- HEY Internet Explorer 5.0 users – Ya wanna see something neat? Remove us from your FAVORITES list and re-add us (if you’ve got us there at all). You should see a nifty little icon that’s much more attractive than that stupid white paper with the blue E on top of it. Just something cool we discovered we could set up – Thought you might want to take advantage of it as well.
- And so…We being another week with a milestone, some corrections, NewsBites, as well as some beautiful weather here in Central PA (making it tough to sit inside as we work on this update!). Never the less, we figure it must be ugly out somewhere, and in those places you fine people trapped at your PC screens wanna hear SOMETHING…So here we go:
Archive for April, 1999
Indianapolis Screenings…
- It’s always interesting to hear what kind of crowds and success some of these screenings of View Askew flicks do in other parts of the country. Our scooper, who caught Clerks and Mallrats out in Indianapolis this past week, checked in with some info on the audience type, size, and how things went in general.:(Amy on 5/14)
My wife and I went to the screenings of Clerks and Mallrats this past weekend in Indianapolis The theatre was packed for both shows. Based on conversations that I had with people at work, I had no idea that people out here had even heard of the movies. I recognized many of the folks at Mallrats from Clerks.
When we got tickets to ‘Rats, the ticket attendant told us that they were asking everyone who was seeing it where they had heard of the movie. Had to think about that one for a minute and finally figured that the first place I’d heard of them was Wizard. He also told us that Clerks was the most attended movie of the festival thus far. From a head count in the theatre, I think that Mallrats surpassed it.
Good too see the flicks are packing them in. By the way, Chasing Amy plays out there on May 14th to close out the trilogy.
- Just a few final thoughts for today: First of all, Indepedent’s Day, a documentary that Kevin appears in for a bit, hits video shelves tomorrow, April 27th. And finally, we forgot to credit Mpresscom@aol.com for the poll topic idea last week – So thanks!
Catch ya next update…
Clerks DVD Progonsis: Bad…
- Wow. This ain’t good. DVD File reports back today with even more information on the Miramax Collectors Series DVDs and, most importantly, singles out Clerks with some information right from the source. We chopped that part out for ya and have it below:
Well, now about five months after the release of the initial Miramax special edition offerings, all subsequent announced titles (Il Postino, Switchblade Sisters, Halloween H20) have been pulled from the schedule, and though retail order sheets went out for a June 29 release of Clerks, Buena Vista PR late last week announced (via email to me, anyway) that it, too, was yanked with no new date set. Further, aside from the pulled titles, some of the other titles thought to be on the way, such as Chasing Amy, Jackie Brown and Life Is Beautiful, are all MIA.
…
The answer, according to Buena Vista’s statement, is pretty straightforward. “The main reason we have many Collectors Series DVDs on hold or delayed is the legal clearances for bonus materials turned out to be much more complex than we imagined.” Okay, fair enough, because though I’ve never had to negotiate the complex waters of rights and clearances personally, from just trying to keep track of the Request Line and titles announcements here, I can relate. And Buena Vista further reassured me that “everyone here is just as frustrated at these delays, but we are working to resolve them.”
However, there are some possibly ominious signs ahead. Clerks has been pulled “for a different reason, but it’s under discussion right now” for a future release. Buena Vista PR will not be including it in their June nor July announcements (I was unable to confirm with Buena Vistamarketing that the Clerks disc had been pulled from their retailer preorder lists.) Though this site and myself have not always been completely enamoured with Buena Vista’s output, they did add at the end that “we are a very cautious company, and we want to make sure all filmmakers are happy and consulted in the process and that all rights clearances are obtained”.
Quite frankly, the only thing we can possibly think up about the Clerks DVD is the Soul Asylum video, since all the other material does seem to be owned by Kevin and Miramax (the commentary & deleted scenes). Plus, all of it’s out on laserdisc already and, frankly, we’re confused why a DVD with similar material would be a problem. We’ll dig a little deeper and check with some sources on clarifying this issue. Hopefully, it’s about possible 16:9 enhancement that’s being mandated by View Askew, which would be FANTASTIC — Hold out until they do it! Anyway, we’ll get to the bottom of it. For now, sit tight.
View Askew NewsBites™
- Dogma in a BOARD GAME already? Yup, believe it or not. Our scooper was playing the board game TriBond (where players must guess the common theme between three clues), and Chris Rock came up as the answer to a question linking 3 of his films: Lethal Weapon 4, some other flick, and Dogma!
- Kevin popped in at the WWWBoard over at Affleck.Com to see what was doin’ the other day — Check it out http://www.affleck.com/wwwboard/messages17/188.html.
- George Carlin’s new album, “You Are All Diseased”, is scheduled for release on May 5th. It’s the same material from this year’s HBO show, which was laugh-out-loud funny. You can’t go wrong with it if you’re a Carlin fan, or just want to hear some really GOOD stand-up.
- Woodstock.Com indeed reports that Alanis will be playing at the big festival this year – Surf over to their website for all the details. Surf on over to their site – They’ve got artist interviews, daily news, chat boards for each artist, and tons more.
Off to the ‘con! Catch ya later, folks…Oh and thanks also to Jay Haney for today’s poll topic. Don’t forget to vote.
EXCLUSIVE: DAREDEVIL #6 COVER!
- Well well well, what have we got here? Thanks to generous Jimmy Palmiotti, we’ve got a nice exclusive for you at the Pittsburgh Con today: Check out the beautiful cover of DareDevil #6! This fine book will be in stores this week, and, we gotta tell ya, it’s good. Jimmy was kind enough to hand over his only copy to us and, having just finished reading the sucker, you’re gonna LOVE it. But, we don’t wanna say anything else that’ll spoil the issue, so, be sure and pick it up this week. It’s not too late if you missed the earlier issues, either — Get the trade paperback and get all caught up! The cover expands, as always, so click it for a much nicer view.
By the way, another GREAT show out in Pittsburgh – They put together an excellent package out there. It was very cool finally getting to meet Tom Savini as well…He’s a very nice guy in person, as expected, and was happy to talk shop about some of the FX he did in the past, as well as the sad direction a lot of it’s going with all this CGI. All in all, an excellent day. Now, to get some rest…
- It’s suppsed to be a beautiful day out there today, a nice one for a drive…So we’re heading out to the Pittsburgh con to see what’s goin’ on today. Lots of little stuff that we thought you might want to hear to keep you occupied on a Sunday though, so we figured we’d get this quick update online before we head out the door. It’s been awfully quiet lately after a couple weeks of crazy activity, and as you know, we enjoy the peace every once in a while!
Commentary
- If anyone’s attending the Pittsburgh ComicCon, or attended already, could you PLEASE do us a big favor and send us the schedule for tomorrow (Sunday)? We’re thinking of heading out, but don’t know who’s going to be there tomorrow. We only want to go depending on the guests, and from what we recall last year, some are only there on certain days during the Con. So, please help us out if ya can! Thanks. Oh, and does anyone know if Savini made it? We’ll be back with some news later if anything comes up…
Clerks DVD Postponed…
- Many of you wrote in with this news today, some in the hopes that we could deny that it’s true…Unfortunately, it seems not to be the case. DVDFile says:
“Lastly, I received a notice from Buena Vista PR that the Clerks DVD has been bumped from 6/29, with no new date at this time. I will have more on the whole Miramax/Dimension Collector’s Series story, with some comments from Buena Vista themselves about it on Monday.”
Don’t shoot the messenger, folks! Hopefully we’ll be back with a new release date soon. Perhaps this means they’re going to 16:9 enhance the film, or add more special features? Or maybe it’s just business (more than likely for a Disney DVD release). Oh well. We’ll keep you posted on this story. Could someone from Disney or Buena Vista please keep us posted on this stuff? Hello? Is this thing on?
- And finally today, a pretty humorous picture of Jay, courtesy of Jill.
Variety Reports On Cannes…
- Variety posted a fairly long article today going over all the selections at Cannes. You can read the entire article HERE, but if you’re just interested in the Dogma stuff, here ya go:
Appearing out of competition in special screenings is Kevin Smith’s “Dogma,” with Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, which made the cut after Miramax boss Harvey Weinstein personally encouraged Jacob to include. Weinstein is said to be less than pleased about the scant profile of Miramax productions in the festival’s main categories, although the company does have U.S. distribution rights for closer “An Ideal Husband.”
Dogma NOT COMPETING At Cannes…
- There’s been much speculation about Dogma’s status at Cannes, so we’ll spell it out as simple as possible. DogmaIS an OFFICIAL SELECTION for the festival, yes, but the film will NOT be competing, but are still shown at the Palais.One scooper predicts that Dogma will be shown after the 7 and 10 PM “official” screenings, and says that, if this isthe case, that it will be a MADHOUSE. Apparently, when a highly anticipated flick is shown in this slot, TONS ofcelebs and fans are lining up to get in. This was the case with “Trainspotting” 2 years back.
Don’t be disappointed at all that Dogma won’t be in official competition. This is really an excellent situation forthe film – No pressure to win any awards (in fact, we expect speculation that the flick WOULD have taken awards wouldit have competed, which is even better), plenty of studios to expose the film to, and, best of all, a PREMIERE at CANNES!How cool is that? Kevin made some comments as well, that we thought we’d share with you:
*Phew*!
Now that’s a load off.
Based on everything I’ve read and heard, it looks like we’ll be going to Cannes. We’re not competing, but hey – beggars can’t be choosers.
I would like to point out, however, that as a ‘special screening’, we’re in such historically esteemed company as ‘Blues Brothers 2000’ and ‘Godzilla’ (amongst many more reputable films, over the years, including ‘Trainspotting’ and ‘Reservoir Dogs’). Just wanted to keep things in perspective.
But we’re in, and that’s fantastic, because now the flick’ll finally get seen by the press and the critics, and we’ll just see if it’s considered a ‘controversial’ film or not. My bet? They dismiss it as harmless; maybe even an inconsequential entertainment (wouldn’t that be nice? Then we could put this whole brouhaha behind us and get down to the business of enjoying the flick for what it is).
My only regret in not having gotten into the competition is that Affleck won’t pick up any awards (at least not for almost a year). The whole cast is wonderful, but Affleck broke through his ceiling on this flick, and deserves a heap o’ kudos.
And my only other regret in regards to Cannes…
Now I’ve gotta squeeze my fat ass into a damn tux.
And, since many of you have been asking: No, we won’t be attending the festival, unless some strange benefactor stepped out of the shadows and handed us twofestival passes and plane tickets to France. Anyone listening? 🙂
Commentary
- Howdy all – As you probably know, Cannes is the big story, with the official announcements about the films coming in today. Read all about what we know (as well as a Liz Smith column on the subject) below.
Also, NewsCam is now live and running again after almost a week of downtime. From what I hear, the cam’s still not working properly for Netscape browsers, something I plan to work on as soon as I get some free time.
For those of you wondering about my job situation…Here’s an update. I still have not been laid off although I have officially stated my desire to move on (rather than take a crappy mainframe job), so I expect the layoff to occur sometime next week (before the next pay period starts). This isn’t definite, but more than likely will happen. I’ve gotten some great leads from many of you so far, and I sincerely appreciate that! Once the layoff happens, I will have more time to schedule phone interviews and possibly travel to sites, which should make the search easier. I’m still searching as well, so if you know of something that might fit the bill, please drop me a line! Thanks again for your help, everyone. I’ll rest at ease once I know I’m employed again — It’s going to seem odd when this layoff happens and I’m not working every day!
And now, on with the news…