Kevin Smith Speaks Out
Friday, March 12, 2004 @ Roy Thompson Hall, Toronto

If you’ve seen An Evening With Kevin Smith on DVD you know that a Q&A engagement with the foul-mouthed filmmaker is more of a a stand-up comedy act than a serious discussion of film theory and techniques. Although I have found myself becoming less and less interested in his work as a director as time goes on, I still jumped on the chance to see him speak live because I knew it would be somewhat entertaining, and I knew it wasn’t an opportunity that was likely to come around again anytime soon.

The night was introduced in part by an on-stage appearance from Degrassi’s Joey and Snake (Pat Mastroianni and Stefan Brogren), which was fitting considering Kevin’s own self-professed love for the show. Unfortunately, the impatience of some of the more obnoxious and rowdy audience members began to take over… one guy in front of us simply yelled out, “Bring on the Fat Man!” When Kevin finally strolled on stage in his trademark trenchcoat and baggy shorts, he was greeted with a deafening standing ovation. After a brief introduction during which he confided his fears of being “punched in the neck” while up in Canada (referring to Todd Bertuzzi’s controversial sucker punch in the NHL), he wasted little time in getting to the questions from the crowd. Of course, before the Q&A had even started someone higher up in one of the balconies jumped the gun and blurted out, “What did you think of The Hulk?!!” Ah yes, I knew we were in for a long night of Kevin Smith heckling and ass-kissing not too mention idiotic questions, but I guess that was to be expected considering his fanbase.

The quality of the questions throughout the night were, for the most part… questionable (pun intended). After having seen the DVD, while it contained its share of embarassing moments where people made fools of themselves, it hadn’t occurred to me how much it had been edited down. Witnessing it live meant there was a lot more crap to sit through; from a budding filmmaker begging him to make a movie with her, to a fellow “fat nerd” asking him who would win in a fight between an Oompa Loompa and a flying monkey, to a handful of people begging him to sign posters, DVDs and breasts (*during* the Q&A session, mind you) it got annoying at times. However, Smith was impressive in his ability to deal with troublemakers, quickly retorting and cutting them down to size where necessary, other times being diplomatic and doing his best to answer even the most useless queries.

Even with all the dumb questions, he covered a wide variety of topics, while taking care to avoid regurgitating things he had discussed in the past on his DVD. An early thread of discussion involved his explanation of how his wife ended up posing for Playboy, in response to which another audience member proudly whipped out a copy of said issue and held it open for all to see. He talked briefly about his plans for the future with Green Hornet and Fletch Won, which he promised he would follow up with another Jay & Silent Bob movie (partially a deal he made with Jason Mewes to motivate him to stay clean). He spent some time justifying the potentially disastrous casting of Jersey Girl with “Bennifer”, and although he didn’t really convince me personally that the movie will be good, he did seem wise in his claims that it boosted Affleck to give one of his best on-screen performances.

I was hoping to hear more stories about his experiences in the industry and working with celebrity egos (like the inanity of the whole Superman movie fiasco that he talks about on the DVD), but there were still plenty of interesting tales to be told on this night. Other notably funny and/or poignant topics included how the trailer for Seabiscuit was so emotional it brought him to tears, how Jason Lee finds the word “porno” and Burt Reynolds hilarious (making Boogie Nights his dream come true), how Regis Philbin was indirectly responsible for the failure of Clerks: The Animated Series, and how Smith himself was inspired to become a filmmaker and struggle through his experiences at film school in Vancouver. Perhaps the most fun, however, was near the end of the night when he confessed his obsession with Degrassi, which surpassed a level of insanity I had expected. In a strange reversal of roles he mentioned to Pat Mastroianni that he had attended a TV/movie expo in Vancouver where he had gotten his autograph (”I’m sure you don’t remember, but that’s okay!”), and how he wanted Stacie Mistysyn (Caitlin) to play Shannen Doherty’s role in Mallrats. He then proceeded to tell the story of how the first thing he did with the money he made from Clerks was purchase the entire run of Degrassi on VHS from Scholastic video for over $6000!

Smith proved that although he is now a father, his potty mouth has not been cleaned up one bit, and this was interesting considering that the Roy Thompson Hall is usually a somewhat classy establishment. The various ushers and staff members did not look amused by his frank discussions of pornography and sex. Another hilarious aspect of the night (and one that he joked about a few times) was the fact that there were two women at the side of the stage translating into sign language. The number of rude gestures and slang they were required to use was quite excessive, and it was just as entertaining to watch them instead of Smith.

Smith spoke for over 3 and a half hours, which flew by both for the audience and also himself (or so it seemed). It was clear that he enjoyed interacting with fans on such a direct level, and also simply that he enjoyed telling funny stories. He was always concerned with people getting their money’s worth too, constantly suppressing spontaneous applause so as not to waste precious time on it.

Even though I have lost interest in Kevin Smith’s movies in a lot of ways, this night served to confirm probably his greatest talent of all which is simply the art of storytelling — and an extremely quick-witted sense of humour. You can’t help but love the guy. It is actually very impressive that he had nothing prepared and just ad-libbed everything off the top of his head, from the charming personal stories to the barbed comments that shut up all the smart asses and hecklers in the crowd. Who knows… if this movie director thing doesn’t pan out for him he may have a strong career ahead of him doing more stuff like this.

Was it worth the $30 student admission price? Absolutely. Would it have been worth $50 for the general public price? Well, that might have been pushing it. The strange thing is that although the show was for college and university students, it wasn’t really all that educational. (The irony of someone who dropped out of college speaking in front of college students was not lost on Smith.) It was still a lot of fun though, and I hope he comes back to Canada when he does his tour for the second DVD which he confirmed is in the works, and may happen sometime later in the year. — Sean