Jersey Girl (2004) ✦ Full-Length Watchalong Reaction
Added 2024-08-10 04:30:01 +0000 UTCThis was a nice "break" (sort of, not really) from the View Askew series, but still in the Kevin Smith wheelhouse. His comedy was definitely in here, but there were many feels throughout. Def wasn't expecting this to be so relatable tbh. I mention it in the video, but for people who don't watch intro's or reviews - I'll be watching Zack and Miri as well! Date TBD, but it will be done. Please enjoy! Looking forward to your comments. [Direct link here.]
✦ KL
Comments
It's hard for me to watch a 2000s Ben Affleck movie and not think of him as Daredevil.
matt
2024-08-12 14:23:27 +0000 UTCJust read a friend's LBX review of the long cut and they show the water main speech instead of cutting to a montage!
Tyler Foster
2024-08-11 05:39:41 +0000 UTCAs with many people currently in their mid-to-late 30s, I grew up on Kevin Smith's movies. Here was a guy who was also a huge nerd who wore his influences on his sleeve and had the kinds of conversations you have with your friends...well, maybe, anyway, if you were a hetero cis guy. However, if Smith has a weakness, it's that being funny is at least in part a defense mechanism against being not conventionally attractive, and I don't know if he's ever grown out of that. Like many of those people, such as myself, that he was speaking to, being self-deprecating was a way to mask a sentimentality that many people, especially those hetero cis guys, worry would make them less cool than they're already convinced they are. Once Jersey Girl gets into the meat of the story after the time jump, it really feels like "the road not traveled" for Smith to me: an imperfect but relatively sincere movie about actual adult themes. The guy lost his dad, and was raising a daughter (his wife appears as that woman who's "never even seen an infant" at the disastrous press conference), and he put that into his art in a way that actually felt mostly mature (although there are still a few bits where his love of crude humor creeps in here, like Lopez's dialogue about everyone being skinny coke whores, or Will's random aside about being hung, and this is more why Liv Tyler propositioning Affleck feels weird to me than any discomfort he has -- it feels like a teenage fantasy more than a conversation between ostensible adults). Honestly, I kind of wish he had left the View Askew-niverse behind (with one exception -- I would've watched any number of seasons of the "Clerks" cartoon) and made more movies like Jersey Girl. For a few years, when the DVD boom was at an all-time high, Smith was well-known for doing 10th anniversary editions, starting with Clerks X, which I once mentioned has one of the best documentaries ever created for home video, The Snowball Effect, although it does feature positive comments and even an on-camera interview with Harvey Weinstein. He also managed to do a 10th anniversary DVD of Mallrats and a 10th anniversary Blu-ray of Chasing Amy, but by the time the 10th anniversary of Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob rolled around, nothing really came of it. Jersey Girl was probably the last time he expressed plans on doing a 10th anniversary edition that never happened, and in the case of this movie, he did do at least some of the work, albeit closer to the 20th anniversary of the movie than the 10th. Last year, on May 28th, at the Smodcastle Cinemas in Highlands, NJ, he unveiled "Jersey Girl: The Snyder Cut," which restored the film to something closer to his original script. Apparently, this mainly means that Lopez is in it for the entire first act, with the relationship playing out for longer than the opening credits. Although no plans have been announced, I think there's at least a reasonable chance that this could actually come out on video eventually. I'd definitely be interested in seeing it.
Tyler Foster
2024-08-11 05:32:51 +0000 UTCI didn’t expect to see you cry. Your reaction in that moment choked me up and added to the weight. I believe this is Kevin Smith’s most personal movie. I think Chasing Amy was the best script, pace, and overall movie but this story has so much heart. I can’t believe this movie is 20 years old. I saw this in theaters. Not going to share specifics but this hits home for me too. Little did I know shortly after watching this movie I would become a single a father to 2 daughters. And apparently I did a good enough job because we’re very close. It’s just the 3 of us. When my grandson was born I chose to be called Pop-Pop literally because of Gertie’s Pop. Now for my comments on the movie: He actually used an infant as baby Gertie as compared to 1 year olds movies usually try to pass off as newborns. It adds to the believability of the movie. Ollie is wearing a wedding ring for the entire movie. He loved his wife so much. He didn’t just lose his wife, he lost his life and life plan. It was a lot at once. I get his reaction, and his dad gave him some good tough love to snap him out of it. I thought both George & Ben worked as father and son. I definitely miss walking into a video rental place and picking out a movie on a Saturday night. I understand we need Gertie to flush the toilet and it’s great when it comes back around so she can catch her dad and Maya in the shower. But that kid was never told to wash her hands, nor did she wash them. That bothers me. My favorite moment in your reaction was when Gertie has the tables turned on her dad and Maya’s intentions. You do seem to love it when quotes come back around like that in movies. My second favorite reaction was when we hear Will Smith’s voice. You immediately recognized it and picked up exactly where the movie was heading. Great couple of minutes there. I also have no idea why we don’t get to hear Ollie convince the crowd to let them fix the water main. It has always bothered me. Maybe Kevin just didn’t want to write it out? It seems like a really odd choice. And the little girl, Raquel Castro, won an award for her role in the movie. A Young Artist Award. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Thanks, as always for sharing.
Bryan Dempsey
2024-08-11 04:22:51 +0000 UTCThat whole Sweeney Todd performance lives rent-free in my head and I love every second, especially the stunned silence and Ben Affleck saying "Shit". That and Gertie saying "What are your intentions?" This movie had so much humor and heart and emotion. Kevin Smith gets pegged as the Silent Bob guy but man he's good at writing real stories with real consequences. That Will Smith cameo was a welcome surprise too. I miss this version of Will when Jaden and Willow were little and he had so much love and hope in his life. Now his kids are grown, his wife's...well, she has her own issues... and he's just lost that spark he used to have that's so evident even in a tiny scene like in this movie. It's a tragedy in itself which ironically elevates this film even more looking back on it because it magnifies the things you should appreciate or gives you insight into what to pass on to your kids. Great selection, I loved getting to revisit this one :)
Nathan Jasper, the Artist Formerly Known as Primary
2024-08-10 06:35:43 +0000 UTCI really like this movie. Probably Kevin Smith’s most underrated film. It has genuine heart and characters you can’t help but care about. Will definitely be watching first thing tomorrow morning!
HugoBoss435
2024-08-10 06:31:29 +0000 UTCZack and Miri...the last movie I saw that Smith wrote and directed. (The last one I watched was Cop Out, the film he made right after, which was the first project he made where he directed but didn't write it.) This, I haven't seen in at least 15 years -- I don't think I saw it when it was new, in 2004, but I did see it once. It'll have to wait until tomorrow, but of anything left in his filmography, I'm probably most interested in seeing how I feel about this.
Tyler Foster
2024-08-10 05:06:23 +0000 UTC
