Good News: ‘Jersey Girl’ Is No ‘Gigli II’

OK, so last night we finally got to see Kevin Smith’s film, “Jersey Girl,” the one that stars Affleck with a cameo by Lopez.

That sound of 1,000 people exhaling simultaneously in the Ziegfeld Theatre was the audience — which had held its collective breath in anticipation of another “gobble, gobble” turkey — relaxing and actually enjoying this romantic comedy.

It’s not bad, you could hear people saying under their breath. In fact, it’s OK, it’s pretty good.

Even the biggest naysayers will never be able to say “Jersey Girl” is “Gigli II.” As purely a date movie, it works, and it’s even a little more than that, thanks to Smith’s under-handedness and inside jokes.

You knew the director of “Dogma” and “Chasing Amy” couldn’t just make a straight-ahead studio comedy. “Jersey Girl” has just enough “meta” stuff in it to make Smith’s fans happy.

For example: a video rental store filled with only Miramax titles, lots of smart references to Catholicism (Mel Gibson should pay attention to these), the voice of Miramax’s Harvey Weinstein on a phone call from one of Affleck’s fictional clients.

J-Lo does in fact start out in the movie as Affleck’s wife, but she is quickly dispensed with. That part of the film lasts about 12 minutes, and Lopez’s departure is actually affecting.

From then on, though, the movie takes shape as Affleck plays the widowed dad of a 7-year-old girl (Raquel Castro, a frighteningly gifted actress). George Carlin is Ben’s grumpy blue-collar dad, and Liv Tyler — in a really neat performance — is his love interest.

Affleck and Tyler, who starred together in “Armageddon,” have terrific chemistry that isn’t forced. It helps that Smith has written them a slow-paced, open-ended, off-beat romance.

For Affleck, who often seems stiff in non-action roles, the work here hearkens back to “Chasing Amy” and “Good Will Hunting.”

Tyler, though, makes the biggest leap forward after three years of speaking Elvish in “Lord of the Rings.” She has a nice comic quality, previously seen only in Robert Altman’s “Cookie’s Fortune.” Now Tyler seems surer of herself, and ever more charming.

Like a lot of studio films, “Jersey Girl” has a lot of logic problems. They mostly concern Affleck and his job as a music publicist, which he loses. That part of the film is sort of “Jerry Maguire Lite” but without the little nuances of verisimilitude that would help make “Jersey Girl” more convincing. There’s also a little too much soundtrack music, including, improbably, Bruce Springsteen’s “My City in Ruins.”

On the upside, there’s a new Aimee Mann song. But one or two fewer jukebox hits would have been just fine.

And there’s also a recreated scene from “Sweeney Todd” that’s performed well enough but is too long a joke. (The 7-year-old chooses it for her school talent show, while all the other kids sing “Memory” from “Cats.”)

As a “Sweeney Todd” aficionado, I’m always happy to hear the show’s score. Smith told me last night how much the show meant to him, too. I just don’t know if it works in the middle of this story.

Still, “Jersey Girl” should be a good-sized hit along the lines of “Love Actually” or “While You Were Sleeping.” I think it will break the Miramax jinx of not being able to make and market romantic comedies. The long list of failures includes “Duplex,” “Serendipity” and “Kate & Leopold.”

I’m sure there will be those who will harp about inconsistencies. But this is a commercial success with some nice smart stuff included. And pretty much everyone comes out a winner. You can’t ask for more than that.

M: All of your films you’ve pretty much used the same cast. This one’s obviously a departure. Any trepidation about doing that?

KS: Well, it’s clear that this is the first time we’ve worked with Ben Affleck (grins). The trepidation came in moving away from the familiar. Not using a net, so to speak. not having Jay & Silent Bob to whip out at any moment when I felt like “Shit, I ran out of shit to say!” Or with not interconnecting the movie with the previous five. Not relying on profanity-laden humor. Kind of the easy go-to and stuff like that.

I certainly don’t sit here now saying “I’ll never do that shit again” or go back to that well because I’m bereft of ideas. It was nice to do something where the bag of tricks is empty and you’re trying to tell one story that you don’t need to see five other movies to fully appreciate or a story that stands on its own. It wasn’t necessarily something that was an inside joke or made for your fan base.

It was real frightening because hardcore Jay & Bob dudes aren’t going to come back to this movie. Or if they do they’ll be like “You pussed out! Where are your balls?” I’ll tell them quite frankly that “My wife has them.”

It’s nothing out of the ordinary. Most people do it all the time. They don’t make interconnected movies and shit like that. For me, though, that’s something I hadn’t done yet. I kind of appreciated it. It’s a one-off. I’m not turning into John Hughes. I’m not obsessed with children in a Michael Jackson-like fashion. I wanted to tell a story about kids. That’s all I had to say about fatherhood at this time. So now, on to something else.

M: Was George Carlin your first choice?

KS: George Carlin I wrote it for. I told him I was going to write it when we were wrapping up “Jay & Silent Bob Strikes Back.” He was only on it for a day. So we were heading back from the set in the van and I said “George, I’m writing you a big part in the next movie.” He’s just like “If you’re going to write me a part, write me my dream role. I want to play a clergyman who strangles six children.” I said “I’ve come too close to making that movie already. This role’s not quite the same thing, but it is substantial.” He said “All right.” He responded to it. George has always been something of a frustrated actor. He says he got into radio and got into comedy so he could get into movies. He’s had a shot here and there, but never really got to bite into something really meaty. He was in “Prince of Tides” but he got to play the gay neighbor so it’s not like he had a lot to work with. I think he kind of relished the opportunity to be this guy who’s multifaceted, gets to be funny and also gets to be kind of poignant.

M: Are you going to have a spot for all of your buddies in the new movie?

KS: I’m going to bring Mewes with me. I’ve got a part for Mewes and I told him “I’ve got a part for you in the ‘Green Hornet’.” He goes “I’m playing the Green Hornet?” I’m like “No! No, you’re not going to play the Green Hornet.” He’s like “Well, what’s the point then?” It’s a cool part. Trust me, it will be cool.

HR: Will you be finishing the “Black Cat” or the “Daredevil: Target” stories?

KS: As soon as I’m done with this tour I’ll be locking myself in a room and doing both of those scripts that I owe.

Jennifer Lopez will want to make sure she’s out partying on Saturday night – because her ex-fiance Ben Affleck is planning to poke fun at their romance on national TV in America. The movie hunk will host weekly comedy show Saturday Night Live this weekend, as part of his promotional schedule for new movie Jersey Girl, and he seems more than happy to mock his own high-profile romance. He says, “What I really want to do is get Kevin Smith to do the cameo during the monologue at the beginning of the show and say, ‘Thanks for ruining my movie and making me cast your girlfriend!’ That would be a funny bit.”

BEN AFFLECK – Dateline NBC, Interview with Jane Pauley, NBC, Friday, March 12th.
JASON BIGGS – The Ellen Degeneres Show, syndicated, Tuesday, March 16th.

Ben Affleck Slams Media
Life in the spotlight isn’t easy for Ben Affleck, who vents his frustration with the press in Jersey Girl (opening March 26). He plays a music-industry publicity flack frustrated by balancing fatherhood with work who breaks down during a press conference, telling off a room full of music reporters. Firing back at the press felt cathartic for the 31-year-old Oscar winner, whose breakup with J.Lo has sold lots of tabloid rags this year.
“It wasn’t too tough to film,” Affleck laughs. “When we were shooting, it was at the pinnacle — actually [what] I thought was the pinnacle — of the madness. I felt like I had the inside track on the character.
“For the most part, in my experience, people in the press happen to be bright, interesting, smart, thoughtful, professional people with standards,” he adds diplomatically. “It is a few-bad-apples thing with the media, mostly in the tabloid media, that creates sort of the lowest common denominator, where magazines that used to do straight-ahead journalism now feel they have to compete with screaming headlines and a gossipy angle.”
Affleck knows the press wields great influence over moviegoers’ viewing choices — just look at what media coverage has done for The Passion of the Christ. So he hopes critics will look favorably upon Jersey Girl. “The press always has to be able to say something that is new,” he sighs. “I think the hook [for Jersey Girl] will end up being, ‘This is not Gigli’ or ‘Hey, this movie is actually good!'”
Although Bennifer swept the Razzie Awards with Gigli, Affleck hopes we’ll give him and his famous ex another chance. “Last year was an interesting year. I had a movie that did really well (Daredevil), a gigantic bomb (Gigli) and a movie that performed more or less on par with where it should have (Paycheck). The one that is the biggest Ishtar-like catastrophe is the one that everyone remembers.
“It is actually really nice to have [Jersey Girl] happen now, because it is sort of counters that,” he points out. “I’m really proud of this film. Professionally and personally, being that Jen is in it — even for 10 minutes — it leaves that whole thing on kind of a positive note. It gives me positive memories of my professional experience working with her.”

Kevin Smith: ‘Gigli’ Flop Means ‘Jersey Girl’ Won’t Make Number One
Movie maker Kevin Smith has given up hope of hitting the number one spot with his new movie Jersey Girl – because Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have given the project the kiss of death. The Clerks director thought he’d landed movie gold when the then-couple agreed to appear together in his romantic comedy, but the huge failure of their last joint screen outing Gigli made him realize people don’t want to see the pair together. Smith, a longtime friend of Affleck’s, thought they made a great couple in real life, but admits he can only hope that Jersey Girl isn’t a flop at the box office. He says, “I had the benefit in the beginning of knowing that the movie wasn’t all about them. We kept it real quiet in the beginning because we wanted to have a big surprise but it got punched to the audience with, ‘Guess what, she dies.’ Once Gigli happened her death became a marketing hook. In all honesty, Gigli did kind of wing us and still kind of stings to this day because when I put the movie together it was Ben Affleck, Liv Tyler and Jennifer Lopez and we had a great shot at being the number one movie the weekend we open. After Gigli opened I realized, ‘We’ll never be the number one movie and we’re handicapped at this point.’ ” But Smith’s still confident it will be a hit: “As long as they hear our picture is a little better, I think people will turn out.”

The Movie: Chasing Amy
The Offense: Ben Affleck makes fun of Smith because he was just dumped by Joey Lauren Adams. (Maybe Smith can get some revenge on the Jersey Girl track.)
The Movie: Dogma
The Offense: I think that whole bit on the Dogma commentary where the talk about who was getting laid during the filming is in pretty bad taste.
Kevin talks about how all the actors were great to work with except for Linda Fiorentino, who was always being difficult.
The Movie: Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back
The Offense: (Kevin Smith & Jason Mewes) – Jason Mewes leaves midway through to go to the washroom.