November is a great month for Kevin Smith fans with the Miramax release of the Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection on November 17th, 2009.

The movie collection includes three of the View Askew productions directed by Smith - Clerks, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

I must admit to being somewhat of a Kevin Smith fan, and was lucky enough to attend Smith’s recent appearance in San Francisco.

I am also perhaps one of the few who actually saw Clerks in the cinema, so needless to say I was very excited to see Clerks and Chasing Amy get Blu-ray releases.

Clerks was Smith’s break out movie, sold to Miramax after successful screenings at the Sundance Film Festival.

The movie also established Smith’s style, slaughtering sacred cows with an abundance of clever dialogue containing excessive expletives and Star Wars references.

The movie follows a day at the Quickstop with Dante Hicks, who isn’t even supposed to be there, along with Randall who works in the video store next door.

Smith’s next movie Mallrats was a box office failure and for Chasing Amy it was back to the low budget movie making for Kevin and the View Askew team.

While essentially the film is the story of a guy who falls for a lesbian, this level of simplification does not do the movie justice.

For the first time Smith combines his love for sexually explicit dialogue and dick jokes with a true emotional core at the heart of the movie.

Many people consider Chasing Amy to be Smith’s best movie to date and was certainly the break out movie for Ben Affleck and Jason Lee, as well as establishing Smith as more than the one hit wonder of independent film.

While the movie revolves around the questions of sexual preferences, it is really more about the insecurities surrounding intimacy and no doubt has a lot of Smith’s personal hang ups at the time laid out for all to see.

For me the Blu-ray release was a greatly appreciated excuse to watch Chasing Amy again.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back is the third movie in the collection, though this one has been on Blu-ray since 2006.

This movie fits well with the other two in the set, since again there is the tie in with Jay and Silent Bob and the comic characters ‘Bluntman and Chronic’ from Chasing Amy.

When Jay and Silent Bob discover that a big-screen adaptation of ‘Bluntman and Chronic’ is planned, they set out to prevent it at all costs.

I personally think this movie was done mostly as a favour to the fans of Jay and Silent Bob, and is a somewhat slapstick and silly comedy, though I thought it was a lot of fun.

Smith tends to like using the same cast across his films, and the likes of Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Lee, Brian O’Halloran and Jason Mewes appear in these films as well as the Smith films not in the set.

A number of well known stars are featured in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, including Jason Biggs, Matt Damon, George Carlin, Chris Rock, Shannon Elizabeth, Will Ferrell, James Van Der Beek, Ali Larter, Seann William Scott, Eliza Dushku, Judd Nelson, Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill.

Clerks received a strong critical reception, earning a Rotten Tomatoes score of 86% and IMDb score of 8/10.

The movie also took in $3.2M in limited release at the US box office and of course a lot more since on home video.

The video on the disc is an AVC 1080p encode at 22 Mbps, and is presented at 1.78:1 aspect ratio, filling the HDTV screen.

To be clear, Clerks was shot on black and white 16mm film and as such the ‘high definition’ transfer has limited value in image quality sense.

Take a look at the details page for Clerks to see full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.

The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz.

The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 43.8 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

Chasing Amy also did very well with the critics, receiving a Rotten Tomatoes score of 91% and IMDb score of 7.5/10.

The movie received a wider release than Clerks and earned $12M at the US box office.

The video on the disc is a VC-1 1080p encode at 20 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

Again Chasing Amy was shot on Super 16, and as such there is limited potential for state of the art image quality.

The details page for Chasing Amy again has full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.

The main audio is lossless DTS-HD Master Audio with 5.1 channels - 24 bits resolution at 48 kHz.

The disc is a dual layer BD50, with 42.8 GB used and is coded for All Regions.

Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back was not as well appreciated, with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 53% and IMDb score of 6.8/10.

At the cinema though the movie did a lot better, reaching $30.1M at the US box office.

The video on the disc is an MPEG2 1080p encode at 18 Mbps, and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2.35:1.

Check out the details page for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back to see full resolution PNG screen captures taken directly from the disc.

The main audio is lossless Linear PCM with 5.1 channels - 16 bits resolution at 48 kHz.

The disc is a single layer BD25, with 20.2 GB used and is coded for Region A.

From the encoder and disc capacity it is pretty clear that this was an early release for the Blu-ray format.

Kevin Smith is a big fan of extras on his movie releases and the supplements that come with Clerks and Chasing Amy are extensive.

Highlights for me on the Clerks disc include a pop up trivia track that presents many behind the scenes facts as the movie plays.

It also keeps a count of how many f-words are used, how often the number 37 comes up and how many times Dante says is wasn’t supposed to be there today.

The disc also features the full original first cut of the movie as it was screened at Sundance, before it was re-cut and the new music was added - be warned though that this was taken from a video tape and as such has even worse image quality and sound than the feature.

The disc also includes The Flying Car - a short featuring Randall and Dante discussing the idea of a flying car.

The ‘Last Scene’ animated short gives us a look at what happened inside the funeral parlor that was too expensive to shoot at the time Clerks was made.

Kevin Smith’s film school ‘mockumentary’ project Mae Day: The Crumbling Of A Documentary is also included on the Clerks disc.

Lastly, no doubt since the Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back disc is relatively feature light, the Clerks disc also features an 80 minute ‘making of’ for it, which includes an introduction with Kevin Smith explaining the Clerks Blu-ray and how the documentary came to be included.

Chasing Amy also has some great features, and the stand out is definitely the new Tracing Amy documentary, which runs over 80 minutes and covers the whole genesis of the movie through interviews and footage from the time.

The Was It Something I Said? interview with Kevin and Joey is another nice supplement which reveals some details of their relationship beyond scope of the movie.

Another fun feature is the Q and A session that was recorded 10 years after the film was shot.

The usual deleted scenes, outtakes and trailer are also included.

On the other hand Jay And Silent Bob Stike Back simply includes an audio commentary with Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier and Jason Mewes.

While none of these movies have an image quality that demands a Blu-ray release, the Chasing Amy and Clerks have a great collection of extras, some of which are exclusive to the Blu-ray versions.

The movies are also a great watch and this Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection release from Miramax comes highly recommended.

The retail price is $89.99, or order it right now at Amazon for $53.99, saving 40%!

Of course, Clerks, Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back are also available separately.

Extras:

Clerks

• Classic Commentary Circa ‘95
• Enhanced Playback Track
• The Final Cut Audio Commentary
• 2004 Kevin Smith Intro
• The Last Scene Animated Short
• The Flying Car
• Restoration
• Theatrical Trailer
• Soul Asylum “Can’t Even Tell” Music Video
• Snowball Effect: The Story Of Clerks
• Mae Day: The Crumbling Of A Documentary
• Outtakes
• And More!

Chasing Amy

• Audio Commentary
• Tracing Amy: Documentary
• Was It Something I Said? Conversation With Kevin And Joey
• 10 Years Later Q&A
• Deleted Scenes
• Outtakes
• Trailer

Jay And Silent Bob Stike Back

• Audio Commentary
• Instant Access To Select Movie Scenes

Synopsis:

Clerks - Clerks is one wild day in the life of a pair of overworked counter jockeys whose razor-sharp wit and on-the-job antics give a whole new meaning to customer service.

Chasing Amy - Filled with Smith’s unique ear for dialogue and insight into relationships, Chasing Amy offers a thoughtful, funny look at how perceptions alter lives, and how obsession and self-doubt skew reality.

Jay And Silent Bob Stike Back - Wildly irreverent and packed with stars, including Ben Affleck, Chris Rock, Jason Lee and more, the hilarious conclusion of Jay and Silent Bob’s story is big entertainment.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 26th, 2009 at 9:27 pm and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.