Prove Me Wrong Silent Bob:

http://www.viewaskew.com/tv/simpsons/simpsons.mov

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Hi Harry - I’m Capnwatsisname. Saw a screening of Jersey Girl Thursday and have been mulling it over. Some thoughts below - slight spoilers, but nothing a previous reviewer didn’t reveal.

Lopez does not ruin the film. I really had no more trouble with her than I did Affleck - I just had more time to get used to him. I actually kind of liked her after a while, although I was mastering the zen of selective recall to make it through her scenes without applying all the media baggage of the main characters’ highly publicized real lives. She actually reminded me just a little of the playful moments with Joey Adams (button nose and all), and when we finally get a long enough slice of Affleck & Lopez later in their marriage to gage their relationship, there’s a couple of scenes that establish at least the implication of a life together. Mostly it’s just well-written-but-universal married-people talk. It’s just not quite enough to appreciate the characters or the relationship by the time you need to be able to do so.
The lack of development with Lopez’s character is, I think, most of the film’s weakness. Without any info about this film other than it being a J-Lo B-Lo project, I spent the first part of it trying to figure out when the other shoe is going to drop. There must be a good reason for Lopez to be in this film, considering her price-tag, the media hype, and Smith’s reputation. There is such a significant lack of information about her character, I guessed we were headed into a hidden mafia family/lesbian/divine identity twist (except that I couldn’t imagine an attempt to repackage Chasing Amy - which I loved and think is a stronger film, just to put my comments in context), and continued to view her character with suspicion until I realized we were really watching a film about a single Dad. But when Affleck is (and I think he worked hard at this) expressing his loss, I felt distanced from the emotions because I didn’t ever quite get the character he loves or their relationship. Okay, he loves her, but why should I?

Jason Biggs creates a similar challenge - I recognize him immediately, and assume he will be a major character (I think he was even in the promotional material), but his relationship with the plot and characters is confusing. What I know about his relationship with Affleck is that Affleck doesn’t fire Biggs in a friendly exchange between superior and subordinate, but that doesn’t establish why this character would be part of the mourning process later. His character does play a part in the film, but it’s a little distracting. While the film manages to keep us from getting lost in an unnecessary number of characters, you’re kind of missing the context for a few key players (who also are big names).

As far as abandoning the Askewniverse, I don’t think that’s totally fair. The Damon/Lee cameo works for me; it’s definitely not there for general audience appreciation (I wonder if most will find it distracting because they’ll think it’s an Affleck/Damon inside joke). There’s just enough self-reference to keep Smith in the picture. You’ve still got New Jersey, a video store, porn. . . heck, Ben Affleck. I’m curious about the placement of films in the video store - could be random, but I kept looking for dvd commentary fodder.

I went into the film waiting for the Mewes/Smith-ex-machina appearance, but by the time I got the hang of what’s going on I realized they probably weren’t showing up, and that was okay. Smith’s films are not just a cartoon strip about Jay & Silent Bob, and the setting & people heís dealing with here do not naturally co-exist with the weed inspired, idiot-savante-spirituality of those characters. It would have been too much a jump, and it’s great to let these well-developed characters work out their own problems. However, I don’t think Smith’s strength is writing the needed turning points. After several brilliant exchanges about the film’s primary themes, and a great deal of respect for the fluidity and messiness of life, Affleck throws us a couple of cheesy lines that make for a weak bridge into resolution (for some reason I think of Pee Wee Herman: “I’m so inspired, I’m going to start a paper route right now!”). His monologues drag compared to what Smith can accomplish in 5 minutes between two characters in a diner (why the recognizably Hollywood-lot diner set, though?).

I hear that Lopez is hurt by the negative response the early screenings are laying on her, and that in meetings with Smith there’s talk about some changes. There may be a level at which he’s developing some skills for mass consumption through this experience. But right now there’s a “no reshoots for Jersey Girl” notice on Smith’s website, and I applaud him for this. I don’t think J-Lo should be left on the cutting-room floor, but I do think we need a little warning as to what we’re headed in for from the marketing department. Remember Executive Decision (maybe you were smart enough to skip it) where Segal dies in the first 5 minutes? You just keep wasting energy waiting for him to surprise you in a save-the-day return, because he’s a big name and this is an action flick. Maybe just a little more help from editing. It may still be a weakness in the final cut, but her character is important - it’d be sad to lose the impact of Affleck’s previous relationship and his daughter’s namesake. I’m not saying much about the daughter, but she’s central, and she’s good. Well written and extremely well cast.
The centerpiece of this film is the dialogue and the relationships. I expected over two hours, but I expected to feel it. I think it was brilliant - I ate up every conversation, believed and loved Affleck with his Dad and with Liv Tyler (whose character I really liked - I hope we don’t lose a second of her in the final cut). I think when Tyler shows up is when I start enjoying Affleck more. The little girl is fantastic. Smith does a brilliant job of giving us a sympathetic father-son relationship that’s neither dominated by clichÈd abandonment/lack of affection issues or older-and-wiser omniscient father syndrome. It’s like most actual relationships - you feel like you’re seeing it in a context of the whole lives of these people; the film doesn’t attempt to idealize and capture the entire meaning of that relationship in one climactic scene. I love the Tyler/Affleck relationship as well - it is paced in a way that is believable, doesn’t take over as an over-the-top love rescue, and it avoids clichÈ speeches when dealing with Affleck’s grief.

I partly really value this because most of the crap that’s passed for movies about relationships is completely worthless in terms of identifying with the characters or situations - they mostly just try to get us to buy in to the fantasy. I’ll take something from Kevin Smith even if I have to watch some not-my-top-10 actors say the lines.

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If you can believe it, these two bastions of journalistic integrity have misreported (or flat out lied, depending on how you look at it) about “Jersey Girl” and re-shoots that just don’t exist.

Here’s their story. My comments below…

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Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck - Tough Luck

J. Lo and Ben’s latest vehicle may be a stinker. Plus, Kirsten Dunst becomes political

by BeatBoxBetty

The scoop on the latest, name-changing film from Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck is that in addition to having an identity crisis, it’s just plain bad. Tough Love has had its name changed from Gigli, had its release date pushed back four or five times and had a $5 million rewrite after test audiences were left unimpressed. In fact, the original ending had Ben’s character dying, but since audiences hated that, the studio had to re-shoot a new ending.

A quick review of the plot and it’s easy to see why folks have freezer burn over this puppy. In a nutshell, Ben plays a lowlife thug named Gigli who kidnaps the mentally retarded brother of a federal prosecutor to save his mobster boss from incarceration. Staked-out in his apartment with his kidnapee, Gigli’s soon joined by Ricki (Lopez), a gorgeous lesbian gangster who’s sent in to assist. But as time goes by (and your life force drained from you) — his feelings for Ricki grow, (and she of course, falls for him) and then they become concerned for their prisoner… blah, blah, blah.

Some say the fact that J.Lo and Ben met on set may be the only positive thing to come out of filming, while others claim that too is a sham. I’m betting both go straight to video. But wait, there’s more! Reports are also coming in that Ben and Jen’s romantic chemistry is zero onscreen. Nada. Zippity-doo-dud. According to the National Enquirer, producers of their other new flick Jersey Girl are desperately rewriting love scenes because test audiences don’t get why their characters are even attracted to each other! Price tag for re-shoots? A hefty $3 million. The cost of having Ben and Jen turn up the chemistry meter? Priceless.

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Yeah, use the Enquirer as a source. That’s always smart.

I know it’s only a gossip piece, but gossip or not, I thought I’d state for the record, that we have not re-shot, nor do we have plans to re-shoot, scenes for “Jersey Girl.” Ben and Jen’s chemistry in the flick is the exact opposite of zero. I’m not desperately (or even casually) rewriting dick. Both test audiences seemed to get why the two characters were together quite well. And there’s no $3 million being spent. There - you now have it from a credible source.

I’d heard they were playing that Enquirer game on Stern the other day and this “Jersey Girl” $3 million re-shoot crap came up as a true story. I assumed (wrongly, I guess) that anyone who really gave a shit knew that it was “Gigli” that had done re-shoots, not “Jersey Girl.”

Now I’m seeing this isn’t the case.

In her (or his) haste to attack and damn Ben and Jen’s relationship in any way possible (because it catches the interest of a news-reading public whose attention would be better spent on the war abroad), MSN’s unfortunately named BeatBox Betty has dragged our flick into a spot of mud, alleging problems where there are none. I know she (or he) is only a gossip hound, but I’d ask that, in the future, she (or he) at least try to contact someone involved with a production she (or he) plans to besmirch, rather than lazily take her cues from the likes of a tabloid.

While I’m at it, though, I’d also like to point out that all this “Gigli” stuff is crap too. I’ve seen the flick with a test screening audience, and I haven’t heard laughter like that in a movie theater since “American Pie” (or “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”). And, mind you, the laughter was WITH, not AT, the movie.

Much as I hate to disappoint BeatBox, both movies seem like they’re going to do just fine - quite like Ben and Jen’s relationship.

Regardless, next time you’re writing a story, even if it is for a gossip sheet, how about simply picking up a phone and doing a little research? Just because you’ve been reduced to the lowest rung on the ladder of journalism (manufacturing news where there really isn’t any), it doesn’t mean you have to conduct yourself like an asshole, know-nothing.

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Cops and the president we’re suspicious of, but freaks and masked men in tights - them we trust

By Kevin Smith

Stan Lee, the Godfather of Marvel Comics, the human face of comic books for the last forty years, comicdom’s ambassador to the world, once told me that he’d thought superheroes would be just a fad. But with the first appearance of DC Comics’ Superman, and the red letter (or red-boots) sales that followed, Marvel did what any good marketplace competitor would do when the other guys have a good idea: They aped it. And thus began the decades-long proliferation of the tights set.
So what is it about superheroes that has captured our imaginations for more than half a century? Why is it that we view cops, the legal system - hell, even the presidency - with cynical suspicion, whereas we will still believe in what a man masked in a pointy-eared cowl or a barelegged woman in a tiara stands for?

I say it comes down to two things: altruism and the clothes.

The superhero archetype was the creation of an international coalition of the willing, years before it was en vogue to team up and knock the tar out of an evil menace. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, an American and a Canadian, dreamed up Superman back in the Thirties and established the palette from which all superheroes will be painted, till the end of time. Take a man or a woman with the power or abilities that could be used to enslave the world (or at least a small corner of it, such as Gotham), and have him or her opt instead to employ their might for right. Give him or her two identities - either to protect their loved ones, or simply to maintain some semblance of a normal life outside their work. Wrap them up in clothes worthy of the Halloween parade down Santa Monica Boulevard in L.A., and you’ve got a superhero.

Like Westerns, superhero tales are normally about fixing what’s broken. But the clothes are a lot better. In the real world, cops and firemen perform heroics daily - but they don’t have the great outfits. They’re missing the cape. They’re missing the tights. And where the hell’s the codpiece? That’s how you can tell a superhero, right? They’re all-powerful, they can do no wrong and, apparently, they are also hung like Holmes. When women are superheroes, it’s not the codpiece that’s stacked, it’s the bra. If Wonder Woman really existed, the magic lasso or the invisible jet wouldn’t be the most implausible aspect of her character; it’d be her ability to just stand up without falling over.
But maybe it’s that touch of the impossible that makes them so appealing. The first comic book I ever purchased featured an “imaginary” Superman story, in which Lois and Clark were married. The image from the tale of Mr. and Mrs. Superman that struck me the most was of Superman and Lois Lane waking up together on a bed of clouds. The implication was that they decided to join the mile-high club, but because I was a kid, I didn’t put two and two together, because I didn’t really know what sex was yet (my wife says I still don’t). But I did know that my parents slept together - however, it was on a double Sealy Posturepedic, not a cloud. What I took away from that comic was that superheroes do the same stuff that everybody else does. They just do it way bigger (and probably longer, in more positions and far more satisfyingly).

After nearly seven decades of predominance by comic-book superheroes, their audience is dwindling. Today, successful comic books move up to 150,000 copies; in the Fifties and Sixties, even the less popular titles sold in the millions. It’s been rumored that Warner Bros. keeps DC Comics going solely for the licensing fees that can be derived from their characters. How sad that comic books wouldn’t be published for the value of their story so much as for the financial margin derived from slapping a superhero’s face on a pair of socks or a Frisbee
Even though big business threatens to do what the Legion of Doom couldn’t, the superhero still thrives today, continuing to capture imaginations. But the new superhero icons aren’t born on the page anymore; they’re born on the screen, where special-effects technology has finally caught up with their uncanny abilities. The Wachowski brothers’ ultrabrilliant movie The Matrix not only gave the world “bullet time,” it invented the superhero in the best way possible: by not changing much at all. Neo is the very definition of a superhero. He’s got a secret identity (the guy in the rags he normally is when not inside the Matrix), he wants to save the world, and he’s got the clothes. But if that’s not enough to rank Neo up there with the legends, I submit this final proof: In the trailer for The Matrix Reloaded, the guy can fly now. How fast, you ask? Probably faster than a speeding bullet.

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