Clerks (1994)

The third film I watched in a “Movies Patrick Watched To Death On DVD In High School” triple feature. Given my experience with revisiting a lot of Smith’s work (lots of grimacing and wondering how I could have ever liked such crap) I was not expecting to like this at all, but I think his clunky and overly wordy screenplays play much better in this super low-budget setting. Amateur monologues sound more natural coming out of amateur actors, I guess. At any rate this is still one of the best movies about the hell of the workplace (and subtle joys of breaking the monotony by shooting the shit with people you’d normally probably never hang out with) and any time it’s allowing the ugly filmmaking and lighting to reflect Dante’s worst day of work it actually works really well. The problem is that’s only about half the movie. The other half dealing with Dante’s love triangle often feels like the worst student-written one-act you’ve ever seen. B-

Red State (2011)

There’s really nothing to it. It’s exactly what you’d imagine, with no surprises, imagination, or developed characters to speak of. Just another average DTV movie. D+