CLERKS III might be in the works! YES!!!

Well, aside from the crude humor, I felt there was a substantial exploration of the relationship of the Clerks and their facing their mid-30's and not having accomplished anything with their lives.

 

I agree. Focus and plot development was never his strong suit, but really authentic-sounding Gen X dialogue was. As our generation gets older, I think he's lost some of that. But further, it just seems like the focus isn't there on recent projects, as if he can't fully commit to the work at hand.

 

As far as him sorta losing the plot, I'm not sure it's a coincidence that a lot of the really spotty stuff seemed to start happening right around the time he started building the Smodco podcast "empire." It started small, but now I think the guy has four different shows he does weekly and about fifty others that he oversees in some capacity. Then you have all the speaking engagement Q&As he does, and even the Comic Book Men series on top of that. I really think perhaps he's just trying to juggle one too many plates.

 

I wonder if Kevin Smith is really going to retire from films. He said Red State and the hockey films would be his last and now there's talk of Clerks 3. He's like John Farnham in Australia -"This is definitely my last tour I promise ."

 

I dunno; speaking as someone who thinks Smith hit his apex with Clerks, I think that's his only film with anything approaching consistently realistic dialogue. His next two films, Mallrats and (to a lesser extent, but still) Chasing Amy, made me wonder if he actually had met any real people outside a narrow group of like-minded characters. Some of his films have moments of truth (as has been noted, the bits of Clerks II where the characters acknowledge their deeper feelings and situation are the bits that ring truest) but he's nothing if not wickidly inconsistent and prone to very forced dialogue.

 

What do you mean? I know he was a "hired gun" and didn't write it, but he still directed it!

 

Cop Out was a piece of crap. How do you pair Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan and come up with absolutely nothing?

 

Apparently it can be done! Seann William Scott was pretty much the only funny aspect of the film...

 

Well that's like questioning a Tarantino film's dialogue. People don't actually talk like that in real life.

Have you ever seen a Wes Anderson film? Same deal - stylized dialogue, not even remotely real.

 

Our prayers have been answered:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/clerks-the-animated-series-could-return-in-2013,71415/#disqus_thread

 

Kevin said Bruce was a complete @$$ the entire film, telling Kevin all the time he didn't know what he was doing. Also, as much as I like Morgan he was from SNL and their movies are more miss then hit.

 

I believe it.

And he probably deserved it.

 

He may have had a point that Kev didn't know how to direct an action movie, but the whole story is basically that for reasons Smith never figured out, Bruce came to the set on day one with a bad attitude that only got steadily crappier as it went along. Apparently the two had hit it off great when they worked together on Die Hard 4, so Smith was really looking forward to working more with a guy he thought of as sort of a new friend and instead found himself blown off by Willis from the very beginning.

 

Well, I hope it happens, I love the animated series, but saying "our prayers have been answered" is a bit premature. It looks like just rumor at this point.

As for Clerks III, I'll check it out. I loved both I & II. I'll even wear my View Askew hockey jersey to the premiere.

 

For those of you who want the real 'skinny' on how this came to be, I 'highly' advise you to listen to this weeks
"Hollywood Babble-On":
SModcast | GIANT SIZED ANNUAL # 1: CLERKS III, AUDIENCE 0

Kev goes into detail on how hard this will actually BE! Between the Disney-owned rights, and the Weinstein-owned rights, Kev fill you in on how long this will actually take. PLUS, he has a funny story on trying to reach Jerry Bruckiemer WITHOUT the help of his agents, to get him to read "Hit Somebody".
BE WARNED! There's a lot of cussing, and, at the beginning of the podcast, there about 20 minutes of Kim Kardashian-bashing, but, if you can ride that out, you'll get some real 'insider' information.... Well, worth the listen!

_______________________________________________
It's Vincent Cannata's novel, "The Enigma Of David's Toe"!
The Enigma of David's Toe: Vincent Cannata, Carol von Raesfeld, Dorothy Hardy: 9781479227570: Amazon.com: Books

Get yours today!​

 

Thanks for that, I will listen tomorrow.

 

I dunno: (a) one of Tarantino's selling points, at least early on, was the believability of his dialogue, and (b) Wes Anderson's entire filmic universe, aside from maybe his first two movies, is incredibly stylized and precious. One of Kevin Smith's main problems is that, when he moves away from the Clerks crew, most of his characters sound like Kevin Smith.

 

https://www.yahoo.com/movies/12-things-you-didn-t-c1412818702819.html

 

Why?

He should have stopped at one IMO...

 

Smith can do what he wants, but I think returning to the "Clerks" well makes him seem desperate. I didn't think much of "Clerks II" and don't feel optimistic about a third film.

I used to like Smith a lot, but I've gotten worn out over the years. Smart guy, funny guy, but he seems to have lost his creative way...

 

Exactly and I agree on all the comments in your post ...

 

Smith has said for a long time he wants to do a Clerks every 10 years. So I don't see it as desperate.

 

But before he did "Clerks II", hadn't he supposedly "retired" the characters it featured? Wasn't he supposed to be done with Jay, Bob and the rest?

 

Surprised the two main actors are going to do it. And wasn't Smith going to retire from filmmaking?

 

Tell you the truth.... I never liked "Clerks".... still don't.

However....... after "Dogma" & "Evening With....". I became a fan.
Now, I could care less about "III", but I AM interested in the second in his "Canada Trilogy": "Yoga Hosers". The challenge for him being; can he be funny without using 'cuss' words... I'm rooting for him.