"Jersey Girl"
DVD Review
by Kevin Carr
| MOVIE: ***1/2 (out of 5 stars)
DVD EXPERIENCE: **** (out of 5 stars) STARRING Ben Affleck as OLLIE TRINKE Liv Tyler as MAYA George Carlin as BART TRINKE Jennifer Lopez as GERTRUDE STEINEY Raquel Castro as GERTIE TRINKE Jason Biggs as ARTHUR BRICKMAN Rated PG-13 Studio: Miramax Directed by: Kevin Smith Back to DVD Review Home |
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Okay, now that the aftermath of the Bennifer debacle has passed, can we all look at “Jersey Girl” with a more sober eye? Please?
I’ll admit that when the film was released, I thought it would suffer the post-“Gigli” curse. However, when I saw it in the theaters, I was actually pretty impressed. Upon viewing the DVD, several months after it left the cinemas, I still find this film to have a lot of heart.
Ollie Trinke is a New York publicist who loves his job and his life. He meets Gertrude Steiney (Jennifer Lopez), and they get married. Soon, they are pregnant. However, there are complications during the birth, and Gertrude dies. Ollie is left to raise the kid on his own, with the help of his father (George Carlin) in New Jersey. For a while, Ollie tries to balance the duties of a new dad with his old job, but ends up getting fired and must get a job as a street sweeper to raise his daughter.
As I said, a lot of heart. However, I still think director Kevin Smith couldn’t commit to a new audience. “Jersey Girl” still has jokes about porno, penis size and inside gags with buddies Matt Damon and Jason Lee. But at least he had the kahunas to not slip Jay and Silent Bob into the film (which really wasn’t his choice considering that Jason Mewes, who played Jay, had a warrant out for his arrest during filming, thus preventing them from hiring him).
Unfortunately for Smith, “Jersey Girl” was a bit of a disappointment at the box office. It wasn’t a failure, and taken against the nuclear fall-out disaster that was “Gigli,” it was an incredible success for a Jennifer Lopez/Ben Affleck vehicle.
But sadly, Smith gets gun-shy too quickly. He also spends too much time worrying about what us critics have to say than just making his movies. This is never more clear than when you listen to the commentaries on “Jersey Girl” and his other films.
There are two separate commentary tracks on “Jersey Girl” - one featuring Smith with long-time producer Scott Mosier and “audience expert” Jason Mewes, and the other featuring Smith and Affleck. And, no joking here, they spend at least half of their time complaining about how the film got a bum rap from the Bennifer fall-out. Smith even goes as far to memorize harsh reviews and recite them to an audience.
Such obsession with what other people think is not good. I’ve heard commentary tracks to films that bombed, like “Death to Schmoochy” and “The Crow: Salvation,” and I’ve rarely heard them reference the critics or the fact no one saw their movies.
I enjoy Smith’s work. I like most of his films (with the exception of “Chasing Amy”). But I’d like to see him grow up. I actually felt good that he put out “Jersey Girl” because it gave him a chance to develop his directing skills. After all, does Kevin Smith really want to be in his 40s and still making movies that hinge on nothing but “dick and fart jokes”? (Apparently he does, since now the trades are reporting that he’s bailing from directing more mature projects like “The Green Hornet” and heading back to the Quick Stop for “Clerks 2: The Passion of the Clerks.”)
Even if you didn’t like the film, the DVD of “Jersey Girl” is worth a rental at least, if not a buy. One thing you can always count on with Smith is that he puts out a great DVD. A fan of laserdiscs and begrudgingly DVDs himself, Smith knows how to add value to his product.
In addition to the two commentary tracks, there’s a nice 30-minute interview with Smith and Affleck about their films. (If you didn’t know, “Clerks” is the only Kevin Smith feature that Affleck didn’t appear in.) There’s also a standard behind-the-scenes special on the set. If you can handle reading text on-screen, there are also several extensive written interviews with the cast and crew of the film.
And, somewhat unrelated to “Jersey Girl,” there is the complete collection of Kevin Smith’s “Roadside Attractions,” which he did for “The Tonight Show.” Smith introduces all of these, and is the first to admit that they aren’t related to the movie. But hey, for Kevin Smith fans, it’s an opportunity to see more of his work. Some of these segments are pretty lame (although Smith gets a bye for these because he was just on-screen talent and didn’t actually direct them), but there are some that are pretty funny.
Personally, I’d like to see Kevin Smith grow. I thought “Jersey Girl” was a great first step. And I wish someone would kick him in the butt and tell him to grow with his work instead of relying on a fresh crop of pot-head college students every year to keep his career alive.
Some tough love for Kevin Smith, please.
Specifications: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound. Widescreen (1.85:1) - Enhanced for 16x9 televisions. English subtitles for the hearing impaired.
