Uptown Jersey Girls.

Two movies that I've watched in the past 2 days: Uptown Girls and Jersey Girl. Admittedly, the latter was to numb my system in anticipation of the stinker that Jersey Girl was supposed to be. This was due to the fact that I am a great fan of Kevin Smith and the thought of a View Askew production sucking was a travesty that I didn't think I could take...so...

Uptown Girls was a bad movie. I'll just say it now, it was horrible. Brittany and Dakota chemistry = Zilch. Maybe it was the fact that I was watching it on VCD but the movie just really didn't soar. There was little if any interesting pieces about the movie and it lacked heart of any sort. It's just a gut feel at the moment but the overall effect was that of an empty vessel. (Bah...)

Jersey Girl however was a great film despite the bad reviews that are out there. I especially liked the review blurb that I read off the life section in the straits times. It basically said that the film was poorly casted, specifically in relation to Ben Affleck. It accused Kevin Smith of losing his edge, of being oversentimental and saying that he was capable of making a better film as proven by 4 of the 5 films in the Jersey trilogy. (I know the trilogy bit doesn't make sense, but o well...) Shyuh...like the dude's not allowed to grow up...Geez...
I thought the movie was true to Smith. Overly sentimental? It is a movie about parenthood for goodness sakes, specifically his own (His daughter's named Harley Quinn Smith btw, a reference to the Batman cartoon character). I could imagine that Smith was talking about his own transition from man to father and it was real, or at least it felt real...which is what his other films have been lauded for, above and beyond the clever (albeit massively cussy) dialogue. Smith's films have been about people and Jersey Girl is no different. The dude's gone on to fatherhood and it's a story that he wants to tell. It's not edgy (as his 5 previous films tend to be) and it's not controvorsial, but the most you could accuse Smith of doing is selling out to the mainstream (a rather elitist view IMAO from the indy film freaks). People grow up. It happens. Jersey Girl marks the transition of Smith from his Jay and Silent Bob days to bigger and (hopefully) better things. I say that we just let him tell his stories...he's definitely earned that.