ting with a more commercially palatable R, "Clerks" hit the movie circuit, where it paid Smiths debt many times over and almost instantly becoming a hit. The film received great reviews from both movie critics and moviegoers alike, starting Smiths rise to movie fame.
             His second movie "Mallrats" released in 1995, although logically it takes place in Red Bank, NJ; was shot Eden Prairie, MN; against popular belief that it was shot in the Willow Brooke Mall. "Mallrats" even for being the sequel to "Clerks" is actually a pre-quel, due to the fact that Julie Dwyer, drown the night before in the YMCA pool "right in mid backstroke" she was to be the guest on a game show being held at the mall. And in "Clerks" it was already time for the funeral. Unfortunately for Smith the critics that had praised him before did not take to well to this movie. Some say the reason the movie was such a flop was due to the five million dollar budget in lieu of Smiths low budget he had previously. Smith even went as far as apologizing for the film when he was giving an award out.
             "I want to take this time to apologize for Mallrats. I don't know what I was thinking." It was said in a very tongue-in-cheek fashion; it was a joke. But some people thought it was serious. Roger Ebert, in his review of Chasing Amy, said, "He started out with a great movie called Clerks, then followed up with a movie that was so bad that he apologized for it." (Interview with Kevin Smith)
             A lot of people who fell in love with "Clerks", Kevin Smith's funky convenience-store comedy were worried, after the dismal "Mallrats", that New Jersey's scruffiest independent filmmaker was a one-hit wonder. You can now banish the thought. For his third att
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