Blog Features

Favorite Fridays: Jersey Girl

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Good Morning Friends! I hope you are having a most excellent Friday. Some weeks back I had this idea for a new series on the blog where I share some item that is particularly special to me. Up until this point I have largely been talking about items in video games, but this morning we are going to diverge a bit from that format. I am also not nearly as faithful about doing one of these every Friday as I am with the Mixtape Mondays series, but ultimately that was the intent. Sometimes you create a series to give you options for when you are feeling like following that format and that is very much the case with this series.

Jersey Girl

Jersey Girl is effectively the Kevin Smith film that no one remembers, but I am here today to make a case for you giving it the time of day. This will not be an easy undertaking, especially given that it is actually hard to find on streaming services. You are forced to purchase it through Google or Apple or go through the nonsense that is adding Cinemax to your Hulu or Amazon subscription in order to access it. However, I am here today to tell you that this is quite possibly my favorite Kevin Smith film. I like many watched Clerks when I was a teenager and became a fan of his particular style of irreverent “dick and fart” humor. I think I matured with him as I followed his films through a sequence of Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy… each time I feel improving on what made a Kevin Smith film. Jersey Girl to me is the pinnacle of that maturation allowing the tackling of a serious film while still interjecting enough of that irreverent flavor to make it easy to consume.

Both Critics and Fans of Kevin Smith disagree with me however, given that the film has a Rotten Tomatoes score of 42%. Ultimately the film was a “failure” from a sheer monetary standpoint as it cost a reported $35 million to make and only took in an adjusted gross worldwide of just barely over that $35 million. I would say probably a large chunk of that money went to the cast, because it was rather wildly sprinkled with talent for the time. Here is a rundown of some of the major cast:

  • Ben Affleck – Ollie Trinke
  • Jennifer Lopez – Gertrude Steiney (very briefly)
  • Liv Tyler – Maya
  • George Carlin – Bart Trinke
  • Stephen Root – Greenie
  • Mike Starr – Block
  • Jason Biggs – Arthur Brickman
  • Will Smith – as Himself

So what went wrong? Why did this film perform as poorly as it did? Here is my line of thinking.

Problem 1: Bennifer and Gigli

One of the problems with bringing a film to market is that they have a very long lead time. Jersey Girl was originally targetted to a 2003 release date, which was ultimately pushed back to 2004 for reasons I will discuss shortly. That means that more than likely it started pre-production work in 2001 and filmed in 2002… and this was an era when the Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez celebrity coupling referred to as a “Bennifer” was a hot property. However, that changed rapidly after the release of the studio flop Gigli with an estimated budget of $54 million and a Gross Worldwide return of just over $7 million. Jersey Girl went through a few changes, namely the role of Jennifer Lopez was diminished in the advertising and it was pushed back to 2004 hoping that it would offer enough time for the bad press of Gigli to die down.

I think however more than anything the public just did not care to see Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez in anything. I am not exactly the type of person that consumes media focused on celebrity gossip, but even then it was impossible to escape people talking about “Bennifer”. I think people just got sick of it, and what was a net positive in 2001 when planning and production likely began for Jersey Girl, was a toxic asset in 2004 when the movie was finally released. Being a follower of Kevin Smith, I knew about the film and was anxiously awaiting it… but I remember it was actually rather hard to get ahold of at the time of release. This is one of the films that was quietly released without much fanfare, and if my memory is correct was only actually in theaters locally for a few weeks. I remember missing it at the traditional theaters and ultimately having to catch it at one of the budget second-run theaters that were popular at the time.

Long story short… Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were not a couple anyone wanted to see at the time.

Problem 2: Clerks Fans

The other core problem the movie had was the fact that it was Kevin Smith’s film. With that came a certain understanding of the type of film the audience was expecting. Prior to Jersey Girl, you had Clerks in 1994, Mallrats in 1995, Chasing Amy in 1997, Dogma in 1999, and the exceptionally campy Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back in 2001. While Dogma and Chasing Amy were significantly better films than the rest, they all followed a fairly familiar formula of putting the “dick and fart” jokes upfront and then weaving a narrative around them.

Jersey Girl was a wild departure of Kevin trying to make a more serious film, with the main character losing both his wife and his career only a few minutes into the film and the core narrative focusing on the struggle of adapting to being a proper adult and the rigors of parenthood. In many ways, I think these were things that Kevin himself was struggling with, and as one of his audience being of a specific age… I was going through these changes along with him. However, there was still a core fandom that did not want any part of a serious Kevin Smith film. It is moments like this that a “cult following” can backfire and discussion of “selling out” starts being mentioned. His legion of fans… ultimately panned this film.

Why it is worth watching

There is nothing about Jersey Girl that is original, in fact, one of the key complaints that I hear levied against it by critics is that it is too formulaic. The thing is… formulaic movies exist in droves and not every film has to be groundbreaking. There is a sub-genre of romantic comedy that centers around an awful guy learning to love through interactions with a heart warming child they are forced to take care of. This worked for Liar Liar in 1997 and Big Daddy in 1999, and I think very much Jersey Girl was an attempt to apply the Kevin Smith style of character-driven comedy to that sort of a film. I think it does so beautifully but also does heavily stack up some tropes. I think it does so in a charming manner that creates an extremely watchable film.

What does it for me though is like all Kevin Smith films, it creates this universe of loveable characters that all interact together to make a plot. There are great performances by George Carlin as the grumpy grandfather with a heart and his two coworker friends in Stephen Root as Uncle Greenie and Mike Starr as Uncle Block. There is a side plot in the movie that Ben Affleck’s character nuked his career over raging about Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and not understanding why anyone was taking it seriously. This is an opinion that I legitimately remember being voiced about not understanding why the “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand” dude was a big deal. It beautifully bookends this concept with an appearance by Will Smith towards the end of the film talking about the only thing that really matters to him are his children.

If for no reason else the movie wins huge points for me for the horrified teacher played by Betty Aberlin of Mister Rogers Neighborhood fame. There is a side gag focused on how every child in young Gertie’s class is obsessed with Cats, and at a talent show EVERYONE is apparently singing Memories from Cats. Instead Gertie performs a talent show rendition of “God That’s Good” from Sweeny Todd embedded above. Firstly it is extremely well done, but the shocked teacher and confused audience are what really sell the scene for me. The film as a whole has all of the Kevin Smith oneliners, but they are just woven together in a narrative structure that is focused on something more meaningful than dick humor.

I personally feel like Jersey Girl deserves more attention than it has gotten over the years. I feel like a number of circumstances not related to the film itself have painted it In a certain light. If you ever have a chance to watch it with an open mind, then I highly suggest you do so. It is absolutely still a Kevin Smith film, but just one that takes a more serious path to get to its humor.

Mixtape Mondays: Major Party Foul Dude

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Good Morning Friends! It is time for yet another mix to land on yet another Monday. For those who don’t know this series, each Monday I release a new MixTape that is available in both Spotify and YouTube flavors. The idea behind it is that as a kid I was a creator of many mixtapes. I would share them with my friends and often times put a lot of thought and effort into placing songs in just the right order. My goal was trying to create something that was a “listen-through” or an album that you just put in the stereo and let play. Creating an album that could be played start to end had greater significance given that rapidly skipping tracks was just not a thing that was viable. Since I don’t make physical mixtapes anymore, I make them digitally and share them with you, my readers.

Major Party Foul Dude

This album is the soundtrack to a High School or College party that I can visualize in my head summoned from the bowels of my memory. Granted a number of these songs did not exist during my college timeframe, but there is an unmistakable brand of pop-punk that fueled similar events. In my mind’s eye, I can picture a sea of red solo cups, and maybe even a trashcan full of “cowboy Koolaid” with this playing in the background. Essentially I crafted this album out of the late 90s and early 2000s post-punk music that fueled the Warp Tour and Jackass. Granted I am placing this in a very specific time context, but I feel like this sort of music is ultimately timeless. I’ve been sitting on this one for a while because I had cranked out two albums that both included some Blink 182 on them. However that was six weeks ago, and I think plenty of time has passed in order for this to feel fresh again.

Track List

  • Swing, Swing – The All-American Rejects
  • Flagpole Sitta – Harvey Danger
  • Fat Lip – Sum 41
  • Over My Head – Lit
  • The Rock Show – Blink-182
  • The Anthem – Good Charlotte
  • The Middle – Jimmy Eat World
  • Basket Case – Green Day
  • Ocean Avenue – Yellowcard
  • Nothing Inside – Machine Gun Kelly
  • And I – Box Car Racer
  • Santa Monica – Everclear
  • Banditos – The Refreshments
  • Coolidge – Descendents
  • King of Wishful Thinking – New Found Glory

Listen on Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Listen On Tidal

There we have it friends, the fifteenth Mixtape in this series. I still have a large number of these waiting in the wings and still, find myself every few weeks going through a period of cranking out three or four of them at a time. For now, the inspiration is holding steady, so I am wondering exactly how long I can keep this going. I do realize that if I am going to keep this series going, I will need to start consuming brand new music. If this is your first mix, then I suggest checking out the archive where I keep a list of all of the past albums.

Okay to Take a Break

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Good morning friends! I am feeling better this morning, or better enough to actually be interactive and mostly functional. Right now we have this weird thing happening in Oklahoma that is a perfect reminder that as a state we just get the weather patterns that are left over from the rest of the country. The air is filled with smoke from fires but said fires are happening in Canada and the Pacific Northwest but the current wind patterns are causing it to hang over the middle of the country. As a fairly severe asthmatic and one that is particularly susceptible to smoke, it has been destroying my lungs. For reference in 2005, there was a house fire down the street and that was enough exposure to send me to the hospital for five days. Yesterday was a day of rest and lots of Benedryl to try and halt the allergic reaction causing my lungs to stop functioning.

The results are that I feel more like a human being, but yesterday was not so much. As a result without really meaning to, I made the tactical decision just not to worry about blogging. I made a comment on Twitter given that the largest chunk of my vocal readers have a presence there where I sheepishly half apologized for not posting.

It felt strange that the key proprietor of Blaugust was taking a day off during the running of the event. I was rapidly presented with a chorus of my friends telling me that it was perfectly okay to take time off from blogging and that maybe it was a good lesson to present to younger bloggers. So here we are this morning with a post I did not intend to write on a subject I did not think to cover. The thing is… my friends are completely correct. Your health and wellbeing are far more important than maintaining a schedule. As a result, Uncle Bel is going to tell you a story.

The Grand Experiment

I am going to be completely honest with you, but right now my legacy in blogging seems to be the fact that I am more prolific than most. I am not necessarily known for the quality of my posts, but instead the quantity of them. Sure there are true daily bloggers that completely clean my clock when it comes to posting count, but people keep returning because I have things to say and keep saying them. This was not always the case and in fact, for the first four years of this blog, I was extremely irregular in my posting patterns. In 2013 I decided I wanted to change this and proposed what I then called The Grand Experiment where I force myself to sit down every morning and write something. The idea was simple enough, that not every blog post needed to be this epic tale and there could be straightforward “day in the life” style posts along the way.

In that first year, I made a total of 257 blog posts, which was over a hundred more than I had made to that point in the first four years of blogging. The more I wrote the easier it became to summon forth something to talk about, and honestly the more the barriers lowered in talking about my real life. I had always tried to keep my readers at arm’s length and never really talk about anything that I was going through. When you are blogging every day it becomes exceptionally hard to do that, and bits and pieces of my real life came through in this new journal format. Thing is, years after the fact I am very glad that I opened up because I can now use my blog as a way of determining when exactly which events happened in my life.

The Double Edged Sword

The challenge with blogging every day is that it becomes extremely difficult to stop blogging. You feel like you are a failure if you miss a day and for three and a half years I managed to crank out something new every single morning. There were a lot of days that I did not want to make a post and probably would have been better off not making one. The thing is I didn’t want to let that ball drop so I keep juggling and eventually reached this place where I felt like I needed to purposefully drop it in order to keep my own sanity. I’ve been so good about marking the passing of specific milestones, that I find it funny this morning I had to search for the exact point when I purposefully broke the streak. The history of daily blogging was looming over me and it felt like pressure pushing down on my shoulders. My ultimate fear was that if I did not break it on my own… I would potentially have a longer break when burnout finally caught up with me.

Instead of daily blogging, I shifted over to a format of blogging every weekday, which gave me a bit of a break on the weekends to recharge my batteries. The truth is I actually landed on a format where I took Saturday off because Sunday ended up being a quick posting of that weeks AggroChat which was more or less a required thing. In general, this was enough of a break to make me feel less pressured to keep things going. Even then however there are days when I just can’t bring myself to post like yesterday, and I need to be better about giving myself room to allow those days to happen. I did start out yesterday feeling like a bit of a failure for not summoning forth a blog post, but my friends came to the rescue and dispelled that myth.

Give Yourself Breathing Room

So while I absolutely think setting a schedule for yourself and sticking with it is a key trait in blogging, you do have to give yourself a bit of wiggle room. I am a daily blogger of a sort, but I give myself the leverage to determine which days I actually make posts. I try and follow a weekdays format, but occasionally there is going to be a day where that just doesn’t work. Yesterday I was sick, other days in the past I have been too busy at work or just didn’t feel like I had anything to add. Those days are okay and natural and it is important to let yourself have a break every now and then. Blogging is about the marathon and not the sprint. Ultimately we want you to be a voice that is around for the long haul and not someone that is going to be super active and then disappear forever. Breaks I think are key to that longevity.

Mixtape Mondays: Aether Consumed Prayers Answered

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Good Morning Friends! It is time for another Mixtape Monday, and I am going to take a moment to sorta slide into this discussion. It is Blaugust and we are supposed to be giving some sage advice or some such as mentors. This friend is what you would call a series and it gives me some structure when it comes to planning around my blog. I know that in theory every Monday, which is one of the harder days to be motivated and post something is taken up by a fixed construct that I can count on. This also gives me the ability to plan ahead, knowing that each Monday I am going to need a Mixtape to write about. As such I tend to have these super productive days when I crank out a half dozen or so tapes and then keep them in the bank for when I need another Monday post.

The double-edged sword of having a series is that you are more or less expected to keep it going. While you have a predictable slot in your blog schedule, it also means that you have to more or less produce on a pattern. I have been super bad at actually keeping series going throughout the course of this blog, and so many of these have been abandoned by the wayside. For example, probably no one actually remembers Easing Into Eorzea, Media Consumption, Steampowered Sunday, or Storytime Saturdays but they were absolutely series that I attempted to make a thing and now looking back had a shocking number of posts under each of them. They are failed series because I didn’t plan ahead enough or work on trying to create a backlog of content to post under each of those categories. Essentially my advice to you is if you plan on doing a series, treat it as something that you are going to create content for ahead of time so that you can meet those weekly drops.

Aether Consumed Prayers Answered

It is shocking to no one who has read this blog for more than a few posts recently that I am back playing an awful lot of Final Fantasy XIV. The game itself is great, but one of the things that have always stood out is the music. I realize there are a number of you that do not listen to in-game soundtracks, and I would say at least for Final Fantasy XIV it is a critical flaw in your logic. This game spends so much effort devoted to making sure that the music is great and synchronizes down to the frame with animates. One of the places this is most clearly evidenced is the Primal fights and something like Titan for Leviathan would not be the same experience without the soundtrack and the changes that are made during the source of the fight. This morning I share with you some of my favorite big fight tracks, while not all are from Primal encounters they represent the vast majority. Unfortunately this means that the YouTube version of this playlist is going to be super spoilery and I will give it a very special warning below.

Track List

  • Fallen Angel – Masayoshi Soken
  • Spiral – Masayoshi Soken
  • Rise – Masayoshi Soken
  • Battle on the Big Bridge – Nobuo Uematsu
  • Amatsu Kaze – Masayoshi Soken
  • Unbreakable (Duality) – Masayoshi Soken
  • Under the Weight – Masayoshi Soken
  • Through the Maelstrom – Masayoshi Soken
  • Metal – Brute Justice Mode – Masayoshi Soken
  • Oblivion – Masayoshi Soken
  • Birds of Prey – Masayoshi Soken
  • Wayward Daughter – Masayoshi Soken
  • Unbending Steel – Masayoshi Soken

Listen On Spotify

Listen On YouTube

Normally I embed the YouTube Playlist here, but I feel like I need to give some very special warning with this one. Unlike is normally the case, the vast majority of these videos are actually fighting spoilers and show players fighting along to the primal encounter itself. This means watching the videos could spoil not only fight mechanics but significant story beats. Please watch at your own peril and I realize this is frustrating given that up until this point I have tried to give both Spotify and YouTube equal treatment. So I will link to the playlist, but if you have not experienced these fights then I highly suggest minimizing it and letting it play in the background without actually watching the fights themselves.

Well folks that were the Fourteenth mixtape in this series, and as a result, it is clearly aligned to being music from Final Fantasy XIV. I am going, to be honest, this is entirely a happy synergy that I did not plan in the least. I have been playing a lot of the games and loving the music, and this sorta happened spontaneously. Again if you are not listening to the music while you play this game, you really should remedy that. As always if you are so inclined, you can listen to the entire Mixtape Mondays Archive: