About five years ago, I was out with my friends and we decided to go see Interview With A Vampire. We trekked all the way into the ghetto to catch its last theatrical showing at the dollar theatre. I had never seen it, but one in the group was celebrating his birthday and absolutely loved this flick, so he urged me to make the nine o'clock showing. We got there, and we were promptly told that Vampire wasn't showing until ten. This disappointed us all, but my friend was so pumped about seeing the LAST ever showing he went to a nearby Dairy Queen to bide time. I was not enjoying the bleak ice cream experience of a rainy, hood night overturing me gettin' a sugar headache so I headed solo back across the street. I was a little embarrassed that I would abandon him so quickly, but he didn't care really. I said I might see another movie, since there were 5 other features showing. No one objected, so I went to the box office, scanned the marquee, and spotted a film entitled CLERKS.
I had seen a spot for this movie on a MTV news break, a very short blurb about its nonchalant style of both directing and dialogue. I was leery seeing a film in all black and white, but since this was the only "new release" at the theatre, and since it was only a buck, I bought the ticket, picked up some popcorn, and sat down. . .completely alone in the smallest theatre they had available to experience Kevin Smith's 1994 homage to all things floating in his head while working minimum wage jobs all his life.
Five minutes in, and I was hooked. Every other line I thought to myself two things,
"I gotta get everyone I know to see this."
and
"Why isn't this a full house?"
Dante Hicks' starts out accidently subbing a shift at his workplace one fateful morning. But what he doesn't know is that by going in for work that day, he walks in belly-to-the-beast to a very traumatic day. His best friend Randal doesn't help matters either. Not only is he constantly breathing down his neck while neglecting his video store responsibilities, but he challenges Dante to be a man he is not while faced with a relationship . Clerks is set in one day's time, opening till closing, and packs just about as much great, memorable scenes as it can into all of its 100 minutes.
Not only is the camera work simply a forumn for the actors to tell the story (as, at its basics, it should be), but the coziness of the scenery makes you feel like you could pick up a pack of cigarettes from the very place. I feel honored and privileged to feel like I've been with Kevin Smith's career from the very beginning, because he is without question my favorite director, and I will be forever indebted to him, if not for the connection he's given me, for the haunting significance of the number 37.
See also the technical prequel, Mallrats and the final film in the Jersey Trilogy, Chasing Amy.
"Jay and Silent Bob will be back in Dogma."
I had seen a spot for this movie on a MTV news break, a very short blurb about its nonchalant style of both directing and dialogue. I was leery seeing a film in all black and white, but since this was the only "new release" at the theatre, and since it was only a buck, I bought the ticket, picked up some popcorn, and sat down. . .completely alone in the smallest theatre they had available to experience Kevin Smith's 1994 homage to all things floating in his head while working minimum wage jobs all his life.
Five minutes in, and I was hooked. Every other line I thought to myself two things,
"I gotta get everyone I know to see this."
and
"Why isn't this a full house?"
Dante Hicks' starts out accidently subbing a shift at his workplace one fateful morning. But what he doesn't know is that by going in for work that day, he walks in belly-to-the-beast to a very traumatic day. His best friend Randal doesn't help matters either. Not only is he constantly breathing down his neck while neglecting his video store responsibilities, but he challenges Dante to be a man he is not while faced with a relationship . Clerks is set in one day's time, opening till closing, and packs just about as much great, memorable scenes as it can into all of its 100 minutes.
Not only is the camera work simply a forumn for the actors to tell the story (as, at its basics, it should be), but the coziness of the scenery makes you feel like you could pick up a pack of cigarettes from the very place. I feel honored and privileged to feel like I've been with Kevin Smith's career from the very beginning, because he is without question my favorite director, and I will be forever indebted to him, if not for the connection he's given me, for the haunting significance of the number 37.
See also the technical prequel, Mallrats and the final film in the Jersey Trilogy, Chasing Amy.
"Jay and Silent Bob will be back in Dogma."