Product Description

Miramax Home Entertainment is proud to present this amazing, three-disc collector's set that includes two versions of the original indie classic, a killer, brand-new, 90-minute documentary -- "Snowball Effect: The Story Of CLERKS," and more never-before-seen bonus material than you can shake a salsa shark at!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12038 in DVD
• Brand: Disney
• Released on: 2004-09-07
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Box set, Closed-captioned, Collector's Edition, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Running time: 196 minutes

Amazon.com
Before Kevin Smith became a Hollywood darling with Chasing Amy, a film he wrote and directed, he made this $27,000 comedy about real-life experiences working for chump change at a New Jersey convenience store. A rude, foul-mouthed collection of anecdotes about the responsibilities that go with being on the wrong side of the till, the film is also a relationship story that takes some hilarious turns once the lovers start revealing their sexual histories to one another. In the best tradition of first-time, ultra-low budget independent films, Smith uses Clerks as an audition piece, demonstrating that he not only can handle two-character comedy but also has an eye for action--as proven in a smoothly handled rooftop hockey scene. Smith himself appears as a silent figure who hangs out on the fringes of the store's property. --Tom Keogh

DVD features
Aimed squarely at its most devoted fans, the 10th anniversary DVD of Clerks is jam-packed with entertaining retrospective features. Kevin Smith's $27,000 film turned into one of the great legends of independent filmmaking, so it's only fitting that "Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks" should be almost as long as the film itself, chronicling the film's rags-to-riches history in inspirational and often hilarious detail, from ominous flooding in Smith's New Jersey hometown as filming was about to commence, to the film's dream-like discovery at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994. The "10th Anniversary Q&A" is almost as good, since it reunites the entire cast and primary crew for an amusing, heartfelt, and occasionally confrontational reunion, including an on-stage reconciliation between Smith and cast member Jeff ("Randal") Anderson, who had fought over Anderson's claim to a cut of Clerks profits. (Smith admits he was wrong.) While the 10th anniversary commentary (with Smith, producer Scott Mosier, and costars Brian O'Halloran, Anderson, and Jason Mewes) is mostly a rambling waste of time, the archival materials are extensive and fun, amounting to what is essentially a scrapbook (including Smith's personal journals) about one of the scrappiest success stories of the 1990s. The "first cut" is appropriately rough (it was mastered from a VHS tape), but it gives Smith's loyal followers a chance to see the original, slightly longer version of Clerks that attracted so much enthusiastic attention among influential indie-film promoters in late 1993. Overall, this three-disc set is a valentine to do-it-yourself filmmakers everywhere, offering that crucial glimmer of hope that Smith's good fortune could happen again, to anyone with a camera and a dream. --Jeff Shannon

Customer Reviews

Great Movie, Great DVD (or Laserdisk).
I'm not going to tell the plot of Clerks, since tons of other reviewers have already done that, but instead I'm going to focus of the DVD, because I don't feel enough people write about that.

First off here's the special features:

Audio Commentary: This commentary features a nearly countless amount of people, but mostly Kevin Smith with the occasional tid bit from actor Brian O' Halloran (also known as Brian Christopher O' Halloran) or producer Scott Mosier. Funnily, Jason Mewes showed up drunk for the recording of this and lies on the floor past out most of the time, sometimes waking up to swear or scream "Snootchie Bootchies." Obviously only one mike was used for this, but that never bothered me much, because the commentary is a load of fun, with tons of interesting things and laughs. I like this much better than the overrated Mallrats commentary.

Deleted Scenes With Introductions by Kevin Smith: There are about 6 deleted scenes, almost all of them extended bits, but all of them interesting. Ones I particularly liked were the longer Gum Guy's speech, the longer conversation with Dane and Veronica, and the longer talking between Veronica and Randal. The only completely additional scene is in #3 where Randal tries to pursuade a customer to rent Smokey and the Bandit 3. Not very funny, but interesting. The introductions to the scenes by Kevin Smith are very good, short and to the point, where as in all the other DVDs he rambles on for about two minutes about why you should visit Jay and Silent Bob's Secret Stash or mumbles or wastes time going "Um," you get my point. In these intros he simly states what you'll find new in the scene and then you view, I think the longest intro is about thirty seconds. Excellent.

Original Ending: The shocking original ending is included for your enjoyment, and it is obvious why it was cut, although I personally love the scene and think it'd be a great ending to the film. Why? Because it ends on a downer, just like Dante and Randal talk about early in the film, and is more realistic (OK, maybe not, but I like it). Sit through the short set of credits for a breif cameo by director Smith. The ending features an introduction where Smith states how happy he is that the scene was cut. Interesting.

Music Video: The funny music video for Soul Asylum's "Can't Even Tell", featuring a recreation of the hockey scene, in color no less! It's an interesting look at what if would be like if the movie was in color, but it's also a pretty good song, and the video is entertaining, measuring around four and a half minutes. Introduction by Smith is included, which is pretty interesting.

Theatrical Trailer: The film's original trailer is included with introduction by Smith, where he states how crazy he is for it and that it's one of his favorite trailers ever. It's a nice trailer and all, but really, it is just a trailer, and I think he sees into it more than most people will (though I read a review that called the trailer "a piece of film itself").

Anyway, those are the extras. It doesn't look like much, but quality overwhelms quantity, and all these extras are very cool, and worth your time.

The sound and picture on the film is fine, at least when you think about it. Remember Clerks cost less than a car to make, and the picture is consistently grainy throughout, as well as black and white (oh boo hoo to all you people who can't watch a black and white movie), but I could always tell what was going on, and after about two minutes, I got used to the grain (you will, too). The sound is a 2.0 surround sound that is always clear and never bothersome. There's minor hiss, but barely irritating (or noticeable).

Anyway, I like CLerks a lot, although most people won't watch it because of the black and white picture and a lot of people find it boring, but I just don't understand how anyone could find a movie with such great acting and dialouge boring. Well, if you need an explosion or a bunch of action every ten minutes.....

Hope you liked my review (kind of long, sorry), and please vote if it was helpful. Thank you for reading.

A hysterical movie, and a DVD chock full of extras
One of my favorite films of all time... and they've given it the deluxe treatment with this 3-disc set. Here are the details from Kevin Smith's View Askew website about this new edition:

The 93 minute "Clerks" Theatrical cut- All new HiDef transfer from 16mm IP supervised by Dave Klein with all-new 5.1 Skywalker Sound remix supervised by Scott Mosier, includes original commentary track from laser disc/initial DVD release

The 103 minute "Clerks" IFFM First Cut, includes all-new audio/video commentary track with Kevin, Scott, Jeff Anderson, Brian O'Halloran and Jason Mewes.

The 95 minute "The Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks" Brand Spanking New Documentary that inteviews almost everybody who ever had something to do with "Clerks"

The MTV Jay and Silent Bob shorts that everyone's been crying for us to put on a DVD for years now

The Arclight 10th Anniversary Q&A with Brian, Jeff, Marilyn, Scott, Dave, Mewes, and Kevin

Lots of new video intros.

"The Flying Car" short from the Tonight Show (re-telecined in HiDef).

The Original theatrical trailer

"Can't Even Tell" Music Video

The original Jeff, Brian, and Marilyn and Ernie O'Donnell audition tapes

The brand new, seven minute animated "Lost Scene" short

Expansive Still Photo Gallery

'Clerks' Trivia track

Original 168-page original first draft screenplay

Kevin's 'Clerks' Journal

Kevin's 'Sundance' Journal

Peter Broderick's 1992 article "The ABC's of No-Budget Filmmaking" that inspired the budget for 'Clerks'

Peter Broderick's followup article "Learning from Low-Budgets" a year later that does the same treatment on 'Clerks'

Amy Taubin's Village Voice article on the 1991 IFFM and 'Slacker' that inspired Kevin to take 'Clerks' to the IFFM

Amy Taubin's Village Voice article on the 1993 IFFM about 'Clerks' being the gem of the festival.

Janet Maslin's 1994 New York Times review of 'Clerks' entitled "At a Convenience Store, Coolness To Go"

The entire John Pierson 'The Odd Couple: Sundance 1994" Chapter from 'Spike Mike Reloaded' book

The original Kevin-penned IFFM program note

The original Bob Hawk-penned 1994 Sundance Film Festival program note.

"Mae Day" - Kevin and Scott's Vancouver Film School documentary short.

Clerks X Specs...
Being a *huge* Kevin Smith fan, I felt the need to list the specs of this highly anticipitated special edition...

Disc One: The 93-minute theatrical cut in anamorphic widescreen (from a new HD transfer of the 16mm interpositive, supervised by DP Dave Klein), all-new DD5.1 remix (supervised by producer Scott Mosier and completed at Skywalker Sound), original commentary track from the previous Clerks release.

Disc Two: The 103-minute initial cut (from a video source) screened at the IFFM, all-new audio/video commentary track (with Kevin Smith, Scott, Jeff Anderson, Brian O'Halloran and Jason Mewes).

Disc Three: "The Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks" 95-minute documentary, newly-animated "Lost Scene" short, new video intros, audition tapes, Clerks trivia track, "Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary" student film project, Arclight Cinemas 10th anniversary Q&A, MTV's Jay and Silent Bob shorts (!), "The Flying Car" short from The Tonight Show, extensive still gallery, theatrical trailer, "Can't Even Tell" music video, 168-page original first draft screenplay, Kevin's 'Clerks' Journal, Kevin's 'Sundance' Journal, original IFFM program note, original 1994 Sundance Film Festival program note, lots of print articles (Peter Broderick's "The ABC's of No-Budget Filmmaking" that inspired Kevin, Peter Broderick's "Learning from Low-Budgets" which cited Clerks a year later, Amy Taubin's 1991 Village Voice article on the IFFM and Slacker, Amy Taubin's 1993 Village Voice article on the IFFM and Clerks, Janet Maslin's 1994 New York Times Clerks review, "The Odd Couple: Sundance 1994" chapter from John Pierson's Spike Mike Reloaded) and a very cool booklet.