Clerks (II)

[illusionofjoy]

Joe Versus The Volcano is an awful movie. After Tom Hanks and his female counterpart spent what seemed like three reels adrift in the ocean, I was nearly cheering for the volcano when it came time for them to jump in. However, despite the film as a whole being craptastic (and barely worthy of an MST3K session), one line in the opening set of scenes rings true with me. The line in question, spoken by out star, Mr. Hanks after his character has been diagnosed with a terminal illness, comes as he is ready to leave his job and set forth on a grand adventure before he croaks. To paraphrase, since I haven't seen the movie in years and refuse to watch it again unless I get really faced, goes something like this: "I can feel these fluorescent lights sucking my soul out through my eyeballs!"

Well said, Tom; now go forth and make better movies – my crystal ball tells me that sometime in the 90s you will play a major role in making a tepid book into a blockbuster. At my job, I feel that way more often than I like to publicly admit to. Pretty much every weekday, I wake up at an unnaturally early hour, I go to work and do something they could train a monkey to do for eight hours with enough electroshock therapy and negative reinforcement, and then I go home. Once home, I sit at my computer drooling on myself as I cycle through my web page bookmarks and then play games until it's time for dinner or bed. At the moment, I have dozens of half-finished songs in my head, that I just don't have the motivation to push out of the womb, unless such an action were to precede sticking a pair of medical scissors at the top of their little spines and twisting. The only fully realised song that I have written in the past five months is about how dissatisfied I am with my job!

Taking the theme of job dissatisfaction and running with it, joi_division and I went to see both Clerks and Clerks II at The Oaks last night. It was a night that almost didn't happen. Getting Joi to go places is not an easy feat as of late, so by 10 o'clock Saturday evening, I had resigned myself to not being able to see Clerks on the big screen. Frankly, although I've done it before, I just don't feel like going to the movies by myself week after week. So, at 10:45PM, when Joi came up to me and tartly said, "put your boots on," I was taken aback. The first thought to splash down in my brainpan: what the hell did I do now? Second thought: holy shit, she actually wants to do something outside of the apartment? Thus, after I promised her popcorn and soda (after a trip to the ATM), we were on our way.

Every summer The Oaks Theater, located in Oakmont, PA, which is northeast of Pittsburgh via state route 28, plays a series of films as part of a "Moonlit Matinee" film festival. Last week was their traditional yearly showing of A Clockwork Orange, which I went to see with bonamoz and her boyfriend. They recently resurrected The Rocky Horror Picture Show and, sadly, seem to have decided to show that annually as well (I'll save my Rocky Horror rant for another day – I don't dislike the film, but damn if I'm not starting to dislike those who are obsessed with it).

Joi and I had driven out to Oakmont, only expected to see Clerks, however we were pleasantly surprised to discover that they were showing that film along with its sequel on the same night. Even though this would keep us up until 4:00AM, we decided to go for it nonetheless.

Clerks is, of course, Kevin Smith's slacker classic, produced in glorious techni-black and white on the amount of money an old collection of comic books would fetch on eBay. In it, we are introduced to Dante and Randall, two convenience store clerks who (depending on whom one is referring to) either can't or won't stick to corporate policy. This is where the Quick Stop makes its first appearance along with its perpetual loiterers, Jay and Silent Bob. If the number 37 holds no significance to you, I suggest you rent this film immediately and become educated.

But what of the sequal? Oh, those damnable sequels! Didn't Kevin Smith make a New Jersey "trilogy," which ended up becoming five films (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back) before killing that with the unfairly panned Jersey Girl? Did we really need a direct sequel to Clerks?

The answer, of course, is "no," but we're all damn happy Kevin Smith decided to do one anyhow. The premise: meet Dante and Randall ten years later, and not much wiser. They are still working at the Quick Stop, until it burns to the ground and both are forced to take employment at Mooby's (where the food is "utterly delicious," or so the ads would have us believe; you can also order a massive artery-clogging burger known as the "cow-tipper"). Dante still has trouble with multiple women, this time instead of a girlfriend and an ex girlfriend, it's a fiancée and his much more appealing boss at Mooby's.

So, the sequel is very much like the original (except in colour), but then Smith throws some curveballs at us. Lowbrow hilarity abounds throughout the first several reels, but then we the audience are faced with – gasp – the same type of sentimentality we had to face in Jersey Girl. Of course, the fact that Kevin Smith places the majority of these sentimental emotional crescendos against a backdrop of off-screen bestiality (I'm sorry: interspecies erotica) keeps this from becoming a schmaltz-fest. The film also ends on such a note that it is very unlikely that there will be a Clerks III, but we can be assured that Jay and Silent Bob will probably not be denied their public for very long again either.

Did I like the movie? Oh, hells yes. In fact, I'd even go so far as to say that it was better than the original. His characters may never do so, but Kevin Smith has grown up a bit and this is a good thing.