Like the humor free dick jokes in mainstream comedy, but annoyed with all of the plot, camera movements, and competent acting? Well, Clerks is your movie.
Made with a legendary 30,000 bucks (give or take a million or two in promotion) and a complete lack of talent or insight, Clerks corrupted an entire generation of would be indie filmmakers and freshman aged audiences. The much ballyhooed writing is just simply not as clever as it thinks it is, basically amounting to a bunch of stuff that would be funny if you said it to your friends but pretty lame when delivered, without the slightest hint of inflection, into the camera. Of course, people will say that they laughed their asses off, but people will say that about "Tommy Boy", too. Outside of that, we have charmless, inept actors (are real actors that expensive? So many would do it for free, just for the exposure) and a complete lack of cinematic grace or technique. The basic shot in Clerks is a nailed to the floor camera honing in on non moving actors. Absurdly, Smith claims this was based on the Divine Comedy (the lead character is named Dante, get it?) but this structure is pretty much meaningless, and has precious little to do with the film as it stands.
This is certainly not Smith's worst film. If you think that his handling of comedy is shallow, you should see how he handles drama in the laughable "Chasing Amy". But it is his most overrated, and downright odious.
Made with a legendary 30,000 bucks (give or take a million or two in promotion) and a complete lack of talent or insight, Clerks corrupted an entire generation of would be indie filmmakers and freshman aged audiences. The much ballyhooed writing is just simply not as clever as it thinks it is, basically amounting to a bunch of stuff that would be funny if you said it to your friends but pretty lame when delivered, without the slightest hint of inflection, into the camera. Of course, people will say that they laughed their asses off, but people will say that about "Tommy Boy", too. Outside of that, we have charmless, inept actors (are real actors that expensive? So many would do it for free, just for the exposure) and a complete lack of cinematic grace or technique. The basic shot in Clerks is a nailed to the floor camera honing in on non moving actors. Absurdly, Smith claims this was based on the Divine Comedy (the lead character is named Dante, get it?) but this structure is pretty much meaningless, and has precious little to do with the film as it stands.
This is certainly not Smith's worst film. If you think that his handling of comedy is shallow, you should see how he handles drama in the laughable "Chasing Amy". But it is his most overrated, and downright odious.