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Clerks.
X.
Good news for fans of Kevin Smith and his
comics writing. No, Marvel has not announced a ship date
for any new projects, but it's quite possible that by the
time you get through everything on the new Clerks. 10th
Anniversary Edition DVD, Mister Smith will at least
have gotten through two or three pages of script for the
third issue of Spider-Man/Black Cat.
Nobody said he was fast.
Good thing, actually, because there's almost
too much of Clerks to get through. Sure, a lesser
Fanboy would have been happy with one fewer disc and two
or three more comic books, but those of us that follow Smith's
comic book work are the lesser fanboys, at least in numbers.
Knowing where his bread is truly buttered, he has gone back
to the root of his franchise (mysteriously Affleck-free)
and prepared this massive, over-comprehensive look at that
which made him famous.
It's
the kind of DVD that makes me extremely nervous. Clerks.
X. reminds me why I have yet to buy Tim Burton's Batman
films, nor Superman II, because of the gnawing fear
that the second I do, the studio will announce the version
I really wanted but just couldn't stand waiting for
any longer. But I promise, Smith couldn't possibly have
anything more to add on this one.
Why should someone buy this edition if
he has either of the earlier ones? As anybody saving their
shekels for the Super-Tiger-Dragon-Platinum edition of The
Lord of the Rings can tell you, it's to be complete.
(Another set, by the way, that I have held off on buying.)
Smith throws in not just deleted scenes, at least some of
which were on an earlier release. In fact, the cover copy
even cops to Disc One's commentary track being "classic"
- as in, "it's the same as on earlier releases." But what
will suck in the fans is a brand new old print of Clerks
on Disc Two, the version originally shown at film festivals
before Miramax stepped in and created a movie legend out
of Kevin Smith.
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Some
twelve minutes longer than the theatrical release, this
has new commentary from everyone you would really want to
hear speak. Smith joins Brian O'Halloran (Dante), Jeff Anderson
(Randall), producer Scott Mosier, and of course the man
with the thinnest line between personality and persona in
film history, Jason Mewes.
Has
time mellowed them, changed their outlooks or at least refined
their anecdotes? To be honest, I haven't had time to compare
the two commentaries, but that shouldn't stop fans from
devouring this. Well, even Smith might say it should,
but we know that self-deprecation thing is just an act.
In reality, he wants you to suck it up, Sparky.
And you can also suck up Kevin's first
short for The Tonight Show, and all those MTV spots
he did with Mewes. The real archive stuff, though, has a
disc all to itself, with a collection of early reviews and
articles for fans to have at their fingertips rather than
scour the web. Also included is Mae Day: The Crumbling
of a Documentary, Smith and Mosier's first film school
project together. Again, anybody with a lot of time and
a search engine could gather this material up, but it does
make for a nice all-in-one resource.
On the DVD-ROM section, Smith also includes
the original 168 page first draft of the screenplay. I'm
officially starting the rumor now that one of the easter
eggs is the second issue of Daredevil/Bullseye: The Target
and an outline for the first twelve issues of The Brave
and the Bold.
Smith recently announced that he will be
returning to Leonardo, New Jersey again with Clerks 2,
a.k.a. The Passion of the Clerks. Please ignore the
fact that he stated Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
would close the door on the Askewniverse. Watching this
first film serves to remind us what an original voice Smith
seemed to be ten years ago. He remains idiosyncratic, and
his films in the interim have been mostly highly personal
and at least honest, more than you can say for many. I look
forward to Clerks 2, but I'll be honest.
What I really want is those comics.
Clerks (10th Anniversary Edition)
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