Saw Jersey Girl last night. Kevin Smith was even there, so that was cool. It's a good film, not a great one. The acting was good, especially the kid, who amazingly never got on my nerves once. The cinematography (by Vilmos Zsigmond) was amazing, especially if you're expecting it to look like every Kevin Smith film. The story was simple but good, the sentimental stuff getting a tad soggy at times. I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't more about the particular joys of living in New Jersey, but although that theme is hinted at, it's much more about parenting, grief, and learning to accept not becoming who you thought you'd be. Overall though, a fine date movie (my girlfriend loved it).
During the Q&A afterwords, this 16-year old kid criticized the music Smith used as being too "sappy." When Smith asked him which song in particular bothered him, the kid said "Landslide" (Fleetwood Mac version of course). Smith and the audience just attacked him for the rest of the night. The movie does lean on pop song montages pretty heavilly to convey emotions, though, so I can see how if you didn't like a particular song, you would get pretty annoyed.
Smith's next film will be "Green Hornet," not Fletch Won. He's still fighting to get Jason Lee cast as Fletch. And Jason Mews is coming up on one year of being off heroin.
