|
|
The Movie:
Ah, the adventures of Kevin Smith's "Clerks". For those who are not familiar with Smith, he has done the raunchy comedies "Mallrats" and "Clerks", as well as the slightly more mature romantic comedy/drama "Chasing Amy". Smith has always been a big fan of comic books, re-writing a draft of the "Superman" live-action movie that was going to be filmed but never happened and owning his own comic book store - "Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash".
There always seemed to be a rumor of a "Clerks" animated series and finally - the rumor proved true as work began. Promos arrived and things looked good. And then I watched the series - it was occasionally funny, but there felt like there was something missing as certainly you can't do a great deal on network television. Or, more specifically, you can't do the nearly NC-17 rated jokes we all heard in the "Clerks" movie.
But there were other problems. "Clerks" hardly got any promotion besides early ads and although there were 6 episodes made, only two actually aired - and probably, the show got a 2 rating, if it was lucky. And, as with the usual production from Smith's View Askew productions, fans knew that we would eventually get the whole story on DVD. Although there was some thoughts about turning the episodes into a movie, we actually get them on DVD in a nice special edition.
There's still the same characters - Dante(Brian O'Halloran), Randal(Jeff Anderson), Silent Bob(Smith) and Jay(Jason Mewes), who have new adventures with other characters who occasionally stop by the Quick Stop that Dante works at, with Randal working next store at the video store. And here, you get to see all six episodes that were created (uncensored), along with excellent commentary from Smith and cast/crew where they goof on the network that cancelled them and chat about the history of the project.
The DVD
VIDEO: The full-frame presentation looks better than when I saw it on television on ABC. Although the animation isn't incredibly detailed, it still looks sharp and well-defined. There's nothing in the way of pixelation or shimmering, and colors look bold and natural, with no flaws. An excellent presentation of the material by Miramax.
SOUND: The Dolby surround presentation is pretty minimal, but offers good audio quality. The theme music and occasional bits of score sound punchy and full, and dialogue sounds clear and crisp.
MENUS:: The nicely done animated menus look great; the main menu contains some moving animation as well.
EXTRAS:
Commentary: This is a commentary from director Kevin Smith, actors Brian O'Halloran, Jason Mewes and Jeff Anderson, producers Scott Mosier and Dave Mandel as well as supervising director Chris Bailey. After introducing themselves as members of the "Fight Club" production, the commentary generally involves goofing on "the network" that cancelled the show, going into a great deal about some of the meetings and read-throughs that happened with some of the less pleasant network people present. When not joking about the fate of the series, the group jokes about the process of writing and the history of the production, and comments on the inspiration for some of the story ideas. I've listened to all three of the previous Smith commentaries (for "Clerks", "Mallrats" and "Chasing Amy") and this one starts off incredibly funny, but starts to go down a bit a little after halfway through the 6 episodes. Still, like any Smith commentary, it's never boring and there's always a few good laughs around the corner. Suprisingly, you can switch between the commentary and the show with the audio button on the remote, something not usually available on Miramax/Buena Vista Special Edition titles.
Animatics: The full animatics (rough animated versions of each show) are available for all of the episodes. To switch between the animatics and the final product, you just have to hit the angle button on your remote.
The Clerks Style: Smith and the animation designer narrate various stills of concept and final art, chatting about the concepts behind the "style" of the "Clerks" animated series - everything from the backgrounds of the city to the character development. The featurette runs about 3 1/2 minutes.
Character Development: Smith and the animation designer return again to discuss the thoughts behind the look of the characters in the film, going on the style of the original movie. The two narrate as concept art and different versions go by.
Ads: When the unnamed network had high hopes for the series, they put out a Super Bowl ad, which is available here, as well as a film festival ad.
DVD-ROM: The DVD-ROM (Computer) portion includes character profiles, a link to the "destination" website as well as a "script-to-storyboard-to-screen" viewer which crashed when I tried to use it in my (weak) computer.
Intros: Hilarious introductions to each of the episodes by Jay and Silent Bob - viewable when you hit the "play all" button.
Final Thoughts:
Positive: Another fantastic Smith commentary, the unseen and uncensored (minor bits of dialogue restored) episodes as well as good audio/video quality.
Negative: No complaints - like all of Smith's other productions, "Clerks: TAS" recieves fine treatment on DVD.
|