Clerks II

[Stefen]

I have a soft spot for Kevin's early shit, but everything after Chasing Amy (yes, even Dogma) is just terrible.

His writing in the later films isn't clever the way it is in his earlier films. It's just raunchy and immature. It's like, in the early films, he was in his mid-late 20's and was writing like he was in his mid-late 20's, but then he entered his 30's and was still trying to write like he was in his mid-late 20's, but overshot the mark and started writing like he was a teenager.

[SiliasRuby]

Wow, you hit the nail on the head stefen.

[private witt]

I have a soft spot for Kevin's early shit, but everything after Chasing Amy (yes, even Dogma) is just terrible.
His writing in the later films isn't clever the way it is in his earlier films. It's just raunchy and immature. I

Especially 'Dogma'.  Smith let himself get lazy just like Tarantino.  You get a bunch of fame and a bunch of money and you go, "Why push myself as a writer when I can churn out the same formula and keep making money?"

[Stefen]

I don't think it was that at all. I just think Smith was trying to do what he felt he did best, but that shit passed him by because he was at a point in his career when he was supposed to grow, but instead, his flicks just got more immature.

If he tried to make a movie instead of a raunchy comedy, he might be respectable right now. He's got the writing chops, he just doesn't have the mentality.

[private witt]

I could see that.  I would probably apply my Steve Carrell analysis to Smith in that case.  The other thing to remember is that his audience has matured a lot too.  Clerks was great when I was younger than the characters being portrayed, but now that I'm ten years older it's hard to relate to that level of youthful narcissicm, not that it takes away from the comedy in any way.

[RegularKarate]

so are you saying that Steve Carrell is immature?

[pete]

kevin smith just got blind-sided by a certain judd apatow, who beat him at his game and made better movies.  that happens to filmmakers - especially ones that are "branded".

[private witt]

so are you saying that Steve Carrell is immature?

Ha!  No, just that he's hit his peak and doesn't really know how to evolve.  I agree with the Apatow comment too: he's making comedy for people older than 23.

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

kevin smith just got blind-sided by a certain judd apatow, who beat him at his game and made better movies.  that happens to filmmakers - especially ones that are "branded".

From his AV Club interview from Oct 29, 2008:

Let me tell you something: If the whole world mistook [Zack and Miri Make a Porno] for a Judd Apatow movie, I'd be a happy fucking camper. As long as it did that Judd Apatow business, fine, they can call it a Judd Apatow movie all they want. [Laughs.] No, not at all. I like Judd, and I like the movies that Judd has done quite a bit. When I saw 40-Year-Old Virgin, I was like, "Wow, somebody made a movie that I would have made." Since we did Clerks, I've seen many comedies, but nobody was doing that thing that we did where you mix raunch and sweetness and sentimentality. And Judd did it, and he was insanely commercially successful with it. For years, I thought that if you want to make a movie that mixes raunch and sentimentality, you have a $30 million box-office ceiling, because people aren't interested. You know: "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter." They want a raunchy comedy or they want a romantic comedy, or they want something serious or something comedic. The blend never seemed to go beyond our highest mark of $30 million. Then 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up and Superbad shattered that completely, and suddenly it turned the type of movie that I love making into something commercially viable. Suddenly I felt like, "My job just got much easier in terms of trying to sell this." So thank God there's a Judd Apatow.