Mallrats

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DarkImbecile
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Joined: Mon Dec 09, 2013 6:24 pm
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Mallrats

#1 Post by DarkImbecile » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:41 am

Image

“THEY’RE NOT THERE TO SHOP. THEY’RE NOT THERE THERE TO WORK. THEY’RE JUST THERE.

Following the smash success of his first feature, Clerks, Kevin Smith returned with Mallrats. Spawning a raft of characters and in-jokes that Smith would carry throughout his career, the film continued the one-of-a-kind comedic world known as the View Askewniverse.

Simultaneously dumped by their girlfriends, comic book obsessive Brodie (Jason Lee) and best friend TS (Jeremy London) plan to ease the pain of their losses by taking take a trip to the local mall. Amongst shoppers, they discover the mall is being used as the venue for a dating show, in which TS’s girlfriend Brandi is the star. Hatching a plan to win back their significant others, Brodie and TS enlist the help of professional delinquents Jay and Silent Bob to hijack the gameshow in a bid to win back Brandi. Meanwhile, Brodie carries out his own mission to make good his relationship with Rene (Shannen Doherty), who has attracted the attentions of his nemesis Shannon (Ben Affleck).

Featuring a cast including Joey Lauren Adams, Ben Affleck, who would go on to be recurring collaborators in Smith’s movies, Mallrats celebrates its 25th Anniversary in this limited edition set boasting a brand new restoration and hours of bonus content.

LIMITED EDITION CONTENTS
  • Brand new restoration by Arrow Films of both the Theatrical and Extended cuts of the film, approved by director Kevin Smith and cinematographer David Klein.
  • Newly assembled TV cut of the film featuring hilarious overdubbing to cover up profanity
  • High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations
  • Collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Philip Kemp
  • Fold out poster featuring replica blueprints for ‘Operation Drive-by’ and ‘Operation Dark Knight’
DISC ONE – THEATRICAL AND EXTENDED CUTS
  • Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Audio commentary with director Kevin Smith, producer Scott Mosier, archivist Vincent Pereira, and actors Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, and Jason Mewes
  • Brand new introduction to the film by Kevin Smith
  • My Mallrat Memories – and all-new interview with Kevin Smith
  • A newly filmed tribute to producer Jim Jacks by Kevin Smith
  • Brand new interview with actor Jason Mewes
  • Brand new interview with Cinematographer David Klein
  • Hollywood of the North: A newly produced animated making-of documentary featuring Minnesota crew members who worked on the film
  • Deleted Scenes – Kevin Smith and Vincent Pereira discuss deleted scenes and sequences originally cut from the film
  • Outtakes and behind the scenes footage
  • Cast interviews from the original set
  • Erection of an Epic: The making of Mallrats – archival retrospective with cat and crew looking at the making and release of the film.
  • Q&A with Kevin Smith – archival Q&A filmed for the 10th anniversary
  • Build Me Up Buttercup music video
  • Stills galleries
  • Theatrical Trailer
DISC TWO – TV CUT
  • Newly assembled TV cut of the film featuring hilarious overdubbing to cover up profanity
  • Original stereo audio
  • Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
  • Brand new introduction to the TV cut by director Kevin Smith
  • Stills gallery of the comic books featured in the film’s opening sequence
  • Easter eggs

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bad future
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Re: Mallrats

#2 Post by bad future » Fri Jun 26, 2020 11:52 pm

As a middle/high schooler in the late 90’s / early 2000’s, it wasn’t rare for this movie to come up for one reason or another, and when it did, everyone loved to mention how funny it was to watch on tv with the profanity dubbed out. I never imagined that practice was somehow unique to Mallrats, and I’m sure it wasn’t, but come to think of it that was the only context where I remember hearing it discussed, and now it’s a whole bonus disc here? So either the dubbing is really, really good or Arrow simply has the exact same sensibilities as all the kids I knew when I was 12....

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colinr0380
Joined: Mon Nov 08, 2004 4:30 pm
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Re: Mallrats

#3 Post by colinr0380 » Sat Jun 27, 2020 8:56 am

They did do a compilation of the scenes from the infamous TV version of RoboCop. I wonder if this is a development from that?

I have not seen this film since a television showing in the late 90s (in a season with Empire Records, which feels like the perfect mid-90s companion piece to this), but I have been curious about revisiting a film about malls in their heyday recently since becoming rather obsessed by the videos in Dan Bell's Dead Mall series. Is there any more evocative and depressing feature of late capitalism than wandering around empty monuments to it?
Last edited by colinr0380 on Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

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zedz
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Re: Mallrats

#4 Post by zedz » Thu Jun 24, 2021 9:54 pm

It's been a very long time since I watched a Kevin Smith film, and I'd forgotten just how terrible they were. I'm not going to make that mistake again in a hurry.

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therewillbeblus
Joined: Tue Dec 22, 2015 3:40 pm

Re: Mallrats

#5 Post by therewillbeblus » Thu Jun 24, 2021 10:56 pm

This is the only Kevin Smith movie I really like, but it's impossible to be objective about it since I have fond memories of watching this as a kid with my close friend, where we would rewind Jason Lee's roasting wisecracks on the talk-show at the end incessantly. A lot about the film is bad, but a few gags work:

The running sailboat joke is particularly funny when you see
SpoilerShow
there's a smaller barely-distorted picture of a sailboat right next to the picture he's looking at
and I think Ben Affleck's absurdist line
SpoilerShow
"15?! I thought she was 36"
is said with such monotonous sincerity that it works. But by far the best running gag is "the kid is back on the escalator!" and especially the punchline to it coming to fruition in passing. Chocolate-covered pretzels and Jay and Silent Bob and a bunch of the other filler? No good.

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swo17
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Re: Mallrats

#6 Post by swo17 » Fri Jun 25, 2021 4:01 pm

zedz wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 9:54 pm
It's been a very long time since I watched a Kevin Smith film, and I'd forgotten just how terrible they were. I'm not going to make that mistake again in a hurry.
I'm curious how much longer you're on tap to get every Arrow US release, and whether you'll miss them when they eventually stop coming. (I know I'll miss your write-ups.) I'm sure it's proven a good investment financially, but how do you feel overall about the return on your time?

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zedz
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Re: Mallrats

#7 Post by zedz » Fri Jun 25, 2021 4:27 pm

swo17 wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 4:01 pm
zedz wrote:
Thu Jun 24, 2021 9:54 pm
It's been a very long time since I watched a Kevin Smith film, and I'd forgotten just how terrible they were. I'm not going to make that mistake again in a hurry.
I'm curious how much longer you're on tap to get every Arrow US release, and whether you'll miss them when they eventually stop coming. (I know I'll miss your write-ups.) I'm sure it's proven a good investment financially, but how do you feel overall about the return on your time?
It's been a great investment. Their output was far larger than I expected when signing up, and I got its value in actual good films in the first couple of years. There's been a hell of a lot of dross, but also plenty of pleasant surprises that I would never have picked up if I was relying on my own good taste! Even if I had taken a punt on the first American Horror Project box, that would have scared me away from Volume 2 and I would have missed the rather great Dark August - and it might still be a toss-up laying out full price for the box just to get that film.

And like most of us, I enjoy convulsively bad films, and there have been more than a few of those. It will be a relief, however, to have the tap of common or garden bad films turned off when this ends! And there are plenty of Criterion releases that are just as much of a slog to get through. Or bad festival films and theatrical releases that I could have avoided. But you don't get that electric jolt of surprise and discovery if you only watch films that you're pretty sure you're going to like from the outset.

As for how much longer this goes, I really have no idea. I can't remember when I signed up or how long for. I know it was a leap of faith that they'd still be going strong at the end of the term, but I considered it more a show of support for a company I admired than on a strictly transactional basis, and figured if they collapsed after a couple of years I'd still have got a reasonably good deal.

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swo17
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Re: Mallrats

#8 Post by swo17 » Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:20 pm

I want to say I remember it being a 10-year deal?

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Grand Wazoo
Joined: Thu Jun 21, 2007 2:23 pm

Re: Mallrats

#9 Post by Grand Wazoo » Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:26 pm

swo17 wrote:
Fri Jun 25, 2021 5:20 pm
I want to say I remember it being a 10-year deal?
I'm fortunately in on this too and yes it's definitely a 10 year deal. We have it through April 2025.

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yoloswegmaster
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Re: Mallrats

#10 Post by yoloswegmaster » Wed Mar 29, 2023 5:35 pm

4K release coming in June.

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therewillbeblus
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Re: Mallrats

#11 Post by therewillbeblus » Sat Jul 08, 2023 1:41 am

Revisited the extended cut for the first time since I was a kid, and was surprised by how well it played. The first act definitely lags, and the excised plot could've been improved with both a much better conceived and executed accident to earn the consequential attention on London, and also more consistent running gags following up that misinterpreted act. I may be the only one asking for more in this cut, but the way the intrusive bystander attention gets woven into the narrative is inconsistently-pronounced, petering out so arrhythmically that when we get to the moment where London snaps and hits the guy (still present in the theatrical version, just one of many edits that make no sense without this context) we really just don't care. It could've been funnier and more cathartic with a bit more effort committing to that plot, superfluous and stupid as it is. A half-measure is probably worth cutting, so I get it in that respect.

But while the theatrical cut is tight and its choppy editing around this trimmed half hour aids Smith's admittedly uneven filmmaking, so does the longer cut. A lot of Smith's films are too long and frustrate me in how they cram awful sideplots and horrible 'jokes' in to destroy the momentum (of his early work, Dogma is guilty, though nothing could be worse than Depp's arc in Tusk - I say that having not seen anything after). However, in this one, most of the cut material after the first act actually helps the flow and doesn't kill the tone so much as fuel it. This is the one Smith film that successfully capitalizes on what I believe he's tried to achieve throughout his career: Demonstrating how a slapdash vibe can be endearing. Smith uses the editing booth to pace his film as one in sync with its milieu, emulating the slacker culture of mallrats bumming around, acting on impulse, throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks because they think it's funny and who cares. The longer cut breathes.

Jason Lee's loud, off-kilter persona is established well in the theatrical cut, but his Zero Fucks Given public wisecracking is primed earlier with the terrific TV spot gossip in the first act, which not only bookends nicely with the game show theatrics but also effectively sets up his own confrontation with Rooker later on. That scene always played out as puzzling and lame in the original - I'm not above finding scatological humor funny, but I don't care for the chocolate-covered pretzel gag, which defines that whole 'bit' in the theatrical, plus the sudden attack on Lee seemed strangely-paced. I gathered that perhaps Rooker would dislike him for being friends with London, but the reactivity still felt strange and unearned. Getting a longer scene where Rooker confronts Lee's earlier action of starting a TV rumor about him allows the bit to be about something actually funny, and make sense, and dilute the emphasis on the pretzel stuff. The majority film functions better like this - a scene isn't just about one gag, but a palette of them bunched together. This version of Mallrats fulfills its aims of being an aimless hangout movie, where jokes are interwoven with banal fluff, rather than operating as an economically-strategized series of consecutive gags spliced together. That version works too - it's messy and nonsensical and out-of-control like these lives - but I prefer the extended cut (at least after the first section, which is much better established in the theatrical reshoots) because it's also all of those things and yet dares to fully embody the culture it's inviting us into. More like Dazed and Confused than Billy Madison (not a dis on the Sandler, which I unapologetically love far more than this film); or more appropriately, Billy Madison decelerated and layering scenes beyond solitary live-or-die punchlines that sometimes tanked. Anyways, I was pleasantly surprised, and it's worth getting the LE to at least have it on-hand.

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