Live Free or Laugh Hard

A Threevening With Kevin Smith is the third Q&A session the director from New Jersey has released on DVD. I loved it, and I laughed out loud, but I think this is the weakest in the series so far, and this is why.

The first one, An Evening With Kevin Smith, collected different questions and stories from different shows, and for that it was the best. It was like a Best of, instead of one whole show, and the editor could choose the most entertaining stories from the different performances. The second DVD, Evening Harder, was also hilarious, but it offered just two shows: one in London and one in Toronto. As I said, it was still lots of fun, but since the material was limited to those two shows only, a "best of" selection was out of the question, and you could kind of tell. And now, this third installment is a further step in that direction, as it only collects one show: Smith's performance in New Jersey on his birthday. It is funny and a great watch, but I have three problems with it.

One, like I just said, is the fact that with only one show there's not too much wiggle room: you get what you get, and you can't choose from too many things.
Two, that the main stories on the final cut are so long we only get about four. There are plenty more in the Extras, fifteen or so shorter stories that I would have liked to see as part of the final cut and not just extras. But at least we still get them on the DVD, so I guess I shouldn't complain.
And three, that the first story (the Shecky story) is not only entirely too long, but I already knew all about it because he pretty much told it in one of the first SModcasts. Yes, I understand this is my problem and that maybe lots of people in the audience hadn't heard the story, and just because I knew it it doesn't mean everyone else does. However, I would argue that the people buying this DVD are going to be Kevin Smith's die hard fans, and chances are those people listen to SModcast as well, which means they will be familiar with pretty much a third of the material on the final cut of the NJ show.

Still, I don't want you to think this DVD sucks, because that's not true at all. Threevening is painfully funny, and Smith's story about Live Free or Die Hard and his interaction with Bruce Willis as he played the Warlock in that movie is truly epic. I actually watched the movie on DVD after listening to this story, and I felt I had some insider's information that made me enjoy the Warlock scene even more than I did in theaters. So go ahead and check this out: you’ll laugh for a solid four hours!