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Reviews
Drawing Flies (1996)
Kevin Smith gives his friend a camera and a lot of average ness takes place
Drawing Flies was made on a low budget. A REALLY low budget. So considering that, its a decent effort. However, it is suppose to be a comedy and you really wont laugh many times during its runtime, be it because of the soundtrack, which is quite hard to hear in some scenes, or the patchy script that wants to be a Kevin Smith movie but doesn't really cut it, or some of the actors poor delivery. It also doesn't help that the film occasionally tries to be funny in a surreal way but really lacks the kind of intelligence and wit to pull off some of the more obscure scenes.
There are only 2 real reasons to view this movie. One is if you're a view askew fan and want to see another movie featuring a lot of players from Smith's directorial projects are like when he's not behind the camera, as many of them are present here. The other is Jason Lee. Lee delivers in this movie, just like he always does. delivering his dialogue to perfection, even if I do feel that the way he chose to play his character wasn't quite the right decision because you sometimes find it hard to like him when it seems like you should. He is still the most enjoyable aspect here by far.
There's actually a scene towards the end of the film's pretty brief 70 odd minute life span where one character reads another's palm. We are told that the straighter a certain line on your hand is, the easier it is to achieve a great career. We can definitely assume then that Lee has a very wonky line on his palm, as it seems whenever he's in a good film he's usually underused or, like in Drawing Flies, he's stuck as the only truly great thing amidst a whole lot of average-ness.
Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)
The greatest inside joke ever made.
Jay and Silent Bob strikes back is a movie made for Kevin Smith fan's, and movie fans in general. If you haven't seen Smith's first 4 movies you will not get half of JASBSB. And if you aren't an avid cinema fan you won't get much of the other half either.
Featuring various characters from all his previous flicks combined and constantly referencing other movies while taking a stab at popular culture, courtesy of his excellent skills as a writer. This is probably not a film your mother would care much about thanks to it's extremely crude tone. However if you are one of the people it was made for chances are you will have a riot here. Ever since Clerk's (smiths first film) it was pretty obvious that the character's of JAY and Silent Bob should get their own film. And they don't disappoint from Jay's hilarious delivery of his outrageous brand of toilet humour to Silent Bob's light sabre duel with Mark Hamill at the films brilliant climax its a movie that fan's could not help but adore.
What of the none Smith followers though?. Well there could still be just enough here to entertain those people too. Being smith's most mainstream film to date and actually his most mature as director. JASBSB contains none of the indie quirk and limited direction associated with Clerks, Mallrats and Chasing Amy . This is a bigger budgeted, star packed feature, that has as good a screenplay as any of his other work and will probably also find an audience with anyone who likes a well made comedy or simply anyone who likes to hear people making fun of Ben Affleck's career. So while it is indeed an 100 minute inside joke Smith's writing is just so damn good you might find you don't even care and just enjoy the ride.