Kevin Smith @ Comedy Zone

So I stumbled onto this show by mistake.  Picked up a Creative Loafing at Laurel Market on Friday, which I'm at randomly on a Friday.  This was one of their highlights for the upcoming week.  New nothing of it.  They had only advertised an 8pm show, but that was sold out and this 10.15 show was added.  After a couple of calls to Mike we had 2 tickets and only had to wait the weekend to see Kevin Smith.

Not being 100% sure where the Comedy Zone was, Mike and I got there a little early, scoped out the sign and went and sat at La Revolucion and had a beer and a couple of tacos before the show.  Halfway through dinner a line started to form around the bar, for us to finally realize that to get into the Comedy Zone you had to go into the basement of the restaurant.  We didn't get in until 10.45, due to the first show running long.  It's gonna be a late night.

We were one of the last seated so it wasn't long after that Kevin Smith hit the stage.  Like the Jim Jefferies review from November, I'm not going to try and recreate jokes, but needless to say it was another funny night.  Unlike Jeffries, Smith just tells stories from his life.  And it's a (self-admittedly) good one.  He told us that he was going to tell a story to get comfortable on stage and then open the floor to questions, which he stated, due to his ranting tangents, would only be 2 or 3.

His opening story was about his texting relationship with his daughter and then the audience asked him about:

1) What he thought about, and what were the chances of him directing a blockbuster like Superman v Batman.  The movie he loved, the thought of directing something like that does nothing for him.  He prefers to shoot dialogue/feeling scenes rather than the explosions and effects that goes into a large budget movie.

2) How he works with his Directors of Photography.  He had a friend do it for the longest time until success came knocking, and Harvey Weinstein would only let him use a particular DP for Dogma.  It was great how he made a tragedy - telling his current DP and also girlfriend at the time (Joey Lauren Adams) that they would have no part in the movie.

3) What people he wished he could sit down and smoke a joint with.  While the answers of George Carlin and Alan Rickman were not surprising, the stories that went along with them were heartfelt and funny.

All those stories also had their side tangents.  I can't remember what went with each story, but anecdotes of Jason Mewes, directing the an episode of Netflix's Flash, getting Johnny Depp to be in Tusk, being an extra on Law and Order and Ben Affleck just made it all the more funnier.

I also liked the whole message that he had.  If you have a passion for something, take the risk and do it.  He wrote, self-funded, directed, shot and then tried to get Clerks released when he started.  All because he loved movies and comics and thought that no-one was making these things for his friends. That initial risk has paid off into, what Smith says, a life that not even he could have dreamed of. Definitely food for thought.

At 1.30 am we had laughed ourselves senseless and left the Comedy Zone for what had to be one of the funniest Monday nights in a long time.