Smith credits Richard Linklater's Slacker as inspiration. But Clerks supplies its own subversively witty take on Generation Next.

It is one of those small-scale American independent movies that you either fall for or you don't, and one would confidently expect most of those fed up with big, empty, run-of-the-mill Hollywood epics to raise at least two cheers.

"Clerks" is unapologetically rough and even ragged at times. But its lack of circumspection turns out to be its charm.

Clerks is still ahead of its time, even 30 years later.