‘Jay and Silent Bob’ Is an Inside Job
Filmmaker Kevin Smith has never met a dirty word he didn’t like. And he seems to have used them all in his five films: “Clerks,” “Mallrats,” “Chasing Amy,” “Dogma” and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.”
But at least “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy” were good movies. “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” described in the press release as the “hilarious, star-studded finale” of the adventures of the stoned duo introduced in “Clerks,” is just one big disgusting frat party played out as a feature film. If gross-out humor is your raison d’etre, then you will enjoy the two-disc DVD special edition (Dimension, $30). This digital edition even features some deleted scenes that go so far over the taste line that if they hadn’t been cut, they would have earned the film an NC-17 rating rather than an R.
Jason Mewes plays the tall, thin, drugged-out Jay while Smith is the quiet, rotund Silent Bob in this comedy, which finds the duo leaving their New Jersey environs and heading for Hollywood when they learn a film is being made of Bluntman and Chronic--comic book characters that are based on them. Also starring in the film are Will Ferrell and Shannon Elizabeth. The cameos by Jon Stewart, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Jason Biggs, James Van Der Beek and Mark Hamill are the only things amusing about the film.
The DVD features commentary from Smith, producer Scott Mosier and Mewes, who seems totally out of it. In fact, Smith keeps telling him to face the microphone when he talks. Smith acknowledges that this is a $20-million inside movie, because unless you have seen his other films, most of the plot points in “Jay and Silent Bob” are meaningless.
Smith, Mosier, Mewes and even Smith’s baby daughter, Harley, introduce all the extras on the discs, including numerous deleted scenes, a gag reel, still galleries, two music videos, a behind-the-scenes featurette, talent files and a “Reel Comedy” special that aired on Comedy Central.
Smith and Mosier also produced “Drawing Flies,” a 1995 Canadian comedy finally getting a release, albeit on DVD ($20) and VHS ($15) from IndieDVD. This “lost” film from Smith’s View Askew production company was filmed right after “Mallrats,” when Smith negotiated a fund in his contract with Miramax to support two undiscovered filmmakers a year. Directed by Malcolm Ingram and Matt Gissing, “Drawing Flies” isn’t great, but at least it’s unusual. And it doesn’t wear out its welcome.
The plot: Several slackers living in Vancouver, Canada, are taken off welfare. Broke and unwilling to get jobs, they hike into the woods to live in a remote cabin to save money. In reality, though, their guide (Jason Lee) is searching for Bigfoot. Besides Lee, the black-and-white comedy is filled with such Smith regulars as Mewes, Renee Humphrey and Carmen Lee. Smith even makes a cameo appearance as Silent Bob.
The digital edition features an introduction by Mosier and Smith, a director’s cut with integrated deleted scenes, deleted scenes, bloopers, outtakes and rather worthless commentary from the cast, Mosier and Smith.
It may be hard to believe that a hard-core rap artist would blush while kissing a famous movie star, but on the audio commentary track of the horror film “Bones” (New Line, $25), director Ernest Dickerson says that Snoop Dogg did just that when it came time to kiss his leading lady, Pam Grier.
Although this thriller about a ‘70s street hustler (Dogg) accidentally brought back from the dead 22 years after his murder, isn’t very scary, the DVD is pretty entertaining thanks to the disc’s two documentaries, “Digging Up ‘Bones,’” which looks at the genesis of the project, and “Urban Gothic: ‘Bones’ and Its Influences,” which examines the horror films of Italian director Mario Bava. The disc includes the wide-screen version of the film, the trailer, two Snoop Dogg videos, and serviceable commentary from Dickerson and screenwriter Adam Simon. But Snoop Dogg, who is also on the commentary track, is about as scintillating as Mewes.
Disney’s made-for-video sequels of its classic animated films have been a mixed bag. That’s the case with “Cinderella II: Dreams Come True” ($26 for VHS; $30 for DVD), the sequel to the studio’s 1950 classic.
Chronicling what happened “happily ever after” to Cinderella and Prince Charming, “Cinderella II” does have its charms, thanks to the original’s scene-stealers--the adorable French mice Jaq, Gus Gus and Mary, the mischievous cat Lucifer and the Fairy Godmother.
The human characters, however, aren’t very interesting. And sometimes, the animation just doesn’t seem up to the Disney standard.
The movie features four new songs performed in a Britney Spears style by Brooke Allison, as well as a hideous updated version of the “Cinderella” standard: “Bibbidi-Bobbidi-Boo.”
The DVD includes a featurette on how the music was composed for the film, a music video, a storybook read by Juliet Mills and an interactive game, “Cinderella’s Enchanted Castle Activity.”
Hey, now. The first season of Garry Shandling’s seminal HBO comedy series “The Larry Sanders Show” is making its DVD debut in a three-disc set ($50) from Columbia TriStar. The series about a neurotic late-night talk show host is just as perceptive, adult and funny as it was when it debuted on the cable network a decade ago.
Besides the 13 episodes, the disc includes the enjoyable “Garry Shandling Talks ... No Flipping,” a recent interview with Shandling conducted by Washington Post critic Tom Shales, who once had a cameo appearance in the series. Shandling talks about the inception of the series, how it evolved over the first season, and the casting of Jeffrey Tambor as Sanders’ sidekick, Hank Kingsley, and Rip Torn as the show’s producer, Artie.
The series also starred Penny Johnson, Wallace Langham, Janeane Garofalo, Megan Gallagher and Jeremy Piven.
Brad Anderson, who directed the charming comedy “Next Stop Wonderland,” goes the horror movie route with the thriller “Session 9” (USA, $27), starring David Caruso. The psychological thriller revolves around a five-man crew given just one week to remove asbestos from an abandoned, crumbling mental hospital. In the tradition of “And Then There Were None,” crew members are picked off one by one by some unknown person or phantom.
The interesting digital edition includes the wide-screen version of the film, deleted scenes--mostly those involving a discarded subplot about a homeless woman living in the hospital--and the alternative ending with commentary by Anderson. There also are storyboards, the trailer and a creepy documentary on the real abandoned mental hospital used in the film. Anderson supplies the rather laid-back commentary.
“Haiku Tunnel,” which makes its DVD bow this week (Columbia TriStar, $30), is a slight but amusing comedy about a temporary worker (Josh Kornbluth) who discovers his unstructured lifestyle unraveling when he agrees to go “perm” at a San Francisco law firm. Kornbluth, who resembles a young Zero Mostel, also produced, co-wrote and directed the indie film with his brother, Jacob Kornbluth.
The DVD features the wide-screen edition of the comedy, talent files, outtakes (which aren’t very funny), deleted scenes and pleasant commentary from the Kornbluth brothers. One interesting factoid: Josh Kornbluth’s wife made all the outrageous Hawaiian shirts he wears in the film.
