by Michael Wilson

Maybe it was because one more E! story about “Bennifer” would’ve resulted in armed revolution. Maybe it was because Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez had
parted ways by the time it was released. Or maybe we just weren’t ready for a Kevin Smith movie sans Jay and Silent Bob. Whatever the case, Jersey Girl
failed at the box office in March–yet Smith remains my choice for the most influential artist of 2004.

After seeing Smith’s debut movie Clerks in 1994, I knew I could be a filmmaker. It was the film that put within reach the career I had only dreamed about.
Though my own first flick would be a documentary, I couldn’t resist paying homage in it to the guy who made me believe it was possible. (Fans of Smith’s
Mallrats will know the moment when they see it.)

My generation needed a voice (the baby boomers had Dylan), and Smith was the foul mouth we had been searching for. Through his unique observations about
everything from Star Wars to blow jobs, from the nature of God to the difficulty of deep and powerful relationships–including those between father and
child–Smith has been my guide to growing up. He has synthesized what’s on the minds of Generation X and delivered it in hilarious fashion.

But in 2004, Kevin Smith influenced me for reasons that have little to do with filmmaking. Though Jersey Girl was a bomb, I connected with it in a profound
way. As the father of a young girl, and as someone who, at times over the past year, found myself placing my career above more important things, I took
from the saccharine, John Hughes-style ending of Smith’s film the bit of hope that I needed. As Affleck’s Oliver Trinke says after having a similar
realization about his disordered priorities, “I’m gonna be the best daddy in the world.”

Sometimes it takes a good movie to remind us what we really want to be.