Mallrats

Mallrats. 1995 View Askew Productions, Gramercy Pictures & Universal Pictures.
Starring: Shannen Doherty, Jeremy London, Jason Lee, Claire Forlani, Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, Jason Mewes, Renee Humphrey, Kevin Smith, Stan Lee
Director: Kevin Smith
Available at Amazon: Collectors' Edition, 10th Anniversary Extended Edition.

We open with T.S. (London) preparing for a trip to Universal Studios Florida with his girlfriend Brandi (Forlani), where he plans to propose to her. The two have an argument, and break up after Brandi tells him she can't go after she volunteered to fill in for a recently deceased contestant on Truth or Date, produced by her father, who hates T.S. His best friend Brodie Bruce (Lee) has also broken up with Renee (Doherty), and both dudes decide to seek solace at the local mall...where they discover that Truth or Date is filming there. T.S. and Brodie recruit Jay and Silent Bob (Mewes & Smith) to help them destroy the show's stage, which they were going to do anyway. When that fails, Jay and Bob get two of the male contestant stoned enough that they can't participate; T.S. and Brodie take their places intending to woo back Brandi and Renee respectively. At one point, they sought out romantic advice from none other than Stan Lee.

Brodie also discovers that Renee is being pursued by clothing store manager Shannon Hamilton (Affleck), who plans to seduce her, and then have sex "in a very uncomfortable place" with her, and we don't mean in the back of a Volkswagen.

In View Askew continuity, Mallrats takes place one day before the events depicted in Clerks, but that doesn't explain how Jay and Silent Bob got from Eden Prairie, Minnesota (where the movie was filmed and set) to New Jersey to hang out in front of Quick Stop Groceries in less than a day.

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