The Emperor

Silent Bob Speaks: The Collected Writings of Kevin Smith - A Review

Silent Bob Speaks: The Collected Writings of Kevin Smith

Publisher: Titan Books

Year: 2005

ISBN: 1845760808

Pages: 330

RRP: £9.99 (pb)

Greasy shits. This book is the product of Kevin Smith’s greasy shits. Not what one would usually think of as an auspicious start for a book but if that start involves movie supremo Harvey Weinstein phoning you up to say he loved reading your column about your greasy shits (brought on by those weird fat buster pills) and he thinks you should write a book then you have to sit up and listen. Full marks to the Miramax boss when you do reach that article (just before the half way point) you can certainly see why he sat up and took notice as his laugh-out-loud potty-mouthed take on his being diagnosed with morbid obesity displays well his general take on most of his other columns.

Although Kevin Smith (director of indie movies Clerks, Mallrats, Dogma, etc.) isn’t afraid to speak his mind on the moving making process, when he is doing meet and greets for the film Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (which is the point in his career that the book starts) most of the people he meets he quite likes. This doesn’t appear to be due to any kind of sucking up to the movie machine (which he certainly can’t be accused of) but more reflects the fact that people wanting to be in one of his movies have seen and linked his previous ones and are by extension Good People. I don’t want to make you think that just because they are “nice” his writing about them isn’t foul mouthed, fun and irreverent because it is – by the bucketload. I suppose this is reflected best in the first appearance of Ben Affleck.

Now I have to admit to not being a big fan of Affleck’s films but this might be due to their genre. When he appears in Smith’s films I think he does a fine job although I had put this down to Kevin Smith’s talent as a filmmaker (and it was Smith who helped Ben break into the big time and go stellar after he give his, and Matt Damon’s, script for Good Will Hunting to Miramax – although he is too modest to brag about such a thing). However, Kevin Smith loves the man and loves him in a rather unhealthy manner. I’ll quote the paragraph when Ben arrives in full as it demonstrates perfectly the general tone and feel of the book as well as Kevin Smith’s odd “Ben Love”:

Luckily all this “niceness” doesn’t last long and, during a long chat with Selma Blair (who sounds as great as I thought she might), the topic gets around to “Greasy” Reese Witherspoon who he hates with a passion and in all fairness she does sound like a piece of work. If I had her address I’d certainly pass it on so he could go and egg her house.

Things zip along nicely in true page-turner style and you can hardly believe it when you find you are half way through the book. Round about then I hit an interview with Ben Affleck rapidly followed by one with Tom Cruise and I am suddenly doing the reading equivalent of looking out of the window and asking “Are we there yet?” Granted I could be one of those “bitter fucks” he mentions but really, other than the fact that I enjoy a few of their films and I’d not kick Lopez or Gardner or Kidman out of the sack on a cold winter morning, neither actor registers too strongly on my movie radar. It might mean I’m a shallow/elitist/picky fuck but neither appears in many (recent) films I’d watch and I am reading the book to hear about Kevin Smith after all. Luckily once over this halfway hump he romps home to the finish.

He hits home runs with discussions about lap dancing, Degrassi and how he got his love of comics. It dips slightly with discussion of the production of Jersey Girl and while it is my least favourite of his films (by a long chalk) it is part of his life and the columns loosely span the period of his making Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and Jersey Girl so this is what some of them are going to be about. He then rounds off with an excellent defence of Attack of the Clones which makes me look at it in a new light (although I still think Hayden Christensen can’t act) before finishing with an eyeball melting insider description of what really happens at comic conventions (sort of) which The Face never ran. On one hand you can see why (it is very filthy) but on the other hand you have to conclude that they are a bunch of girl’s blouses (it is very filthy and very funny).

Although Kevin Smith keeps putting his oeuvre down as dick-and-fart-gag films he is really doing himself a disservice as he is clearly a keen observer of human nature and always happy to point out the absurdity of it all in his own hilarious and foul-mouthed way. He does it in his films and he delivers in spades in this book too.

So who would enjoy this book? Obviously fans of his films; people wanting an insight into how films in general get made without the usual brown nosing BS; anyone looking to pass some time whilst crouching in a bush outside Ben Affleck’s house clutching their “rape kit”; anyone looking for a great read and really most folks who don’t mind that the Not So Silent Kevin says fuck and/or shit on just about every page and, lets be honest, you’ve already waded through quite a few swearwords in this review so if you’ve made it this far…

I suppose in conclusion the best way I can express how much I enjoyed this book is that it might someday be possible for me now to consider letting him off for making Jersey Girl. Someday.

Verdict: Great oaks from greasy shits grow (as long as you’ve been eating acorns – which Kevin Smith clear has): 8/10

Originally written for the Fortean Times:

forteantimes.com/review/silentbob.shtml

You can buy the book here:

amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1401359736/wwwrevenantmc-20

amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1845760808/revenantmagaz-21

Wicklinks

Syndicate

Syndicate the content on this site:

Blog