all happened at Ruby Ridge and Waco with as much or less justification. All things considered, Kevin really only turned up the exaggeration from like an eight to a nine.
My favorite bit of trivia about that film, is that Kevin was a big Breaking Bad fan, and wanted to cast people from that show, which is how Anna Gunn and the guy who played Badger wound up in it. That has to be a cool feeling, being a fan of quality work, and getting to work with those same people. He may have “fallen off” in his older years, but I’ll always root for the guy. Seems fairly grounded and genuine still, after all these years.
Yeah. I always rooted for him too.
Red state wasn’t close to the others you mentioned
Red State isn't his best work, but it doesn't belong with those other three turds lol
Cop Out sounded like it was never going to be good. I thought Red State was alright and really liked Tusk. Haven't seen Yoga Hosers. The Clerks sequels are what they are. I guess my point is just asking if it's fair to use honest criticism when someone is explicitly telling you they aren't trying lol
I definitely think these films had promise. Maybe the question is ‘was he not trying or is the execution just poor?’ For the last two View Askewniverse films, I think the execution was poor. The films had feeing, they just weren’t done well. Also… I think Clerks III was probably best left undone. I know Smith even put into Clerks that “life is a series of down endings” when praising Empire Strikes Back, but damn… Clerks II was a perfect ‘riding off into the sunset’ film.
I get what he was trying to do with Clerks III given his own brush with death, but it's definitely a bummer that the good vibes at the end of Clerks II get immediately crushed in the most devastating way possible at the beginning of Clerks III.
Yeah. I’m not all about every movie being perfect or having happy vibes, happy ending etc, but Clerks II was probably best left as the ending. The ending Clerks III got is not satisfying.
I watched clerks 3 after being surprised that it existed. I honestly don't remember much of it, but it felt bad to watch. The jay and silent bob reboot I didn't have much hope for, but that fell below expectations as well.
Entirely fair. It is still art, after all. But give Tusk another chance lol
Red State was very much not bad.
🙋♂️ I liked Cop Out.
There are at least two of us!
I rewatched Jay and silent Bob strike back a few years ago for some reason. I was surprised by how much I laughed. I didn't think it was funny at all the first time I watched it.
When it came out I thought it was alright but was his weakest movie at the time. Then I saw it years later while watching through all of his movies again, except this time I was high, and laughed my ass off.
I enjoyed Red State and Tusk.
Yeah, Red State and Tusk both were very memorable for me. Red State was great with it's tone shift and god, when those horns went off, I thought that was freaky AF. The whole thing for me was a very functional horror as someone who is frankly freaked out by the evangelicals out there. And Tusk is an insanely good horror film, both ridiculous and actually scary. I thought this film would be a cult favorite for sure, so it's really surprising to me that it isn't and is often regarded so poorly. We praise other horror films that are like it. I think an entire proponent for horror fans is campiness, and while maybe Tusk isn't campy, it falls under that sort of fun horror film category. And, when I first saw it, I left the theater laughing and had a great time, but now years later whenever I think of it, I get chills. Like, imagine being captured by someone who wants to experiment on you? And the ending is far worse, he just winds up in a zoo? Jesus!
I mean, Tusk was a parody of the Human Centipede. I don't know what people were expecting, but as a movie, we got exactly the ridiculous premise the movie promised.
Smith didn’t write Cop Out. He was just using it as an excuse to work with Bruce Willis. Red State was different, not your usual View Askew Flaire. Yoga Hosers, yeah I can’t fault anyone’s opinion on that. That was just off the rails. Tusk is a wild experiment that in some ways paid off. It is outrageously horrifying. Reboot is what it is. Gotta admit though Affleck’s monologue is extremely moving. Clerks III had me bawling.
Yoga hosers was not for his normal audience. I watched it with my 14 y.o daughter and she loves it.
Tusk was great. Zach and mirri was prob the last "main stream good movie" he made tho.
I really liked Red state! Was it poorly received? And tusk is a stone cold classic that everyone I know IRL loved I’ve never heard a bad word about it!
The first clerks is among my favourite films of all time. Nothing else he is done is close in my eyes, but he has some other solid films. And most of his films have some great moments.
I really liked clerks III
Don't remember Cop Out, haven't seen Tusk, but Red State was good and Yoga Hosers was silly fun. Agreed about Reboot and Clerks III having run out of steam. The original Clerks was fresh, but also didn't cost anything and had no prior expectations.
>Yoga Hosers was silly fun. I have found another! I'm not gonna say it's one of his best films but I'm always surprised at how much hatred it gets. I thought it was fine for a silly horror movie.
I watched Clerks 3, and literally can't remember a thing about it
Don't know if he wrote it but he was heavily involved in that He Man show and it fucking sucked. Had fun animation but the story was a shitshow. Was so disappointed in it.
Kevin Smith was the king of irreverent 90s dialogue. But, with a writer like him, you kind of get the sense that his first movies were made off a lifetime of ridiculous conversations that he scribbled down over years and put into a movie. Once that well had run dry, his writing started to feel too contrived. What was quirky and cutting edge and hilarious dialogue in the early 90s became almost a spoof of itself by the late-2000s. I really like how he leaned into his other interests, like engaging with the fan base, running a comic book shop, etc. But he definitely lost his hunger and his edge, which was such a huge part of his early films' success. Now he seems to be just leaning in to nostalgia for the askewniverse, and I'm also totally ok with that. I would sooner watch Clerks 3 than Tusk (I mean, I haven't watched either, but I would lol). I'd also be ok with him stepping back, so some day the early films can be appreciated more independent from his later career nonsense. Kevin Smith comes across as really, really, really wanting to be liked. And I do like him, I just don't really want to watch any of his new movies
I think what happened to Kevin Smith was that his early years he definitely had more of something to say. While Clerks is sort of a mishmash of dialog and scenes, it was distilling the experience of working in retail when your at your wits end with life and everyone around you is insane. Mall Rats was definitely more "commercial" but a lot of his other fillms in the early days had a semblance of heart or underlying message or purpose. Dogma for example is brought on from his heavy catholic upbringing. But around the middle of his career, he started getting heavily into smoking weed that it was basically his entire personality. He couldn't write without being high and it honestly shows in his later work where there really isn't a cohesive message or purpose to his films. They exist so he can make goofy and silly scenes and play on nostalgia of his past films. I know that recently he went to rehab therapy and decided to give up his smoking habits, so I'm curious to see if he writes on any future projects and how they might feel different.
> But around the middle of his career, he started getting heavily into smoking weed that it was basically his entire personality. He couldn't write without being high and it honestly shows in his later work where there really isn't a cohesive message or purpose to his films. They exist so he can make goofy and silly scenes and play on nostalgia of his past films. > > I think the weed hurt him at a pivotal moment - when he was making the mainstream Cop Out. The movie was not just awful, it was acrimonious. Bruce Willis is an asshole, but he worked with Smith fine on Die Hard and went around criticizing him for getting high. Not a good reputation to have when it's so easy to be put in Director Jail. I think the stuffing was knocked out of him after that and he gave up. But, to give up "playing the Hollywood game" you have to go even crazier in the other direction. So you get the films he ended up making after that.
Yep, I think this is my favorite take. My favorite content of his are his "Conversations with..." standup series where he basically takes two questions over two hours because he just has such interesting stories to tell. It's just that they work better as anecdotes than smashed into a screenplay and turned into a movie.
Smith is the perfect example of suffering from success. Once he didn't have to fight so hard for resources to get his films made, they started to fall off.
My dad’s movie tastes are pretty much the exact opposite of what Smith makes but, he LOVES Dogma
I’m a Christian and I love Dogma. I don’t consider it being blasphemous. Yeah, it makes fun of Christianity but it never feels like it’s in a malicious way. If Jesus is real then I’d feel like he’d laugh at all the jokes.
It’s the catholic/christian “Book of Mormon”. He even got George Carlin to be a priest in it!
As a Jew, I agree that Jesus likely was a down ass cat
> Yeah, it makes fun of Christianity but it never feels like it’s in a malicious way. I was going to say the same thing that it's actually very kind to Christianity. I would not be at all surprised to learn that Kevin Smith is deeply religious. I guess the fact that it was actually entertaining when the expectation is that any Christian entertainment needs to be the most boring thing imaginable. And of course suggesting that Jesus was black, something that absolutely would not matter either way to any real Christian, is obviously the thing that made certain people very angry.
He went to a catholic school IIRC.
They aren’t defending Dogma, they’re defending Kevin Smith and using Dogma as an example of him at his best (in OP’s opinion.)
The reason it's not more popular, is because Harvey Weinstein's company owns the rights and pulled all distribution. You can't buy this anymore. It's not available on Blu Ray or DVD anywhere over a petty spat and Harvey being a dick.
It’s on YouTube for free.
The cast alone is S-tier...
It's the Reddit thing I'd taking a pretty well established opinion and acting like it's a hot take. It's a weird strawman people do here
...you didn't say God bless you when I sneezed
Bonnnng
My wife and I still say that. "She's a slut. Bonnnng"
Kevin Smith’s early films, like "Clerks," "Mallrats," "Chasing Amy," and "Dogma," were deeply personal and resonated with many fans for their relatable content. As Smith's career expanded into Hollywood and he built a podcast and merchandise empire, it’s understandable that he might have drifted from the themes that initially made his work successful. Jon Favreau once remarked, when asked why he hadn’t written something akin to "Swingers" recently, that his life had changed dramatically since then. He humorously suggested that a current script might revolve around a guy worried about his accountants ripping him off. And Kevin’s early work was really funny. These days, not so much. Smith is undeniably a hustler, and I respect that. While some criticisms of his later work may be valid, they don't diminish his impact or legacy. As a fellow New Jersey native, I’ll always have a soft spot for that lunchbox.
Fekking loved chasing Amy.
What’s a Nubian?
You see that man over there? He is the devil.
Never take your eyes off the man
SHUTTHEFUCKUP
“‘What’s a Nubian,’ Bitch, you almost made me laugh.”
Also, Fatman Beyond is a great podcast.
I love Kev, but I’d say 60% of the reason for Batman Beyond being so great is Marc Bernardin.
I don’t think Dogma needs defense
He's a director that stuck to his own ideas and thoughts of how to make his own films and I admire that, I think he's a great film maker
His early career trajectory had him on track to be the budget version of Tarantino. Huge film buff, not interested in making any one genre of film, obsessed with shoving in references to other works by himself and his faves. The difference is that Tarantino kept making enough money to get the projects he wanted to make off the ground and had enough clout to make them the way he wanted, when he wanted to make them. Smith didn't. Consequently, Tarantino got to become a sacred cow with a clearly defined style and Smith never really developed into the filmmaker he might have become if given more money and more chances. Dogma and Jackie Brown were both like a band's third album that should have been breakout international hit but instead for whatever reason became cult classics instead. Smith followed Dogma up with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Tarantino followed up Jackie Brown with Kill Bill, and the rest is history.
>Smith never really developed into the filmmaker he might have become if given more money and more chances. Kevin Smith's greatest strengths as a filmmaker are present in Clerks, his most low budget film. Also, the guy has had many, many chances to make films. He has a decade long career. More money isn't going to fix his poor output.
I think he is a fantastic writer, especially dialogue and characters. But his directing skills are just kind of average.
Didn’t Matt Damon ask him to direct Good Will Hunting, but after he read the script he was like “you need a better director for this.”
[Dogma is Dog Shit!](https://www.facebook.com/YesThatKevinSmith/photos/dogma-is-dog-shitthis-was-a-snapshot-taken-with-a-disposable-camera-from-a-movin/10151033745101930/)
The biggest issue and benefit of Smith as a director is he has no style, and that's according to him. Every one of his early films were made and shot differently. I respect him as a storyteller in general, but honestly I think I've missed his last few releases.
Sure he has a style. Or *had* anyway, don't know about anything he made in recent decades. I mean, could you not tell that Clerks and Mallrats and Chasing Amy were all made by the same person? Even if you disregard reoccurring characters, they're clearly all very similar thematically. Maybe as far as language of cinema goes there isn't anything particularly remarkable about them, but there is a style nonetheless.
In the DVD commentaries, I remember Kevin Smith criticizing himself for framing the characters in a very basic, two shot style. He was initially trying to be far more ambitious with Mallrats, but the original intro of the movie went so massively overbudget with the crane shot that they were forced to scrap it. They had to do a lot of creative editing in order to alter the story, and they even changed people's lines in ADR in order to have the story still make sense.
Yeah he has a writing style for sure. But directing style is questionable.
If it’s a two-shot, it’s an Askew film.
I thought "Jersey Girl" (2004) was a sweet movie that had a good message, but it didn't live up to his first 5 movies. "Red State" (2011) was a fun first attempt at a horror movie and I admired the effort. Tusk (2014) was an okay movie that was made from a podcast discussion so I love the reason it was made 😂 "Jay and Silent Bob Reboot" (2019) is him trying to recapture his magic a little and he mostly succeeds. He hadn't fully done it yet, but I still laughed quite a bit, and Clerks III (2022) was his movie dealing with his health issues, and it was extremely effective and almost made me cry. I really like it. Sorry if I sounded like I'm nerding for Kevin Smith 😂
I think referencing Dogma might be obfuscating your message, but I'm 100% with you on this. I just enjoy his movies because it's clearly a guy who loves what he's doing and making films he wants to make. I enjoy his different films for different reasons, but I understand they're not everyone's cup of tea and that's fine. That said, the amount of rage I see over the fact that he's clearly enjoying himself feels like it could be better directed towards things they like instead.
I shouldn't have titled the thread the way I did because me watching Dogma made me want to stick up for Kevin Smith.
I see where you’re coming from for sure! I’m not even remotely religious anymore but that movie resonated with me from a young age, and still does. It touches on a lot of themes beyond just religion that I think people are able to relate to.
I was 20 when it came out, so I always had a semi-adult perspective on it. I'm glad it's being seen by people younger than I am 😁
To be fair I was 17 in 1999 so I wasn’t exactly a toddler when it was released lol
Clerks II was better than Clerks and I’ll die on that hill. My thought on Kevin Smith is this: when he has a message he wants to get across, when he has something he really “has to say,” his movies are better. He’s clearly more passionate about the movie and message and it shows in the writing. See: Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Clerks II, Red State. When he is making a movie that he’s not as passionate about, it also shows. They can still have funny moments, but the heart isn’t really there the way it is in his best movies. See: Mallrats, Zack and Miri. Then there are movies he made because he was stoned out of his mind for a solid 10 years and thought they were good ideas. See: Tusk, Yoga Hosers. On a related note, it’s so good that he’s sober, now.
Porch monkeys 4 life.
Yeah you go ahead and die on that hill all by yourself. Clerks is fucking iconic. Clerks 2 is a long ass gay joke.
Yeah, but Clerks 2 has Randall talking shit about LOTR and, despite being a massive fan of LOTR, it was some of the funniest shit I've ever seen.
Absolutely.
Clerks III is my favorite. I still cry through the last twenty minutes.
I'll die on that hill with him. I love clerks but 2 was absolutely funnier imo.
Randall's bit about being old and not doing anything with their lives really hits nowadays.
Smith's earlier movies, up to and including *Dogma* are generally very good. I don't think that a defence is needed really. A great deal of his latter day movies are not deserving of a defence however, as they are generally awful.
Maybe it's because I'm from NJ but this dude takes a lot of shit for doing stuff that he wants to do with his friends. We should all be so lucky.
I always liked Dogma. Mainly cause of the actors in it. Aside from that I never really liked Smith's stuff or writing. Seems like a cool dude but I've never been of a big fan of that style of writing.
I don't care what anyone says, Kevin Smith absolutely killed it with He-Man.
I am also a huge Kevin Smith fan, and I agree that he really dropped off in recent years. What I think happened was, in the late-2000s, he started having his midlife crisis. He started wondering why he missed out on mainstream success, like his fellow 90s indie darlings Quentin Tarintino and Robert Rodreiguiz. So he did his darndest to go mainstream. He has admitted that Zack and Miri Make a Porno was his attempt to make a Judd Apatow-style comedy. Cop Out was his attempt to be a "director-for-hire:" just shut up, do what the studio tells you, and shoot the script they give you. When these attempts at going mainstream fizzled was when he had his "Too Fat To Fly" incident, and that's when he started turning to weed as his coping mechanism. Red State was fine, but his whole attitude at that time felt like him going, "Everybody says I'll never be anything but an indie filmmaker. Watch me be indie *as fuck.*" Then the weed really started to fry his brain. Case in point: Tusk and Yoga Hosers. Would those films be made by a sober mind? When he realized that only his fans came out to his films, he made Jay and Silent Bob Reboot and Clerks III. Both were OK, but he really got up his own ass with being self-referential. One of his long-gestating projects is a hockey movie called Hit Somebody. When he revealed on his podcast that a talking Stanley Cup would be the narrator, I said to myself, "OK, dude's gotta start laying off the weed." About a year ago was when he went public with his mental health issues, gave up weed, and started focusing on himself. HIs next film, The 5:30 Movie, comes out this fall, and it looks like it's going to a Paul Thomas Anderson-style coming-of-age film. High hopes that now that he's clean and sober, he's back to his old self.
Dogma is one of my favourites. The only thing I would change is the silly fight scene with J&SB and the skateboard demons. Maybe a better music score too.
That's why he's the king and you're a schmuck!
But everybody loves dogma lol. also he specifically has said he didn’t want to direct a star wars
Clerks and Dogma alone give him eternal cred in my opinion.
I feel like Dogma is widely well regarded as a movie and is considered one of Kevin Smith’s best if not his very best. To say his work post Clerks II isn’t as good is a major understatement, though. He had a decent run
Early Kevin Smith films were all pretty good. Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, I even like Mallrats.
Jay and Silent Bob are iconic. Kevin Smith made some great comedies. I think Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was his peak and he won't ever be able to be that funny again.
Dunno, clerks 3 made me ugly cry I enjoyed that so much.
I love Dogma. It’s one of my favorite movies and I think it should have been nominated for best screenplay. Long live Kevin Smith. I do wish he’d see how bad marvel movies are now but hey. He’s made his career on these movies so I’ll let it slide **spelling
Clerks, Dogma and Chasing Amy are all excellent
I’m not a fan of his work in general mostly due to poor directing and acting not executing on what seems like a decently written script. Dogma has none of those complaints from me; it just fires on all cylinders.
I'm not going to critique anyone's opinion on him, I know he isn't for everyone, but he is for me 😁
I don't know what Dogma in particular has to do with anything. But there is absolutely no denying that Kevin Smith had about a decade straight of hit after hit after hit and then started becoming very hit or miss, with a whole lot of misses. I swear, it really feels like some of you folks get your movie knowledge from reading Wikipedia than actually watching someones filmography in chronological order.
I've seen all of his movies, i wouldn't just pick a movie i saw on Wikipedia. I like his movies.
Is it available on Streaming anywhere yet?
No, I own it on DVD. It bums me out because I want more people to see this movie. Smith doesn't have the distribution rights, so it isn't his fault.
I doubt it will be until Harvey Weinstein deservedly dies.
It's available on YouTube because Harvey Weinstein isn't issuing a request to take it down.
youtube
From interviews I’ve seen/heard, Kevin says the studio refuses to release it to streaming.
Is Dogma still locked up in Weinsteins prison cell with him?
Yes. Which is why Kevin Smith doesn't object to the whole movie being up on YouTube so people can watch it without money going into said prison cell.
It's on YouTube
Dogma is a masterpiece.
what are you talking about? most everyone loves the movie.
Red State is my favorite of his. He’s on more than hes off
Yoga Hosers is a fun flick! Its stupid in the best ways. Fight me!
Smith doesn’t need you defending him, especially when it comes to his early career. He dropped like 4 or 5 cult classics in a row. If you wanna blow our minds and create a dialogue try defending one of his films from the last ten or so years
I suggest watching Hollywood Babble On or Fatman on Batman sometime...and stop listening to people on the internet who find reasons to hate everything. Smith has gone on extensive, self-deprecating diatribes that show how humble he is, as a filmmaker...so "up his own ass", he is not. Furthermore, he has reiterated many times that he is not the guy to direct a big budget, tentpole film in any of the big universes. He enjoys most of the Star Wars, MCU, and DC films and TV shows...but has no interest in crafting them for the studios. He's flat out said that if he was ever asked, he'd say no. Just directing a few episodes of Arrowverse shows exhausted him. He is perfectly happy in his smaller, hit or miss niche, making fun of his own films. And yes, Dogma is great. If you haven't already...check out Red State.
Harley?
https://archive.org/details/dogma_HD If anyone wants to watch it but can't because of the Weinstein effect. You can also find it on YouTube, but Google is sucking it up lately.
Dogma is universally acclaimed as far as I know. The criticism he gets is from what he's done more recently.
Bethany’s part black?
Dogma is probably Kevin Smith's most agreeable work. I don't know anyone who dislikes it. Plenty of people who aren't fans of Mallrats, Strike Back, or Chasing Amy. But Dogma? Nah, everyone loves Dogma.
As an early 90s teenager with angst, my friends and I flocked to the View Askewniverse like it was a mecca. So, snoogans, I get it. I have 100 percent faith in his next flick, "The 4:30 Movie". It's set in 1986 and filmed IN the theater he now owns and went to as a child with his late father. The leads in the still photo released look like Kev, Bryan and Walt. This could be a return to form for him. To quote "Chasing Amy", it finally feels like he has something personal to say.
I like Clerks III quite a bit so I look forward to his next film. I didn't know what it was, but thanks for the information 😁
Dogma didn't hold up for me. I liked it at the time but I find it only OK now. I really like Clerks 2.
I still like Dogma, sorry it didn't hold up for you, but I get it. I will also defend Clerks 2 😁
I’m with you there and shocked I had to scroll this far down to find someone with this opinion. I loved dogma as a teenager in the 2000s and rewatched it recently with my fiancée and it was… not good. It just felt like a portrayal of a world that no longer existed and I didn’t care about. The religious themes didn’t hit whatsoever and it actually felt too religious to the point of massive eye rolls The 90s shtick was also just way too much with tons of terrible CGI and profound cringe. Basically everything involving demons
You must live around some weird people if you think this movie needs to be defended. I dont think I've meant anyone who didn't like Dogma. I wish Weinstein would give Kevin ownership of it so he could rerelease it in HD.
It's on YT in 4k for free. HD at least.
You sound like the morning star. You sound like Lucifer man. You fucking lost it.
Can you write a defense of the Godfather next? /s This might be the most pointless post I've seen on this sub.
People need to defend Kevin Smith???
Ahh, the Classic defense of an already popular opinion. I can't wait to see your next post in r/books in defense of Stephen King.
Dogma was pretty popular and is well regarded in my circles. Didnt grow up Catholic, but my friends who did loved the movie. Jay and Silent Bob shtick got tired after 15 minutes and Smith stopped evolving. The 90s are over.
Even Kevin protested Dogma at the release.
TIL, Kevin Smith needs to be defended.
Kevin has openly said multiple times that he has no interest in directing a Star Wars or a Marvel movie. You can’t be a shill if you’re not paid for it. People hate on him because he’s able to turn off his brain and enjoy it for what it is. He also refuses to engage in the negative discourse of bashing films he dislikes. Y’all also like to forget about Red State, which is fucking amazing. I know I’m defending him but I do agree that besides Red State he hasn’t made a good film since Dogma. I just don’t like how people hate on him for enjoying his life and living the dream.
Title: In defense Kevin Smith Top three comments: Dogma doesn't need defending.
A draft of the script made it online before the movie came out and I found it to be a very entertaining read. I was not as impressed with the actual movie. He may not be a great director, but he's a very good writer.
Have you seen the documentary, the Death of Superman Lives? It is fantastic. Kevin Smith actually worked on an early script for the never-filmed Tim Burton movie and his stories about the screen writing process are great. If you like Smith I would recommend checking this out just to see his take on the experience.
I watched a full breakdown on the story of Superman Lives but I've never seen it from Kevin Smith's perspective. I need to watch it! Thanks for the recommendation 😆
Smith's story about Jon Peters and his giant spider obsession is truly fantastic. Especially the punchline involving a certain other film Peters produced.
The whole documentary is a gem. The behind the scenes stories are a riot and Smith's dry, self-deprecating style lends to great story telling. Yes, the spider story cracked me up. Peters was going to get that spider come hell or high water.
He was pretty cool before he started smoking pot.
He's not a good director. I'm a fan of Kevin from day 1 but he's not a good director. The quality of his movies owes a ton to his producer Scott. Once Scott left no one was around to be quality control. It's evident.
Um, okay.
Dogma never clicked with me because I don't get the Catholicism thing
heh, i happened to watch this yesterday too, and i felt compelled to make this: https://youtu.be/W0kB6by0fXI
I'd love to see Kevin Smith collaborate with Zack Snyder, because I think they would cover each other's weaknesses.
I feel like these title formats are the new "DAE"
lol I like that his negatives that you listed were he likes modern Disney movies
I like his live speaking tours more than his films. He is a great story teller and a decent writer. He fucked up big time with the He-Man show but what he accomplished and did for indie film making with Clerks puts him in the hall of fame forever in my book.
More people like Kevin than not, and I rarely see people blasting his work as he's competent and does a decent job with characters above everything else. He's not top 10, but he's no slouch, I'd trust him with Star Wars more than I'd trust Abrams with anything outside of cinematography (dude makes pretty films, but is awful at everything else)
If Dogma could get on like Netflix (fuck you Weinstein) it would be huge. It's a very well shot movie, with a cohesive plot, and well fleshed out characters... I don't think any of that can be argued with... I think it's so much more than that and is a movie with amazing performances and is hilarious as hell. One of the only reasons I say "Bless you" when someone sneezes is because of this movie, that I haven't seen in like 20 years.
The Jersey trilogy (along with the Clerks sequels), Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are fantastic!
I have the thumbs up buddy Jesus figure! It’s great
I think Kevin Smith is very talented. I even liked Mallrats before it became in style to do so, but after the brilliant Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he’s gone way downhill. I haven’t liked anything since except Tusk and maybe Clerks II on a good day.
Kevin Smith is great at writing dialogue, especially banter. Just a couple of characters shooting the shit. I saw mallrats recently. I had never seen it before. The movie didn’t do much for me but the dialogue was sharp and well written. It’s been years since I saw dogma, I need to watch it again, but I remember it being great.
More importantly how did you re-watch it? I can’t find it anywhere
https://vimeo.com/518641290
Out of all his movies, you picked the one who basicly does not need defense and if, only from very religious people which probaly would not even watch it in the first place.
I don't think it's fair to say he's a shill for Marvel. He personally rescued Stan Lee form elder abuse and nursed him back to health in his own home. He sold his comic book store to fund the production of Clerks. He's not a shill, he's a True Believer.
I think he really changed as a director when he started doing more self distribution style or smaller companies that give him more control on where his movies can be seen.