I saw Clerks II last night and liked it. I think maybe I'm really jaded because I wasn't grossed out at all by it, contrary to what Joel Siegel, Roger Ebert, and a number of other critics experienced. And I thought the gross stuff was funny. In fact, the movie only stumbles a couple times when it tries to be soft, particularly during musical montages that use light, classic rock or R&B. Smith just doesn't know enough songs of that sort. I noticed the same problem with Jersey Girl--both movies use songs in scenes where you've just recently heard the same song used in a similar situation in another movie. In this case, it was Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head, which I'd just heard in Spider-Man 2.
But there are plenty of things I like about the movie. Rosario Dawson next to Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson reminds us why we like beautiful people in movies. Which is not to say O'Halloran or Anderson do poorly--they do very well, as does Jason Mewes and Trevor Fehrman, who plays an awkward Christian geek with just the right amount of sincerity.
Roger Ebert referred to the movie's philosophy as shallow. I won't tell you what it is, as finding it out is essentially the movie's climax, but I don't think it's shallow. Maybe simple. And probably, I think, something a lot of young people might need to hear.
The movie lacks some of the realistic feel of the first film, but it's not nearly as cartoonish as the animated series, existing somewhere in between. But it was good. I certainly hope Smith makes more of these instead of more Jersey Girls--though I must say I kind of liked Jersey Girl.
I saw a trailer for that Pathfinder movie the Fox people were plugging at the Comic-Con. It looks lamer now. I feel a real loathing fermenting inside me for its cinematography. It's like watching a movie through a camouflage blindfold. And whenever I see the title, I feel like there ought to be a tagline; "1300 years before it was an SUV, Pathfinder was . . . a movie!"
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