Kevin Smith: In Hollywood you just fail upwards.

Director: J.M. Kenny

Writer: Kevin Smith

Starring: Kevin Smith, Jason Mewes

Synopsis: Filmmaker Kevin Smith presents a Q&A at various colleges.

An Evening with Kevin Smith is essentially a university seminar presentation with filmmaker Kevin Smith in 2002. He was in his early 30s and coming off his comedy hit ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’. It’s interesting to watch a more subdued Smith who wanted to move on from his raunchy comedies starring his Jay and Silent Bob characters (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith, the two stoner characters who had appeared in all of his previous films).

He appears to want to move on and become a more sophisticated filmmaker, however we all know that won’t be the case. The presentation overall is a q & a with different students from University’s/Colleges around America. (In Australia we call them Universities). If you’re not a fan or don’t know who Kevin Smith is you may find this quite dry and a bit like sitting through a cinema studies lecture where you haven’t watched any of the films on the pre-reading list. However, if you are a fan, like me, you will find this nearly four-hour documentary to be insightful, hilarious and sweet. I for one loved it and would recommend it to any fan of Kevin Smith.

His stories of how he tried to develop ‘Superman Lives’ at Warner Bros with Jon Peters is amazing and will keep you locked in with hilarious tales of Jon Peters, Tim Burton and a giant spider. His other story revolving around his time developing a documentary with Prince is another fascinating insight into Hollywood. His story involving meeting his future wife is also a sweet and hilarious story. Smith has a way of talking and describing situations that you can imagine exactly how it played out like a movie.
This film was a turning point for Smith as he was really only known as the filmmaker who made independent films and starred as Silent Bob. After this he became a real Hollywood personality and would go on to host more seminars which would grow in popularity. He would also develop podcasts, make more Jay and Silent Bob movies and present at Comic-Con becoming a geek prodigy opening the doors for comic books to enter the mainstream. He made nerds cool and gave rise to the pop culture obsession of comic book movies today.

This is a fascinating documentary which shows where Kevin Smith was as a filmmaker and personality in the early 2000’s. Although he wouldn’t go on to become a serious filmmaker he has developed into a really interesting and lovable film and comic personality.

Rating: A