Mallrats

Last year I was alerted that Arrow Video was releasing a special 25th Anniversary BluRay of the 1995 Kevin Smith cult classic, Mallrats (trailer). I was not familiar with Arrow Video before, but after browsing their catalog, it appears they specialize in Criterion-esque special editions and restorations for films that may not receive the prestige critical acclaim the average Criterion release does. I remember seeing the “spot the sailboat” comic book ads for the film around its release but missed it during its brief theatrical run. It was not until catching the TV cut of Mallrats off ABC around 1997/98 that I was first introduced to Kevin Smith’s works.

I already elaborated on my history with Smith’s films in my review for Jay and Silent Bob Reboot last year, so I will not drone on about that again except to say that both Clerks and Mallrats are my two favorite Kevin Smith films. I believe this will be my third time buying it on video. The original collector’s edition DVD received a lot of early buzz from DVD review outlets on how to nail a suite of special features and for having one of the best early DVD commentary tracks. I then upgraded to the 10th Anniversary edition DVD with a bonus extended cut and new anniversary interviews and other bonus content. This BluRay keeps most of the early bonus feature content and adds in a bunch more I will be detailing soon, but for now, I imagine you want to hear about the actual Mallrats movie.

The succinct way to explain it is how Kevin Smith does it in his four-word elevator pitch, “Clerks in a mall.” Essentially it boils down to the film’s two leads, TS (Jeremy London) and Brodie (Jason Lee), getting dumped by their girlfriends Rene (Shannen Doherty) and Brandi (Claire Forlani) in the opening scenes. The duo decides to recover from their sorrows by hitting up their favorite spots in the local mall, where they run into their exes and attempt to win them over with some help from fellow mallrats Jay (Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Kevin Smith). Naturally, TS and Brodie have some opposition to overcome to win back their loves in the form of Brandi’s father and local bigshot, Svenning (Michael Rooker), and head mall security guard La Fours (Sven Thorsen).

When I first saw this film on TV around 1997/98, it hit at the perfect time when I was in ninth grade, and I was likely within a few years of the last wave of kids where going to the mall was THE thing to do with friends when you asked: “Hey, want to go and hang out somewhere!?” Mallrats captures the spirit of killing time in the mall with nice little asides debating which food stands are really part of the food court, whining over the latest exhibit clogging up the showcase area of the mall, standing in line for celebrity autographs and gleefully beating up eagerly anticipating the Easter bunny.

When I first experienced the film around age 14, I had no idea what Jay and Silent Bob were talking about with their gratuitous weed jokes. Still, they had a hilarious demeanor about them as they delivered their lines, and they instantly won over 14-year-old Dale. Brodie seemed like the coolest cat with his countless wisecracks throughout the film. Jason Lee and Kevin Smith both went on to say in the bonus interviews that despite the film’s initial theatrical failure, Jason Lee’s performance caught a lot of eyes and opened the door for him to bigger and better roles.

It would behoove me to acknowledge Mallrats has the best of the dozens of Stan Lee movie cameos. It is more of an extended cameo where Lee says more than his usual five-to-ten words of dialog and instead has a full scene with Brodie when he bestows his wisdom of true love to Brodie to motivate him to win over Rene. Lee is legitimately good in the scene, so much so that Marvel Studios had his Mallrats cameo referenced during Lee’s cameo in Captain Marvel.

Arrow Video did a bang-up job packing in a ton of extras in this two-disc BluRay set. There are now three cuts of the film included. The first disc has the original theatrical cut, while the second disc has the extended cut that released with the 10th-anniversary edition and now also includes the TV cut, which is full of a ton of awesomely bad overdubs of expletives. Smith recorded a new introduction to the TV cut highlighted with a fun story of why Mewes’s dubs are so godawful. I would recommend passing on watching the Extended Cut, as it mostly restores the film's original opening, which features a series of longer opening scenes where it takes a while for Brodie and TS to get dumped, and for the movie to eventually find its way into the mall. Instead, I would recommend watching the hour-long archival bonus of the deleted scenes that has Smith and Vincent Pereira explaining why the scenes did not work and have a good time on why they remained on the cutting room floor.

I did make sure to re-watch the original DVD commentary track again with Kevin Smith, Jason Lee, Ben Affleck, Jason Mewes, and Scott Mosier. They are all nonstop entertaining throughout, remembering their time with the film while Fargo was also filming down the street and how Team La Fours fought to get credited in the movie. It is probably up there with UHF being my favorite commentary track, so make sure not to skip over it! New extras for this BluRay are highlighted by a new 12-minute intro from Kevin Smith retelling his highs and lows of the production. My Mallrats Memories is a new 30-minute interview with Smith recollecting his time on the film and how he assembled the cast and crew, and what lead to landing Stan Lee in the movie.

Mr. Mallrats: Tribute to Jim Jacks is Smith’s eulogy to his recently deceased producer on this film, and he gives a loving history of how Jacks went from movie fan to having a successful career in the business. Blunt Talk is a new ten-minute interview with Mewes recounting his early acting career and how he did not consider himself an actor until people started recognizing him from Mallrats. Hollywood of the North is a new ten-minute animated doc with periphery crew members who have many production stories about shooting in the Eden Prairie Center Mall and dealing with complaints from the mall owner. There is a physical blueprint insert which is a perfect recreation of Jay’s blueprints shown in the film of how he plans to take out La Fours. Also new are two hours of raw dailies compiled together. I did not watch it in its entirety because the quality is very raw, like worse than VHS SLP raw, but it was still fun to jump around in bits throughout it and see the cast and crew chatter before and after filming. I didn’t mean to deep dive this much into the bonus materials, but I believe I have covered almost all of the new content, but trust me, there is a lot more bonus archival content from previous DVD releases, so rest assured View Askew fans that there are several hours of extras to sink your teeth into.

Every time I watch Mallrats every several years, I cannot help but get clued in better to some of the jokes and dialog that went right over my initial viewing as a teenager. Thankfully, the film has aged well, and I enjoyed it as much as I initially did in the 90s. I have a good feeling if you’re a View Askew fan or mostly a fan of Smith’s earlier works, then you probably already have this Arrow Video BluRay in your collection. However, for others on the fence wondering if this edition is worth upgrading to, I can safely vouch that Smith and Arrow Video spared no expense to ensure this BluRay is packed to the gills with new (and archival) content to make sure you get your money’s worth!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

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Atari: Game Over
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The Avengers: Endgame
The Avengers: Infinity War
Batman: The Dark Knight Rises
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
The Clapper
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Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed I & II
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Detroit Rock City
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
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Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2
Hell Comes to Frogtown
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
I Like to Hurt People
Indiana Jones 1-4
Inglourious Basterds
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jay and Silent Bob Reboot
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Justice League (2017 Whedon Cut)
Last Action Hero
Major League
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Man vs Snake
Marine 3-6
Merry Friggin Christmas
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
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Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpions Revenge
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National Treasure: Book of Secrets
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Payback (Director’s Cut)
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