whether or not mr. smith wanted to stray from his usual brand of witticisms and inflammatory humor, he should not have done it by producing one of the worst movies in the worst genre. a bad chick flick. redundancy abounds

In fairness to Kevin Smith, I will also say that the movie was supposed to be a big surprise having J-Lo die early, etc. Then after the whole Gigli thing, they delayed the Jersey Girl opening and went on to make J-Lo’s death a SELLING POINT of the movie so that people would go see it. So having one of your big plot “surprises” ruined by the fact that you had two megastars in the picture kind of sucks and wasn’t Smith’s fault.

Anyway, I thought Affleck was OK. I thought the little girl was cute as hell. I thought Liv Tyler was also very cute and I thought George Carlin and his buddies were funny. Not outstanding, but not bad either.

With the rationale you are using we are going to see Shaq start taking threes, Barry Bonds start laying down bunts, and Bill Gates start opening steak houses. Successful people can experiment with out completely abandoning what they do well.

Just look at Corey Haim

Jersey Girl was bad. With a nod to our distinguished host Craig, who normally has quite good taste, Jersey Girl stinks no matter what kind of movie you compare it to. Even compared to other bad movies, this movie’s pretty bad. Not an original idea anywhere to be found.

ASIDE (Which is what makes the whole “I’m not making this movie for critics. I’m making it for my fans” argument so hilarious. You can say that when you’ve just made Clerks, which was a very different kind of movie which was met with some bad reviews because it looked amateurish because it WAS amateurish. When you’re saying that after you’ve filmed a cookie-cutter Hollywood dramedy, you’re just making excuses for how bad it is.)

Now, when I say things like this, Kevin Smith and his boosters will say “Well, you’re just an unsophisticated toolbox who wants to see two hours of dick jokes and dumb bullshit.” Which is sort of a strange argument, because presumably these people became fans of Mr. Smith’s when he was making movies that relied heavily upon dick jokes and dumb bullshit.

But I am a Kevin Smith fan, and I think there’s got to be something for him outside the extremes of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl. Dogma and Chasing Amy are decent examples. Both manage to be funny while telling a real story. Both stories are a bit absurd, but they’re stories nonetheless.

Basically, my argument is this: you don’t have to make Clerks 2 to appease me. You just need to make a good movie. There are many fine romantic comedies. Jersey Girl just isn’t one of them.

The Apartment springs to mind, because I’ve seen it recently. So it can be done well, and without being so sickeningly derivative.

And there we go. In s

You need to have different scales and comparisons for different movies. Unfortunately for Kevin Smith, he has been locked into a certain type of flick and everyone wants him to make the same one over and over, I think. So, here is Clerks 2.

I like you will be happy as long as I get to hear him rattle off the video order and conclude with Happy Scrappy Hero Pups, I will be a happy man.