Chasing Kevin

I am a HUGE Kevin Smith fan - let's get that right out of the way. My vast DVD collection is filled with all 6 of his movies.

Kevin Smith movies were kept out of my Top 25 Comedies post because they are some sort of crazy amalgamation between dick and fart, physical comedy, and smart comedy. The dialogue is always witty, and there is just enough humanity in each of his films to make you genuinely care about the characters on the screen

I mention this because, at the moment, I am reading My Boring-Ass Life: The Uncomfortably Candid Diary of Kevin Smith - and I can't put it down. Like his movies, you laugh while genuinely caring for the characters that trot in and out of his at-times-frenetic, and at-times-boring-ass life.

I've heard the complaints - "Jersey Girl was over the top melodramatic," "Chasing Amy was incredibly unrealistic - that ending would never happen," "Dogma went way too far," etc. etc. etc.

The thing is, unlike most directors, Kevin Smith truly appears to make his movies for himself and the friends he recasts and rehires film after film. He has truly forged himself the career that he dreamed about having. What he seems to care about most - in the book and in his movies - are the very simple things in life: enjoy the people you choose to surround yourself with, never cease searching to find the little things that will make you laugh, and continue to challenges yourself. These characteristics, inter-spliced with dick and fart jokes, sex talk, and people flying through the crotch of a woman in the poster of a department store, really seem to hit home with me - and the hordes of fans that flock to his movies and buy his DVD's - as the things that I value most in my daily life of living.

In each one of his movies, his books, his Evening With DVD's, etc. Kevin Smith lets you back into his f'd up world. To me, it's always a welcomed trip.

Ranking The Films:
1) Chasing Amy - one of my all-time favorite movies
2) Clerks II - horrified he was going to make it, couldn't have been more thrilled w/ the result
3) Clerks - the greatest $30,000 movie ever - well ever since that wasn't a lot of money
4) Mallrats - the one that got me hooked
5) Dogma - maybe too over the top, but makes a hell of a funny point
6) Jersey Girl - And you know what? I still f'n liked it!