1712 - Chasing Amy

Its been a long time since I've seen this film (fun fact - it was the first DVD I ever bought!) and I didn't think I'd be revisiting it while gearing up for Sex After Kids, but here we are.  Kevin Smith was never considered a particularly strong visual filmmaker - and especially not in this time period of his career.  More often than not he just lets the camera run and the actors do their thing.  And while this film is not visually appealing it doesn't take away from the impact either.  It's funny watching this now, the script itself is a bit weak in terms of how 'speecy' it is.  There's kind of a lack of flow while characters are far more verbose than they ever actually need be.  I love a lot of it, but someone really needed to go through this script and be a bit brutal about the speeches.  A lot more could be said with a little.
That being said I still enjoy this and likely always will.  It was a shame that it didn't do more for Adams, as I think she's pretty wonderful here.  If you've never see it it's absolutely classic Kevin Smith, and it's also probably his artiest, more engaging film in that regard.  Well worth checking out, I do believe!

1637 - Cop Out

This is kind of a bizarre film.  On one hand I really think it's Smith's homage to 80's flicks.  When I think about it this reminds me of cop comedies from when I was growing up.  But the problem is that it's going to be judged based on the standards of films today and by comparison, it falls flat.  I have no doubt that this was a hilarious script, but the execution is off, and sometimes awkward.  There are quite a few lines that feel really really written and it doesn't help when the line falls flat.  I don't know if it's that the film wasn't cast properly, but it just felt odd in a lot of ways.  Alas.
There's a number of fun moments here, but it's all clouded by some pretty lame plotting and a weak central story about a cop who wants to pay for his daughter's wedding - mostly out of pride - her rich stepdad could pay for it.  But no, it makes more sense for the character to risk his life than let the wedding be paid for.  The worst part is that, by the end, I'm not even sure that the issue of pride is even solved for the character.
Smith says that after Red State that he's only got one thing left, the currently in production Hit Something before he hangs up his directing mantel.  Smith is always the first to knock himself down, and I hate to be a dick, but this script feels a lot like it's just a really decent pay check for all involved.  Hopefully Smith got points on since this is his biggest to date. 
If you're in the mood for a "modern 80's" flick this could very well be for you.  It's not terrible by any means, but it's a hard one to recommend.   Red State just became available on Netflix, so I'm sure I'll be checking that out rather soon.