The first Death Star was manned by the Imperial Army. The only people on board
were stormtroopers, dignitaries, Imperials. Basically.
So when they blew it up, no problem. Evil's punished. And the second time
around? The second time around, it wasn't even done being built yet. It was still
under construction. So? So a construction job of that magnitude would require
a hell of a lot more manpower than the Imperial Army had to offer.
I'll bet they brought independent contractors in on that thing.
Plumbers, aluminum siders, roofers. Not just Imperials, is that what you're
getting at? Exactly. In order to get it built quickly and quietly, they'd hire anybody
that can do the job. Think the
average stormtrooper knows how to install a toilet main? All they know is killing in
white uniforms. Alright, so they bring in independent contractors. Why are you so
upset at its destruction? All those innocent contractors brought in to do the job were
killed. Casualties of a war they had nothing to do with. Alright, look,
you're a roofer. Some juicy government contract comes your way. You got a
wife and kids, the 2-story in suburbia. This is a government contract, which means all
sorts of benefits. Along come these left-wing militants and blast everything within a
3-mile radius with their lasers. You didn't ask for that. You have no personal politics.
You're just trying to scrape out a living. Excuse me, I don't mean
to interrupt, but, uh, what are you talking about? The ending of Return of the
Jedi. My friend here is trying to convince me that any independent contractors who were
working on the uncompleted Death Star were innocent victims when it was destroyed by the
Rebels. Well, I'm a contractor myself. I'm a roofer. Done and ready
home improvements. And speaking as a roofer, I can tell you a
roofer's personal politics comes into play heavily when choosing jobs. Like what?
3 weeks ago, I was offered a job up in the hills. Beautiful house,
tons of property, a simple reshingling job. They told me if
I could finish it in 1 day, I would double my price.
Then I realized whose house it was. Whose house was it?
Dominic Bambino's. Babyface Bambino?
The gangster? The same. The money was right, but the
risk was too high. I knew who he was, and based on that, I turned
the job over to a friend of mine. Based on personal politics.
Right, and then next week, the Faressi family put a hit on Baby Face's
house. My friend was shot and killed. Didn't even finish re-shingling.
No way. I'm alive because I knew the risk involved in that particular
client. My friend wasn't so lucky.
Any contractor working on that Death Star knew the risk involved.
If they got killed, it's their own fault. A roofer listens
to this. Not his wallet.
It's 2 Dads 1 Movie. It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads
sit around and shoot the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s.
Here are your hosts, Steve Paulo and Nic Briana.
Hello everybody, welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nic. And today we are marching through the '90s in 2
Dads 2 Decades, and we have arrived at the year 1994. and we have
watched the movie Clerks, written and directed by Kevin Smith.
And this is one that I'm bringing to the table, and I just want to
kind of make it clear, like, I am a homer for this movie. Basically,
I am, I am a super fan, a stan, whatever you want to call it.
I, you know, this was the first Kevin Smith movie that I saw.
I saw it not the year it came out, probably, but like within a year,
rented it from Blockbuster, you know, like 15 or so. And it
immediately had an effect on me. It was like, oh my God, you can make
a movie and, you know, you can just have your friends in it and just
have it be in one place. And like, you know, there was— there's, there's obviously
we'll get into all the details, but there's elements of the way Smith was writing
dialogue for characters that is maybe a little too erudite
at this point in his career, but still was like so refreshing and different and
something that I'd never seen before that it really, you know, made me think about
like, well, how do movies actually get made? That was maybe— this was maybe the
first movie that had me thinking about how do you make a movie?
'Cause this was clearly a dude with a bunch of his friends getting together to
make a movie. And now I was watching it 'cause I rented it at Blockbuster.
Like how insane is that, right? So yeah, so Clerks is just something that
I've seen a ton of times and had a huge impact on me. But Nic,
I understand maybe less of a thing in your life, this movie. Yeah, so I
mean, this was around and I definitely heard about it and
knew that people were really into it, probably around this kind of like late
high school time, the Blockbuster card era. Yeah.
Um, and I saw it then, and then I never really,
uh, you know, I think so much of it depends on like what the
people around you are into. Like when your friends are bringing up movies, okay,
it's my turn to show something, like this is what I'm gonna put. And nobody,
uh, that I was hanging with was like super hardcore into Kevin Smith. Interesting.
So this didn't really come back up again. So I saw this in probably,
I don't know, '97. Okay. And then, uh, didn't see it again.
I've seen Dogma and Red State.
Okay, that might be it. Oh my gosh.
Um, so yeah, so I, I have some, uh,
viewist universe to, uh, to learn about, I guess.
So yeah, I don't have much of a history with this, so it was interesting
kind of seeing this as something that was like groundbreaking
and, and innovative in the mid-'90s and watching this
in the mid-2020s. Yeah, you know, seeing like, all right,
am I, what am I pulling the same stuff from? Yeah, well, I assure you
one thing, we will be doing— there were 4 Kevin Smith movies in the '90s,
and we will cover all 4 at some point on this podcast. I guarantee that
much. Let's jump into the facts on Clerks. The movie Clerks was released on October
19th, 1994 with an R rating and a running time of 92 minutes.
It was written and directed by Kevin Smith and stars Brian O'Halloran,
Jeff Anderson, and Marilyn Gigliotti, I think is how you pronounce her name.
Scores on Rotten Tomatoes, 90% fresh, a 7.7
from IMDb, which is pretty legit, and 2 thumbs up from Siskel
and Ebert. It did not win a lot of major awards at the time of
its release, although it did pull down certain awards. I think it was like at
Cannes, it was the Youth Awards, basically like the young people choosing. It's like
a People's Choice Award element of Cannes. This one— like a fancy Nickelodeon
Kids' Choice Award. Sort of, I think. Yeah. And then also won an award
at Sundance. And so this was kind of a, you know, it was a festival
darling film at the time. And it was added to the National Film
Registry in 2019. But here's the interesting, fun thing about
Clerks. If you ever want to know facts about this movie, this is the most
important fact to know. This movie was made for $27,500.
$2,175. Smith says he knows that that's the amount because that was the
total added up debt limits on
all the credit cards he could open. And he just maxed every credit card
he could get his hands on in order to finance this movie.
At the box office, it made, and I did it down to the dollar for
this one, $3,158,707 for
115 times what it cost to make,
which is just so astronomical. But like, how do you make a movie for less
than $2,000? $28 grand. I mean, really,
it's— we've seen movies with very low budgets. Nightmare on Elm Street was like $1.5
million. I think Breakfast Club was like $1 million. And these are great movies.
Yeah. And they look maybe more like movies than this one does.
Right. But $27,000, just to get anything done for that much money
is very impressive. Just to get film developed and like everything. So yeah. So those
are the facts on Clerks. Uh, let's go ahead and dive in.
First thing I just want to mention, if you've You know, Clerks is filmed in
black and white, and it was filmed in black and white because the film and
the processing were cheaper. That's why it was filmed in black and white. Uh,
there was— I also read that the, um, when they were setting up the lighting
and stuff, it was difficult to get lighting that had a consistent color, uh,
scheme or whatever. That's true too. There was— so, and the black and white masks
some of those limitations. Yeah, it, it, there was— so it's cheaper and everything.
Then also, yes, I think the way I read it was something like, because a
convenience store is filled with colorful labels and signs and whatever,
it looked like a fucking mess just to try and film in there. But,
you know, by doing it in black and white, yeah, it kind of mutes all
that. But we don't start off at the convenience store in this movie. We start
off in the closet, really. The phone rings. It's a messy room,
clothes all over the floor. There's a dog sitting there just chilling.
But coming out of the closet door, falling backwards
because he's been sleeping in there for some reason, is the hero of our tale,
Dante Hicks. And Dante answers the phone, and we can tell from just hearing his
side of the conversation that basically He was closed at the store last night,
has been up late. He's got hockey to play at 2:00, but this is his
boss saying somebody couldn't make it. You got to come in and cover. He's like,
okay, but you'll be there by noon, right? Yeah, I'll be there. You know,
kind of thing. So he is guaranteed if you show up at work and,
you know, when you're not supposed to, I'll be there by noon and
you'll be able to play your hockey game. So he goes in. He's a good
guy. So we get a little montage of kind of Dante starting his day,
the dog eating and drinking water out of the toilet. Dante putting on his shoes,
just your standard sort of getting ready stuff. Right. And his coffee, serving himself coffee
in like the lid of the cookie jar. Yes, that's right.
And so this is kind of very— it's like a version of the way you
have a renegade cop who plays by his own rules, start his own day,
you know? Absolutely. So instead of like rolling over into like pizza box and beer
cans, like he has all his shit that he's doing. So Dante clearly like a
slob and living that life which, you know, so many of us have experienced where
you have a job where you don't know your schedule until like the week before,
but then also they can call you any fucking day, you know?
So yeah, that shit sucks. So we're with Dante that we don't want to go
to work right now. Yeah, absolutely. But he does go in. We see him
drive in. When he gets there, he's got a, you know, there's a bunch of
those like rolling sort of steel doors. He opens up the one that's for the
actual like walk-in door, goes inside, starts setting stuff up. He's turning lights.
It shows the basic stuff. You're making that first pot of coffee. You're turning all
the lights on. You're turning all the signs on, whatever. He notices that there's no
newspaper that was delivered. So he goes with a single quarter to
like a neighboring like newsstand thing, whatever, and takes all the newspapers out with
the one quarter, essentially stealing a bunch of newspapers for his employer. Interesting choice.
Gets the quarter back, which is fun. [Speaker] It's a good movie thing. You never
buy a single newspaper with a quarter. Oh, you open up that door?
Hand them out to your friends. Hey, look, I made the paper. But then
he has to go back out to open up the rest of these sliding steel
doors. And that's when he notices that the other 2 that are closed, somebody has
shoved gum into the locks. So there's not, without a locksmith coming or, you know,
basically you'd have to cut that lock off and put a new one on or
something, 'cause it's not, he's not gonna get anything out of it. So he finds
like a tarp in his trunk and he gets some shoe polish from the store
and he creates a sign that says, "I assure you we are open." Yeah,
I think it's Sign Management, I think is what it says on it or something
like that. Yeah. And that— and this is, you know, something that I learned
about the film is that they had to film it all at night.
So it was kind of like a workaround. So this is one of those things
that you can definitely appreciate no matter what you think of the
movie, is just like taking what you've been given to work with and
working it into the film in a way that adds to
it. Yeah, right. So it could just be like, yeah, well, it's night, we don't
show the outside of the store or whatever, but it's kind of in a funny
way addressing like the reason why everything's going to be, you know,
dark inside the store. Yeah, exactly. It's, it's, it was a thing of like,
you know, Smith got the owner of the, the Quick Stop and the RST.
These are real businesses. He worked at RST Video, Kevin Smith did.
And so he got the owner to agree to let him do this. And it
was like, yeah, you can just like do some shots, whatever, in the video store
during the day because people don't come in there that much. Like you can work
around that. But like, he's like, no, the convenience store, people are in and out
of there all the time. I'm not going to close anything. So they shot a
bunch of the exterior shots and the shots on the roof, whatever, during the day
so that the lighting was reasonable. But every single shot that takes place anywhere other
than the doorway. There are a couple shots, a couple scenes that are shot where
they're kind of standing inside the convenience store, but at the door, and you can
see that it's light out. But any of the shots where the characters are like
behind the counter or deeper in the store or whatever, that was all done at
night. And so, yeah, the closed, the locked closed steel doors are the
way to kind of do that and not make it be like, wait a minute,
why is it dark outside? So again, that kind of creativity is the kind of
thing that lets you make a movie for $27,570.
The one of the first people that Dante has to deal
with as a customer is this guy buying coffee, and he asks like, hey,
can I just sit here? Drink this coffee. He's like, yeah, I don't care,
whatever. Guy walks up, another guy walks up to— and why would you want to
do that, right? Well, we found out why in a second, but yes, it doesn't
make any sense. It's a very strange thing. It's also another one of my pet
peeves about movies though. It's a clearly empty cup that he's like sipping from.
I hate that. I just put some water in it or something, like make it
like— give it some weight, give us some physics here, give us so that there's
something to sip, like, I don't know. But yeah, so it's, uh, but it's an
empty cup. But a guy walks up to buy a pack of cigarettes and the
guy, the customer, goes Sure about that? Is that what you want? You sure about
that? And he's like, and he pulls a blackened lung out of his duffel
bag and it's like, oh my God, what is that? Well, that's what your lung
looks like now. You've been smoking this long and stuff. And he's basically just like,
hey, you know, you can choose to not smoke. Why don't you buy some gum
here? Here, buy some Chuli's gum. And he makes a big deal about buy this
gum. And, and so, you know, Dante's kind of like, the guy leaves
with the gum and then Dante says, hey, if you're going to drink that here,
I don't want you to bother the customers. Like, no, no, no, I think I'm
fine. I'll talk to whoever I want to. He's very, now, you know, he was
asking permission to drink the coffee there. Now he's like, asserting his dominance basically.
And Dante doesn't have any balls to tell him to
leave, so he stays there. Yeah, and so this guy's like
harassing everybody that comes up to buy cigarettes. He's got his presentation
material. Oh yeah, and he's now— he's got a crowd gathered. He's like,
you know, like, oh, you know, do we have to pay for— it's like somebody
says like, oh, we're all gonna die anyways. Yeah, sure, but do we have to
pay for the privilege? Do we have to like buy our cancer? And like all
this stuff. And please, Mr. Merchant of Death, sir,
please sell me something that stinks up my breath and my clothes, like whatever.
And it's just like, poor Dante is like, it's his fucking fault. He's just
like, whatever. Um, but they're literally start throwing cigarettes at him, calling him
cancer merchant. Yeah, cancer merchant, cancer merchant, throwing the cigarettes
at him. And that's when Veronica, Dante's girlfriend, shows up and grabs
a fire extinguisher from, I guess, near the front of the store and fire extinguishes
everybody in the crowd. Yeah, finally somebody has
a little bit of, uh, a little bit of hutzpah, a little
bit of oomph. Yeah, yeah. And so then it turns out this guy who was
giving the anti-smoking, uh, spiel is a
Chewlee's Gum representative. Yes. So this is their guerrilla marketing technique,
I guess, or just a guy who's very passionate about his job. I think,
you know, yeah, I mean, it's either way. And this is the first moment.
So Veronica's, uh, uh, the actress who plays Veronica, uh,
Marilyn Gigliotti, like, um, okay, I'm just gonna put it
this way. The acting in this movie is not great, just, just kind of across
the board. Yeah, these are very sort of like amateur actors. They obviously— Brian O'Halloran,
that's one way you make a movie for $27,000. Absolutely. You don't
have to pay your friends, you know, so it's not a SAG job You don't
have to pay scale. But no, Brian O'Halloran and Jeff Anderson are passable. I think
Anderson, the guy who plays Randall, is probably the best actor of the group,
maybe. Yeah. The two of them though are pretty equal to each other. And then
almost everybody else is like quite a bit of a step down from that.
Pretty bad. And the biggest problem I have is that Veronica seems to
stumble over Kevin Smith's dialogue fairly often. Like she says,
the way she delivers the line, which is something like, oh, you're Chewlee's gum
representative and you're, you know, stoking all this anti-smoking sentiment to what, sell more gum?
The way she does it is like, You're stoking all this anti-smoking sentiment to
what? Selmore Gunn? And it's like this kind of pressured speech of like, she's trying
to sound like angry. And it's like, you don't sound angry by doing that.
You sound angry by being calmer than you should be. And that makes you sound
angry. You know, there's little things like that, but she struggles with a lot of
the dialogue through most of the movie. Yeah, it's kind of an issue that I
have. I don't love the way the dialogue is. I don't really love this
style. Yeah. And yeah, you do notice it a lot where
it's like, okay, like, it has to be catered
a little bit to the actor's normal cadence or their ability, because if
their natural delivery is completely like issued
for the way that it's supposed to be, then it doesn't— it works and it
seems very forced. So yeah, like you said, it could be just the limitations of
the actor. So if you had a more skilled actor, they could deliver that a
little bit better. And a more experienced writer-director would have been doing rewrites during
shooting, right? Like, they would have been rewriting these lines to make them still say
the same thing with the way the character— that they want the character to be,
but in a way that the the actor wasn't fighting against it. Yeah, that's a
good point too. And that's the thing that like Smith, you know, you don't have
this problem, A, because later he gets to work with better and better actors over
time, obviously, as he gets budget, but also he learns things about,
you know, how to adjust. And I do think that he's got that sort of
like auteur flag he flies and he doesn't like to change things just to change
them 'cause they're his vision. But I do think there's an element of that,
that anybody, you know, with more experience than he had in 1993
or 1994 while filming this, it would've been a little different. But it is one
of the places in which the movie lacks a bit is in the
delivery of some of this dialogue. And I think it's equally Smith doing
too much with the words and the actors not just really being up
to the challenge. Yeah. So Dante
and Veronica are like kind of sitting behind the counter now. She's painting
her nails, like kind of— He's painting her nails. He's painting her nails. She's sitting
behind him. Yeah. The business is still continuing. There's just
a sign that says, please leave money on the counter, and they're just sitting right
behind the counter. Yeah. And she asked him like, aren't you— don't— won't people steal
stuff? How do you know that they're leaving the right amount? He goes, eh,
people see money out in a sign, they think they're being watched. Yeah. And it's
just coffee and newspaper at this time of the morning. Yeah. Yeah. Um, so they're
talking about, uh, you know, sex,
sexual history. Sure. Yeah. You know, the usual, uh,
conversation that always ends well. Right. I, I think, uh,
It's never any problems. Look, the body count,
you never want that information more than it will damage
you by hearing it. There's no— first, before you ever ask this, think about what's
your perfect answer and what's, what's going to happen if the answer is
different than that and how will you deal with that? And then tell yourself,
you know what, let's talk about something else. Yeah, right. Yeah. I think it's important
to understand not just what information you're trying to get because we know what that
is, but like, what is it that you think you're going to do with that
information? Yeah. And what do you think about that action will improve things for you?
Right. And if and when you think about it that for a second, it should
become quite clear that it does not fucking matter and you don't want to know.
Yeah. And so we have, we have Dante and Veronica, and Veronica's
like, you know, well, how many, how many women have you slept with? He's like,
I slept with 12 women. How about you? And she's like, you know, it's 3
or 4 guys. I forgot what her number is. She says 3. 3. But I
mean, but so she loses it on him at the 12, calls him a pig,
and like, because they're like 22, this is, you know, like, so 12 people in,
let's assume, maybe 6 years of sexual activeness for him. That is
kind of a lot at that age. So she's like, you pig, oh my God,
you know. And so what was there for you? And she said, 3, and it's—
that's including you. So it's 2 other guys and then him. And he's kind of
like, oh, okay, yeah, cool, cool. And, um, then there's a,
a character that shows up named Willem, uh, and, uh, Willem,
I think, just ordered some cigarettes or whatever, but it's like, you know, oh hey
Veronica, like I know you, like how's it going? And she's like, oh hey,
you know, like there's clearly like a history there. Um, and they— he asks her
about her friend Sylvan and like whatever. And so then when she leaves— when he
leaves, Veronica says There goes Snowball. He's like, why do you call him Snowball?
He's like, oh, it's a sex thing. And he likes, even after a blowjob,
he likes having it spit back into his mouth. He gets off on it.
And she's like, oh my— Dante's like, oh my God, Sylvan can get talked into
anything. And that's Veronica's like, well, no, not Sylvan. Like,
I snowballed him. And he's like, wait a minute. Like, you didn't mention him
in your list of 3 people. And she's like, oh yeah, no, I didn't.
I never slept with him. I just went down on him. And she's— and that's
when he starts losing it. He goes, well, how many guys have you gone down
on then? And she's like, I don't know, something like 36. And he's like,
what does something like 36 mean? I'm like, that's so insane. Uh,
and it's 37 including Dante, but he loses his shit.
He loses it. And you know, Dante is a very good-looking,
likable, successful guy, and he deserves to have these ridiculously high standards
for a woman asking a question that she didn't want to answer. To be
fair, you're landing on the point. That's not the point that's missed. That is the
point, is that Dante is that way. It's like, oh Jesus Christ, so self-absorbed.
Um, and, uh, this snowball— so there's a couple
I think this is one of those things, and movies will do this sometimes,
where they introduce something that's like just in the culture or on
the streets, but the movie is the first time that a lot of people hear
about it. And then the movie kind of gets credit for introducing a thing where
it's like, well, you just picked this thing up from being around. American Pie introducing
the concept of MILF is a good example, right? So like, this is one of
those things where I'm just kind of like, all right, like you wrote a joke
about snowballing, but I'm not giving you credit for like making this up or
anything like that. Yeah. And, uh, I don't know. So there's a couple of things
in this where it's like, all right, that was just around there. And then you're
having the guy say, yeah, you didn't come up with this.
Um, but yeah, so Dante is very mad at his girlfriend.
And then I think another customer comes in and he's like, oh, my girlfriend just
told me she sucked 37 dicks. And the guy's like, in a row?
I love it there. I love that. But I think the better joke is actually
as she leaves, he follows her out and yells after her,
trying not to suck any dick on your way out to the parking lot.
Yeah. At which point another guy, random guy, stay there, starts following her and he
goes, hey, get back here. That part, that's my
favorite. I didn't notice that. Oh my God, he starts walking, the guy's, "Hey,
get back here." Like, yeah, that was actually funny when,
I always thought it was funny that the first
draft that Smith wrote of Clerks II that ended up getting out in the early
2000s was 137 pages long. And I thought it was funny that it was 137.
But yeah, so now we're getting introduced to Randal. He works at RST Video,
the store next door, and he's like showing
up. But like, I think before that, it's the old guy is like trying to
return a video to Dante because like the store's not open
or whatever. And he's like, hey, like, where's that idiot? That's not a hard job,
whatever. And the guy's just like giving Dante shit. Uh, and but as
he goes to leave, usually he leaves the tape, but he also forgets his keys.
And so Dante's like, you forgot your keys? And he like just drops them into
the garbage can. And, uh, so now Randall shows up and he goes over to
get the keys to RST Video from Dante and some tapes that need to be
returned. Uh, and he spots the old guy like on his way out, and the
guy's like, hey, have you seen a set of keys around here? And for whatever
reason doesn't really make any sense. Randall quotes Temple of Doom, goes, "No time for
love, Dr. Jones." And I don't know why that's in there, but I love that
he says that. I mean, and this is a big deal with this
movie. It's just like people of our
age range, you know, Gen X, millennials are very into like quoting movies
and shows and stuff. You know, it's funny, older people, like I'll hear boomers a
lot will say stuff to me like, you know, nobody tells jokes
anymore. You used to be able to tell. And it's not. And I always have
to tell them, 'Cause this is something that's like meaningful to me. Like I do
comedy. I think about this stuff a lot. It's not that you can't tell jokes.
It's just that the way we communicate humor to each other as a generation
is different. Yes. But if you're born in the '50s, you're like,
hey, you know, one Italian, a Belgian, and a Mexican walk into
a bar. That's the way you do it. And the way we do it is
drop quotes from like movies that we've all seen in Star Wars and Indiana Jones
and stuff. And I think this was the first, movie that kind of addressed
that? Oh, aside from like just super generic, ultra broad quotes
from very well-known movies that you might hear in another movie. Yeah, I, I,
I was looking at you, kid. Like, the Ninja Turtles say that. I would challenge
anyone to find a film released before 1994 wherein a character
discusses almost anything about Temple of Doom
or Star Wars the way that they do in this movie. Do you know what
I mean? Like, it would surprise me. I can't remember if there was like like,
you know, certainly to the extent that they discuss Star Wars is like not anything
that ever happens. It comes later in the movie. But like, you know, that level
of sort of detail of like plot they end up discussing is strange. But quoting
Temple of Doom is like, even among the Indiana
Jones movies, that's like the deeper cut. Yeah. You know what I mean? Well,
he didn't say like the thing and then be like, Temple of Doom, ever seen
it? 'Cause I didn't catch that Temple of Doom quote. Oh yeah, Short Round,
yeah, yeah. But yeah, Yeah, so I think next
up is, uh, Dante learns, uh, there he's talking about how,
yeah, he's dating Veronica, but he's been talking to his ex-girlfriend Caitlin Bree.
Caitlin and him have been like chatting. She doesn't live in the area anymore,
but you know, they've been chatting a bunch, and he's kind of thinking like,
yeah, maybe they can get back together. He's— this is like the one that got
away for Dante, basically. Um, and, uh, and he's like, yeah, you know, I think
it's the reason. And Randall's kind of like, oh, you think that's gonna— Randall's reading
the paper. He goes, oh, you think you got a chance? Yeah, I think there's
like a real chance. Like, what about Veronica? Well, you know, I'll have to talk
to her. He's like, yeah. He's like, I think all four of you should sit
down and talk. He's like, four? He's like, yeah, you Veronica, Caitlin, and Caitlin's
fiancé. And there's an announcement and like an engagement announcement
in the paper. And then before we like get to more of that,
'cause that certainly throws Dante for a loop, Randall has remembered he needs to place
an order for more videos. So he is now back in RST Video and he's
placing an order and a woman walks up carrying her like toddler and says,
"Hey, do you have Happy Scrappy Hero Pop?" And he's like— And she's wearing a
Bum Equipment sweatshirt, which I really love. Yes.
But you know, he's like, "Oh, Happy Scrappy Hero. Yeah, okay, let me, I'm about
to place an order. I'll ask for it." for it. But before he can place
the order for Happy Scrappy Hero Pup, he lists 19 adult
titles. And I mean, I could run down them if we
want to, but they're pretty egregious. The point is,
I mean, you know, everything that they all mention, either like cum or holes
or ass, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff. And so the woman's just standing
there holding her toddler while he's rattling off these ridiculous titles. And then finally
turns to her and goes, "Oh, what was the title you wanted?" And it's just
like, but it's just like, I think this was just a chance for, for like
Smith and like Scott Mosier and Jason Muse to sit around thinking up crazy
riffs and some fake porno titles and just put as many of them.
But like, 19— if they were the first ones to come up with Come on
Eileen as the porn title, I really like that. I mean, give them
mad props to that one. That's funny. Yeah.
So, so Jay and Silent Bob, we see them a couple times. Yeah, that's the
store. Yeah. And, and Jay What is he— he's ranting
about like, oh yeah, I'm gonna fuck this. He just sucks. He's just one of
these guys where you're like, I know. And hopefully you don't directly
have a friend like this. It's more like one of those guys that, oh,
remember when I told my cousin he could bring his friend to the barbecue and
it was that fucking guy? Yeah. So it's one of those like, oh, Jesus Christ.
And the fact that he's posted in front of this store, like, I've not gone
into stores sometimes because I don't want to deal with whoever clipboard guys out there,
like Trader Joe's. He's like, I don't need to explain to this 19-year-old
why child fund is a bad way to spend my money or
whatever. So Jay, it's like, I would avoid the
shit out of that guy. He's going to be so fucking annoying. So we get
a little view of that. Yes, no, absolutely. And yeah,
Jay and Silent Bob are interesting characters. Obviously Silent Bob is silent for most
of the movie, as he is in basically all the movies featuring these two characters.
Jay is like really based on Jason Mewes, the actual person.
I mean, at this point in his life, he was he's like hooked on hard
drugs, I believe. Uh, and you know, he's gone through like rehab multiple times,
and Smith has always stood by him and helped him through stuff, whatever. That's a
really great kind of, uh, friendship story for them. But like, this character
is a real jerk and a real kind of just bad dude, whatever. And apparently
it's like not just funny enough to be as obnoxious,
obnoxious as you are, and like one of those. But there's a lot of those
guys out there. Yeah, absolutely. Um, we get a scene here where Dante
is about to like take— because there's a cat we haven't mentioned. There's a little
black cat that lives at the, at the Quick Stop. And, uh, there's litter box.
He's gonna go like, you know, maybe like change litter box out, but he decides
halfway through doing that he was gonna call the newspaper about the engagement announcement.
So he just leaves the litter box on the counter because we get a moment
where the cat runs up to use it while a customer is waiting. But Dante
calls the newspaper and is asking if there might be a vindictive printer or if
like it's a mistake. And he's like, well, no, no, everything's spelled right. I'm just
like, I talked to her and she never mentioned being engaged. So like there must
be a mistake. This is a very funny thing where he's trying to convince the
person on the line, no, no, no, Like, maybe somebody's doing this as a prank.
It's like, why would someone do that as a prank? He's like, I don't know.
But like this, you know, he just gets hung up on.
And then I think we go back outside to Jay and Son of Bob and
Jay's friend Olaf and her cousin or something. There's like some reference to like
how he knows Olaf, but Olaf is from Russia supposedly and
is in a metal band and does a song called "Berserker," which
has the very funny lyric, "My love for you is like a truck
berserker." 'Would you like some making fuck berserker?' Yeah. And it's
just like, it rhymes. He got the rhyme down. And for English as
a second language, like, congratulations, Olaf. And again,
the J-type guy is also going to have some other guy
who really sucks too, but he'll be like, 'Yo, check this guy. This guy's the
fucking best.' So I think the name of his band is Fuck Your Yankee Blue
Jeans, which is actually pretty legit. And I do remember
when I did see this movie the first time, I thought the Olaf part was
very funny. So it shows how things change. Over 20 years.
Um, uh, this, this was funny. So another quick— so some
of these little like quick moments between Dante and the people in the store I
think are very well done. Yeah. And really great. Uh, the guy
who has his hand stuck in the Pringle can— you know, Donnie's like, you can't
get greedy and go for the chips at the bottom. Usually I dump it out,
but I just thought this time I could grab it. He goes, man, sometimes you
gotta let that last chip go. It's okay. Uh, but there is definitely a lot
of little moments in this movie that are clearly like either, you know, things that
actually happened in working at stores like this or things that they thought
of, wouldn't it be funny if this happened? And they just found places to put
them into the movie. And that's definitely one of them. There's this fairly
long conversation next that, like I mentioned, kind of Star Wars. We hear
Dante is, or Randall rather, is like watching Star Wars,
Return of the Jedi actually, in RST Video. You can't actually hear
anything from Star Wars or Return of the Jedi or whatever because that would've been
too expensive. So it's just weird laser blast sounds. Like it's nothing that's actually
Star Warsy. But he goes and he talks to Dante. And it's one of my
favorite sort of like conversations that these characters have 'cause they're discussing you know,
when the first Death Star was destroyed in A New Hope, like that was just
Imperial soldiers, whatever it was. Everybody on it was like bought into the plan.
So when they, you know, that's casualties of war, but then there's construction happening in
Return of the Jedi on that Death Star. So there's contractors and there's like people
doing aluminum siding and there's plumbers and electricians, like, and they all die too.
And isn't that a moral failing, you know, of the Rebel Alliance? And it's an
interesting conversation. They're going back and forth a little bit until a guy walks up
and is like, hey, I couldn't help but over here, I'm a roofer. And he
tells this story about turning down a job because it was like some mob guy's
house. So he gives it to his friend and that friend is then killed in
a drive-by at the house, like later. It's just, to me, this is a very
funny thing of like, you know, explaining how,
you know, like the roofer doesn't just think with his wallet, he thinks with his
heart or his morals. It's just, to me, it's a very funny kind of like
whole conversation. And it was the kind of thing that my friends and I talked
about in high school. Like, no, we never got into this specifically, but like talking
about Star Wars in particular to deep levels was something
we did. I used to sit in chemistry class with Patrick Inception and like,
and like trivia each other on like the deepest deep
cut Star Wars trivia we can think of before, you know, Mr.
Hensie or whoever it was got in for chemistry. Like, you know, it was just
that kind of thing. And so having these two people on screen do this conversation
was so like, I feel seen for me in this
movie. And it really has stuck with me ever since. But yeah. Yeah, I mean,
it definitely the first time we're seeing this kind of thing. And I
honestly, just the conversation with Dante and Randall about
the Death Star stuff. And this has also been like this
has influenced a lot of shitty stuff. And it's kind of hard for me.
It's kind of like, like Anchorman. Anchorman's a very funny movie.
People annoyed me for 20 years quoting Anchorman. That diminished
my perception of Anchorman, even though it's not the movie's fault, you know? So I
think like derivative versions of this conversation
in particular, I think have shown up in a lot of things.
And I really, you know, I fucking hate Randall.
I can't deal with that guy. I hate the way he talks. I don't like
him at all. But when the real— so this conversation is happening, I'm just
like, ah, Jesus, give it. And also, you know, full disclosure, I'm not really a
Star Wars guy. I've seen those Star Wars movies maybe like 2 or 3 times,
uh, or so, which I think is a fair amount
of times, but not, not for our generation. Right, right. Uh, but the roofer guy
coming in to raise the stakes of the bit, I think really pulls it together.
Yeah, like just the conversation, I'm just kind of like, okay, because who gives a
shit about this guy? But this guy coming grounded in reality
and being like, actually, this ridiculous shit you're talking about happened to me this— just
this last year. Right? Yeah. So I liked that. I like these other
people coming in to like validate the conversations they're having. Yeah, there's definitely a stark
kind of line drawn between the clerks, Randall and Dante, and all these like regular
people that kind of come in because none of them are as delusional
about themselves as Randall and Dante are. You know what I mean? And there's this
like kind of like undercurrent of like, like, you know, these two guys think so
highly of themselves, not even necessarily of each other, but just their own like
self kind of importance is so enormous that it's
such a stark contrast between them and like almost everybody else who comes into the
store. Yes. Is just a regular person for the most part. And so I feel
like there's a fun sort of thing that happens there. And I know,
I mean, so doing, uh, doing comedy and
stuff and just in life, but especially in that world, you meet a ton of
people who are these fucking been like blown away by their
own intellect as philosophers. Like, they're not trying to be funny when they're talking to
you. They're talking about some stupid bullshit that they're extremely confident about
and nobody cares about, and they're wrong about, you know. So I like,
I know so many of these. So Randall, I'm just like, oh, I've fucking talked
to Randall twice every single fucking Tuesday night. Um, so,
uh, so part of it I'm like, oh, I know that guy. But that's the
purpose. The point of the movie isn't look how cool Randall is. No,
it's look how cool Randall isn't. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. We do get a great Randall
moment next though, because he's just sitting reading the paper, something on the counter at
RST, and a woman comes up, asks him about, hey, are either of these movies
any good? Yeah, right. And he's just like, like, I don't really know, I don't
pay attention to what people like. And, you know, and she's kind of like,
what are you talking about, you work here? So then she tries to— she turns
around and goes, well, what about these two? And turns around, he goes, oh,
those suck. And she's like, ha, these are
the same two movies. And this is my favorite Randall line in the whole movie:
I don't appreciate your ruse, ma'am. She's like, my what? Your ruse,
your clever attempt to trick me. Yeah. And he talks about how it doesn't feel
good to be right, you know, whatever. It's— I think it's a very funny moment.
But, um, but yeah, I don't appreciate your ruse, ma'am, is something that I've carried
with me. Um, yeah. Um, so we've got them. Oh, and the
other thing is people keep coming in ordering, uh, cigarettes. Yes, buying cigarettes. And they're
just saying cigarettes. Yes. Even though there's like 30 brands on display
behind them, you know. 100%. Also, you'll notice, speaking of the cigarettes and what's behind
them, at one point— I don't remember exactly where, because I don't think I wrote
it down— but at some point, very offhandedly Eventually Dante makes a comment about,
"Man, isn't it weird how all the prices end in 9?" If you
look behind him, literally none of those prices. They're all 95s.
There's a couple of 98s. There was like a something 86. Not a single
one of the prices we can see ends in 9. And I always thought that
was, like, I feel like that must have been deliberate. But yeah.
Yep. And then we have another like weird customer. A guy who's
like sitting on the floor, pulling every egg out of the carton. And he's like,
"Well, why don't you just mix and match and make a—" He's like, "No,
I need to find the perfect dozen." a, you know, just a goofy-ass,
like, you know, mentally ill guy going through the eggs. Mentally ill,
except we find out apparently because a woman walks up to chat with them about
this guy, another customer, and she's like, oh, I've seen this before. It was at
like a grocery store down the street like last year. It's a guidance counselor.
And they're like, why does this happen to guidance counselors? And she goes like,
if your job was that worthless, wouldn't you like be, you know, trying to find
something you can control in your life? She goes, that's why it's very important to
have an important job. That's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial
insemination, which is another just like, man, that's a line that's just packed. Like,
it's like 7 or 8 words long, but it's fucking packed. And they just watch
her leave. Very funny to me. But yeah, uh, and they're talking about,
uh, let's see, now Randall and Dante are talking about the,
the jizz mopper profession. Yeah, I think, I think Randall sells cigarettes to a little
girl first. He's not paying attention to what he's doing and sitting behind the counter
at Quick Stop, but like ends up handing a pack of cigarettes to a little,
like a 4-year-old, whatever, little kid. And that comes back later. But yeah, then they're
talking, then Randall's talking about like, you know, you know, like, I think like,
how much do you think a jizz mopper makes? Or whatever. And he's like,
what are you talking about? It's like nudie booths, you know, adult bookstores,
whatever. And he kind of explains the whole thing while a customer walks up to
him. And what's the customer buying? A roll of paper towels and like a thing
of Windex. And he's very offended at their conversation about what we can
only assume is his profession. So the jizz mopper himself
gives them shit for like talking about it. And I do like it. He says,
I don't know if you knew this or not, but cum leaves streaks if you
don't clean it right away. It's like, oh my God.
Um, so, and, and this is the kind of stuff that comes out
if you're just like beating a certain conversation topic into the ground, like,
right, what jokes can we churn out of this? And that come leave streaks line
I think was just, uh, yeah, that was a nice one. Yeah. Uh, so they're
talking about like the types of customers that piss them off, right?
You know, so the classic thing, the person saying like, so how much does this
cost? Yeah, right behind them Is this big sign about how much it costs?
And, you know, just asking obvious questions. And then Randall hates
everybody at the video store. Yes. Although the one,
the one thing that I've taken from this scene, like, I literally, I can't remember
all the contexts, but I will use anytime I can shoehorn, ooh, Navy SEALs
into something, I will, like, just to reference, like, a bad thing that someone's excited
about. Like, this, this offended me a bit because I like the movie Navy
SEALs. I think it's very fun. I like that they refer to beers
as rain grenades. Grenades. And, uh, there's lots of, lots of good stuff
in Navy SEALs. We'll be getting to it in season 9. Oh good. 2 Dads
1 Movie. Uh, but yeah, it's funny to
kind of go through because every job you have this like, uh, these types of
people. And it doesn't matter, you know, where it's at.
If you have a certain type of job, you have this kind of person that's
always driving you fucking crazy. Randall says this job would be great if it weren't
for the fucking customers. He means all of them. Yeah. Uh, but at this point
Veronica comes back to sort like talked to Dante and smoothed things over from
earlier. And they kind of left, you know, she left kind of in a huff
or whatever, but she's brought him lasagna, again, another totally empty platter, clearly the way
that Dante takes it from her. But you know, like, that's cool. You do,
we do hear from Randall off screen, 37, just like from off screen
with whatever. But yeah, so then he finds out, Dante does,
via phone call that the boss is not coming in. It's already past
due. He's not getting relieved. He's not getting relieved. Boss went to Vermont, right?
They're in New Jersey. He's in Vermont now. So clearly the guy was like,
He had no plan to come. No intention to come. Just get Dante there,
let him open the store, and then I'll just go on. And you know Dante
will stick around for the whole day. Like calling in the sick day from
the line at Space Mountain. Yeah, right. Like we've talked about. Exactly.
I had no plan to show up. But yeah, this is also, I think,
the third time of five that Dante says, "I'm not even supposed to be
here today." That does recur several times. I haven't mentioned the other ones, but yeah,
that's something that he yells into the phone. Alone.
Yeah, but they got to deal with this hockey game now. This is— yeah,
they've got a commitment. We, we got a commitment. And, and again, uh,
great usage of the budget because I
think it shows 3 total people in this rooftop hockey scene, you know. But the
sound is very effective. You feel like there's really a game going on and you
get a lot of shots of the rollerblades. Yeah, of the sticks and of the
ball. And there's, you know, there are definitely 2 people in, uh, goalie gear because
Randall is wearing goalie gear in his CCCP sort of USSR
jersey. And there's somebody else that also has got goalie gear on.
So it's like either, yeah, there was just, they switched things around and then shot
people, you know, for just a moment or whatever. But yeah, it makes it look
like it might even be like 3 on 3. Like it looks like a fairly,
you know, large amount of people up there. But they have locked up the stores
and there's a sign, I think, on the front of Quick Stop that says like,
we'll be back open after the first period or something like that, right? And so
they've started playing up there, but there's a guy who's come to the store who
wants to buy a pack of cigarettes, like literally everyone in this town wants to
do at all times. And you know, he cries, climbs up the sort of ladder
and is like, when are you guys gonna be open? What the fuck? I want
to buy cigarettes. Like, ah, you know, wait, wait. And he basically starts talking shit
about how bad Dante is at hockey. Um, and so, you know, Dante's like,
fine, get up here and you do better. And my first thought, from the first
time I saw this movie, my first thought was like, yeah, but that guy's not
got rollerblades on. Yeah, he's gonna fuck you up. Like, you wear
the rollerblades because it's a— you can make the difference on sneakers. Like, it's a
deliberate disadvantage to be on the rollerblades. The rollerblade is the— it's
the QWERTY, uh, board alignment. It's meant to slow you A little bit. Yeah,
exactly. So this guy, they go to do the face-off and he just bowls Dante
over, slams him to the ground, and then, you know, Brett Hull slap
shot the ball off into oblivion, uh, at which point that's when they realize that,
oh my God, nobody brought a second ball. That's it, we only get to play
for like 8 minutes or whatever and then we're done. Unfair. So unfair.
Yep. Um, and another— man, we've had a couple hockey scenes with,
uh, Wayne's World, a couple episodes. Yeah. Big fan.
I do love a line here from Jay. This is probably the best line delivered
by Jason Mewes, is when they're looking for another ball and Dante looks down and
just says, anybody, any balls down there? And Jay goes, pear the biggest you ever
seen, dingleberry. I just love that.
About the biggest pear you ever seen. Uh, so we're back in the store and
there's this old man, uh, who goes up to Dante. He wants to use the
bathroom, right? And but then he has all these follow-up, you know, conditions He's like,
customers only, but yeah, sure, go ahead. Okay, and what's the toilet paper
like in there? Is it the soft kind or is it the hard— oh,
you know, it's the rough stuff. Well, can you open a package
of the soft stuff and send it back there with me? You know, oh,
I need something to read, I need a magazine. Can you give me a porno
magazine? Um, oh my God, he does.
So he's off in the bathroom, uh, and then more more ex-girlfriend
news for Dante. He finds out that one of his exes died. Yes,
mid-backstroke. Oh, at the YMCA. And which is actually reused
as a plot point in Mallrats. Oh, okay. Get there, there will be someone who
dies at the YMCA mid-backstroke with a little, with a little more backstory and explanation
as to why in that one. But this one starts an argument between Dante and
Randall because, uh, you know, there's a funeral, it's today, it's at 4,
it's the only time, she's buried tomorrow, like, or whatever, right? And,
and he's like, oh my God, I gotta go, you gotta cover the stores for
me, like, watch. And Randall's like, no, I'm not gonna miss what might be the
social event of the season, like, I gotta be there too. And Dante is like,
"You didn't date her. You barely knew her." Like, whatever. And so they agree basically
to close the stores, both of them, and just go to the wake.
And so they drive off there and they arrive and they're
there for 5 minutes, I think it says on the thing, 5 minutes,
and off they run because there's a huge problem and
they need to leave because Dante knocked over the casket. No, no, Randall.
Randall knocked the casket over. Knocked the casket over. Yeah. Oh my God. Yeah,
so they, they come running out of there. They're kind of getting chased.
Yeah, everyone. So short-lived little trip over there. I did
miss the conversation in the car about Cousin Walter. Cousin Walter again is another thing
that Kevin Smith reuses, referring to horrible sex stories by someone named Cousin
Walter. Okay, ends up showing up several times.
Jason Lee's character in Mallrats has a Cousin Walter in a
story that he tells about him. But, but yeah, it's basically like Randall basically gets
Dante to admit trying to suck his own dick and then makes fun of him
for it, even though he clearly like baited him into it by insinuating that he
himself had tried, because that sounds like the kind of friend Randall is. Sure,
yeah, yeah, right. So he said this guy Walter broke his neck
trying to suck his own dick, right? And he got there.
That's what he said. At that point, if you're like, look, if I'm paralyzed,
can you just keep me posed like this then? I'm not going
anywhere anyway. Um, so there's an old man,
uh, at the store, a customer there who's talking about kind kind of
like Weekly World News type stuff, like National Enquirer headliner
thing. And, and he won't leave. Like, he says this one thing and
then he's hanging there and he keeps just saying shit. And they're, they're having a
conversation, but not— yeah. And then, uh, at some point Randall just like
spits water in this guy's face. Yes. Yeah, because he's— Dante's basically saying, you know,
you can't do certain things because, you know, you work here. And Randall's like,
oh, so you're telling me, you know, position dictates or title dictates action?
Like, like that I will or won't do I will or won't do strictly because
I work here and therefore an employee. And he's like, and so he spits in
the guy's face just to sort of prove, it's almost like a juvenile version of,
you know, Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park talking about chaos theory. It's a very juvenile
kind of version of that. But he's basically like, look, see, I did something the
title would dictate I wouldn't do. So you're wrong. And it's like,
not really what he meant. Not fully understanding it. Definitely not getting it. But yeah,
but the guy freaks out but ends up like, I think Dante has to give
him his money back and the guy leaves. The next customer that
shows up is this like fitness trainer guy who chats with Dante a
little bit. Dante gives him a gallon of milk and the guy's, "Oh, I heard
you grunt there." He's like, "I didn't grunt." Like, "I saw you." "No, you're outta
shape," you know, giving him some shit. And he's chatting, this girl their age walks
up and they're all chatting, kind of realize they all know each other, at which
point some other random guy walks up and goes like, "Do you work here all
day or whatever?" And he's like, "Yeah." And Dante's not really paying attention to this
other guy, but finally he like basically writes out this thing and hands him and
goes, "Here's a fine for $500." was like, whoa, what the fuck? What do you
mean $500 fine? Like, what happened? He's like, well, you know, somebody here sold a
pack of cigarettes to a 4-year-old. You say you're the only one who's been working
here all day, so the fine's yours. Like, and given the, like,
extreme, you know, age of the child, it's an even bigger fine. And both
the other 2 people are like, damn, dude, fuck you. Yeah, yeah. Selling cigarettes to
kids? Jesus. Like, I like the fast action by the regulatory agency
here. I know, right? This is a record response time. Must be
the city, like the municipal group. It can't be anything higher up than that.
Um, but yeah, so Dante gets the big fine and, and yeah,
was pissed off. Yeah. I mean, as it should, it's as
a cat, as an employee somewhere, I mean, to personally get fined,
that's gotta be, that's gonna be rough. But that's the, that's definitely what happened.
I mean, that's definitely the way those things are written out for sure. Yeah.
Um, so Randall, even though he works at the video store next door,
he's like, I gotta get a movie for tonight. And he's like, okay, we'll pick
a movie. He's like, I need to go to the good video store. Um,
And, and I totally get this, and I, I know that the video stores
were like this maybe a little bit, but the theaters were for sure where the
same movies weren't going to the same— that now I feel like every theater gets
the same movies more or less, at least the top 10. Yeah, are gonna go
to all theaters. And, uh, to have to like find the right store to even
rent, uh, to have a selection for you is good. So he's gonna
go do that. And, uh, and now Caitlin showed up,
right? So Caitlin shows up surprising Dante and is basically like saying
like, hey, when I saw— when I— when my mom told me that she told
the paper about the engagement, like, I decided to come down here and like talk
to you because I knew you'd freak out. And basically her thing is like,
her fiancé or boyfriend, whatever,
asked her to marry him and she said like basically,
I don't know, you know, didn't answer him right away, didn't say yes, but he
insisted she wear the ring. And then the mom— her mom saw that, and so
then her mom told the newspaper. Like, that's sort of what happen. But she's like,
but I don't want to marry him. I don't want to marry anybody. I'm not
looking to get married. She wants a career. Yeah, she's finishing college and she's going
to like start her career and like, and then maybe someday get married kind of
thing. Um, but this is all Dante needs to hear to understand that like they
can get back together basically. Like Caitlin's saying, like, I'm not going to date him
and I'm not going to marry— I'm not going to marry him. I'm not going
to marry you. But by not marrying him, like that ends that relationship. Like,
that's not— he's not going to stay with me, whatever. So I am back
with you sort of thing if you want me kind of thing. Which delights
Dante to no end. Like, this is clearly what he wants. And this is the
girl they were talking about earlier, had cheated on him 8 and a half times.
8 and a half times, right, exactly. So yeah, I mean,
just Dante going back to the same self-destructive behavior.
Terrible, terrible idea. Dante,
or Randall rather, returns from Big Choice Video to explain to Dante
the wonderful movie that he has rented for the evening, the hermaphrodite porn
Best of Both Worlds. So good for him, I guess.
Oh, there's one thing they do to Dante.
So he's inside the store, and I think Jay and Silent Bob do
a little prank on him, and they write like a speech bubble that says,
"I eat cock," right, on the door, so that when Dante comes out to be
like, "What's going on out here?" it's like right there. So I like that kind
of stuff. Yep. So now Dante has convinced Randall
to like hang out of the store for a while so he can go get
changed so that he can take Caitlin out to dinner. They've agreed to go on
a date, so he leaves, and now it's just Randall at the store. And then
Caitlin comes back. She has changed her clothes. She looks like ready for a date,
like whatever. She's like, it's a little Paula Poundstone for me, a little like a
tie, whatever, but whatever. You know, so she's chatting with Randall a little bit and
is just like, hey, can I use the bathroom in the back? And Randall's like,
well, there's no lights back there, so you can go ahead, but like, you know,
be careful. There's no lights. So she goes back there and then Dante shows
up and is like wearing a sweater and like the whole kind of this looks
like a guy going on a date in the mid-'90s. Yeah. And is talking to
Randall, is just kind of like, oh man, this is so great. Can you believe
it? Like whatever. And then Caitlin comes back clothing
a bit disheveled, satisfied look on her face, is surprised
to see Dante at the counter and is like, "How did you get here so
fast?" And he's like, "Well, I left an hour ago to go get changed.
What do you mean get here so fast?" Turns out she thought that back
in the bathroom, for whatever reason, there's no good reason why she thought this,
but she thought that Dante was back there and letting
her just do whatever she wanted with him.
Turns out that old guy from earlier who got the porno and the
nice toilet paper He was dead, and apparently rigor mortis affects most
parts of the body, it sounds like, because he still had an erection, and Caitlin
fucked a dead guy. And they all figure this out, and Caitlin gets
sick, and they like call the police and like, you know, to come get the
guy. And like, there's this very, uh, makes Dante look
very bad sort of conversation with like a police or, you know, some kind of
whatever the investigator, the person that's there, you know, is like getting information.
So when did this guy show up? And, you know, why did he have a
porno? I gave it to him. Why'd you give him a porno? Well, he asked
for it. You know, like all this stuff. And it just makes Dante sound like
an absolute degenerate. Uh, but you know, sure enough, uh, she even
says— this is like one of the most unrealistic lines in a movie, full of
them to be fair— is like, oh, she's gonna need years of therapy. Like,
as if a cop or whoever would say that about the person in the moment,
you know? And then she's in the— Kaylin's in the— go ahead. No, I was
like, Kaylin's in the back of the ambulance and Willem climbs into
the back of the ambulance. I— that's weird. I also don't
get like, why is she riding in the same ambulance with the dead
guy? Like, it doesn't make sense. This is the subject of your trauma. Yeah,
that 'You're gonna need years of therapy. Now we leave
you in there,' you know? It's because Smith could only afford the one van.
He had to film the whole thing all at once. That's definitely what happened.
It is kind of— it's an extreme version of John Candy's story in
Home Alone about leaving his kid alone with the corpse. It's like,
this is taking that to a much higher level. Much higher level there.
Um, yeah, so Caitlin— I mean, for that character,
that character is treated fucking brutal.
Yes. It's not good. All for the— all for the crime of cheating
on the worst guy in the world 8 and a half times. Yeah.
Um, so this craziness is all happening, and then Jay and Silent Bob,
who've been hanging out out front— they're like the drug dealers, they're just like always
out front of the, uh, store— and they invite— they invite
him out to a party later, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just like, hey, you should
come out with us, whatever. And, and Dante's like, yeah, that doesn't sound like what
I want to do right now. And, and this is when we get, you know,
Jay is telling him all this stuff, whatever, it's kind of spouting nonsense. But he
goes to leave after insulting Dante, and Silent Bob— this is when Silent Bob speaks
for the only time in this movie— and he says, you know, basically like,
because they're talking about how like, oh, that girl Caitlin, you're with her? He's like,
not really. I thought you were with that girl Veronica. I saw her, I always
see her bringing you shit, whatever. He's like, yeah. And then Silent Bob says like,
there's a million beautiful women out in the world, but only not very many
of them will— or like very few of them will bring you lasagna at work.
Yeah, right. And it's just like saying like, know what you have, dude. Like,
stop, stop chasing, you know, whatever. And so,
so there is that. In the meantime, Randall is talking
to Veronica, thinking that he is doing— claiming that he thinks he's doing Dante a
service by letting her know he really wants Caitlin. Yeah,
you should just, you should just back off. He wants Caitlin. Uh, and,
uh, then Veronica goes to confront Dante about this because Dante has realized from
the talk with Jameson and Bob, oh shit, I should be with Veronica. She really
cares. Yeah, she cares about me. With a fucking fire extinguisher earlier,
like Yeah. And, and so this is, this is the person I should be with.
I should stop chasing someone like Caitlin, who by the way is probably not
going to be going on any dates anytime soon. She's got some shit to work
through now. Um, but yeah, like that's his realization. So he wants to go kind
of reconcile with Veronica, but she's just been told what,
you know, and she like, again, this actress does struggle with
these lines a little bit. The, this, this tirade she goes on lasts quite
a while and is full of odd sentence structure that I
can't tell again if it's just the way it was written or is it the
actress just kind of stumbling over pieces of it, but it loses some of its
oomph. But the end result being she's breaking up with Dante.
Like that's, they're over. She's been tired of like supporting him and
waiting for him to figure out like what the fuck to do with his life.
And now, fuck you, I'm gone, I'm done. So yeah, that's it
for Veronica and Dante. And what is Dante supposed to be like 22,
23 years old? It's so funny to think about someone
that age being like, you gotta do something. With your life. You got to figure
it out. It's like, shit, dude, I'm in my mid-40s and I'm maybe kind
of figured out some of it, but not— you and I at 22 were in
college working towards upper division credits and majors.
Something going on there. Um, yeah, so,
so that's it for Veronica and Dante. And now, uh,
Randall and Dante are kind of— well, Randall comes back in the store and Dante
tackles him, basically. They're fighting over this fact that, you know, Randall just blew
up Dante's spot essentially and then ended his relationship quite,
uh, with quite a bit of finality, right? That was sort of like, like maybe
there would have been more trouble between Veronica and Dante, probably would have been,
but Randall kind of nailed that last nail into the coffin and shut
the lid and everything. So, so they fight for a while but end up,
you know, sort of just making up the way a lot of guys do,
especially at that age. You know, you fight with your friends and then you sort
of just like talk it through kind of thing. Um, yeah, don't leave. If you
get in a fight with one of your friends, don't leave the scene because you
need to have that moment where you're just both kind of sitting there afterwards like,
oh man, oh Jesus, I can't believe you hit hard. And then you really
bond. We see this here. We saw this in They Live with, uh, oh,
that's right, with Keith David and Roddy Piper. So hang out, like,
have the fight but hang out. Yeah. And then this is when— and Dante drops
the fifth and final 'I'm not even supposed to be here today,' which pisses Randall
off. And there's this whole thing. So, but they end up choosing to clean up
together. And it's, uh, pretty much, I think, close to it. I don't
remember where it ends after that. Like, yeah, yeah, I think, I think that's the
end of the day. They kind of lock up. So yeah, day in the life.
And the last line is, is, 'You are, you are closed,' because it says like,
'Are you sure you were open and Randall throws that
back in like, oh, you're closed now or something. Yeah. So that's Clerks.
All right. So that is Clerks. Yeah. I'll go ahead and give my,
my thoughts first. So like I said, this, this is a movie that I know
for sure. Like I am a super fan of, I love this so
much from this movie because I have so much nostalgia for it because it meant
so much to me in both my movie sort of viewing history,
but also my just interest in films and in moviemaking,
which is not something I ever really explored through my life, but it's always just
kind of been in the back of my my head. This is something that,
you know, I love it for what it meant for later
films that came, right? This is the movie that made studios and other people in
Hollywood look at Kevin Smith and give him money to go make other movies.
So there is, there is, there is a seed of almost everything that came after
and Kevin Smith in this film. It actually has a sequel that far is far
superior to this movie. It's actually got several sequels,
but Clerks II is like a legitimately hilarious movie in ways that Clerks
couldn't quite be, uh, so much of. Um, but yeah, this is, this is like
one of those movies I know I'm gonna give a higher, much higher score than
you are, Nick, and that's fine. But I'm a 4 out of 5 on Clerks.
I love this movie. I can't give it something higher than that because like,
you know, the, the script is too erudite for the characters. The actors stumble
over so many of the lines. But there's so much about this movie that means
so much to me. I'm not going to give it a lower score than that.
And I'm a 4 out of 5 on Clerks. All right. Yeah, I mean,
that makes a lot of sense. And, um, Um, yeah,
so there's certain things about this that, like,
you know, your, your comment about the script being too erudite for the characters
is right on. And that's something that sticks with me in a lot of situations
where I'm like, I fucking hate this, I just don't like this.
Um, the— in Kevin Smith himself, uh,
it's funny, I haven't watched a lot of his movies. I'm very interested
in the guy because I think he does a lot of weird
things, like this whole kind of world that he has created, like with his fandom
and stuff. And he has very loyal fans and everything.
My favorite podcast is a podcast called Guys.
Okay. And what they do is every episode they'll take a certain type of
like obsessed online community through Reddit or whatever. It'll be, you know,
rockabilly guys, guys that are really into the band Tool, or guys
that are, you know, really into motorcycles or whatever. And they did an episode
about Kevin Smith guys. And I didn't know that Kevin Smith will literally sell
anything. Like, it's amazing what— like, this mentality
of, I had to max out all my credit cards to make Clerks, has never
left him. Yeah. And it seems like he is scraping for every possible dollar out
there and will license or like do whatever with his fucking characters.
But he has this whole community of people that really love him and love,
love what he does, you know. It just doesn't quite hit
exactly for me. Sure. These two characters, like we talked about in the last movie,
we kind of have competing visions of
of an apathetic, like, youthful existence, uh,
depending on where you grow up. Like, Dante and Randall
seem to care about their lives. I mean, at least to the— caring
about their own comfort and caring about what happens tomorrow, but they're not putting a
lot of thought into, like, long-term planning for their life. And then O-Dog and Kane,
you know, the same thing, but they have zero opportunities. Yeah.
And, uh, I think the, the message should that Randall
and Dante should both get killed in some way, and O-Dog
and Kane should move to New Jersey and work at a video store and a
convenience store. Fair enough.
This— I get the influence of this movie, and I am impressed
by what they were able to do with the budget, but Clerks can't do any
better than a 2 out of 5. That makes sense. That's a 6 out of
10 from the 2 Dads 1 Movie. I think 2 is a very,
very respectable score given you don't have all of the little
markers that I have for this one. So not not a big deal at all.
All right, that was 1994, and what are we going to watch for 1995,
Nick? What's next up? Okay, I'm excited about this one because this is another one
I don't think I've seen since high school. All right, and a movie that
at the time, like Clerks was for a lot of people, one of these movies
where you're like, now this is what fucking cool— okay,
and I want to see if it holds up because I, I'm thinking that maybe
it wouldn't. But we are going to 1995, uh, one of kind of
earlier, like, that, that came out in this phase of, uh,
with Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. And then we had the people that were
like coming out alongside Tarantino but had similar influences, uh,
and this is, uh, Robert Rodriguez's 1995 film starring,
uh, the great Antonio Banderas, who we might know from Puss in Boots.
Uh, we're gonna go to Mexico and, uh,
and hang out with 1995's Desperado. Wonderful. I don't
I've ever seen Desperado all the way through. All right, I, I remember I watched
El Mariachi, which was, which was sort of his precursor. That was his Reservoir Dogs
slash Clerks, right? That was his first thing. I don't think I've ever seen Desperado,
at least not all the way, so I'm very excited. Banderas is fantastic. Uh,
yeah, very much. Uh, Salma Hayek. Yeah, gorgeous. Not to mention the
ladies here. Absolutely. So that'll be a lot of fun. Next week we will watch
Desperado. Uh, thank you for that one, Nick. That's a wrap.
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Be sure to check out our website at twodads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and the
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this has been Clerks, another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve.
And I'm Nic. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you
next week. Thanks everyone.