My hatred for Kevin Smith is palpable. His mugging, formless face creeps into my nightmares … the words he speaks in interviews cause me to grind my teeth in agony.

I’ll give the guy some credit; he managed to make it in Hollywood by accident. The one film in his “collection” deserving of any substantial mention or praise – CLERKS, of course – was a foul-mouthed series of talking-head scenes that managed to find an audience due to its ultra-low budget. Smith did it just before video cameras and computers made it possible for anyone to do it, which is what made his achievment special while making what you and your friends filmed in your backyard just some home movies. Which is precisely my point: nothing in CLERKS by itself achieved greatness, except that it was made on a shoestring. The acting is horrible, the direction is beyond artless, the sound is barely recorded, and the screenplay (the film’s most celebrated quality) is self-consciously trying to shock. Nothing in the film transcends, other than the inspirational backstory of a bunch of losers who cobbled a film together with pocket change and made it.

Since the success of CLERKS, Smith has run the festival circuit several million times, talking and talking and talking about himself and his opinions. Meanwhile, he has released a series of films that demonstrate a serious lack of vision or artistry. Every film has taken place in some corner of hell Smith self-referentially refers to as the “Askewniverse”, which contains ever-present characters like Jay and Silent Bob. These characters are shoe-horned into his films despite the fact that they do not belong in the film (did Jay and Silent Bob really need to show up in MALLRATS, CHASING AMY, or DOGMA??) because Smith needs such audience-recognition to shorthand his limp, uninspired writing. Why create new characters and situations when you can just lazily fall back on previous characters??

With the success of the Judd Apatow films – a fact that apparently rankles Smith a little bit – Smith has decided to try and replicate the mainstream success of films like THE 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN and SUPERBAD with the publicity-baiting ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO. In this interview with First Showing, just listen to Smith talk about the “creative” direction he took for this latest film:

FS: One thing I’ve realized is that this movie has a much more mainstream appeal.

Kevin Smith: Yeah, it does have that feeling, yeah.

FS: Is that something you rationally thought about?

Kevin Smith: No. I just think it has to do with, when you remove Jay and Silent Bob from the equation, when you remove references to the other movies from the equation, even something as simple as taking it out of New Jersey, suddenly makes it more open to other people, which is strange to me. I never thought Jersey was something that was necessarily holding us back, but I’ve seen a few people comment on the fact. They’re like “thank god it’s not in Jersey, because the movie takes a whole different feel.” And I’m like, “Really?” Because we could’ve shot in Jersey. It’s not like we don’t get snow in fucking Jersey just as bad as they get in western Pennsylvania, but, for some reason, removing it from that removes it from the Askewniverse. It helps that the lead is the biggest comedy star of the moment. That kind of makes it more mainstream as well. But I don’t know. It wasn’t a conscious effort of, I’m going to do this in a way that a mainstream audience can get into. It’s just, other elements falling away and then adding elements, like Seth. Suddenly, it becomes little more mainstream.

Why on earth does Smith insist on using words like Askewniverse to describe his films?? Oh yeah … because it helps sell shit on his website. To me, it sounds more like that dorky kid in high school who would only refer to himself by his Dungeons and Dragons name. I am not Kevin, he bellows through the halls, I am Lord Of The Askewniverse!!!

Whatever.

The shocking revelation in the above quotation attributed to Smith is how very little invention goes into what me makes. To Smith, creative challenges in his films involve moving the film’s location to someplace outside of New Jersey. WOW!!! Way to stretch yourself as a writer and director, Kev!!! And apparently Smith, after eight or nine films, has finally managed to not rely on an appearance by Jay and Silent Bob in a film. AMAZING!!! It must have been tough to actually write something else after fifteen years in the business!!!

Imagine if Spielberg, after the success of JAWS, just kept making horror films about deadly ocean creatures for the following decade. Kevin Smith is simply a low-rent George Lucas, pathetically swimming in the same shallow baby pool while adamantly insisting that they are creative and worthwhile forces in film. He’s a less-talented M. Night Shyamalan, forever tied to the shocking twist of his initial success. Hell, even Scorcese managed to do something besides crime films with DeNiro.

I think Smith is a good guy, and he’d probably be fun at a bar after watching a movie. But make no mistake: he is not a filmmaker in any way other than the barest technical definition. The guy needs to retire and spend his years lecturing festival geeks about the subtle differences between the prequel trilogy and ass raping.

Whatever … Kevin, please stop making movies.