Kevin Smith‘s debut film might still be his best — for all its awkward acting, uneven pacing, clumsy parallels to Dante’s Inferno (yeah) and hit-or-miss jokes, Clerks has a raw honesty and a genuine, uncynical excitement about its own existence; holy shit, a bunch of New Jersey kids got together and made a goddamn movie! For better and worse (mostly worse, but ah well), Clerks inspired countless would-be filmmakers to max out their credit cards in telling tales about (somewhat) witty slackers standing around doing nothing but discussing sex and pop culture — that’s pretty much nihilistic ’90s indie cinema for you, though without the extreme violence embraced by other auteurs of that decade. If for no other reason, hold this charming film close simply for the fact that there’s no way in hell a movie like this would’ve been accepted by the celebrity and studio whore that is the Sundance Film Festival today.