Some puzzled people scratching their heads, saying, “I know we forget something…What was it? … Lemme think…It’s something just nagging at the back of my mind…”

And suddenly one of them shrieks with alarm, “Kevin!”

Is it:

A)Catherine O’Hara in an airplane in Home Alone?

B)Matt Damon and Ben Affleck after the Oscars?

Either answer is acceptable, but in this case I was specifically referring to (B). As the two winners for the screenplay Good Will Huntingthanked a whole bunch of folks for their Oscar win, they became naggingly aware they were forgetting someone. And I was sitting there saying to the screen, “Kevin Smith. You’re forgetting Kevin Smith.”

The Clerks writer-director, you see, was responsible for taking the film to the head of Miramax, when the low-level readers had already passed on the material. (Because that’s what low-level readers are paid to do. They’re not paid actually to assess marketability or even really read if they don’t feel like it. A couple of studio readers passed on Sachs & Violens claiming that it “was just like Barb Wire” –indicating that they hadn’t even bothered to open the comic book, since the two series are nothing alike.) Without Smith, Good Will Hunting wouldn’t have been made — or at least wouldn’t have been made at this point.

You’d think that, since they were up for writing, they might have actually written something to have in front of them.