I had the pleasure of going to Kevin Smith's Vulgarthon this year, a film festival in the heart of South Jersey in which he gets to show whatever the hell he wants. This year, the menu included Catch and Release, small town gay bar, Oh What A Lovely Tea Party! (extended making-of documentary of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), "hilarious shorts by Mattt Potter", and Clerks 2. That's right, Clerks 2. All of these films will be reviewed herein to some extent, but don't expect any details on Clerks 2: Kevin asked us all to be respectful of his wishes to avoid ruining the movie for everyone. There are a lot of great jokes and scenes that are much, much funnier when you don't know they're coming, so please understand my position here. That being said, let's get rolling.

The afternoon began with an intro by Kevin Smith himself, as he explained some changes to the schedule. The guy who made Big Helium Dog, a movie listed on the schedule, wasn't able to be here and apparently the previous day's event (I had tickets to day 2 of 2) ran way too long and people were giving up before the showings were over. So we all agreed to nix Big Helium Dog. He announced that the "super secret movie", which all of us were guessing was either Catch and Release (a movie featuring Kevin in a supporting role, not to be released until January '07) or Clerks 2; it turned out to be the the former. No one groaned, but I think we all went "aw, shucks". That didn't last, however, as he quickly added that if we were willing to nix an extended cut of Jersey Girl (also listed, which eventually was shown after everything else was over), we could watch Clerks 2. Guess what we all said.

So we began with Catch and Release. Chances are that I only liked this movie as much as I did (which is to say, a great deal) because I hadn't watch any Kevin-Smith-type-stuff yet that day and was not specifically in that mood. Catch and Release is an emotionally draining movie that, I guarantee you, will be incorrectly billed as a romantic comedy. It's got romance, and plenty of laughs, but that's not what it is. The main character, Gray, played by Jennifer Garner, begins the movie struggling to deal with her fiancee's death in a boating accident. Grady was the outdoorsy type and apparently took one too many risks with his latest adventure, and now Gray is left "alone with all these people", as she puts it. The house they had recently purchased together is now too big and too expensive for Gray, so she takes up residence in their old room, living with the deceased's two friends, played by Kevin Smith and Sam Jaeger, and a visiting friend of his, played by Timothy Olyphant.

The first several minutes of the movie are clearly about Gray and her struggle to deal with all of the things suddenly flung at her. The three friends are there mainly as emotional support for her and to help put their pieces of Grady together into one whole person. However, a late night phone call on a cell that Gray didn't know Grady had changes everything, and I mean everything. The other woman, played by Juliette Lewis, is a stark contrast to everyone else in the movie: she is what some might call "LA trash" whereas the residents of Grady's apartment are all Colorado natives, with Gray being clearly much more "proper" or "reserved" than this Maureen character. Gray's discovery of Grady's affair prompts a number of discussions and incidents that bring about several new pieces of information and make Grady's absence much more complicated. Amidst all of this chaos, Gray begins to see something worthwhile in Grady's LA friend (the only one who knew about Maureen) Fritz, Timothy Olyphant, and her emotions get even more jumbled. The movie begins and ends with all of these people piecing together a picture of Grady, with it finally become real and whole in the end; however, the movie is equally about Gray piecing herself together and letting go of all of the preconceived notions she has about herself and all of the people in her life. The title, according to writer/director Susannah Grant, is both about Grady and his friend Dennis' catch-and-release fishing hobby and business, as well as Gray's eventually "release" of all of the aforementioned issues.

In general, this movie hit me like a ton of bricks and made me forget I was at the theater to see stoners make dick and fart jokes and such. Kevin Smith's performance is great; he is an active and vocal character, which is interesting for those of us who know him almost exclusively as Silent Bob, and Susannah Grant was even nice enough to let him use his trademark "sir" in the dialogue of Catch and Release. She also mentions, however, that he's a repeat offender at ad-libbing and had a great deal of input with his own lines. In her Q&A after the movie, Grant asked us what we thought of the ending, because it had the potential to be a bit confusing: there is a mention of Fritz not picking up his phone and his lawyer is there, both of which were explained in scenes that were cut from the version we saw at Vulgarthon. While many of us there didn't care or didn't notice or reasoned them out, Grant remains concerned and we may end up getting a different cut by next January. Though there will certainly be people who go to this movie just to see Kevin, it's not for the bulk of Silent Bob fans. It's too emotionally difficult to be appreciated on any surface-only level, and it will be interesting to see how the "official" reviews play out in 6 months. I recommend this movie to anyone who has ever empathized with a character in a movie, which is almost everyone. Don't see it for Kevin, but do see it.

The next movie was small town gay bar, written and directed by Malcolm Ingram. It's a documentary dealing with the gay community's struggle in the deep South. Ingram mainly focuses on two establishments, Rumors and Crossroads (later refurbed into Different Seasons), and the clientele that visit both of these (ahem) small town gay bars. He interviews many of the people outside of these clubs, gets the history of the community in that area, and talks to a number of not-so-friendly locals who are visiting a "straight" bar down the street from Rumors. Ingram also interviews some influential god-hates-fags-variety religious leaders in the area, juxtaposing their doubletalk and blatant ignorance with the friendly, honest, and open discussions with members of the GLBT community. When I realized what kind of movie this was going to be (with the hand-held camera interviews and the clear agenda), it seemed almost redundant to watch it. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it and thought it brought to the fore an extremely important message, but I already knew all of what was going to be said and how it was going to be addressed. I think it's most important for people who have sort of forgotten about this struggle to be reintroduced to it. I'm from Boston, and while there is a very active gay community up here and we're all well aware of the difficult road ahead for all GLBT people and their allies, a lot of people up here have gotten a bit complacent when it comes to worrying about the other 40-something states where gay people can't really hold hands in public, much less get married. I think that's who this documentary is for, and it does a good job of reviving the message that's been stagnant for a few years, at least in terms of film.

Next was Clerks 2 which you can read about here, in a spoiler free movie review.

The next to last thing I was there to see what Oh What A Lovely Tea Party! which was essentially every behind-the-scenes ever made. I enjoyed all of the stuff dealing with monkeys, because I'm a sucker for that stuff, and it was also very entertaining to see how horrible it was to film the baby scene at the beginning. Baby Silent Bob was played by Kevin's kid herself, and she did NOT want any part of that whole thing. Seeing them try to get the hat on her was hilarious and sad at the same time. One word: schadenfreude. The whole thing ran a little long, and after 6 or 7 hours of movie and Q&A, it was difficult to stay focused. We were hoping that after this would be the "optional" extended Jersey Girl, but it was not to be.

It was a collection of short by Mattt Potter, which were sort of funny, but definitely not "hilarious" as billed. I felt bad because the guy was right there in the theater and people were obviously sick of them about 10 minutes in and bored, but they seriously just weren't great. They were goofy and nerdy and all that, but nerdiness does not a funny skit make. There were probably a dozen or so shorts, each one 5-10 minutes long give or take, and they were just tiring. The general feeling of the room seemed to be "we nixed a movie and aren't seeing Jersey Girl until late but we're watching this?" We were told that the other theater had to finish up and then everyone would be in theater 1, so that those who wished to stay super late could see the extended cut of Jersey Girl. Except Mattt Potter's stuff didn't end until something like midnight (this all gets a bit blurry, sorry if I fudge some details) and after realizing how late Jersey Girl would be running, we booked it out of there. Ending with Mattt Potter sort of left us with a bad taste in our mouths because it was more like filler than anything else, but the day was still definitely awesome. The highlight for everyone there was Clerks 2, but Catch and Release was great and it was cool to see the other stuff as well. I'm not sure how late the entire thing ran, but I know I was glad to be in bed instead of still in Red Bank at 3am. Anyone with specific questions or anything can feel free to message me here and I'll get back to you ASAP.