The Big Picture: The Fall of Kevin Smith

[Sergey Sund]

I'm a Kevin Smith nerd. Like, I've bought his books, I've introduced my friends to his movies, I've seen all his Q&A stuff, hell, I even own a NAILS zippo and I carry the fan merch dealer card from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in my wallet at all times.
I like his movies up until Clerks II. They were great. Even Jersey Girl played on my heartstrings, showing that even the loser-come-director of Clerks could grow up, start a family, and have kids at some point of his life. That was my meta-interpretation, anyways.
But something happened. He touched the poison apple that is the Bruce Willis paycheck-movie. I wasn't even interested in watching Zack and Miri before that.
Like, goddamn, what happened?
It is for this reason and my increasing nostalgia with his previous work that I am awaiting the next Big Picture. Move faster, time. I want to hear about the good times and the bad times.

 

[ClockworkAngel]

he was the chosen one?? Serioulsy? what is wrong with you people he is just a guy who got lucky and made some movies.

If anything you should do a video on why Geek culuture feels the need to make random people their messiahs. None of them asked to be your chosen one you decided it

I'm with you fully on this. But my guess is because back then being a geek or a nerd was still a bit of a stigma. It was kind of the tail-end of the era where people believed that people who played video games and D&D lived in the basement or were overweight or whatever. Kinda like what Bob said in the video, it felt like the world wasn't for people like him. So when someone comes along and makes those things seem normal and every day, they get admired and, more than that, raised up as some kind of beacon. With it being more "okay" to be a geek/nerd/gamer/whatever than ever these days, maybe we don't need beacons so much anymore.

But I'm open to being totally wrong about this. I'm not really plugged into popular culture to the degree that I can trace patterns and all of the stuff that this show generally is about, and I don't even know what "generation" I belong to.

My thoughts on Kevin Smith? He made some movies that I like, disliked, and some that I liked then but don't like now. I don't really care to give it more thought than that.

 

[Stg]

I find it amusing people are saying Smith needs to find a new pacing or get his act together and make movies that will placate today's generation, but it's entitled comments like these that are forming the moronic trend of today's generation - I deserve better movies by (insert director) because I want their movies to entertain me like their original ones.

It's a sad mindset to have. Kevin Smith found a niche and he has stuck with that for the most part. He skewed off a bit with Gigli and Jersey Girl which is perfectly fine since he was trying something new. Jersey Girl wasn't a colossal failure like Gigli and movies like Clerks and Mallrats will forever have their own audience. He does what only a handful of film makers do and he just makes movies he enjoys. If you watch any of his "Evening with..." movies or the bonus material on most of his films, he tells a lot of stories about films he turned down because he would have little to no creative direction for the film or the film just didn't interest him.

 

[Dandres]

I am looking forward to this. As a nerd who grew up in the era of Kevin Smith films I never found them relatable. The only 2 I can say to this day I like are Dogma and Cop Out and I did not know he did Cop Out till I watched the movie. I have placed him in the category with all the other start up greats that could not maintain do to not knowing how to adjust to the times or could not handle the pressure of increased fame. I bet every film maker would like to make what they want to make but that would require funds and some film makers probably make stuff they do not want to make so they take care of them selves and their families. He is not the only one to make films he likes. He just happens to make films that not only alienates most of the movie goers but also people who liked his original work. Film makers that can make an "experimental film" only make 1 or 2, unfortunately his latest stuff seems to be all "experimental film work".

 

[softclocks]

Man I'm looking forward to next week.

Nice to see him tackle some interesting stuff.

 

[Kameburger]

I don't know, I think this video was pretty fair to Kevin Smith if only because it really explains why Bob has a problem with him and less about what Kevin Smith is or isn't. I strongly disagree with much of what Bob says, actually, disagreeing with bob has kind of become a hobby in itself. But when it comes to putting things in their generational context, I have to say Movie bob is pretty reliable. I really like some of Smith's stuff, Clerks and Dogma are close to classics for me and even Clerks 2 and Zack and Miri was strangely endearing for me.

And he's absolutely right, it's not because they're good films it's because he captured a personality type that the average person could identify with. Dogma also found a way to make fun of religion but at the same time show an appreciation for it that I don't think would be matched until Book of Mormon.

Is everything he does a lot more bland now? Sure, there is a sense of, this is Keven Smith by numbers fair a lot lately, but couldn't the same be said for a lot of these big directors?

 

[darthdenim]

Moral of this story?

Don't try and live vicariously through other people. Don't project all your hopes and dreams onto somebody else, and get pissed off when they don't live up to your standards.

Don't be Sy Parrish from One Hour Photo.

 

[Exley97_v1legacy]

I find it amusing people are saying Smith needs to find a new pacing or get his act together and make movies that will placate today's generation, but it's entitled comments like these that are forming the moronic trend of today's generation - I deserve better movies by (insert director) because I want their movies to entertain me like their original ones.

It's a sad mindset to have. Kevin Smith found a niche and he has stuck with that for the most part. He skewed off a bit with Gigli and Jersey Girl which is perfectly fine since he was trying something new. Jersey Girl wasn't a colossal failure like Gigli and movies like Clerks and Mallrats will forever have their own audience. He does what only a handful of film makers do and he just makes movies he enjoys. If you watch any of his "Evening with..." movies or the bonus material on most of his films, he tells a lot of stories about films he turned down because he would have little to no creative direction for the film or the film just didn't interest him.

Sigh....Kevin Smith didn't direct Gigli. In fact, he didn't have anything to do with the film. Not sure where this confusion comes from, but sadly this isn't the first time I've seen someone put Gigli on Kevin Smith.

 

[darthdenim]

Also, is this one of those things that happened to Bob only and he assumes is true for everybody else like him?

Did every gen x movie geek hail Kevin Smith as "the chosen one" of whatever, or was it just Bob?

 

[Aardvaarkman]

Did every gen x movie geek hail Kevin Smith as "the chosen one" of whatever, or was it just Bob?

I'm pretty sure it was just Bob. Being a member of Generation X and an avid film watcher, this is the first that I've ever heard of Kevin Smith supposedly being the saviour of films for my generation. To me, he was just a guy that made some pretty decent films.

If anyone was supposed to be the filmmaking genius of Gen X, I'd say it was David Lynch.

 

[Raika]

Last week: "Leave Michael Bay Alone"
This week: "The Fall of Kevin Smith"
Next week: "Farreley brothers > Coen brothers"
Week after that: "Why Uwe Boll Is Christ"

 

[Nepenthe87]

Kevin Smith didn't fall from anything. His audience is still large enough that he sells out live shows of his multiple podcasts consistently (you know the podcasts that you completely dismissed as the "sometimes" amusing batman podcasts he does in this very video). He fell from grace of the cinephiles like you who put him on a pedestal and (in your words) made him the "chosen one" of geek cinema. If you listen to any of the podcasts he does, those are the exact people he does not give a fuck about. He likes to make lowbrow dick and pussy jokes and is completely content with people who will laugh at those jokes with him.

He freely and candidly admits that the movies he made like Jersey girl and Copout were movies that he made without being 100% involved in in the creation process, and were probably worse off because of that. But at the same time he does not regret making them because they helped him figure out where he wants to be, and whats he wants to do as a film maker.


He creates the things he wants to create and attracts people who are interested in the same stuff he is interested in. Just because what he wants to do isn't what you wanted him to do doesn't not denote any type of fall. If anything he thriving on doing what he feels is important to him. That would actually be more a rise than a fall.

 

[kittymalt]

ok, going off on a tangent but how stupid are the jedi. do they not know what balancing something means, it means make both sides equal. SO WHY THE FUCK would they want to balance the force when they out number the darkside thousands to one?

 

[PhiMed]

Harvard defines Generation X as people born between 1965 and 1984, so the youngest he could've been when it came out is 10.

Yeah, well the Harvard Center is out of line in that one - very few other researchers use that definition. And the Harvard Center chose those dates to artificially force the "generations" into equal 20-year spans. So, BS, basically. The majority of researchers appear to use 1981 as a cut-off.

Well, considering how arbitrary the idea of separating people into "generations" with hard cut-off points is, anyway (Seriously, you're telling me someone born in 1981 has more in common with someone born in 1973 than someone born in 1982?), there's nothing more bs-ish to their approach than any other approach. But even if we say 1981, the youngest he could've been is 13.

If you go back to the interaction that prompted my post in the first place, it was in response to someone who thought he was 12, but was corrected by someone who said the youngest he could be was 20. 13's a heck of a lot closer to 12 than 20.