Clerks

Having gotten into Kevin Smith through watching Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and working backwards through Mallrats and Dogma, this didn't register with my preconcptions of this movie since I associated KS with crude but hilarious comedy. Made on a single credit card budget, Clerks captures more depth than many other highly payed and special effect concerned directors manage to create. I'm looking at you M. Night Shyamalan.

Dante and Randall run a Quick Stop Groceries in  New Jersey. There they run into conflicts with customer on such subjects as whether complacency is an excuse for selling cigarrettes to 6 year old girls, whether the storm troopers on the Death Star knew what they were getting into and the uselessness of being a job advisor at a high school whilst Dante trys to remain 'normal' and acheive what is expected of him, much to Randall's annoyance, who instead chooses to spout profanitys at a family video store and close the Quick Stop for a hockey game on the roof .

The philosiphical and psychological issues raised were shockingly well put forward. This definatley isn't average in any way, casting critical eye over such things as allotments in life, the points of view of happiness between the apparently autonomous and their counter parts and the true meanings behind romance.

Not to say this is an overly artsy flic. All the issues are best to reflect on afterwards whilst enjoying the deliciously irreverant glue that holds each scene together on the solid concrete of Jersey humor. One line I think that sums up the entire movie: 'You self-analysing is about as natural as an oral bowel movement'

A teen comedy with a big brain and glasses