This list of 50 films, is a set of films that I have decided that will be my "Criterion Collection" of films. A set of movies that I use to describe who I am, my ideas and what I think are the best movies. You may not agree and that's ok, but these are my movies. And as always, "THARR BE SPOILERS! YE BE WARNED! " I just want to quickly share an opinion before we jump into today's film selection:
Thursday Television Comedies: The Big Bang Theory: Awesome. Great return to form. :)
The Office: Oh my god, please get better or I will have to abandon you. I've been a loyal fan for 6 seasons, but to launch out of the gate like that. Oh my god.
Community: My new absolute favorite. I have great hopes about this show into the far reaching future.
Outsourced: I'm a sucker for anything Indian, so I liked it. I'm actually watching it again as I type this. I enjoy Bollywood films, Indian food, and Indian culture in general. So to get that each week is going to be fun. And that girl with the Australian accent, extremely hot. :)
Shit My Dad Says: (Yes, I didn't put it in its bleeped form, because this is how I refer to the show) I love the Shat, and he's the only thing that makes this show salvageable. I'll give it a few more goes.
And..
Glee: The new Coach is a breath of fresh air, but I want to see where they take the story. The new episode was a bunch of "meh" for me.
Venture Bros.: With each new episode, my hardcore fandom grows three sizes. Its sooo good.
Anyway, thought I would digress for a moment about the new shows and old ones coming back. I'm not a fan of TV dramas, although I will watch a random episode of SVU when its on.
Well, onward to the pick of the week. #49: Clerks 2
This film was an enigma to me at first.
I mean, I like Kevin Smiths movies. Having seen Mallrats, Dogma, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back before this one I kinda knew what I was getting into. However, I hadn't seen the original Clerks until I was in college, almost a year after seeing the second one first. Smith's movies have always struck a chord with me, in fact I offered to someone when we both complained of lack of money that we should make a porno.
She said no.
This movie though, if nothing sounded good to watch or my friends and I couldn't decide on what terrible b-rated horror movie out of the video store's basement we would probably end up watching this one.
For those who don't know anything about this movie, its pretty simple. Two losers, Dante Hicks and Randall Graves, who work at a Quick Stop (think gas station without the gas) loose their jobs due to the place burning down and they now work at a local fast food joint run by Rosario Dawson. Still there is their loitering friends from the Quick Stop is Jay and Silent Bob. However, in this installment Dante is preparing to leave everything and Randall is having great anxiety about his friend leaving. The two decided to stay here in New Jersey, reopen their burned out store, and live in the peace that was their life before the fast food place. Oh yeah, in between that there's nerdy talk about Lord of the Rings, Transformers vs. Gobots, inter-species erotica, a spirited debate about weather or not to go ass to mouth, and an attempt to take back the term "porch-monkey." All good family fun. For your amusement, the Lord of the Rings discussion:
First time I saw this, I went to see this with my father. Now, don't freak out. Ever since I was able to drive he and I have been going to see movies. When I first realized that the power to drive was to go to any movie I desired at anytime (fun fact on that, the first movie I saw by myself was Mr. and Mrs. Smith), he realized that the bonding time between us was quickly diminishing. Now, I take him when I don't have a date (which is nearly all the time). One of the first movies that I drug him to that I can remember, was this one.
Walking in he didn't have the faintest idea of what he was getting into. Frankly neither did I really, I wasn't expecting the snappy dialog and nerdy diatribes that awaited to me. I remember sitting next to my father and cringing during the ass to mouth comments, expecting him to scoff in disgust, but instead was welcomed with great big belly laughs. He was almost crying with laughter by the end of that scene. I didn't know the film would have that effect on him, but we were quoting the entire movie all the way home.
In college, the film was revitalized for me because my friends were dining through my treasure chest of movies. Its a metal DVD case that is full of movies, holds over 200, and I filled that whole thing. Its a typical situation, where someone says they haven't seen said movie and we put it in. Again, this movie became a bonding session for everyone involved because we would talk about the Lord of the Rings scene, I would defend the Go-Bots, and we would randomly reenact this scene:
The third and most important reason is this films themes are: not to let other people influence you and change who you really are and sometimes the true happiness in life is always right there in front of you. This really hits home with me, because I had to leave college due to lack of complete focus on what I really wanted in life. I moved 400 miles away from my very small town and I had all these people telling me how I should focus on one thing or another and other people telling me I could do anything and there was even some telling me to stop being so damn nerdy! When I left and came home I found that being at home with my parents and high school friends, was where I am truly happy and content with myself. Since then I have co-opened my own store, volunteered at a local comic book museum, helped to judge local speech and debate meets, substitute taught, and now going to school to be a web developer. All of those things, happened around 30-50 miles of my house. Home is where the heart is, and when we take a collective deep breath and realize that our true calling could be right in front of us the whole time, that's a great feeling.
And as a side note, one of my first jobs was working in a fast food restaurant, so I know how bad that sucks.
Rather than put the trailer up here, like I was going to, I'm going to put this music video someone made using Soul Asylums "Misery, INC."
Next week's is going to be awesome, just don't his say his name three times.
This film was an enigma to me at first.
