An Evening With Kevin Smith

"Pushing whimsy". Sounds like a sequel to Chasing Amy, but these two watchwords dominate Kevin Smith's Q&A portion of Jay & Silent Bob Get Old.

The 45-year-old indie director starts by sharing a story about how he recently lost almost 40kg (the secret, kids — completely cut out sugar from your life, no additional exercise required). Then he takes but one question from the floor and launches into a glorious 80-minute ramble beginning with his upcoming movie Moosejaws (a spoof of Jaws, with a moose, and Jay and Silent Bob both playing Robert Shaw's Quint role) and rattling through his friendship with Johnny Depp, his hatred of Bruce Willis, and his experience making his most recent film Tusk, the bizarre story of an eccentric who turns another man into his pet walrus. Smith is quite the motivational speaker, it turns out — the eloquent everyman exhorts all of us to "push whimsy", to find our voices, to "skate" and take a punt on ourselves doing the one thing that matters to us, as he did years ago maxing out his credit cards to make Clerks. It's quite inspiring and moving. Then after a short break he wheels out old mate Jay Mewes for a bunch of smutty sex stories and snoochie boochies shenanigans simulating sex positions with the crowd, which to be honest gets a little boring. That's the dichotomy of Kevin Smith, and you can see it in all his movies: the sentimental champion of the dreamers with an unholy mastery of phrase is also a genital-obsessed 14-year-old boy at heart. You love him; you've got to take the rough with the smooth.