Jersey Girl

Films/DVD Asylum

Movies from comedy to drama to your favorite Hollyweird Star.

I generally do not post about films I did not care for because I probably do not have time to post about all the mediocre films I see. But here is an exception. Kevin Smith has been something of a writer and director revolving on the outside of the in-Hollywood arc. Someone who makes movies about people not afraid to say and do offensive things, the types of things that major studios are afraid of. While I have loved some of his work, and thought some merely o.k., I always felt he was always original.
Well, he has now made a film that is so full of Hollywood cliches and tripe that I have seen this film many times before. Had the film been a satire of those cliches, then I could laugh.
Ben Affeck stars as a New York publicist. He meets Jennifer Lopez (suprise), they get married, she becomes pregnant. She dies during child birth. In a moment of insanity at an event for Will Smith, with baby in tow, he tells the journalists that Will Smith will never have a career, and they write for rags. He is fired. He goes home to live with dad, played by George Carlin. I am thinking what is this high powered, highly paid executive doing with a baby at an event, as I assume they have babysitters in New York, but never mind.
He returns to New Jersey to live. He works with dad picking up garbage, working on sewer lines, and picking up his now seven year old daughter from school in the street sweeper. Maybe he could not get a job in New York City as a publicist. But is he not qualified to do something other than pick up garbate? But then, Carlin and his blue collar buddies would not have a role in the film. In film's futher take on the working class man, they spend their evenings in front of the tube, or in the neighborhood bar, sipping suds, while dressed in flannel shirts and jeans.
Along the way, he meets Liv Tyler, who works in a video store, when he is renting porn while his daughter is renting a kids flick. Well, he has been celibate for seven years, so he needs his porn. Of course, there is one television in the house, a house he shares with his father and daughter, and that one television is in the living room. That could be embarrassing. Would you be surprised to learn that he begins a relationship when Tyler? No? Well, when they first meet she learns how long he has been celibate, she decides they should immediately go to his house to have sex. And to think, guys work like mad to come with pick up lines. And all it takes is to say they are celibate for seven years.
He gets an opportunity to get back into the publicist racket in New York City. Guess what? The interview is on the same day and time as his daughter's grade school play, complete with props which look like they were wheeled from a Broadway play, but were actually made by the blue collar folks, who have never seen a play. Amazing.
Well, as he is waiting in the office, guess who walks in? None other than Will Smith. After a heart to heart conversation with Smith, guess what he decides to do? Go back to Jersey to be in the play? Does he get there on time? Only either a wasted two hours on this wreck, or having seen the same thing before, will give you that answer.
And the daughter. The smartest person in the entire film. So smart that she deserves a good chop to the kisser. Picture this: she is with a along with a little boy in her bedroom, and they are showing each other their private parts. Daddy walks in. Now, what would a real daddy do? Probably scream bloody murder? Tell the kids to get out of the bedroom? Call the other parents? No. He closes the door and walks out. Then when they are done, he gives them the birds and bees talk. She asks him if daddy has the same part. Then she asks daddy if his part is a big as her friend's. Honestly. That scene would be bad enough except that the daughter later catches dad in the shower with Tyler. Guess what? DAD AND TYLER GET THE SAME TALK FROM THE DAUGHTER. Talk about contrived nonsense.
Smith says that he came up with this little story after the birth of his daughter, and he wondered what he would have done if mother had died giving child birth. I suspect that the development went something like this: We here at Big Pictures have given you money to make your films. Now you must do something for us. You've been warned.

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Topic - Jersey Girl - jamesgarvin 10:09:03 04/08/05 (1)

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