Accusing someone of child pornography is a life-destryer.

Having detectives investigate you, questions your employer, your co-workers, your children, your neighbors?

The problem is that even if the cops decide you're not one of the .0001% of the population that is sexually deviant -- all those people that we questioned by the cops about your "very, very suspcious behaviour" will assume that there must be something to it!

"Gosh! Those cops wouldn't have bothered to interview us unless they knew something! I guess they didn't have enough to win the case this time!"

"If your innocent they don't send detectives to your work place! I guess that sicko must have covered his tracks well enough to avoid jail, but he'll never work here another day!"

Let's all be mature and admit -- let's just come out and admit -- that we all assume that if the cops are asking you questions about a neighbor or a co-worker we assume the cops must be right. Let's just admit it! all of us assume the cops must "know something" if they go far enough to question neighbors and co-workers. And if the accused says it's all "a big mistake" -- well isn't that exactly what a pervert would say?

So just the accusation will destroy a life.

So wouldn't the smart thing, the prudent and common sense thing be to put in place a system that vets "suspicious behavior" well in advance in the early stages BEFORE it spirals out of control?

Why couldn't the cops just hand the photos over to experts who actually KNOW what actual child pornography looks like, have the experts make the determination of whether to proceede with the investigation and then have the child pronography experts interview the parents?

it seems like the current system is set up so that the experts are brought in only at the END of the investigation after the parents have all but been thrown in jail and their kids taken away. And then, at the last minute, after everyone believes they raped their kids, oh, sorry, our bad! you're free to go. Like any of their neighbors or co-workers or teachers would believe them after things had already gone so far!

If we're gonna do this, let's do it inteligentlly, professional and sensibly. Having K-Mart photo clerks basically put a husband and wife in jail (almost) and then putting them in the position of having to prove they aren't guilty sounds more like Communist China than democratic America.

Yes, the first Clerks was good for it's time. It was a movie that was making a comment on life in 1994 and it did a good job in a fairly original way.

EVERYTHING else Kevin Smith has done after that has been hack, hack, hack!

"But what about DOGMA!" I hear the true-believers cry. "Surely DOGMA was the greatest movie...and...and...brilliant!"

The so-called "shock" value is so calculated and formula that it's actually not shocking at all, now is it? C'mon! Making the descendent of the Virgin mary work at a (gasp!) abortion clinic! Seems kind of obvious if you're whole intention is to be "shocking" dontcha think? Oh and making God seem really "silly" -- again, just doing the opposite of what we'd expect -- expect other filmakers have used to whole "god as simpleton" premise dozens (hndeds) of times before, haven't they?

Clerks 2 finds Kevin Smith falling back into his old hack habits. Jay and Silent Bob have found religion! Again the formula being that that's the last thing you'd expect those two to do, right? But once again the whole "stoner finds religion" angle has been done a million times before, hasn't it? And the "shocking" scene with the animal sex -- isn't really shocking because it's designed to be a shocking scene transposed against a tender one. The problem being that the "shocking scene" (animal sex) is really a very lazy and hack way to be "shocking" because we've seen it a million times before, haven't we? And transposing a "gross setting" with a "tender moment" is pretty much formula.

Can we really call Kevin Smith a "genius" or "ground breaking" when all his plots, scense and characters are pretty much paint by numbers and have ALL existed in their entirety in dozens of other movies????

Dante is going to marry a hot girl, but he's not really in love with her because they don't click. Will he marry her or will he find "true love" in time? Classic movie formula (being hailed by critics as a "ground breaking" and a totally "original concept" created by Kevin Smith)

Yet Dante does meet his soul mate! And she is also very hot and somewhat successful (thought not as obnoxiously successful as the first girl).

Not very original.

Why not have Dante fall totolly in love with an overweight girl or someone that has some real personality troubles?

Wouldn't it be more "shocking" and certainly more of a risk for a filmmaker to have out hero reject the super hot blonde and a secure future and throw it all away on a girl the audience (and even Randall) doesn't particularly like at first? Goning from hottie #1 written specifically so the audiences hates her to hottie #2 written specifically so the auidence loves her is soooo hack!

Nope. We'll just subsitute one hotty that the audience obviously doesn't like for another hotty that the audience can't help but like (did Dawson have any really "flaws" in the movie or was she more of a sterotype?)

How hack! How totally cheap! And we all cheer and clap in the end when our hero Dante finally hooks up with the girl written specifically so we'd love her, totally devoid of any real-ness, or ugliness or flaws.

Kevin, fer crissak! Do something original and have the hero fall in love with someone no one else likes! Why are even "ground breaking" directors so afraid to have a fat and slightly abrasive girl be the hero's soul mate?