Two films were all the rage my freshman year of college: the epic “Pulp Fiction,” with its multiple story-lines and canvas of colorful criminals, and the low-budget “Clerks,” with its amateur cast and shabby milieu. While “Pulp Fiction” explodes off the screen, “Clerks” seems more like an extremely well-made home video. As much as I loved “Pulp Fiction,” I related more to “Clerks,” having worked in a convenience store myself. Of course, the convenience store where I worked was an upstanding sort of place — we never closed down the store to play hockey on the roof, for instance, or sold cigarettes to small children. But in some ways, “Clerks” functioned as a fantasy for me, set in an appealing alternate world where nobody chastised you for being rude to the customers, or shirking your duties.

The director of “Clerks,” Kevin Smith, has gone on to bigger budgets and bigger stars, but his attitude hasn’t changed. I’ve seen all of his films, and even if I hadn’t wanted to see them, I don’t know that I could have stopped myself. On Tuesday, I checked out his latest, “Zack and Miri Make a Porno,” starring Seth Rogen and Elizabeth Banks. The title pretty much sums up what happens in this film, but I’ll give you a few more details: Zack and Miri are best friends and roommates whose relationship has always been platonic. But they’re behind on their bills and in danger of getting evicted, and so Zack suggests that they make an amateur pornographic film to raise some cash. He argues that sex is just sex, not a big deal at all, Miri agrees, and soon they’re auditioning actors and deciding what to name their film. Of course, anyone with half a brain can figure out what happens next, which is that SPOILER ALERT! DO NOT READ ANY FURTHER IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS NEXT! Zack and Miri realize they’re in love during their on-camera sex scene. How shocking. Because, you know, sex between friends never complicates things.

I went to see the 1999 Kevin Smith film “Dogma,” a ribald, religious comedy, with a friend of mine, who wondered, as we walked into the theater, whether the film would offend her. “Quite possibly,” I said. The fact is, Kevin Smith films are offensive. Not only that, they’re gleefully offensive. They delight in being offensive. They’re filled with bad language and sexually explicit dialogue. (With the exception of “Zack and Miri,” characters in Kevin Smith films spend more time talking about sex than actually having it.) But if you appreciate this sort of humor, and can put up with one or two scenes that are truly disgusting, Kevin Smith films are very funny. “Zack and Miri” has its share of laugh-out-loud moments, but about two-thirds of the way through the film begins to feel a little bit contrived, as Zack and Miri say all the wrong things because they don’t have the courage to discuss their feelings for each other blah blah blah. This is standard romantic comedy nonsense and — if such a thing is possible — a little bit beneath Kevin Smith.

What’s interesting is that Smith has borrowed Judd Apatow regular Rogen; Banks is also an Apatow vet. I am not the first person to point this out, but Smith basically invented the dirty-and-sweet formula that Apatow used to create hits such as “Knocked Up” “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” and “Superbad.” I don’t think his movies will ever appeal to as broad an audience as Apatow’s, though. Perhaps it’s the shabbiness, the amateur feel. Those are the qualities I want and expect from a Kevin Smith film, but they probably limit his audience.

Local filmmaker Penny Lane was kind enough to send me a copy of the 2005 documentary “Abel Raises Cain,” which is screening at 7 p.m. on Thursday at the Sanctuary for Independent Media in Troy. The film is about Alan Abel, a hoaxer who specializes in duping the media into believing outlandish stories. For instance, in the 1950s he founded the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals, a fictitious group that supported clothing animals for modesty’s sake. (Their motto: “A nude horse is a rude horse.”) Decades later, he created Omar’s School for Beggars, which supposedly trained professional panhandlers.

In describing Abel, who will attend Thursday’s screening, Lane said, “Think the Yes Men’s granddaddy.” Having written about the Yes Men, I can see her point. The Yes Men are hoaxsters who travel throughout the world impersonating members of corporations and government agencies; one of the Yes Men is Igor Vamos, a media artist who teaches at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy. After watching the entertaining 2004 documentary “The Yes Men,” I interviewed Vamos and his partner-in-hoaxing, Jacques Servin, for a Gazette article about the duo. (As the Yes Men, both men use aliases: Mike Bonanno and Andy Bichlbaum). Their goal, Vamos and Servin told me, is to point out the absurdities of the free market system using humor. “It’s art, it’s theater, it’s storytelling, it’s activism,” Vamos said, of their stunts.

Watching “Abel Raises Cain,” I could see how one might call him the Yes Men’s granddaddy. Like Vamos and Servin, he has a knack for getting people to swallow ridiculous ideas. The documentary, filmed by his daughter, Jenny Able, is both an intimate family story and a skewed history lesson. I had one quibble: I wished Abel had talked a little more about what motivated him. He does say a few interesting things about how the media is so enthralled by sensational stories that it neglects to question and fact check, but I wanted more. Even so, “Abel Raises Cain” is worth a look, whether you approve of his stunts or not. Just when you’re wondering who would actually take a group called the Society for Indecency to Naked Animals seriously, a woman who has decided to make her dog wear pants appears on screen. And, no, she wasn’t in on the joke.

Oh, and I finally turned on my heat.

You may remember that my colleagues Jeff, Judy and I were competing to see who could go the longest without turning on the heat. (Read about the contest here.) It was fun for awhile, but I have a tendency to get depressed in November, and I decided that freezing my butt off would only exacerbate things. Judy walked out of her office this morning and called me a loser, but I am not a sore loser and I decided not to retaliate. Not now, anyway.