Tag Archives: Ben Affleck

Jay and Silent Bob

Last night I watched — for the second time this week — Jay and Silent Bob Reboot (2019), which is the latest episode of a saga polymath auteur Kevin Smith has been telling since 1994 with his first film, Clerks. The arc of that tale contains one of my very favorite movies, Dogma (1999), wherein we learn that God looks exactly like Alanis Morissette.

If you’ve never heard of Jay and (his “hetero life-mate”) Silent Bob, you’ve missed a minor cultural phenomenon. Clerks is a cinematic landmark on par with Reservoir Dogs and is preserved in the Library of Congress as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant.” In my book, it’s all three.

I’ve been waiting well over a decade to see these guys again!

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Movies: The American

Call me weird, but I have always liked films about assassins. That fascination goes back to Charles Bronson in The Mechanic (1972), Edward Fox in The Day of the Jackal (1973) and Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction (1975).

I’m clearly not the only one fascinated by the topic; there are a surprising number of such films. From the outstanding Léon: The Professional (1994, Jean Reno and Natalie Portman’s film debut) and Grosse Pointe Blank (1997, John Cusack and Minnie Driver) to the sheer goofy and fun Assassins (Sylvester Stallone, Antonio Banderas, Julianne Moore) and Kill Bill (Uma Thurman).

Something about these movies fascinates us (well, some of us anyway).

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