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Surlaw posted:No one else is making movies about man-walruses so Smith's ok in my book even if he's a bad dumb man. I loved that episode of King of the Hill! Have any of these pot-fueled brainstorming sessions from his podcast ever come to fruition?
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Apr 28, 2014 22:13
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K. Waste posted:Now, you could say, "Hey, go read the Book of Job, man!" Except that, in the Book of Job, the message is still essentially that you should pay homage to God even when he hurts you, directly or indirectly, because he's God and he's the foundation of your entire identity. You still have to follow all the precepts, go through with all the sacrifices, live by the text; the challenging thing to accept is not the existence of God but that God's very existence necessarily means we have to give up certain freedoms and act in accordance, not with our personal moral feelings, but with an overarching framework that, while problematically exclusive, also necessarily prevents morality from being totally trivialized. Job has a really interesting part near the end where God effectively says 'look at how loving bizarre everything is. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing!' God in the Bible is such a crazy character that his creation doesn't even make sense to himself. I interpreted that to be part of the Bible's ultimately quite secular message, where it points out all the horrible, crazy poo poo a creator would have to justify if it really existed. It goes even further than the statement that God can do whatever he wants - claiming God is loving with you because he basically can. Like if you asked a theist what would happen if God said that murder was okay tomorrow. The typical response is 'but God wouldn't say that!' This reveals the real ideology behind belief in God - there's the tacit belief that God is making 'the right' moral injunctions - in other words that God exists, and he agrees with you - you can see this in Dogma, where Smith postulates that God really likes skeeball (or was it hockey? I bet it would be hockey if he made the film now, at least). The Bible itself is radically against these notions, presenting God as either so completely beyond mortal comprehension that his injunctions can't be taken at face value, far too vain and human (and possibly Evil and totalitarian) to properly construct a workable moral code, or just batfuck insane. My favourite part of Dogma is when the angels hold the Mooby executives to rights. Smith seems to have desperately wanted a scene where a bunch of corporate businessmen get hosed up, but was afraid of having an anti-corporate message (because that would mean having a stance on something - or might ruin his chances of ever finding funding again from Hollywood), so every businessman gets a personal immorality they've committed to justify their death. The movie even whitewashes the immorality of the corporation in the eyes of the very God that literally exists in the narrative - God would certainly frown upon the idolatry of golden-calf Mooby, but Bartleby and Loki don't kill them for that - they even let one of the idolators live. That whole scene is ridiculously self-conscious, Bartleby quipping about how silly Loki sounds and so on. Smith clearly recognised the subtext of the scene he was writing and was afraid to go down that road. Which is the ultimate folly of his writing - it doesn't really engage with anything at all beside the facile and the popcultural. e: Although I do quite like that the film reduces everything down to such a facile level. Like, seeing angels, devils, Metatron, and an apostle acting like loving idiots talking about star wars is really funny in its own way. Hbomberguy fucked around with this message at 22:31 on Apr 28, 2014 |
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Apr 28, 2014 22:27
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Mallrats and Dogma at least get credit for being funny if youre 12 years old where Chasing Amy is boring and unfunny no matter what age you are.
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Apr 28, 2014 22:31
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Hbomberguy posted:Job has a really interesting part near the end where God effectively says 'look at how loving bizarre everything is. I have no idea what the hell I'm doing!' God in the Bible is such a crazy character that his creation doesn't even make sense to himself. I interpreted that to be part of the Bible's ultimately quite secular message, where it points out all the horrible, crazy poo poo a creator would have to justify if it really existed. It goes even further than the statement that God can do whatever he wants - claiming God is loving with you because he basically can. I think your interpretation of theism as "the tracit belief that God is making 'the right' moral injunctions" certainly holds true for a lot of modern spiritual/religious movies, but I wouldn't go so far as to call Job's conception of God 'secular,' per se. To me, it's more that in our contemporary secular world, where it's so banal to accept the plurality of religious and spiritual opinions that we can point at a film like Jesus Camp and say, "Look at these kooks," that we have a hard time accepting that, indeed, the ancients had a far more complicated idea of a god than we do. Which is to say, while it's a cool interpretation that God's three long speeches at the end of Job are actually expressions of his own lack of omniscience, more than anything else I feel the poetry of Job actually expresses another, equally important "tacit belief" about God: That, ultimately, he's merely a metaphor for what we don't understand. To the authors of Job, it seems evidently important that the reader/listener understand God in terms that forces us to accept evil as a part of him. After all, before Satan became 'The Devil,' he is merely 'The Adversary,' a figure who, above all, believes in homage to God, and implicitly distrusts humanity and its reward-based morality (which God points up as blasphemy when he rebukes Job's friends). Far from the contemporary, secular God who only acts through love, the burden of evil displaced onto human frailty, this God does good and bad things because he feels like it, and our expectation that faith should be rewarded is rejected in favor of a philosophical system where faith is a virtue in and of itself. But, importantly, God won't smite you for rebuking him. But in denying his essence, we deny the very nature of the world itself, and, thus, are 'damned,' disassociated from a vivid reality, falling into suicidal despair. These are moral quandaries that Smith has very evidently never dealt with. Dogma is the distillation of the spiritual point-of-view that virtually every kid sent to Catholic high school eventually reaches through a combination of being too bored/detached/lazy to read the Bible and being pulled between the contradictions of the current secular social order.
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Apr 28, 2014 23:09
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What was Dogma's point? I can't even remember, I just recall the joke about Crush Groove.
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Apr 28, 2014 23:26
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Guy A. Person posted:Clerks is his only "classic" and it's now entirely clear that 90% of its success is due to the era and circumstances of its creation. I would still consider it a classic because of how perfect it was for the time and place it was created, and now as a time capsule of that specific time/place/cultural attitude. The rest of his stuff did alright because it resonated with a specific demographic (that I used to be a part of), but "classic" is a major stretch. Isn't this really it? There apparantly was a demograph for pretty much a "Clerks" movie and by luck/circumstance or maybe vision, Smith came out on top. It pretty much propelled his career, but when that demograph aged, he pretty much lost touch. Now you're looking at a less-talented filmmaker that is so overly present that it gets obnoxious. The best example to me are some of his grating podcasts. You could hope that he delivers another movie that hits all the right marks for today's younger demograph, but seeing how Smith is still just a big stoner with dicks and fart jokes, I don't think his relevance matters that much any more. He was still the stoner that Hollywood needed and it was interesting to hear his side of that story. Once.
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May 29, 2014 21:14
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kevin smith is a fat and has autism
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May 29, 2014 22:44
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zVxTeflon posted:kevin smith is a fat and has autism So was/did Stanley Kubrick. No excuses.
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May 29, 2014 23:36
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Kubrick's autism was God's gift to man.
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May 29, 2014 23:46
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Orson Welles was fat and a sperg as well.
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May 29, 2014 23:48
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I think it's been established that pretty much every Hollywood director is a sperg in many ways (it's the only way to function on a set while being creative) but most are self-aware enough to keep it under their hats when in public. Kevin Smith never learned that.
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May 30, 2014 00:05
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No, Kevin Smith is the opposite of a sperg. Kubrick, Jodorowsky, Wes Anderson, these are all artists that are earnestly sperging about how to most ornately light the most intricately-designed shot to more properly explore a really spergy interpretation of a story. Kevin Smith is just a cynic, dressing in jorts and winking to the masses saying "I'm a sperg, aren't spergs so cool!" because that's his market. Part of what's so annoying about his gimick is that it seems so calculated to get a reaction from people who think countercultural acts like "liking comics" or "smoking weed" makes them unique.
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May 30, 2014 00:21
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Kevin Smith reads social cues to the point that it cripples him emotionally. It's why he tries to be funny. Long ago, he learned that being funny made people not care so much about your size. Asperger's doesn't mean "somebody I don't like."
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May 30, 2014 01:02
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Still not down with the autism as an insult thing that goons have adopted. I guess no one let my cousin in on the joke or he is really committed to the bit to the point that he lives in a group home. I love how all of Kevin Smith's projects are based on bits from his podcast and never materialize. IMDB says Tusk is in post-production but I don't believe it.
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May 30, 2014 03:40
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bartok posted:I love how all of Kevin Smith's projects are based on bits from his podcast and never materialize. IMDB says Tusk is in post-production but I don't believe it. He just said on the last Hollywood Babble-On that they just finished the audio mix for Tusk. It's basically done. What stuff never materialized? There is a difference between him talking about things he'd like to do, things they are hoping to get produced, and him actually stating that things are in active production. Tusk was obviously being made since there were production photos released and he'd talk about the production. Hell, he's talked about Tusk since at least last fall.
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May 30, 2014 03:50
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DFu4ever posted:He just said on the last Hollywood Babble-On that they just finished the audio mix for Tusk. It's basically done. There was that hockey movie, Hit Somebody, that was suppose to be his final movie. Goon, which was a great movie, beat him to the punch so he said the project was going to be a miniseries and that is the last he has said about it. That was years ago.
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May 30, 2014 03:58
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LividLiquid posted:Kevin Smith reads social cues to the point that it cripples him emotionally. It's why he tries to be funny. Long ago, he learned that being funny made people not care so much about your size. So like every comedian ever then
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May 30, 2014 04:59
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Kevin Smith is a much better comedian than he is a director. He seems to be perfectly aware of this and I've heard he actually tried to get Robert Rodriquez to direct Dogma because he didn't feel up to the task. Now that would have been really something.
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May 30, 2014 05:15
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Eh, the script was still kinda poo poo.
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May 30, 2014 05:31
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Hat Thoughts posted:So like every comedian ever then
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May 30, 2014 07:16
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LividLiquid posted:Yes. And none of them have asperger's, probably. "What's the deal with airline food? I mean it often isn't very fresh since there isn't much room for proper food preparation facilities on most commercial airplanes and this combined with the effects the high altitude and strange air pressure have on the taste buds causes it to be quite bland and even foul tasting." "Blue hedgehogs run like this... Black hedgehogs run like THIS'
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May 30, 2014 13:39
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How did this even get started? People can be creative and highly detail oriented without being on the autism spectrum. In fact, I highly doubt most directors, including Smith, are anywhere near autistic given the severe pressure, time constraints, and the constant interaction and collaboration with others. Having obsessions and a keen eye for detail doesn't mean you have aspergers. Jesus Christ you people.
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May 30, 2014 14:58
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bartok posted:There was that hockey movie, Hit Somebody, that was suppose to be his final movie. Goon, which was a great movie, beat him to the punch so he said the project was going to be a miniseries and that is the last he has said about it. That was years ago. I think this is more of a case that he couldn't find a network to actually want to pick up the show. He made some comment not long ago stating that most networks are not interested in a mini-series because they want the "second season bump" in sales which isn't possible with a one time thing. Not sure how true that is given the growth in new "event series" coming out these days.
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May 30, 2014 15:13
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TrixRabbi posted:How did this even get started? People can be creative and highly detail oriented without being on the autism spectrum. In fact, I highly doubt most directors, including Smith, are anywhere near autistic given the severe pressure, time constraints, and the constant interaction and collaboration with others. My initial point is that it's immaterial, almost as dumb as blaming it on him being fat. I think lazy is the key word here.
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May 30, 2014 15:14
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TrixRabbi posted:How did this even get started? People can be creative and highly detail oriented without being on the autism spectrum. In fact, I highly doubt most directors, including Smith, are anywhere near autistic given the severe pressure, time constraints, and the constant interaction and collaboration with others. "He has aspergers" is just slang for "he makes bad movies" for people too boring to explain what they hate about these dumb movies.
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May 30, 2014 15:31
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Surlaw posted:"He has aspergers" is just slang for "he makes bad movies" for people too boring to explain what they hate about these dumb movies. I buy it.
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May 30, 2014 15:38
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A lot of people sem to think "aspergers" means nerdy and not high functioning autistic.
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May 31, 2014 01:32
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FreudianSlippers posted:A lot of people sem to think "aspergers" means nerdy and not high functioning autistic. This, of course, is not the actual case, but it is how the word is used on SA. No Wave fucked around with this message at 09:30 on May 31, 2014 |
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May 31, 2014 02:44
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A long time ago, "sperg" was used to describe people who had no social skills because they were too busy playing video games or watching anime or something with no direct human contact then read about Asperger's Syndrome on Wikipedia, specifically the symptomns and self-diagnosed themselves. I try not to use "Asperger's" or "autistic" instead the slang "sperg" to describe these kinds of people (who aren't truly on the autistic spectrum) but the line between all three is blurring.
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May 31, 2014 03:37
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Kevin Smith says the Weinsteins passed on Clerks 3. Can't say I blame them. Why is Kevin still making movies anyway? I thought podcasting was totally the future, man.
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Jul 8, 2014 22:47
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I can't believe people are calling Clerks a classic. I guess the demographic on a website like this skew towards losers born between 1976 and 1980 but literally no one else in the world gives a single poo poo about kevin smith.
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Jul 9, 2014 04:47
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rakovsky maybe posted:I can't believe people are calling Clerks a classic. I guess the demographic on a website like this skew towards losers born between 1976 and 1980 but literally no one else in the world gives a single poo poo about kevin smith. It really hit the spot if you were like 15 and working your first after-school retail job. Who knew that Smith would become such a spectacular flame-out for years after that?
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Jul 9, 2014 05:42
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Clerks 1 and Clerks 2 are great narratives. Great films? Eh. But the characters are well-written and the dialogue for the most part was good fun. I don't get why making bad movies after\in between those films makes those films suck now.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:51
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Clerks 2 is really bad. Really bad. I tried rewatching it about six months ago and cut if off about 25 minutes in.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:57
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Movie Good, Man Bad. Tusk.
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Jul 9, 2014 15:58
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Hammer Floyd posted:I don't get why making bad movies after\in between those films makes those films suck now. They don't. Those films were bad, too.
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Jul 9, 2014 16:08
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egon_beeblebrox posted:Clerks 2 is really bad. Really bad. I tried rewatching it about six months ago and cut if off about 25 minutes in.
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Jul 9, 2014 16:09
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rakovsky maybe posted:I can't believe people are calling Clerks a classic. I guess the demographic on a website like this skew towards losers born between 1976 and 1980 but literally no one else in the world gives a single poo poo about kevin smith. I think Clerks is going to continue to be a staple for young film nerds for awhile.
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Jul 9, 2014 16:39
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I can't really talk about them accurately because they have things I hate, but I was living in Middletown/Red Bank/etc. in the mid-nineties so they have a weird nostalgia for me.
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Jul 9, 2014 16:48
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rakovsky maybe posted:I can't believe people are calling Clerks a classic. I guess the demographic on a website like this skew towards losers born between 1976 and 1980 but literally no one else in the world gives a single poo poo about kevin smith.
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Jul 9, 2014 16:50
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