Kevin Smith
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Connections, in both directions
Once Howard’s plan becomes clear, Smith reveals a debt to Tod Browning’s 1932 masterpiece “Freaks,” the 1973 mad-herpetologist movie “Sssssss” and the recent “The Human Centipede,” among other predecessors.
Until it slips back into horror again, and an ending that plays a little like "Freaks."
Horror movies love the distortion and recombination of body parts, as in Frankenstein, Freaks and The Fly (to name just some F titles).
The denouement might just bring Tod Browning’s “Freaks” to mind.
On his way out of the theater, one critic compared it, not unfavorably, to Tod Browning’s masterpiece “ Freaks .”
Star Wars (1977)
Directed by George Lucas
influenced Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), Clerks (1994), Dogma (1999)
Plot Themes
After convincing fellow coffeehouse counterman Delaney (Craig Robinson) to spend his money on a film as the producer instead of on a flat-screen, they put together a motley assortment of actors, aka a cast, a cameraman, build sets and plan a plot and characters around "Star Wars."
They begin with an eroticized reinvention of Star Wars, which remains one of Smith’s most exhaustively referenced obsessions.
I expected Star Wars or similar sci-fi debates amongst underachieving nerds; crassly inventive, testosterone-fueled trash talk I might require a translator to decipher; and the sometimes soft center that lies beneath the adolescent exteriors of the potty-mouth master’s characters.
True to form, Smith can be indulgent here, leading to the odd dry stretch (a tiresome geek-out digression into Star Wars porn, for one).
They are so committed to this project, which begins its life as a Star Wars parody (this is a Kevin Smith movie, after all) before morphing into a multiple-partners marathon set in a Starbucks-style coffee joint, they decide to perform the film's centerpiece sex scene.
To that end, the crew's first attempt is called "Star Whores" — "Star Wars" being a favorite subject of Smith.
A discussion at the open about the meaning of the word "homage"with Paul mispronouncing it, har-harleads into a disastrous scene where Paul interrogates a suspect by acting out lines of dialogue from movies ranging from "Heat" and " Training Day " to "The Color Purple" and "Schindler's List."
Paul walks in with a gun, all crazy-eyed, throwing about lines from things ranging from Training Day and Heat to Schindler's List and The Color Purple with some Star Wars tossed in for good measure.
Lobbying for the part of “bad cop,” Paul insists that his years of watching cop movies have prepared him for this moment, and launches a performative assault on the detainee that begins with bits from Heat and Training Day, but quickly devolves into a channeling of Harpo from The Color Purple.
Jim watches from behind the one-way mirror as Paul interrogates by running through dozens of quotes from other movies: " Training Day ," " Heat ," " Schindler's List " and even " Dirty Dancing ."
Then, not content, the overly ambitious Smith took it a step further, and we get allusions to "Heat," Training Day," "Scarface," "Star Wars," "Schindler's List," "The Color Purple," "Cool Hand Luke," "They Call Me Mr. Tibbs," even "Jaws."
"Cop Out" is a buddy cop film in which one of the cops continually quotes dialogue espoused by fictional cops, in everything from "Heat" to "RoboCop," and not once is it funny.
The Kevin Smith comedy "Clerks" is the obvious comparison, and "Waiting" has its Dante and Randal characters, played by Justin Long as sensitive Dean and Ryan Reynolds as wise-guy Monty.
Still, Waiting... is generally an agreeable piece of work in the vein of Kevin Smith's Clerks and it's ultimately clear that the film will fare best among viewers who work (or have worked) in a chain restaurant.
When Kevin Smith's classic slacker comedy "Clerks" debuted in 1994, it unleashed a tidal wave of copycat films, almost all of them made for nothing, and rarely seen.
The closing credits give a pointed "thank you" to Kevin Smith and his film "Clerks," which is fitting.
Writer-director Rob McKittrick�s agonizing debut attempts a Clerks-meets-Slackers comedy about the young and restless wait staff of an Applebee�s-style restaurant.
This foul-mouthed, slackers-on-the-job comedy dearly wants to be the 21st-century version of Kevin Smith's 1994 independent hit "Clerks."
That's also true of a subplot that has Jimmy chafing at his ex-wife's smug second husband (Jason Lee), and it goes double for all material related to Jimmy's pursuit of a valuable baseball card, which ends up in the hands of a Mexican drug lord (Guillermo Diaz, trying to make Al Pacino in "Scarface" look subtle).
That turns out to be the gift that keeps on giving as Morgan lifts line after line from all his favorite movies; "Scarface," he mouths to the two-way window at one point, where a crowd of cops has gathered to keep score.
Morgan wins out and proceeds on an “homage”-based line of questioning that has him riffing wildly on characters from movies, from Al Pacino in Scarface to Oprah Winfrey in The Color Purple.
Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (who made the snappy gambling flick “Mississippi Grind,” also with Mendelsohn) use the time period as a way to celebrate a smorgasbord of ’90s nostalgia; there are references to Nine Inch Nails, the Smashing Pumpkins, “True Lies” and “Mallrats,” with soundtrack cues from No Doubt, Hole, Nirvana, Elastica and Garbage.
Set in the mid-1990s, and serving as a key plot point between the twin Avengers films, Infinity War and this summer’s Endgame , Captain Marvel lovingly embraces tropes from the “buddy cop” genre, nodding to the wondrous years of Blockbuster Video, Mallrats , and grunge music.
He’s re-reading lines from the Kevin Smith sophomore film Mallrats script, before smiling up at the hero of the story, Carol Danvers.
His latest assignment has taken him to the backblocks of rural Canada in search of a kid who accidentally lost a leg while re-enacting a scene from Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies.
We first see them helpless with laughter over a found video along the lines of the “Star Wars kid,” but this one is a “Kill Bill” wannabe who accidentally slices off his own leg at the thigh.
Trekking up to Winnipeg to interview a kid who sliced off his leg in homage to Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies, Wallace finds that the boy has died of his wound.
He travels to Winnipeg to interview a young man dubbed the Kill Bill Kid (à la the real-life Star Wars Kid), whose video of himself wielding a samurai sword and accidentally slicing off one of his legs has gone viral.
They’re obsessed with a homemade video one of their listeners has sent in: While re-enacting a scene from one of the Kill Bill movies, a hapless Canadian kid lops his leg off with a sword.
It's not as great as Edgar Wright's "Hot Fuzz" or David Gordon Green's "Pineapple Express" but, in a way, that's a good thing.
Smith’s apparent contribution to the material (written by Robb and Mark Cullen) is haphazardly using a synth score, songs by the Beastie Boys and Poison, and random slow-mo shots to cast his slapdash lark as an homage to ‘80s buddy cop actioners, an objective—already tired, in light of Hot Fuzz and Pineapple Express —further hammered home by faux-Axel Foley Themes and Tracy Morgan opening the proceedings by over-pronouncing the “h” in “homage.”
Cop Out could have been an American equivalent of Hot Fuzz but it instead feels like an anachronistic forgotten film that you once owned on VHS.
Obviously, “Cop Out” is inspired by any number of violent action movies made over the years in which bullets and banter are doled out in equal numbers, including such classics of the form as “Freebie and the Bean” and “Lethal Weapon” and there are essentially two ways to approach such material--either give it an ironic or satiric twist as was done with the brilliant “Hot Fuzz” or play it in a more straightforward manner along the lines of the equally inspired “Pineapple Express.”
Lacking the genre-thumping deftness of a film like Hot Fuzz or the appealing kitsch of Dragnet, Cop Out turns its lonely eyes to its two lead performers.
Except as a cute little nod to the cliches of the genre - something better films like Hot Fuzz would have been able to actually work into the story.
The 40 Year-Old Virgin (2005)
Directed by Judd Apatow
influenced Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008), Chasing Amy (1997)
Characters
Having gone soft with Jersey Girl (which is looking better all the time) only to regroup by remaking Clerks solely for the diehards, Smith here rounds up Judd Apatow 's familiars (Rogen, Banks, Craig Robinson , The 40-Year-Old Virgin's Gerry Bednob ), pairs them with his own regulars ( Jason Mewes , Jeff Anderson ) plus Traci Lords , and puts "Porno" in the title.
He is yet another version of the slackers that Rogen has been turning out since Judd Apatow cast him as one of Steve Carell's feckless friends in The 40-Year-Old Virgin.
There's no Jay and Silent Bob (although Jay, Jason Mewes, does appear in another role), the film is more polished (Smith used to just throw his actors in front of the camera, but now seems to be making the effort to actually set up shots), and it even steals most of its cast from Apatow's movies -- from Rogen and Banks to supporting roles featuring Craig Robinson (Knocked Up), Gerry Bednob (The 40-Year-Old Virgin), and Justin Long (Walk Hard).
The foul-mouthed, pop-culture-and-sex obsessed guy-pals of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up and Superbad are the spiritual children of Dante Hicks and Randal Graves in Clerks.
Seth Rogen, the brightest spark in Hollywood’s new-age comic circuitry (The 40-year-old Virgin, Knocked Up), is the bearded slacker who cannot pay the bills in the house he shares with platonic friend Elizabeth Banks.
Rogen is steady once again doing his young Albert Brooks thing, and Justin Long and Brandon Routh contribute memorable cameos, but Banks is the standout cast member, showing that she can add another dimension to her fun and naughty character from "The 40-Year-Old Virgin."
Dogma pays welcome homage to an eclectic batch of movies, including Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Silent Bob doing his best Harrison Ford, and Weird Science--a shit demon attacks our heroes!
Also, and most annoyingly, along for the ride are Mr. Smith's omnipresent Jay and Silent Bob characters, the latter of whom finally manages to speak, only to utter - appropriately, I suppose - an "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" reference.
Imagine a latter-day, West Coast “Clerks,” but filmed in color and not quite as desperate to prove how clever it is, and you’ve got an idea of the easy, embraceable tone of “Mid90s.”
In the end Richard Linklater seems the most obvious inspiration for this lo-fi but artistically ambitious indie focusing on a group of Los Angeles skateboarders, with Hill channelling Dazed and Confused and Slacker and Kevin Smith's Clerks .
Unlike the kids in the Rooney-Garland “Babes in Arms,” they have no particular talents, and only one of them is pretty to look at, but, for the sake of the movie, they will make out in front of the camera.
There's Chris Rock as Rufus, the 13th apostle, left out of the Bible because it was written by white guys; Salma Hayek as Serendipity, a heavenly muse who takes credit for the 20 top-grossing movies of all time except "Home Alone."
There's also plenty of "Tarantino-esque" dialogue where the characters talk about movies -- Bartleby jokes about Loki predicting "Crush Groove" would do better than "E.T." and a muse mentions that she was responsible for nineteen of the top twenty box office hits -- "Home Alone" being an aberration -- but while such moments are clever and elicit some "insider" laughs, the whole notion of using such dialogue doesn't have the sharp and novel edge it once did.
The muse played by Salma Hyeck reveals that she was responsible for all of the 20 top grossing films of all time, except one--"Home Alone".
Salma Hayek plays a muse who inspired the Bible and nineteen of the top twenty grossing films of all time (Home Alone only made it courtesy of a deal with the Devil).
With a boldness you'd never see in Dante, Smith followed the lead of Richard Linklater's homemade "Slacker" (1991) and patched together the $26,000 budget by selling his comic- book collection, maxing out his credit card cash advances and borrowing money from family.
Along with Richard Linklater’s Slacker (1991), which was released three years earlier, Smith’s scrappy black-and-white ode to the fears and loathings of post-collegiate misfits in a New Jersey suburb is the definitive Gen-X movie, one that rejects virtually everything that classical Hollywood stood for aesthetically and narratively: no stars, no story, and certainly no artistry, at least as that word is conventionally understood.
Paul walks in with a gun, all crazy-eyed, throwing about lines from things ranging from Training Day and Heat to Schindler's List and The Color Purple with some Star Wars tossed in for good measure.
Lobbying for the part of “bad cop,” Paul insists that his years of watching cop movies have prepared him for this moment, and launches a performative assault on the detainee that begins with bits from Heat and Training Day, but quickly devolves into a channeling of Harpo from The Color Purple.
Jim watches from behind the one-way mirror as Paul interrogates by running through dozens of quotes from other movies: " Training Day ," " Heat ," " Schindler's List " and even " Dirty Dancing ."
A discussion at the open about the meaning of the word "homage"with Paul mispronouncing it, har-harleads into a disastrous scene where Paul interrogates a suspect by acting out lines of dialogue from movies ranging from "Heat" and " Training Day " to "The Color Purple" and "Schindler's List."
These are the comic book versions of cops, which is fine since Cop Out isn't trying to be Training Day.
It's not as great as Edgar Wright's "Hot Fuzz" or David Gordon Green's "Pineapple Express" but, in a way, that's a good thing.
Smith’s apparent contribution to the material (written by Robb and Mark Cullen) is haphazardly using a synth score, songs by the Beastie Boys and Poison, and random slow-mo shots to cast his slapdash lark as an homage to ‘80s buddy cop actioners, an objective—already tired, in light of Hot Fuzz and Pineapple Express —further hammered home by faux-Axel Foley Themes and Tracy Morgan opening the proceedings by over-pronouncing the “h” in “homage.”
Obviously, “Cop Out” is inspired by any number of violent action movies made over the years in which bullets and banter are doled out in equal numbers, including such classics of the form as “Freebie and the Bean” and “Lethal Weapon” and there are essentially two ways to approach such material--either give it an ironic or satiric twist as was done with the brilliant “Hot Fuzz” or play it in a more straightforward manner along the lines of the equally inspired “Pineapple Express.”
When Jason Mewes references “Wolvie berserker style” in Mallrats, this is the brutality he’s mimicking.
Taking inspiration from the works of Joel and Ethan Coen (hints of 2007's " No Country for Old Men " are unmistakable), Rob Zombie (the guns-blasting third-act skirmish resembles 2005's " The Devil's Rejects ") and Eli Roth (the very plot is but a religious-themed variation on 2006's " Hostel "), the film ultimately averts genre expectations, starting off as a raunchy teen comedy, moving into ghastly horror territory, detouring into a bullets-whizzing action pic, and concluding with a perfect satiric exclamation point.
Sadly, that doesn’t happen: Smith shies away from the tantalizing development and the story comes to a much more traditional close, obviously inspired by the end of No Country for Old Men.
This Four Horsemen of Lazy-ocalypse wobble in the same cinematic circles as New Jerseyans Dante (Brian O’Halloran) and Randal (Jeff Anderson) of “Clerks” (1994) fame, but the Empire State boys carry even less conviction and pride than their out-of-state brothers from other mothers.
It works more along the lines of something like My Dinner With Andre (1981) or Mindwalk (1991) than it does Clerks (1994).
"Dogma" is a hulking slice of Zeitgeist contagion, energized to the hilt by a vast, wisecracking cast that makes "It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World" look like "My Dinner With Andre."