Clerks 2

This one was written quickly, 10 minutes at lunch. My home computer crapped out so any updating I do will have to be done from work. This movie was so funny though, I had to get a review up here. Yes, it's likely full of typos and punctuation mistakes. So what's new? Here it is:

Clerks 2

Clerks 2 is destined to join it’s predecessor among the ranks of wildly popular cult classics. Kevin Smith took his sweet time continuing the adventures of Dante and Randall but it was well worth it. The zany life observations, hysterical Jay and Silent Bob routines and general slacker motife are well polished and seem new all over again.

In Clerks 2 Dante find the Quick Stop burning to the ground one morning, forcing him to abandon the dead end job that has held him back for years and wore away what little self esteem he had. Of course, he immediately migrates to another dead end job as a fry cook at a McDonaldsesque franchise called MOOBYS where he is joined by fellow slacker Randall. Hysterically, Jay and Silent Bob take up counsel on the wall outside just as they had perched for years outside the Quick Stop.

In short order we find that Dante is engaged and moving away, all the while having second thoughts about an affair he had with Becky, played by Rosario Dawson. His love life is a microcosm of his life in general as Dante never knows what he wants or what he should do. He lasted 15 years as a clerk at a convenience store because he didn’t know what he wanted to do and here he’s torn between two women, one of whom wants a commitment, and he just can’t make up his mind.

Dante is an interesting character. He’s not lazy in the traditional sense; he’s a hard worker, comes in on his days off, cares about the company and is generally absurdly dedicated to a pithy, meaningless job (like a certain ex-restaurant manager I know). Dante’s problem is he’s intellectually lazy. He wanders through life with no direction and makes no meaningful attempt to orient himself. He doesn’t know what he wants to do and he doesn’t want to think about it. He’s depressed about where he is in life and reluctant to even think about it. It’s a vicious circle.

Perhaps the most interesting thing is that most of us, if we really think about it, have feared at one time or another that we would wind up just like him. Each of us has faced the same life choices Dante does, some of us got caught in a rut for a while trying to make them. When you see Dante you might find him familiar. Chances are you know or knew someone just like him. Chances are even better that you wipe your brow, sigh and think “Phew, I’m glad I pulled myself out of that rut/dead end job. That could’ve been me up there.”

Now Randall, on the other hand, is really just a loser. As amusing as he is he can also irritate. Not nearly as smart as he thinks he is Randall is not only directionless but lazy to boot. He follows Dante around waiting for him to become inspired and succeed, hopefully bringing Randall along for the ride. He sits perched in one dead end place after another hoping to ride Dante’s coat tails. Why he would choose to hitch his cart to the most indecisive lost soul he could is unknowable.

As Dante struggles with his woman troubles, Jay and Silent Bob peddle dope outside and Randall struggles with the thought that his friend/leader is moving out of state, a lot of hilarious stuff happens. Clerks 2 is nothing short of hysterical.

For some reason the fact that Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson can’t really act only adds to the film. It seems a little more real somehow. These characters could easily have become pretentious losers if they felt at all put on but O’Halloran and Anderson seem to bring them to life. Dante and Randall are more than likely the only two characters in the history of film that these two could play convincingly. The convergence of Kevin Smith’s razor sharp wit and these actors is truly lightning in a bottle.

At the end of the day Clerk 2 is funny, satirical and absolutely a winner. You’ll get up and thank God your not Dante but you’ll sure be glad someone is.

Sony Outlets in Woodbury

OK, this might not be exactly movie related. It’s a stretch. What follows are some observations based on my quest to obtain a great surround sound system at a reasonable price.

The Store: The Sony Outlet In Woodbury, NY

The Product: A Sony HTIB Unit. 6.1 channel, 815 watts, 5 DVD changer and subwoofer and amplifier.

Before I get to the Sony store and this particular product, some comments on the outlets themselves.

There is an Applebees restaurant to sit down, have a beer and some food, and think about which store to stroll through next. Having eaten there twice in the past month I can only ask why? My recent experiences there confirmed for me what I always believed: Applebees is the worst of the worst when it comes to chain restaurants. I have never, ever, had a decent experience there. This food is not even edible. It’s a great mystery to me how this chain has thrived as it’s the worst crap on a plate you can imagine. The sandwich served to my fiancée should be a criminal offense. It looked like a baby threw up in a stale roll.
Well, at least the service is consistently bad. Oh, but the did invent the riblet. A handy little piece of meat that you might believe to be boneless ribs. Aha! They have found a way to cleverly conceal a little shard of bone like a guitar pick in each piece. That’s right, instead of the inconvenience of having to hold onto a bone and eat you can now pop that little sucker right in your mouth and pray you don’t choke to death. Brilliant!

Now for Sony. The outlets claim they sell refurbished goods for discount prices. Refurbished, their sales staff helpfully points out, can mean something as simple as this: the box was badly damaged and the item had to be repackaged, thus inspected again and labeled refurbished. According to the SONY website, it can also mean an item was returned with original packaging as defective and was inspected/repaired and labeled refurbished. Most returns don’t involve defects so it’s a circuitous route to “repackaged.”

So with this definition in mind I purchased a fairly expensive system and gave it to my fiancée for her birthday. To my surprise the unit looked as though it had fallen off a moving truck and was thrown into a box for me. The amplifier was dented, some of the speakers ripped and scratched. Sounds like a little more than repackaging. Unless by “damaged packaging” they meant someone parked a car on the box and ripped it. However, the unti still performed very well and sounded great, it just looked like Hell. It’s not like this was some 50 dollar purchase where I expected some wear and tear either.

So, back I go to the outlets, a 2 hour drive. I explain to the manager that it’s unacceptable to have this happen. That I had to drive 2 hours to replace this “miserable squashed thing” (movie reference there). Well, there’s only one unit like the one I purchased left, and it’s the display model. Upon letting him know how I felt about that idea, he was persuaded to upgrade me to the next unit and make it a brand new one. I should say, to be fair, that he was polite and courteous the entire time and seemed genuinely interested in making me a happy customer.

So I ask, is the DVD player the same in this model? Yes, he says. Same 5 DVD changer. And the amplifier is more powerful! And it’s got another speaker! So I get home and unpack it. Guess what? It’s not the same DVD player. It’s got an extra speaker and yet the center channel speaker is much smaller than the one I returned. My brother tells me smaller is better now with surround sound and some of my own research seems to back that up, so perhaps that is an upgrade. We’ll see when I hear it. However, I loved that other DVD player. Why say it’s the same model when it isn’t? How hard is this?

Look, this isn’t rocket science. You sold me a battered unit that some Iraqi might find cutting edge and sleek but I just found it to be dented and scratched. You should fall all over yourself to make this right. Be a little embarrassed maybe. When I ask if the DVD player is the same, do you think it might be because I liked the other one? Do you think you should check to make sure? I’m going to finish hooking the unit up tonight. If this does not perform appreciably better than the last one, someone at the Sony outlet is going to have a long phone call tomorrow morning. I see no reasonable excuse for this nonsense.

Now, to the outlets. The stores themselves are cool to walk through, some prices were pretty great, others not so much. Take care what you buy, the word “outlet” on the door does not guarantee a great deal.

What’s more, people shopping there from the city and from a seeming slew of other countries, seem to feel as though ramming into people is an expected behavior in polite society. If you see someone waling your direction and they obviously have no room to maneuver, the thing to do is ram right into them. Because they should have, you know, thrown themselves into the shrubbery to get out of your way. However, if you inadvertently back up and nudge someone, they will shoot daggers at you as though you just insulted their mothers.

Take a good long look, while your there, at the women’s shoe stores. Particularly the Nine West outlet. Then tell me men are slobs. It looks like a Hurricane made of shoes stopped spinning in the middle of the store leaving pumps, heels and something called “sling backs” to fall wherever they felt like it. There’s open boxes, ripped boxes, socks, abandoned mismatched shoes and and the like everywhere. These women got so excited about the shoe prices they couldn’t try them on fast enough. You have to literally kick the shoes from your path as you walk. Hopefully you will not bump into someone while falling over the mound of shoes as this would be a grave offense indeed.

Superman Returns

Superman Returns is a substandard superhero film that fails to capture any of the spark or fun of the original 1978 Superman. Fueled by Christopher Reeves perfectly capturing the essence of the comic and by Margot Kidder brining a zest, snappy Lois Lane to life, the original Superman easily outshines this lifeless hulk of a film.

Bryan Singer’s version of Superman is sullen and brooding at times, he seems depressed and is constantly in a state of reflection. It’s as though Singer confused him with the darker Batman character. Played by Brandon Routh the character fails to come to life and offers zero chemistry with the equally ho-hum Lois Lane played by Kate Bosworth.

Routh has little screen presence and, in fairness to the newcomer, is offered very little to work with. The dialogue is virtually non-existent and all his moods are dark ones. He is called upon to look sad, speak little and do great blue screen work. Clark Kent is virtually forgotten in this film and the movie completely ignores the fun that the Kent character brought to the Lois Lane relationship.

As for Bosworth, all I can say is that she appears to have phoned in this performance. The Margot Kidder Lois Lane was tough in a sassy sort of way, she was funny and capable of working herself into a lather. The Bosworth version is more hard-as-nails and listless than anything.

Singer gives Lois and Superman a child for reasons that never really become clear. The child is from their prior relationship and Lane’s current fiancée, Richard White, believe the boy to be his. The problem is the film does nothing with the kid. He stares off into space a lot, seems rather sickly for some unknown reason, and utters the occasional sentence. He’s not really a plot device of any kind and does little to further the story.

Also sinking this film is the fact that it’s plain old anti-climatic. Kevin Spacey plays Lex Luthor in a performance that seems without passion or wit. He’s not bumbling like some previous incarnations of Luthor nor is he particularly sarcastic or witty. He’s just sort of mean and pathological. He beats the stuffing out of Superman in what I believed would be the start of a brilliant battle but it just sort of fizzles out.

In the end Superman returns is an underwhelming film that captures none of the essence of joy of the character or the previous films. Yes, there is a spectacular plane rescue that’s visually stunning but practically offers no suspense or tension. Much like the film that is way too long, poorly paced and just plain lifeless. If you want a superhero movie that offers passionate acting, excitement and characters that seem genuine to us, rent Batman Begins and watch it again. If your Bryan Singer or Brandon Routh rent the original Superman and watch the pros at work.