Rating: 
Summary: No Tim For Love Dr. Jones
Review: This movie is Kevin Smith's brilliant film making debut. It follows a day in the life of a convenience store clerk (Brian O'Halloran) and a video store clerk (Jeff Anderson). It also marks the introduction of Jay and Silent Bob (Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith) to the world. Dante (O'Halloran) is the guy whose life just can't go right. He is stuck in a low-paying no respect job that he hates. He is forced to deal with idiots from the time he comes in until the time the store closes, on his scheduled day off no less. The characters in this movie deal with more stuff in one day than most people will in their life. A hockey game on the roof of the store, a funeral, and Dante's ex-girlfriend has sex in the bathroom with a corpse. It is well-known that the movie was made on a shoestring budget, but it is great anyway. The black and white is an added bonus. I bought the video for $2.99 when a local rental store when it went out of business a few years ago. My brother made fun of me then, but then last year he paid over $30 for the DVD. Ha ha on him!
Rating:
Summary: Classic Kevin Smith
Review: This film is a must-see for anyone that has ever worked in retail. One scene in particular points out the various types of customers that store clerks have to deal with. Actually, the traumas of retailing are hinted at throughout the movie. However, what really makes this movie great is Smith's talent at creating hilarious dialouge and what I call "New Jersey-isms".
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Summary: One of the very best comedies ever made
Review: There is no denying it: "Clerks" is one of the funniest movies ever made, from the tiny snicker that escapes everyone's throat when Dante falls out of his closet to answer the phone to its very satisfying ending. It is almost nonstop funny, even when it decides to take little pitstops for moments of philosophy. It is very well acted, with more memorable quotes than a Shakespeare play, and it marks the beginning of one of the best and funniest comic directors ever to march onto a film set. Kevin Smith is a comic genius, sharply drawing all of his characters and giving each of them just the right edge for the actors to play on. Each character is an interesting individual, they aren't just play-offs of each other. Dante and Randal could've just been like any ordinary Abbott and Costello clones, and Jay and Silent Bob could've been exact duplicates of Cheech and Chong, but that would've been taking the easy/cliched way out. Smith is much smarter than that, and it shows in his hilarious and, at times, brilliant dialogue. The plot of the film is fairly easy to explain. Dante and Randal are employees of the Quick Stop Convenience Store and RST Video Store. Dante gets called in on his day off because one of his co-workers falls ill, and because of Dante's hockey game at 2, the boss promises to be in the store to take over at noon. Dante accepts the deal and goes into work only to find gum jammed in the locks ("Buncha savages in this town") to the steel shutters, the Asbury Press didn't arrive that morning, and in order to not lose business, he uses shoe polish to make a sign that he masking tapes to the side of the store that proudly proclaims, "I ASSURE YOU WE'RE OPEN!" That's just the first fifteen minutes of his day. Randal shows up late after an unruly costumer talks a mob into throwing cigarettes at Dante, and one costumer attempts to belittle Dante's existence but forgets something rather important to him ("No time for love, Dr. Jones"). This is a quite a start for a day off, but it only becomes more complicated when we find out about Dante having a girlfriend named Veronica who was a lot more busy in high school than he thought ("THIRTY-SEVEN!"), and he still carries a torch for the girl he dated for five years who cheated on him 8 1/2 times and is allegedly engaged to an Asian design major. WOW! Then we have the brief interludes of a pornoholic old man, a short-lived hockey game, and a funeral for "one of the illustrious twelve" women Dante has been with. All of this goes on while Jay and Silent Bob are dealing drugs and singing Russian metal songs, and "Clerks" never gets confused, it never steps off the point, and it never stops being funny. This is a monumental achievement for a director to make such extraordinary entertainment on his first try. As an aspiring filmmaker and video store clerk, myself, my hat is off to Kevin Smith, and I can't wait for the lightsaber fight between Jay, Silent Bob, and Mark Hamill. But until then, we have four great movies from this director who snuck in under the radar six years ago and delivered one of the truly great comedy films of all time.
Rating:
Summary: kevin smith is the best
Review: i love any movie by kevin smith. i had to go and buy all of his movies on dvd. they all have some really great special features (except dogma which there is a SE being released soon). and any movie with jay and silent bob in it makes it that much better.
Rating: 
Summary: $27,000 and worth every penny
Review: Ok, just watched it again, and continue to be impressed at how cohesive Smith's work is. The movie, set up almost as a series of vignettes, plots through a somewhat unusual day in Retail Hell. The film is definitely a first, independent effort, set up to showcase talent to the Money. But it definitely has that DIY sensibility, as well as Smith's consistent and dead-on view of people making their way in the world, and making their foolish mistakes. A word of advice to people new to Smith's films - it does help to see the New Jersey Trilogy - Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy, in order, both to watch the improved production and maturing throughout hte works,as well as to catch the continual cross-references.
Rating:
Summary: it's good, but not that great
Review: despite what a previous reviewer said, this is not the BEST movie ever made. the camera work is pedestrian at best, with generally poor cinematography. to date, smith has yet to learn how to work with the camera. however, he's a damn fine writer and has constructed one of the better comedies of the 90's here. the transfer here is good, about as good as you can get with the quality they started with. the audio commentary is mostly smith, with a smattering of the others, and mewes occasionally grunting a response. it feels like de niro's commentary on meet the parents, but smith is entertaining enough to more than make up for the other's shortcomings here. the commentary is almost as funny as the movie itself.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it now!
Review: There is no point in renting this film, you will want to own it. This is the funniest film of all time. Kevin Smith has done more for indie films than anyone (including Parker Posey) and is at his best with a shoe string budget. The fact that hundreds of millions are spent on some of the worst films I have ever seen is made even more horrible when you compare that to how great a film can be with a well written script and some actors who seem to enjoy their job and are comfortable with their charactors. This is the first installment of some of the best films made....
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Summary: A Frightening Prophecy that's too ... funny!!!
Review: Being an employee of a video store, I've come to this frightening realization that this film was a warning that I would end up being bombarded by the monotonous barrage of stupid questions and not to mention the vast array of cinematic illiterates (Oooh Navy Seals.) This film has given me the desire to vent my frustrations. Apart from that, it's just devillishly funny. This here is Kevin Smith nest egg. His platform onto bigger endeavors into the realm of independent film. Never have I encountered a script writer with such an aggressive wit. I don't know how he manages to make cuss words flow so fluenty from his characters, and supply us with a blunt, direct and surprisingly profound. Name any other comedy that actually probes the pathetic superficiality of the Star Wars trilogy, or has the gall toviolate a corpse at a wake, or even show pride in the insubordination of customer service. I'll face facts, these characters are my heroes. I hope one day to be allowed to spit water into an annoying customer's face. that would be sooooo beautiful. In the mean time I'll revel in this excellent DVD, complete with a ... load of special features. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have. Just remember "Title does NOT dictate behavior."
Rating:
Summary: $37,000 Budget, Priceless Script
Review: Because of budget restraints, "Clerks" is filmed in grainy black-and-white. Fortuitously, the audience feels like they're eavesdropping on the action through the convenience store's closed-circuit camera. And what are we privy to? An over-the-top, crude, rude, and bitingly funny look at the nihilistic existence of a cynical, twenty-something, cash register jockey. Kevin Smith is a masterful screenwriter (not so much as a director). He has a flair for dialogue almost unparalleled in contemporary cinema. Only Tarantino can match his wealth of pop-culture references and his characters' philosophical, id-obsessed personalities. Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) is woken from a disheveled slumber, and reluctantly summoned to cover a shift at his job down at the Quick Stop, a.k.a. Purgatory (by the way, the title card references to Dante Alighieri's "Inferno" give the film a hilarious air of pretentiousness, which perfectly meshes with the personalities of the characters). He is the sane centre of the film, providing much of the film's humour with his incredulous reactions to the customers who come into his store. Add to that his nihilistic mantra ("I'm not even supposed to be here today") and what you get is the epitome of the indie-cinema put-upon anti-hero. O'Halloran, who I believe is more a friend of director Smith's than a real actor, does well showing Dante's slow-burning mania. Dante's main source of anguish is Video Store clerk Randal (Jeff Anderson), anarchist, hyper-cynic, s**t-disturber, and self-professed best friend. Anderson, also an obviously amateur actor, delivers Randal's warped logic adequately enough. His shining moment comes when he places a phone order for a series of ridiculously titled porno movies in front of a mother and her young child. In hindsight, Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith himself) are the stars of Kevin Smith's movies. Here, their first outing, they do little more than brighten up the background. Although, all the staples of their later appearances are here: Jay's hyperactive motor mouth; the obsession with pot and women; Silent Bob's Zen-Buddhist aura and his one moment of vocal clarity. You wish they had more screen time here, but are consoled in the knowledge that they dominate the later Smith movies. Luckily, this film is full of Smith's sense of black humour and entertaining obsessions. And if you can get past the fact that most of the acting is stiff and that the convenience store windows are dark in what should be the middle of the day (Smith was forced to film at night), you'll find "Clerks" an addictive, low-rent treasure.
Rating:
Summary: The best film ever made....and an excellent DVD......
Review: Okay, down to business. Clerks was made with 28,000 dollars, written and directed by Kevin Smith, a genius in his own time. This film stars Kevin's friends working between a convenience store and a video store. There are 2 main characters Dante-Always complaining but reluctant to protest he gets sucked into one of the worst work days of his entire life. He finds out that his ex-girlfriend from high school was about to get married but decides to come back to town to see him, he has to make a decision between the girl he used to love and the girl he thinks he loves now. Randall-The wise cracking video store register jockey who spends most of his time sleeping and watching dirty movies or making funny walks around the store. I don't even want to spoil the plot to those of you who haven't seen it. This is the best film ever made. Period. The dialogue is brilliant, the acting is great, the script is superb, i can watch this a billion times over. The commentary track is good and all the DVD extras are awesome. 5 billion stars/5.
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