The Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection
When thinking of the most unnecessary Blu-ray release, Kevin Smith’s 1994 comedy Clerks immediately comes to mind. The low-budget black-and-white feature doesn’t exactly lend itself to High-Definition but here it is as part of the new Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection on Blu-ray, which packages that film along with the superior Chasing Amy and the much more Hollywood Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.
Clerks became a critical and word-of-mouth success, moving through film festivals to grossing over 100-times its budget at the box-office and becoming a cult video hit. It was the first taste moviegoing audiences would get of Kevin Smith’s writing and humor, but certainly not the last. His first flop, Mallrats, put together the characters of Jay and Silent Bob together again along with Ben Affleck, Jason Lee, and Joey Lauren Adams. While the Universal comedy has its own fans, the film was essentially a $5 million screen test for Chasing Amy, his best-reviewed film to date.
The Kevin Smith 3-Movie Collection brings Clerks and Chasing Amy to Blu-ray for the first time, a plus for fans of the movies and of the format. It also now leaves Mallrats and 2004’s schmaltzy but enjoyable Jersey GIrl as the high-definition disc’s lone holdouts. Clerks II would have been a better bookend for the 3-disc collection than Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, but overall the three titles showcase Smith’s witty, crude dialogue, raw, naturalistic directing style, and pop-culture eschewing self-awareness.
Although putting Clerks on Blu-ray might seem about as sensible as transferring an old VHS tape to DVD, it actually does benefit from the format, and both Clerks and Chasing Amy look better than ever in their new Blu-ray editions, even if they don’t nearly reach the heights of most new releases in image quality. Chasing Amy shows its modest budget, and Clerks shows its entire lack thereof. However, Clerks does see some improvements in its soft, grainy image. Black levels are deeper and details are clearer in the film’s presentation. Although Smith himself calls the Blu-ray disc a "vulgar cash grab" that the studios "keep wringing pennies out of this little black and white movie," it’s really up to the fans weather they want to make the upgrade, albeit a minor upgrade.
Chasing Amy fares only a bit better, filled with questionably lit scenes, heavy grain, and an otherwise soft film look. The film, shot on a budget of $250,000, gets a boost on its indie aesthetic, with colors appearing stronger and nice detail clarity. Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back is the same disc that’s been available on shelves for years, and one of the format’s earlier releases. Still, its budget and younger age shows, featuring the most dynamic image quality of the set, although still falling short of the format’s best.
The audio quality across the discs again won’t blow anyone away, with Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back again offering the most clarity and most robust soundtrack. Clerks is dialogue-driven, but the audio here is often muddy and unclear. Entirely inconsistent but also not at all unexpected for the source. Chasing Amy isn’t much better despite having ten times the budget of Clerks. The DTS-HD 5.1 Master Mix often sounds flat, is hiss-filled, and lacks the immersion the format’s known for.
The discs don’t skimp on the extras, save for Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, which was produced in the very early days of Blu and features only a commentary. A 90-minute "Making of ’Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" featurette is actually tacked onto the Clerks disc. The film is presented in is 92-minute theatrical cut and its 104-minute "First Cut." All the features on the Clerks are unfortunately presented in Standard Definition but include a picture-in-picture commentary of the film’s extended first cut, a director’s introduction to the first cut, the 90-minute Clerks documentary "Snowball Effect," as well as outtakes from "Snowball Effect," a 10th anniversary Q&A with the cast and crew, "The Flying Car" short made for "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," a "Clerks Restoration" featurette on the process of bringing the movie onto its 10th Anniversary DVD, the original audition tapes, music videos, MTV spots, the trailer and more.
The sole HD feature on the Clerks Blu is a lost scene which is presented as an animated short, and could even be inserted back into the movie, via seamless branching, although it’s in color. Chasing Amy is chock-full of extras as well, including a newly-produced, must-watch 80-minute look at the making of the movie and its legacy over ten years later, "Tracing Amy." Things even get more candid when Smith and former flame Joey Lauren Adams sit down to talk about their personal relationship and its eventual end, as well as the film’s impact in the HD-featurette, "Was It Something I Said?" The disc also includes a highly-entertaining, newly recorded audio commentary from Smith and producer Scott Mosier. The disc also includes the standard definition deleted scenes, 10 Years Later Q&A, outtakes, and trailer.
Special Features include:
- Audio commentary
- Featurettes
- Shorts
- Music videos
- Theatrical trailers
