Despite an incredible streak of freak occurances, Kevin Smith finally managed to appear at the University of Central Florida last night. The “freak occurances” I refer to began with Kevin’s back problems, which forced him to cancel once. The show seemed all but perfect for April 9th, but as a line started to form outside the auditorium Friday night, word came down that not only had Kevin missed his plane, but he was sitting in another plane that hadn’t even taken off. He later explained that they waited in the plane for over two hours, due to a weather delay. And once the plane actually got to Orlando, sometime around 11:15pm, the airport was inexplicably deluged with traffic.
Meanwhile, back at the campus, the fans started showing up as early as 5 pm. Once 7:30 rolled around, the activities board decided to let everyone inside to watch videos. There was enough time to screen both “Clerks” and “Mallrats,” before Kevin arrived. The crowd was understandably restless, but it also grew larger as the time got later. I believe this was the first time Kevin appeared in Florida, so the audience was understandably excited and anticipatory. An auditorium that holds 400-500 people was almost full, and soon after midnight, Kevin finally arrived, direct from the airport, to a standing ovation.
I’d be curious to hear other descriptions of Kevin’s presentations, but here’s my impression. Kevin tells you right off the bat that he’s not any sort of “speaker,” which to be completely honest, he’s not. A better description would be “storyteller,” as Kevin’s best moments in front of a live audience feel much like his best moments with the audience in a movie theater.
The best example I can give is Kevin telling the rather detailed history of the “Superman Lives” project. Granted, the die hard fans in the audience groaned when some hapless guy in the front of the auditorium bothered to ask, “what happened with that Superman script you were working on?” to which Kevin shot back, “Got a minute?”
The “Superman” script woes were some of the highlights of the evening as Kevin went from being offered “Bettlejuice Goes Hawaiian” to the meetings with Warner Bros. where he told them the “Superman” script they had sucked, to Tim Burton’s eventual involvement. He also went into the strange-but-true meetings with Jon Peters, where (as many of us know) Kevin was asked to insert polar bears at the Fortress of Solitude and a giant spider in act three. These stories played like the best scenes out of “Chasing Amy.” Kevin displayed a firm grasp on storytelling and comedy timing, and that’s explains why he’s such a successful filmmaker. He also displayed a very self-depricating attitude toward his movies, often painting pictures of executives saying things like, “Yeah, we had a meeting with the ‘Clerks’ guy. Is he gonna do ‘Superman’ with dick and fart jokes?”
The evening featured some of the predictible questions, which Kevin handled very pleasantly even though he has probably heard them many times. After things like “How did you finance ‘Clerks’?,” “Do you have any jobs open at View Askew?,” and “When will ‘Dogma’ hit theaters?” were out of the way, a few more unique questions were presented.
One guy asked Kevin when Jason Mewes was going to direct, to which Kevin answered something like, “the dude doesn’t even brush his teeth!”
Someone asked if Kevin was ever going to do a movie with Christina Ricci, to which Kevin shot back something like, “Why, because she has huge tits?” But he further related how he read in Entertainment Weekly (in the “rent check” sidebar) that Ricci often told people she hated “Chasing Amy” even though she returned the tape without ever watching. I remember reading that one myself.
Some of the inevitable “Star Wars” questions led into some brief bits about Skywalker Ranch and Affleck’s attending a party with Lucas and Spielberg. Affleck claimed that at one point during the evening, Spielberg and Lucas were on the Net looking at porn!
Speaking of porn, did anyone know about Jason Lee’s onetime habit of using “porno” as an adjective? Kevin related some great stories about how he and Scott Mosier met Jason Lee and eventually cast him in “Mallrats.” Jason evidently used to say things like “I’ll meet you in that porno van,” just throwing the word in for no reason but for comic effect. Lee also would reference Burt Reynolds, sometimes referring to his performance as done “Reynolds-style.” So when “Boogie Nights” came out, the marriage of “porn” and “Reynolds,” Kevin said the dude was in heaven. The stories about Jason Lee were tied in to some cool stories about casting “Mallrats,” with the “pizza party” method, where he mentioned that one of the actors the studio wanted for Jay’s part was Seth Green, who played Scott Evil in “Austin Powers.” I found that one interesting, since I don’t think he’d fit the part at all, even though the guy seems to be very funny.
Another amusing “Mallrats” story, one that can be confirmed if you go back to the “Film Threat” article Malcolm Ingram did from the set. Kevin mentioned how one early draft had Jay and Silent Bob watching Gwen in the dressing room and masturbating (sounds like a tribute to “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”) and Silent Bob would shoot a load over the wall into Gwen’s hair. Producer Jim Jacks had told Kevin and Scott that semen in someone’s hair would never fly in a film. Then last summer Kevin saw this little flick called “There’s Something About Mary”…
One audience member asked Kevin what his favorite 80s’s “comedy sitcoms” were. Kevin proceeded to relate a great story of how he and Mewes would do the papers at the Quick Stop on Sunday mornings in time to watch reruns of “Degrassi Jr. High” and “Silver Spoons,” and that they would make up new verses to the theme to the latter show! The other two shows he liked were “Gimme a Break” and the “jiggle” show (his words) “We’ve Got It Maid.”
A question about “Just how fast is Walt Flanagan’s dog?” led to some great stories about Walt and his rat terrier Brodie. Incidentally, (spoiler alert!) Kevin mentioned that in “Dogma”, Walt and Steve-Dave are seen outside the abortion clinic, in their own protest group of two. Ever so briefly you can see Walt’s sign says something like “I would have taken that sperm!”
I hesitate to put this in, lest it get Kevin in even more hot water with the religious groups, but it was just too funny. When asked “What would you like God to say to you if you met him?” Kevin replied, “See, you didn’t need a big cock after all.”
And speaking of cocks (boy, these seques are cheap, aren’t they?), Kevin had a number of great stories about Jason Mewes’ private parts. During “Dogma” rehearsals, Kevin says Jason came to the door of his hotel room wearing nothing but a waiter’s vest! Kevin also told the infamous story about Mewes falling asleep on the “Dogma” set. And here’s one I hadn’t heard before, regarding the “Marilyn Manson” MTV short. Kevin says that during the spot, Mewes balls fall out of his costume! He says you can tell this because he immediately cups them back in. Just something for the curious to go looking for.
Surprisingly, Kevin said very little about “Dogma” currently being in flux. He did get in a great joke suggesting Disney was selling his airline ticket out from under him. The audience members had a habit here in Orlando of trying to get in several unrelated questions at the same time, sometimes asking four questions at once! One audience member, rather brazenly said, “Don’t you have a Dogma trailer to show us?” I personally thought this was a bit rude, like the audience had the “right” to see the trailer or something. We did see it about an hour later. More on that at the end of the recap.
The Disney situation also added a layer of irony to the discussion of the “Clerks” animated series, as Kevin mentioned that it was going to air on Disney-owned ABC and that Disney people would be doing the animation. Kevin said the animation people were happy, though, because they would get to do a different type of show. Kevin revealed a lot about the direction they were going with the animated series. At the present time, ABC is committed to do six episodes as a trial. Kevin suggested that some people are talking about premiering the show after the Super Bowl. Kevin went into the character he is creating for Alan Rickman, Leonardo Leonardo, which sounds incredibly surreal. In the show, Leonardo Leonardo is supposed to be “taming the wilds” of Canada, which will be portrayed as being civilized for only 15 years! Kevin claimed this honestly was the idea he was developing. Kevin also related the story they’re planning for the third episode, based on the movie “Outbreak.” When Kevin was talking about Jay and Silent Bob trying to get the monkey in the episode, someone in the audience, out of nowhere asked “Does he spank the monkey?” A very tired Kevin jokingly replied, “Do you want to come up here and do this? Sounds like you’ve got a lot of energy.” Kevin also said he was trying to come up with ideas for the show while waiting for the plane to take off, but it just kept coming back to things like, “okay, Dante and Randal are sitting in a plane.” Regardless, the show sounds like it should be incredibly interesting, and he plans that if the show doesn’t get picked up, they’ll at least have six great episodes.
All in all, Kevin was very gracious for the entire evening. After dealing with the airlines, then coming straight from the airport to the university, Kevin was very determined to go on with questions, even when the audience was willing to let him wrap up. He called for “two more questions” several times before actually ending. He finished up with some great stories about getting the orangutang for the closing shot in “Mallrats,” which inevitably led to more classic Mewes humor! Kevin ended around 3:30 am, and despite being very tired, he talked to people briefly and took photos for everyone who wanted one. I stood by quietly waiting to just thank Kevin for coming while some really unprepared people tried to scam for jobs or ineptly promote some project they were working on. I felt bad for Kevin, because he probably has to deal with these types in every place he speaks.
Unfortunately, after the whole thing, Kevin didn’t do any signing. Now, I can bet some people went away last night (this morning?) very angry about that, but I totally agree with the decision, even though I had really looked forward to getting my “Chasing Amy” poster signed. I can forgive him for not signing because if he did one person’s autograph, he would have to do it for others, and he would be signing for quite a while. I couldn’t make the guy go through that when it was almost 4 am and he was dead tired. I already respected the fact that Kevin decided to go through with the show at all, and for such a long length. (To be fair, though, Kevin offered to sign some items for the students if the school sent them to his office.)
Now to finish up with that Dogma trailer. If any of you reading this have a chance to get to one of Kevin’s appearances, you must experience this footage for yourselves. If you read the script, if you read someone’s description of the trailer, it just doesn’t do justice to what they actually put on the screen. The people who thought “Chasing Amy” was a quantum leap for Kevin are going to be slackjawed at “Dogma,” I’m sure. Heck, if I saw a trailer like this for a movie that wasn’t from Kevin Smith, I’d still be excited. The photography on display here is magnificent, and it was eerie to see some concepts I vaguely remember from reading a draft of “Dogma” done in such a grandiose fashion. Needless to say, basing your mind’s eye view of “Dogma” on “Mallrats” or “Amy” is pointless.
I do think some audiences might find it hard to reconcile that strippers, shit monsters, machine guns, Mooby, and God are all part of the same movie, but maybe not, since the preview audiences have been generally positive. Personally, I felt a little creepy since I was watching a preview of Kevin’s “love letter to faith,” and I kept thinking back to Salma Hayek in a silver bra, ponytails and glasses. Heck, a lot of guys already drool over Salma, but the little bit of her as a stripper in the trailer was somehow much more incredibly sexy. I think it was the glasses… (end digression)
I also got a very strong impression from the dramatic footage, including a sweeping overhead shot of Linda Fiorentino as Bethany, Metatron (I believe) walking on water, and some awesome dialogue from Damon and Affleck. The greatest audience reaction was (as it has been in many other places) to a shot of Jay firing an Uzi. The funny thing is it takes people a few seconds to register that they just saw Jay shooting a gun, resulting in an amusing delayed reaction. Overall, Kevin’s trailer imparts a feeling of grandeur unique to this flick and I applaud him for having the guts to go forward with a movie like “Dogma”. Oh, and just like at other appearances, everyone started cheering over the credit block and ended up screaming “rewind!” to hear the tagline Jay gets to say! – Derek Miner
I only live about an hour or so away from the UCF campus, so I hooked up with some buds that were in town, and we drove on over to the school. Now let me tell you, an hour in a car with 4 other people (and no air conditioning) can be a grueling experience, but it was over shadowed by the fact that I was going to see Kevin Smith. We got there at around 6, got some food, and chilled on the sidewalk for a while with the others who were also awaiting the good man. Then came the oh, so lovely, Angelika, who was so nice and talked to us for a while we waited. Of course, all the delays ensued and were all invited into the auditorium to watch the flicks and wait. Unfortunately we were forced to listen to cock-rock (Eve 6) and all around crap when the movies weren’t on. We were all getting pretty jumpy, and heads turned every time the door opened. But, when the man did arrive, we were on our feet in a matter of seconds to welcome him with all our floridian hospitality (what was left of it at midnight anyway). I have to say I was a bit upset when Kevin said that if there were only like 10 people there, he would have taken us all to Denny’s. I was wishing people would leave at that point…but alas, that’s just selfish. Well, it all ended hours later, and I got my picture taken with Kevin, and we chatted a little, and I went home one happy fan-girl! Just gotta say that I hope Kevin decides that Florida is worthy of yet another visit. The man was a joy to witness. – Your Royal Porkiness
Kevin was scheduled to arrive at 8, so I showed up at 7, thinking that no one else would be there yet. You know, so I could get good seating, or whatever. Well, when I got there, there was already around a hundred or more people waiting in line. And then shortly after, this guy shows up and explains that Kevin’s plane will be delayed until 10 p.m. due to weather conditions. So, they let people in to show Clerks, to hopefully calm everyone down, from the news of the delay.
Half way through Clerks, he pauses the film to say something to the extent of, “Look, when they checked in earlier to say they were leaving, they weren’t. Kevin will be here at 11:00”. Man, I was about ready to start a riot! But there was no way I was gonna leave, after driving two hours to go see this.
He ended up getting there, at like, 12! But hey, the wait was definitely worth it. Kevin walks out, and like, the first thing he says is, “Look, I’m not into doing the motivational speeches, so I’m just gonna stand here and answer everyone’s questions”. And that is what he did, along with telling some very funny stories.
He talked about the Clerks cartoon, and how it was scheduled to air following the Super Bowl in January of 2000. There are scheduled to be 6 episodes. One of which will be titled, “Out Break, which Kevin said would essentially be about the movie “Out break”. A pet store opens up in the RST video store mini mall, and Randal freaks out when people start getting sick, and blames it on a monkey in the pet store. While all of this Jay and Silent Bob try to buy the monkey because they want to teach it to smoke.
Also about the cartoon, both Jeff Anderson, and Brian O’Halloran are supposed to revise the role of Randal and Dante. Ben Afflick wants to guest as a Canadian (which according to Kevin, sounds more Irish than Canadian). Also Chris Rock and Alanis Morissette are supposed to some of the names that lend their voices to the roles. >{? Around 2:30, he showed the “Dogma” trailer. It was very cool. In one scene of it, Jay was shooting an Uzi. He was saying that even though Uzi’s have like 15 bullets, or whatever, it only takes about 1.5 seconds to shoot finish a round. So after the bullets were gone, Jason was still standing there with it pretending to shoot going “Ga ga ga ga ga ga ga.”
He answered questions until around 3:30. After this, he let everyone who wanted one, to take pictures with him. I got a picture with him! My film comes in Tuesday. Hope it took! – Ken Hedge
Look if any one knows about that night from a die hard fans point of view it was me I got there first . Well semi first anyway, a cool couple, a die hard, and some jackass in a zoot suit who break danced all night and reacted loudly to the films in a way that suggested that he had never seen them, were all there before me.But just the same, and this is no lie, I had the best seat in the house.
After the man in charge ,cool guy,said “fuck it” to the rule about the college kids geting in first everyone in the first single filed line I had been involved in since grade school . For some reason people did not notice the podium where he would speak and ran for the screen. I turned to my buddy in front of the seat in front of the podium and was like “Dude this is what we want.”.
We sat and listed to bad news followed by not as bad news given by the organizer during Kevs’ first 2 flicks.My seat was so kick ass I saw Kev as he walked in from the side door, I held my excitement in cause at this point in the night after hours of waiting saying anything would have sparked a riot. And then the event.
The man came out to a standing ovation, It felt like a long awited thank you from a yong audience strugeling to find a voice to the only “Gen-X” filmmaker who in all honesty gets it. He seemed a little shocked by the fact that that there was a couch in directly ahead of the front row that some ya-ho got from his frat during “Mallrats”. He really did his best to hide it but the guy was exausted and he still went on for 3 1/2 hours of great story telling pluse some psycho siting next to me who played with a butane lighter the whole fucking show.
Among the nights highlights in no apparent paragraph structure (In all due respect to all you english teachers in training ….fuck off).Plenty of answers any real fan knows the end to but when told by Kevin are as funny as his movies to such questions about Superman Reborn,his job on Good Will hunting,”Is that you in those movies?”. The best were stuff like his own admittion that the first star wars movie is “boring”,”Jedi ” gets lost after they leave Tatoine,a kick ass story about the final shot in “Mallrats” that nearly made me fall out of my chair when he said that Jason offered to hit the monkey when it started to climb up him, putting Chirstina Ricci and Jenny McCarthy in there place, Jason Lee at a college lecture, hearing Lucas and Spielberg were looking at “donkey porn” at a hollywood party,the expresion on his face when a fan threw some shirts as gifts at him, and oh yea that “Dogma” tralier which with out saying to much rules. The poor guy could have done without alot dumb questions thrown by posers. Around 3:30am it was time for the tired man to get some sleep so he wraped up walked off stage and politly declined autographs.The guy just wanted to get his girlfriend and get some sleep.But not without fakes decked out in dockers ,polo shirts,and college hats bothering him for a picture they could display in their room as a way of giving their date rapes something to look at before the surprise. The real fans left so the natural showman could get some shut eye more than satisfied. – DieHard
Well, this was my second time making the 8 hour drive to see Kevin at UCF, so there was no way I was gonna leave when they said his plane got delayed. My friends and I got there around 5:30 (your royal porkiness included), where we were supposed to meet this guy from the board. However, the wanker bailed on us (we found out later from a friend that he was there and was just being stupid and lying to us for some reason). So we went out to eat and came back in time to get in the door. We listened to some really bad music, then watched Clerks and Mallrats (Clerks looks a lot better on a smaller screen!). AT some point we went outside where everyone was chilling, and these two guys from PA had a camera and were getting people to talk to them, i dunno what for. We went back to this girls dorm room for awhile with them (I still want her David Duchovny poster!) and that was somewhat time consuming. Kevin got there, and the party started. I had heard some of the stories before at Virginia Tech, but he added some things he didn’t say there and left some things out as well, so his talks differ enough for the hard core fan…even one tiny morsel of new info was welcomed….I could tell he was getting tired, and i felt like yelling at all the wankers in the audience who kept asking asinine questions that could easily be answered by just browsing through the board. “Duh, is it true that there are action figures of you guys?” *SMACK* It was great getting to meet some of the board people, like Anjelika and mbowman, even if he didn’t think we knew who he was 🙂 Kevin, if you read this, thank you again for not canceling, and then for doing pictures afterwards. I know that you made my and my friends day, month, year, however long it is until you decide to grace us with your presence again. It’s rare that a speaker can captivate an audience’s attention the way you can. Usually they are good at writing or directing, then they suck when you put them on a stage in front of people. And thanks for answering my question abwould be doing now if Clerks hadn’t made it. – DramaChic