I have a love-hate relationship with Kevin Smith. There are times when I am completely enthralled with his brilliance: he captures ennui, its attendant angst and the concomitant denial in dialogue that sings. On the flip side, that same dialogue has been known to be coloured by homophobic slurs and scatological yuks, both of which tend to make me cringe.

I haven't followed Smith's career obsessively, but I've seen Clerks and Dogma and Chasing Amy and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and liked each one enough to watch the next. More recently, I came away from An Evening with Kevin Smith feeling rather charmed (and a little numb in the butt; the DVD ran four hours). Smith strikes me as a rare soul, not only talented and lucky, but also a genuinely good guy. (His recent blogging about Jason Mewes' heroin addiction is one of the most affecting things I have read in a long time.) The point is: Smith would be on the guest list for my imaginary pub night, so I could talk geek and writing with him.

Now, I mentioned that I have seen Clerks... This is true. I saw it in the theatre, back in 1994, and I haven't seen it again since. And though I have Smith's blog in my RSS feed, I didn't follow the video diary that went behind the scenes for the making of Clerks 2. When I sat down in the packed theatre for the preview screening, I had only the haziest memory of Dante and Randall, and no idea what the premise for the new film was going to be, beyond the fact that it included a donkey that offended Joel Siegel. I would recommend this viewing method; having watched some of the trailers after the fact, I worry that they spoil some of the film's best surprises.

Ten years have passed since we saw Randall and Dante smart-assing their lives away at the Quick Stop. They are now working at Mooby's, a supersized irony of a fast food outlet, where the door moos in greeting as you arrive and leave. It's Dante's last day. He's leaving Jersey for Florida to get married, and run the car wash his fiancee's father is offering, as one character puts it, as dowry. Of course, there are complications with this plan, unfinished business, unacknowledged anxieties. Oh, and the usual dumb-assery that is to be expected from Smith's geeky, sex-crazed, perpetually adolescent characters, including the appearance the aforementioned donkey.