Film
Kevin Smith Has Something to Say About... Anything
The Kevin Smith Festival kicked off last night with a screening of Clerks, the film that launched the director's career. After the movie, Kevin Smith dropped in at the Bloor to answer question from a very animated audience.
Kevin Smith is an accomplished speaker. His festival appearance follows a two-night stint at Roy Thomson Hall, as part of a cross-country tour. Although Clerks is an indie classic and one of his most critically acclaimed films, I went for the Q&A/stand up "performance".
I was impressed by Kevin Smith's cult following (the show seemed to be sold out) and his ease at coming up with humorous stories. Whether he was answering questions about his early career, the movies he would like to make, or his shoes, it all sounded like clever dialogue from one of his films.
Smith has always been knowledgeable enough about Canada to come up with a few quick jokes about our country. Tonight was no exception - Walter Gretzky (Wayne's dad) was a running gag for the evening. In the second Q&A after the screening of Clerks II, someone asked Smith if he had the choice between living in New Jersey next to Wayne Gretzky or in Toronto next to Walter which would he choose? Smith hemmed and hawed and ultimately chose Jersey because, he figured, Walter would come to visit Wayne and the taxes are lower.
The festival continues tonight and Tuesday with Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, plus 30-minute Q&As with Mr. Smith after every screening.
The Kevin Smith Festival runs February 8th, 9th, and 10th at the Bloor Cinema. Photo by Chandra Menard.
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Before I receive a ton of hate mail here, I will repeat that watching Clerks again was fun and that he really was a fantastic speaker. Last night was the first time I have seen Smith and his crowd live - and I was genuinely impressed by the audience he drew in and how enthusiastic the reaction was.
My apologies to those who would have liked more extensive coverage here - I encourage you to post your impressions of Kevin Smith, his movies, or the Q&A.
You expect an essay?
I thought she did a great job of giving a snapshot of the event, I was there too, and it was a great night.
Kevin is very quick witted, and was great that he brought along Jason Mewes as well.
I didn't intend my post as hate mail. It's more of a disappointment at a lost opportunity. Obviously the main idea here was to inform us about an ongoing event. But it's also an opportunity for you to turn a simple post into something that's actually worth our time reading it. To do that, you'd need to add details, insights, random thoughts, etc. The impression I had reading this was that you really didn't care at all to spend any time adding anything other than what was absolutely necessary; i.e. that this was a throw-away piece not worth the time to craft it into something interesting. In fact, maybe it is a throwaway piece and you really just wanted to give us the bare info and that's really all that mattered. But the problem is, your name is attached to something that looks amateurish and lazy. I doubt you're either amateurish or lazy. In fact, I'd be quicker to blame the editors for not alerting you to the problem. Somebody really should have noticed that this article is thin and given you suggestions for fleshing it out.
To me, Brad's comment (minus the apparent idea that if you're not writing something quickfire, you're writing a 30-page thesis, there's no in-between, none!) basically gave me as much as your post did. "It happened and it was good."
This site's free, so let it go.
Go to the event yourself and then you won't need a review to quench your need to know everything.
Bunch of writing critics, jeez, it was fine.
to the critics: yikes...
Critics: be the change you want to see.
Pointing the finger is the laziest of actions.
i second Chad's comment: stop pointing fingers and TRYING to be bloody writing critics. sheesh