{"id":681,"date":"2008-03-07T22:27:10","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T03:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/07\/chasing-amy\/"},"modified":"2022-10-09T09:46:07","modified_gmt":"2022-10-09T13:46:07","slug":"chasing-amy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/chasing-amy\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Smith’s Chasing Amy is his best film"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Chasing Amy<\/em> is far and away Kevin Smith’s best film, and not coincidentally his most heartfelt. It’s not nothing to tell a universal guy’s story while still featuring significant and sympathetic female characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Chasing Amy<\/em> is spectacularly profane and the characters are prone to giving extended on-the-nose speeches perfectly explicating their inner motivations, but the central theme is worthy and true: love can be a mixture of elevating another to a height to which you can’t measure up, while paradoxically needing to have them do the same to you. More literally, Holden (Ben Affleck) feels both fascinated and threatened by what he perceives as Alyssa’s (Joey Lauren Adams) more adventurous and worldly sexuality, but also needs to believe that he has power over her and has somehow tamed her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Chasing
Not one to pass up an opportunity to cite Jaws<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Out of Smith’s oeuvre, the closest to Chasing Amy<\/em> is Jersey Girl<\/em>. But his personal meditations on fatherhood required more of his trademark raunch to offset the treacle than the PG-13 allowed. It did, however, feature the single cruelest joke I’ve ever heard: Andrew Lloyd Webber is “the second-worst thing that’s ever happened to New York City.” Zing! Nobody, not even Lloyd Webber, deserves that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A far better writer than I has already been here and done that: please refer to Matthew Dessem’s review<\/a> on The Criterion Contraption. I disagree with his obvious dislike of the film, but every point he makes against it is fair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chasing Amy is far and away Kevin Smith’s best film, and not coincidentally his most heartfelt. It’s not nothing to tell a universal guy’s story while still featuring significant and sympathetic female characters. Yes, Chasing Amy is spectacularly profane and the characters are prone to giving extended on-the-nose speeches perfectly explicating their inner motivations, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4936,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,2],"tags":[1132,1229,1153,1020,1152],"class_list":["post-681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-4-stars","category-movies","tag-ben-affleck","tag-jason-lee","tag-joey-lauren-adams","tag-kevin-smith","tag-new-jersey"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/chasing-amy-feature.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa9lhB-aZ","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":5865,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/john-woos-paycheck-isnt-fun-weird-or-subversive-enough-for-a-philip-k-dick-tale\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":0},"title":"John Woo’s Paycheck isn’t fun, weird, or subversive enough for a Philip K. Dick tale","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"June 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"When it comes to action cinema maestros like John Woo -- I can enjoy the the hyped-up action and weirdness of something like Face\/Off, but find that the extreme violence and gunplay can sometimes cross the line from escapism into being inhumane. Paycheck, scoring a mere PG-13 from the MPAA,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ben Affleck and Uma Thurman in Paycheck","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/paycheck.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":642,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/gone-baby-gone\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":1},"title":"Ben Affleck’s pervasively grim Gone Baby Gone","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"February 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Good ol' Bahstuhn Cahtholick Ben Affleck is an all grown-up, big-boy director now, and lookit, he made himself a pretty decent movie. That said, Gone Baby Gone is a big plate of grim, with side order of depressing. Affleck makes excellent use of location footage and local color. And not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/gone-baby-gone-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/gone-baby-gone-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/gone-baby-gone-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/gone-baby-gone-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/02\/gone-baby-gone-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5756,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/the-accountant-is-a-brilliant-mind-meets-death-wish\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":2},"title":"The Accountant is A Brilliant Mind meets Death Wish","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"October 14, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"You can imagine the elevator pitch: \"A Brilliant Mind meets Death Wish! Ben Affleck! Anna Kendrick!\" Director Gavin O\u2019Connor's The Accountant flirts with righteous anger at big business financial corruption, but wimps out by ultimately fingering a single venal individual with a hired army of faceless mercenaries. There\u2019s nothing engaging\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "3 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"3 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/3-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Ben Affleck in The Accountant","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/accountant-jigsaw.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1687,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/bottle-rocket\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":3},"title":"On the Run from Johnny Law in Wes Anderson’s Bottle Rocket","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"March 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Wes Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson's feature debut Bottle Rocket is based on their 1992 short film of the same name. Like Kevin Smith's Clerks and Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, Bottle Rocket may not have turned the world upside down, but is now viewed as a key filmmaker's ur text.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"4 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/4-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Bottle Rocket","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/bottle-rocket-field.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/bottle-rocket-field.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/bottle-rocket-field.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/bottle-rocket-field.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/03\/bottle-rocket-field.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":4311,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/exhaustively-exhausted-live-by-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":4},"title":"Exhaustively exhausted: Ben Affleck’s Live by Night","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"August 10, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Has any topic been more exhaustively dramatized than Prohibition-era gangsters? Live by Night seems especially redundant so soon after HBO's Boardwalk Empire, which covers a lot of the same ground: the Florida\/Cuba liquor pipeline, the Irish\/Italian mob conflict, the pivot to legal gambling, etc. The explanation being pretty simple: original\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2 Stars"","block_context":{"text":"2 Stars","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/2-stars\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Live by Night","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/live-by-night.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/live-by-night.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/live-by-night.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/live-by-night.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/08\/live-by-night.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":709,"url":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/southland-tales\/","url_meta":{"origin":681,"position":5},"title":"Sold out but not a soldier: Richard Kelly’s bizarre Southland Tales","author":"Chad Ossman","date":"March 19, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I don't know if the roughly 140 minute version of Southland Tales that made it to DVD is a butchered or merely abbreviated version of a masterpiece, but what I just saw is an unholy mess. I'm one of director Richard Kelly's apologists for his divisive film Donnie Darko, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "1 Star"","block_context":{"text":"1 Star","link":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/category\/ratings\/1-star\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Southland Tales","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/southland-tales-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/southland-tales-feature.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/southland-tales-feature.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/southland-tales-feature.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/03\/southland-tales-feature.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=681"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6163,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/681\/revisions\/6163"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4936"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chadossman.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}