MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

When Dante Hicks (Brian O'Halloran) is reluctantly put in charge of the Quick Stop market on his day off, he tries, though half-heartedly, to perform his minimum-wage duties as efficiently as possible. This gets tough amidst the on-going fight with his girlfriend, Veronica (Marilyn Ghigliotti), and his attempt to get back together with his ex-girlfriend, Caitlyn Bree (Lisa Spoonhauer). Meanwhile, his friend and alter ego Randall (Jeff Anderson) is working behind the counter of the adjacent video store -- at least when he feels like it. Randall's unabashed disdain of his place of employment, a long with his self-admitted hatred towards its customers is a sharp contrast to Dante's feeble attempts at the niceties of customer service. Much of the film consists of Randall and Dante's criticism of their customers, their lives, and the world in general. Clerks, filmed in black-and-white on a budget of only $27,000, began the career of writer director Kevin Smith, who would go on to make Mallrats (1995), Chasing Amy (1997), Dogma (1999), and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001). ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: 1
• Number of Discs: 3
• Audio: Dolby Digital
• Screen: Black and White
• Subtitle: Spanish, English
• Features:
  • • Includes both the theatrical version (90 min.) and the first cut of the film (105 min.)
    • Classic commentary, circa '95, featuring Kevin, Mos, Mewes, Brian, and others
    • Enhanced playback track
    • "Clerks: The Lost Scene"
    • "The Flying Car"
    • MTV spots with Jay & Silent Bob
    • Theatrical trailer
    • Music video
    • Clerks restoration intros
    • Original Clerks auditions
    • "Clerks: The First Cut" all-new audio & video commentary with Kevin, Brian, Jeff, Mos, and Mewes
    • "Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks"
    • "Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary"
    • Tenth anniversary Q & A
    • Outtakes from "Snowball Effect"
    • Still photo gallery
    • Original Kevin Smith journals
    • Articles and reviews
    • "Reels and Deals" by Amy Taubin
    • "Rush Week" by Amy Taubin
    • The New York Times review "At a Convenience Store, Coolness to Go" by Janet Maslin
    • IFFM 1993 program note by Kevin Smith
    • 1994 Sundance Film Festival program note by Robert Hawk
    • "The Odd Couple: Sundance 1994" by John Pearson
    • Peter Broderick excerpt from "The ABC's of No-Budget Filmmaking"
    • Peter Broderick excerpt from "Learning From Low-Budgets"
    • DVD-ROM: Enhanced playback track; Kevin Smith's original 168-page first draft of the Clerks screenplay

AWARDS

• Cannes Film Festival

•     Won Jury Prize - 1994

• Independent Spirit Awards

•     Nominated Best Debut Performance - 1994 (Jeff Anderson)
•     Nominated Best First Feature - 1994 (Kevin Smith)
•     Nominated Best First Screenplay - 1994 (Kevin Smith)

• Sundance Film Festival

•     Won Filmmaker's Trophy: Dramatic - 1993 (Kevin Smith)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Kevin Smith

• Producer:

  Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier

• Screenwriter:

  Kevin Smith

• Cinematographer:

  David Klein

• Featured Music:

  The Jesus Lizard, Soul Asylum, Bad Religion, Alice in Chains

• Editor:

  Kevin Smith, Scott Mosier

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Scott Mosier

• Makeup:

  Leslie Hope

REVIEW:

• While Clerks doesn't have much going for it cinematically -- it looks even cheaper than its $27,000 budget would lead you to expect and the directorial style can be described as "nail down the camera and let the actors play the scene" -- it's still an effective and very funny movie, largely thanks to the screenplay by first-time writer/director Kevin Smith. Chock full of instantly quotable dialogue performed by an unknown cast with an appropriate tone of Jersey slacker cynicism, Clerks is a hilarious rant against (and from) the lowest rungs of minimum-wage slavery. If convenience store clerk Dante (Brian O'Halloran) and his best friend, video store counter guy Randall (Jeff Anderson), don't do anything terribly interesting (the action high point of the film is a brief hockey game played on a roof), that's part of the point; these guys' lives are going nowhere, and they know it. But rather than do anything about it, they talk about whatever keeps them from dying of boredom, including which Star Wars movie was the best, the sexual escapades of their girlfriends, the virtues of hermaphrodite porn, and the endless parade of stupid customers they have to deal with. Anyone who has ever worked retail will enjoy a long, loud laugh of bitter recognition while watching Clerks, while anyone else should thank their lucky stars if they don't understand the sheer hell of spending eight hours behind the counter that this film captures with such accuracy. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi