Jersey Girl

The only reason I'm writing this review is so I can finally have a "J" entry! Actually, I want to dispel any notion that this is a really, really bad film because of Bennifer. (If you have no idea what that means, you're a better person for it.) This is a pretty lousy film but not because of Ben Affleck or Jennifer Lopez. I'm tired of Lopez bashing -- she's quite a good actress with the right director. In Out of Sight she runs with the big boys, and here she's great in the few scenes Kevin Smith was allowed to leave in after all the media hoopla. It's Smith's script that's the problem. In a departure from his usual he wrote an ode to parental love. Unfortunately, this is so sweet and treacly that you hope he does another Jay and Silent Bob film next just to wash it out of his system. But it has its quirks (Liv Tyler as a video store clerk doing her PhD on pornography use among the middle-class men! George Carlin as a street-sweeper driver!) and it's kinda funny (the best: a scene of general clueless-ness on how to diaper a baby). If you don't like lousy films (and why should you?), then rent this for the DVD extras. Smith includes his very bizarre travelogues filmed for the Jay Leno show, and as short as they are, they're worth every penny of your rental.

year: 2004
length: 102 min.
rating: 2.0
IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0300051/combined