Year: 1994
Running Time: 92-minute Theatrical; 104-minute First Cut
Rated: R
SRP: $39.99 Single $89.99 Kevin Smith 3-Pack
Studio(s): Miramax
Release Date: November 17, 2009

Film/Feature: A

Its cultural influence includes one of the earliest modern explorations of bromantic relationships, honest and vulgar, sexual conversations that were spoken everywhere except on camera, and observations from a geek’s view-master of popular culture. Kevin Smith paved the way for Judd Apatow, Todd Phillips, and continues to influence others, be ripped off, or paid homage to in film festivals around the world. Clerks marked the return of the vulgar comedy that disappeared in the late 80′s. He did for as much for the comedy film as much as Quentin Tarantino did for the genre film. Clerks didn’t hold back. Clerks was a fearless skydive into the bottomless pitt of the unknown; not just in the effort by its green filmmakers, but in the type of story it told, that would reach audiences to that point, had not been established. His voice was one that was distinct, loud and clear.

For those too young, too old, or not hip to Kevin Smith’s filmmaking debut, Clerks is about a day in the life of two store clerks, Dante and Randall. One runs convenience store, the other a movie rental store. It was the capital of slacker-town, the armpits of the underachievement, and apparently, the one place that hadn’t been explored in movie form. On his day off, Dante comes to work at a fork in life trying to choose either a path with his sexual insecurities with his current girlfriend, Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti) or recapture the flame with his past girlfriend, Caitlin (Lisa Spooner) with whom he’s been speaking to behind Veronica’s back. He soon finds out that he is the last to know that Caitlin is engaged. And if his girl troubles weren’t enough, then it’s his lack of ambition that holds him back from ever progressing in life. It’s a good thing his best friend, Randall is there at his side, to nag him, needle him, and goad him to walk away from his responsibilities.

Clerks spoke to a whole generation of 20-somethings, and later, teenagers trying to find direction in their life, trying to define love and overcome obstacles in life that hold them back. If you were in your 20′s in the late 90′s, Clerks was a relevant film to you. It just didn’t hold true only to Generation X, but has since been well-received by Generation Y and Baby Boomers alike, who have discovered Smith. Anyone that’s ever held a customer service job or even less specific, hated their job, can relate to something in Clerks.

Smith’s knack for the written word made up for his lack of cinematic vision. His infamous static camera and trademark lack of depth was forgiven when a rapid-fire of profanity-laced tirades came out of two convenient store clerks, loitering drug dealers, and obnoxious customers that manages to encapsulate every odd character who walks into a retail store. Never had there been so many large, poignant observations of life been made in an on-location set so small.

Part of Clerks’ magic was its charm: the extremely low budget, the black and white appearance, Smith’s New Jersey friends and roots, and its long and storied road to success. Part of that experience includes passing Clerks to those who haven’t seen it, as if it were a torch bearing light onto a beach of an undiscovered country, still waiting to be inhabited, 15 years later and beyond. And now it can continue on in high definition.

Video: B
Smith addresses to his surprise in the new blu-ray intro, that the film actually received the high definition treatment in a 1080p AVC-encoded transfer in Clerks’ 1.78:1 original aspect ratio on what’s essentially a lo-fi film. Despite his less than flattering comments on his first film, Clerks does look much better than the original DVD release, and slightly better than the 10th Anniversary DVD release. It’s still filled with grain, but let’s attribute that to where it needs to be credited to, the 16mm print and affordable camera Smith, Klein and Mosier had to work rather than the transfer itself. There was a lot of clean up work done for the last DVD release so most of the visual miscues are gone. The picture is much clearer, sharper, blacks are sufficiently deep and solid but know, that grain and fuzziness are still present. Any desire for better picture quality out of Clerks is an unreasonable expectation and is an uneducated desire given the way the film was originally shot. Again, part of the charm of Clerks is that underground feel–ironically a result of the lack of finances–rather than poor DVD or Blu-ray authoring. Clerks will never be a shining example of high definition video no matter what is done to it, but the important thing is that it looks clean and the contrast is adjusted so that the clearest possible image can be seen, and I think the transfer accomplishes that fairly well.

Audio: B-
Clerks gets a new 5.1 English DTS-HD Master Audio track and after listening to it, one could barely tell it’s much different than the previous 10th Anniversary track. There’s still a bit of distortion out of the center channel at high volume levels, and it’s doubtful any effort was put into taking Clerks into the same level as a sci-fi action flick, trust me, that’s okay. Dialogue is clear when it needs to be and music from the soundtrack jumps the curb. There’s still some muddy moments but surrounds are under-utilized outside of music, and there’s a little desire for a bit more directional movement, but your average Kevin Smith fan is not going to find much at fault here. Subtitles are available in English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Bahasa, and Malay.

Extras: A
It’s hard to really come down on anything here. I don’t know if I appreciate the “cunning ruse” to try and sell this as a 15th Anniversary Edition when 95% of it is from the 10th Anniversary DVD. Everything has been ported over from that near-perfect edition with one big exclusive to blu-ray, that being the Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back documentary, Oh What a Lovely Tea Party. All of the extras are in standard definition, unfortunately, and is the only shortcoming of an otherwise exhaustive revisiting of this classic film.

Theatrical Version
Classic Commentary Circa’ 95 with Kevin, Mos, Mewes, Brian and others is a strong, classic track which is the most scene specific as Smith and gang are going to get. Vincent Pereira is one of the “others” on the track and keeps the conversation as focused as it can be.

Enhanced Playback Track Enhanced Play with trivia track and “Clerks Quarks” like the “F#@$” Counter which counts how many times the F word gets thrown around in the flick. See the number multiply whenever Mewes is on screen!

The First Cut Edition
Intro SD (8:41) Smith and Mosier ramble a bit and eventually get around to introducing the new and improved cut of the film.

The First Cut Commentary with Kevin, Brian, Jeff, Mos, and Mewes is exactly what you imagine it to be. This is the first commentary track that featured Jeff Anderson and it’s a funny one that fails at being a scene-specific track, opting for an organic, funny, and honest audio track which is exactly what you expect. Listen for a story involving Smith’s mom and Mosier just take a life of its own. You can also switch the angle and see the live commentary while its happening, put it in a split screen, or just listen to it.

Other 10th Anniversary DVD Extras
Clerks Lost Scene Animated Short HD (10:06) is an animated version of the scene at Paulson’s Funeral Parlor that was originally done as an Oni Press comic drawn by Ande Parks and Phil Hester. It was later animated (In Clerks Animated style) as a 10-minute short and intro’d by Smith and Mosier. The scene can be viewed separately or integrated into the extended cut of the film and yes, it’s as funny as one would think. View Askewniverse /Chasing Amy fans will enjoy the return of Joey Lauren Adams as Alyssa Jones.

The Flying Car with Intro by Smith SD (8:14) is a Clerks live action short that was filmed for the Tonight Show of all places and has Dante and Randall back in the saddle, this time while they’re stuck in traffic discussing one of Randall’s “scenarios” to make Dante look like the bad guy. It’s similar to the joke used in Clerks when they were last seen riding in a car. It’s a tad on the long side, but is another Clerks-related treat.

Clerks Restoration
•Restoring the Clerks Sound with Scott Mosier SD (5:00)-Mosier breaks down the technical restoration process in detail that will likely go over the heads of most people but for students of film and the filmmaking process this clip is for you.

•Restoring the Clerks Look with David Klein SD (0:36)-Klein spits out quickly his contribution but not to the level of detail that Mosier displays.

•Introduction to the Theatrical Cut with Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier (7:00) -A new 10th Anniversary introduction to the film where the boys talk more about their remastering of the image and sound of Clerks.

Original Auditions SD (14:33) look into the audition process of Clerks to see Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Marilyn Ghigliotti, and Ernie O’Donnell read for the critical parts of the film.

Snowball Effect SD (1:31:00) A complete diary-documentary of Kevin Smith’s humble beginnings, the important people in his life, and the chronicling the creation of Clerks and how its adventurous path into the hands of Harvey Weinstein and Miramax. There are interviews with Smith’s friends, family, cast members of Clerks, and everyone who had a hand in its success. This was put together, again, for the 10th Anniversary DVD release and is easily the most comprehensive piece done about Clerks.

Outtakes from “Snowball Effect” is a collection of more scenes for the documentary but were left on the cutting room floor. Strangely, there is no “play all” option, even though on all of the main menu selections with sub-menus do have that alternative viewing method. The cut scenes are: View Askew Vulgar the Clown (2:58) Jeff Auditioning for TV Show (1:26) Chemistry with Brian O’Halloran (2:45) Janet Maslin (0:51) Creative Writing Class (7:42) Lisa Spooner (1:42) Kevin on Scott (8:54) I Will Leave (4:32) Sundance Introduction (0:51) Kevin and Scott at Sundance Trophy (0:33) Quickstop (1:00) Night Shooting (1:22) Winning the Lottery (6:48)

10th Anniversary Q and A SD (42:00) is a question and answer session after a fan screening held at the Arclight in Los Angeles. Those who participated were Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier, Dave Klein, Marilyn Ghigliotti, Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, and Jason Mewes.

MTV Spots with Jay and Silent Bob SD (18:01) eight really funny bumper spots used by MTV to segue in and out of videos (back when they showed videos).

Mae Day Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier SD (11:38) is the first film done by Smith and Mosier done in Vancouver Film School about a failed documentary.

Soul Asylum “Can’t Even Tell” Music Video SD (5:41) is probably one of the early looks at the Clerks world in color. But the intro is priceless because Mosier appears dressed as Green Hornet promoting the Green Hornet film that they were initially slated to do and later passed to another filmmaker. The Green Hornet film still has yet to be made and be mired in pre-production problems.

Theatrical Trailer SD (1:55) The original trailer

BLU-RAY EXCLUSIVE
Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party: The Making of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back SD (1:27:00)

• Intro SD (3:18) To help stomach yet another edition of Clerks, this time on blu-ray, Kevin introduces a documentary-making of Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back

Anyway, back to the feature, which is a mixture of behind the scenes footage and interviews with some key players in the film and their association with Smith. The production is assembled by Jennifer Schwalbach (Smith’s wife) and Often times though the volume is way low but it helps to have the subtitles on. Is it worth upgrading if you already have the Clerks 10th Anniversary DVD? No, but again as Smith says in the intro, it will help buffer the idea of getting the film in blu-ray adding to the multiple versions you may already have on DVD.

Overall Shock Value: A-
Clerks remains one of Smith’s best films. It still goes to those places that most films don’t dare to walk towards and it still speaks of concerns that would bother anyone of that age or period of soul-searching. As a part of the Miramax: Kevin Smith 3-Movie collection, it’s a great part of a solid three-pack for anyone who is either looking to upgrade their DVD collection to blu-ray, because it contains everything from the 10th Anniversary and a little more. If you’re buying it separately, again I would say it’s a good buy, but only if you don’t already have the 10th Anniversary DVD. If you do, then I’d say rent it first, and check out the new Jay and Bob documentary. Technically, this film is not going see much more improvements than already what’s been done. This is a film that was done on the cheap, and the look and sound is going to reflect those choices, so there shouldn’t be any aggressive notion that it should be better. Consider this me spitting water back at those who disagree.