An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder – DVD Review

DVD Reviews, Reviews

Directed by:
J.M. Kenny

Starring:
Kevin Smith …. Himself
Jason Mewes …. Himself
and a whole bunch of random people

Sony Pictures presents An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder. Produced and Directed by J.M. Kenny. Running time: 239 minutes. Unrated. Released on DVD: November 28, 2006. Available at Amazon.com.

The Concerts


An Evening with Kevin Smith was a DVD set that really built up a cult like fan following, even people who didn’t care for his films were glued to their TV sets, and the stories discussed in it have become those of legend. When the DVD ended it left countless viewers craving more, leading them to rewatch the discs over and over to fulfill their desire of wanting to hear what Silent Bob had to say. Then a sequel was announced… and a whole lot of nothing happened for close to two years. Until now. After countless push backs and delays, the title finally has a date set in stone to coincide with the DVD release of Smith’s newest film, Clerks II. So atleast this time everything seems to be working in its favor, giving consumers a chance to finally dive in to more of Smith’s off the cuff comments on things ranging from Dora the Explorer to his wifes Playboy spread. But does it live up to the hype?

Smith has never had trouble spinning a yarn or two (or four hours worth) when on camera in front of a packed auditorium. It all just flows out of him naturally, with the ability to describe locations, characters and situation in a way that completely envelopes his listeners, leaving them hanging on his every word. His Q&A’s rival just about any stand-up comedian working today, when he’s on his A-game and given prime material to talk about he can go off on a rant that’s one for the ages. And yet here, it doesn’t seem like he quite lives up to that reputation.

Rather than going back to college campuses around the country to share his worldly knowledge, Smith instead chose to go to two separate locations to record his stage act: the Roy Thompson Hall, in Toronto, Canada and the Criterion Theater in London, England. He even trades in his podium for a couch, coffee table and some fake flowers in a pot for adornment.

His discussions about Tim Burton, Prince and his work on the Superman Lives script are the three pillars to his last DVD. While all of the material on that two disc set are noteworthy, those three in particular were the ones most talked about, and still are to this day (just check the youtube hit counts). When asked if there was any backlash from any of his previous comments on these new discs, Smith says that only people from the Prince camp were dumb enough to leave themselves open for more humiliation. He continues to pontificate on past projects that he was attached to, like Coyote Ugly, which he re-wrote the entire script for but his draft was later re-written by another guy and only one single line of dialogue that Smith wrote remained in the final version of the film. His work on both the Six Million Dollar Man and Green Hornet adaptations are also discussed where he talks about how those genres of film are almost impossible for him to work on – due the style that he’s become accustom to writing.

He also talks a little bit about recently released films and people in the industry (poor Affleck). One story in particular in this new set is interesting, where in he talks about Mel Gibson’s bizarre career change and discuses the issues he has with The Passion of the Christ. Even sharing his own vision of a completely different spin on the tried and true tale – which includes Ninjas, wielding oozies, rescuing Jesus from the cross. Now tell me you wouldn’t pay to go see that!

One reason the previous set was so fun to watch is because he showed us what was behind the curtain, revealing some of the secrets Hollywood doesn’t like to have made public. Here it feels more intimate to Smith’s personal life and not so much his professional one. Which is hardly boring to watch – since the guy could talk about churning butter and make it seem interesting – it just lacks the replay value from before that will make you want to come back to it time and time again. It’s sweet hearing about Kevin’s family life, and seeing the love he shows for his wife is moving. It’s just hardly the reason people have grown to follow him through the years.

Sadly, all of the unnecessary push backs have caused some of the topics at hand in the set to feel a bit dated. For instance, Revenge of the Sith hadn’t been theatrically distributed. Smith makes note that he might be able to get a sneak preview of the print once it wraps shooting. Southland Tales was still in the developmental phase and hadn’t even locked a script yet, here Kevin talks about how his role of a gossip columnist in the film was being changed in to a war vet with no legs (“Like Lieutenant Dan?”) and a bald head. Some of the stage material has even found its way in to Smith’s own film work – specifically Randle’s rant about the Lord of the Rings trilogy during Clerks II. And Superman Returns, which Kevin had worked on in the 90’s and infamously talked about in the first Evening, had just signed Bryan Singer to direct. He even gets a few Election ’04 jokes in when the timing is right.

The set has few if any overlap in questions thanks to the discussion being driven by audience interaction, of course the down side is that the content is only as good as the questions being asked. Which during the first DVD set was hardly a problem, with hours of footage filmed around the country (five different locations) it gave editors enough material to run through so that they could produce a lean four hour piece that was packed to the brim with hilarious recounts of personal adventures and life experiences. Here Smith has only recorded himself in two locations, giving the editors not quite as much to work with. It’s still leading to an enjoyable viewing, just not one that can stand up to, or surpass, the first Evening.

While disc one is what we’ve come to expect from Kevin’s style of storytelling, disc two is one strange experience. Them Brits seem to be asking oddball questions solely to be unique, in hopes of making the DVD perhaps. Like when one asks Kevin if he could be half man and half sausage, which way would he prefer it to be, or asking what superpowers he wishes that he could have. Many feel like dead air, even when Smith does his best to steer the obscure uninteresting questions in to a story that will captivate his audience and cause a few laughs, there are still times where even he doesn’t know how to spin straw into gold. And with the London Q&A taking up the second leg of this new set it feel rather anticlimactic, never building towards bigger and more entertaining anecdotes that will leave you wanting more like the first set did.

The DVD


Video:
(Presented in 1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen)
While watching the first disc of the set there were some problems with the video playback, mainly a grainy/pixilated background and a small bit of haloing. Another thing that kept popping up on the first disc were random vertical white lines (maybe one pixel wide and going up half the screen size) that kept constantly showing up sporadically. These issues only appeared on the Toronto disc and are nowhere to be found on the London disc (disc two). Thankfully this is a simple DVD that doesn’t become unwatchable due to these small errors that, while not obtrusive, are hard to ignore once you see them.

Audio:
(English Dolby Digital 5.0 Surround)
One issue I have with the DVD Set is that microphones hardly capture what audience members shout out during the show. While it’s anoying hearing a rowdy crowd over the main act, at times it felt like the viewers were being left out of a funny piece of the Q&A’s due to poor audio capture. Other than that the audio is fine. Afterall, this is just a guy standing on stage with a mic and two others set up in the crowd for people to ask questions, so long as those are handled correctly it’s almost impossible to screw up.

Extras:
There’s not much to talk about in the set, as the main feature itself is more than enough in regards to content. But we do get two short featurettes that are hardly worth watching more than once. On the first disc we have Toronto – Limo Ride (11:15) which has Smith going around Toronto asking passersby what the national cuisine of Canada is. And yes, Tim Horton’s comes up quite a bit. Disc two offers London – Man on the Street (6:33) where Smith and Mewes ask the ladies of London what types of pick-up lines work on them. There are also three relatively easy to find easter eggs that talk about Smith’s work on Degrassi that, when combined, run around twenty minutes and are well worth the effort to go hunting for. Rounding out the set are Previews for Bottoms Up, The Covenant, Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby, Lies & Alibis, Dark Kingdom: The Dragon King, The Benchwarmers, Click, Dogma, Ringers: Lord of the Fans, Little Man, and Fun with Dick and Jane.

The DVD Lounge’s Ratings for An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder
CATEGORY
RATING
(OUT OF 10)
THE CONCERTS

7
THE VIDEO

6
THE AUDIO

5
THE EXTRAS

5
REPLAY VALUE

7
OVERALL
7
(NOT AN AVERAGE)

Currently residing in Washington D.C., John Charles Thomas has been writing in the digital space since 2005. While he'd like to boast about the culture and scenery, he tends to be more of a procrastinating creative type with an ambitious recluse side. @NerdLmtd