Kevin Smith is God (sure he is, just ask him)

My feelings on Kevin Smith have been discussed in previous postings, so I won't bother you by repeating them. Here is a link to a blog entry on his website (a site where you can find more pictures of him than you thought humanly possible) where he talks about his upcoming guest appearance.

However, this week he guested on the show Ebert & Roeper as a fill in for the still ailing Roger Ebert. They reviewed World Trade Centre (they both liked it), Step Up (Smith liked it and Roeper hated it), Scoop (they both regretfully gave it thumbs down) and Half Nelson (they both loved and especially loved Ryan Gosling's performance).

As an aside, I always hate seeing Ryan Gosling do well. He is a Canadian actor about the same age and same looks as another Canadian actor named Cameron Graham who I used to work at the faux mexican restaurant Chi-Chi's with. Gosling is probably getting the movie roles that Graham could have got if he had a little more luck.

The interesting part of the show, aside from Smith chiding Roeper for not liking Jersey Girl (like he was the only one!), was during the Thumbs Up Video segment. In this regular segment, the show's hosts usually highlight new DVD releases or personal faves from their own collection.

Roeper highlighted The Godfather Collection, the new unrated version of Wild Things and the long forgotten (but highly underrated) Jack Lemmon comedy How To Murder Your Wife.

Smith first highlighted The Talented Mr. Ripley (strange choice but a film with great performances by Matt Dillon, Jude Law and Philip Seymour Hoffman) and the first season of the Lisa Kudrow HBO series The Comeback. But here's the part that made me gasp out loud. He recommended An Evening With Kevin Smith.

You can hear the audio from this portion of the show from this link.
http://tvplex.go.com/buenavista/ebertandroeper/video.html
Just click on the weekend of August 12-13.



Essentially this is four hours of himself talking to and answering questions and basically pontificating about the art of film with a college crowd. All the films in the world he could have chosen to recommend, he chose one he didn't direct but is on camera for hours. My respect for Smith has progressively gotten lower post-Clerks but he is now at the point where he could direct a group of my favourite actors like Dustin Hoffman, Alec Baldwin and Don Cheadle in a movie together and it still wouldn't be enough to gain back any of my respect.

Top 5 Don Cheadle films
1. Crash
2. Out Of Sight
3. Devil In A Blue Dress
4. The Family Man
5. Rosewood

This guy, Kevin Smith, has taken over from Quentin Tarantino as the director who most needs to shut the hell up and start getting back to work that befits the promise of his early films. And playing off characters, ANY CHARACTERS, from Clerks just does not count!!!!