Year:
1997
Studio:
Miramax Films/View Askew Productions
Movie:
4/5
DVD:
5/5
Teaser
Holden McNeil (Ben Affleck) and Banky Edwards (Jason Lee) are best
friends and the creators of the comic book "Bluntman and Chronic".
Their careers are on the upswing and there is an opportunity for a
television show based on their comic book. But then Alyssa Jones (Joey
Lauren Adams) comes into their life. Smart, funny, and great to be
around, Holden quickly falls in love with her. That's before he finds
out she's a lesbian...
Movie
Two best buds. A girl comes between them. A friendship is broken. A
love is lost. That's the movie. Kevin Smith is not a great
cinematographer, but he is a really good writer. The dialogues and
scenes are true and it's really easy to identify with the characters.
Lots of anguish in this movie. And everything delivered with a sense of
wit and wry humor that is Kevin Smith.
Actors
Ben Affleck gets one of his first roles where he is not the "tough".
And he does a good job with it. He gets a couple of really good
speeches and you can see him getting teary-eyed from the emotion. Joey
Lauren Adams does an even better acting job. She gets to be happy and
angry and gets two great scenes to vent. And she sings an original song
she wrote too.
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Jason Lee has
the supporting role this time. He does histrionics well.
Dwight Ewell is good as the black gay comic book writer with pearls of
wisdom. The rest of the cast is mostly Kevin Smith regulars -- not the
greatest actors in the world but they do their parts well and they're
not taxed.
DVD
Once again the DVD is packed with a great deal of excellent material.
The commentary features Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes, Ben Affleck, Producer
Scott Mosier and a few other people. It just sparkles with insight and
you can tell everyone really enjoyed making this film. More and more I
think that Ben Affleck is a really nice guy.
There's an Intro by Kevin Smith for the DVD, where he jokingly says
that the "DVDs suck" statement was not made by him (all other material
is from the Laserdisc version). The Deleted Scenes and Outtakes again
is a whole lot of material. I like that the Commentary and Deleted
Scenes sections show original clips introducing the sections instead of
static images.
Recommendations
If I had to recommend Mallrats or Chasing Amy, I'd have to recommend
Chasing Amy because it has some really good moments and dialogues and
is a very heartfelt story. Personally, if I could only watch one of
them I'd watch Mallrats 'cause it's hard to trump a mall.
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