Archive for November 4th, 1999

Dogma Quickies™

November 4th @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Paul Zimmerman, Jules, Micah Mellander, Vishal Sharma, Shannon Phillips, Chet, Snow, OJ Temple, Steven Boyles & Lord Adrock

  • iF Magazine has a cool 3 part interview with Kevin that starts this Friday. It’s all part of their continuing DOGMA coverage (a 2-parter with Chris Rock’s on the way, too). We’ll have the full coverage for you right HERE.
  • They’re baaaaaaaaaaaaack. This piece comes from the Hollywood Reporter (E! Online also summarized it):
Mass Protest Over ‘Dogma’

Even though Disney-owned Miramax Films will not be the company releasing Dogma next week, Disney is still feeling the heat over Kevin Smith’s controversial satire of Catholicism. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights said it has collected nearly 300,000 signatures as part of its crusade against what it terms anti-Catholic depictions in the media. The league this week began shipping Disney chairman and CEO Michael Eisner the results of its four-month petition drive calling on the studio to sever its ties with Miramax. Disney spokesman John Dreyer said, “We plan to keep Miramax.” “There has never been any intent on the part of the company to denigrate any individual or organization,” Dreyer added. Representatives for Miramax declined comment. Dogma, starring Ben Affleck and Matt Damon as fallen angels, is slated for release by Lions Gate on Nov. 12.

“Dogma(Lions Gate) The best Kevin Smith movie yet, Dogma is, despite the controversy, a wonderfully funny, joyous ode to faith. Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon play renegadse angels threatening humanity, while Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, and Linda Fiorentino aim to save it. Helping out in their own special way are Jay(Jason Mewes) and Silent Bob (Smith), this time as prophets sent by God.”
  • Pittsburgh’s local NBC affilate, Channel 11, mentioned Dogma on the 6pm news last night. Just a brief piece mentioned that it was filmed there. They had a local film critic talk about it (he said it was good). Strangely, they also claimed that no footage had been released, so they only showed some poor black and white pictures (Matt and Ben in the airport). The flick plays the Pittsburgh Film Festival tomorrow and Pitt on Saturday.
  • A quirky little site called HollywoodJesus.com has got its own Dogma page and – seemingly – the creators of the site are looking forward to the movie! More HERE.
  • The new LA Weekly has a two page ad for Dogma; One page for the soundtrack and the other page containing a different poster image, like the version b at the official site, exept the characters are stacked in a pyramid and there are 4 reviews along side the cast, including a new one from the LA Weekly, which calls the movie “Sexy and hilarious. One of the years most exciting movies”.
  • The Popcorn website has been keeping track of Dogma’s progress for its impending UK release. This short blurb also has links to some of their earlier coverage.
  • There’s an interview in GQ Magazine with Kevin this month, though the title we heard led us to believe it’s the same piece as in George. Can anyone verify? If it’s new, please send us a transcript for posting!

Kev’s Number One In EW!!!

November 4th @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Cyberfrog & Mike Neuman

  • Big news! And wonderfully timed, too. In Entertainment Weekly‘s 100 Greatest Entertainers special issue, on newsstands tomorrow, Kevin was listed as the #1 Film Director! Congrats Kevin, it’s very much deserved due to the fantastic flicks you continue to turn out, as well as your dedication to the fans. Couldn’t have happened to a better guy. This should definitely have some heads turning towards Dogma, along with the A- review set for NEXT week’s EW.

Screenings Begin To Great Praise…

November 4th @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Mary, Mathieu, Turtle, Rebekah & Nick Robinson

  • Screenings of Dogma took place in Dallas and Michigan last night, and excited fans have checked in with us — It’s unanimous, everyone LOVES the flick and can’t wait to go and see it again! Word is that crowds were quite diverse, and that laughter was so uproarious that it drowned out subsequent lines throughout the film. Again, as we stated above, we hope that when you see flick, you’ll surf over to our site’s WWWBoard and post your Dogma reviews for all to see. For those of you with tickets to screenings, enjoy, and for the rest of you — Just 8 days to go!

Here’s the new screeing information that we’ve received since last update:

On Monday November 8th, there will be a special screening on “Dogma” at the Imperial Theatre in MONTREAL. To get passes, all there is to do is to get to the “Hour” offices at 4351 St-Denis street. “Hour” is a local newspaper on the entertainment scene in the city. As usual, it`s first come, first serve!! The screening will be at 7:00 PM.

Here’s one for Boston: . Go to this link and answer the questions and you too could win free Dogma tickets! These tickets will probably go fast, but maybe the really difficult questions will deter people. Best of luck to ya…And don’t write us asking for answers!

Commentary…

November 4th @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

  • It actually just sort of sank in today — Dogma is 8 days from release, and hence, this is hands down the most hectic time for this site since we’ve started. With us in 2 different places now and still trying to get unpacked and settled in, as well as busy as hell with our jobs, the timing couldn’t be much worse. So again, with three times our normal e-mail flow coming in, thus, three times the scoops, replies may be very brief or slow in e-mail, and updates may seem a bit more rushed. Please don’t take any of this personally, or as a sign that we in any way don’t care, we’re just trying to tread water here during the madness. For the past 2 weeks, it’s been an 8 or 9 hour work day for each of us, followed by about 4 hours each working on News Askew, and we barely get through it all. Thus, a few decisions.

Fan Dogma reviews: We’re getting reviews from all the screenings already, and, while we’d LOVE to post them all, this just is not a realistic thought for us. If we quit our day jobs, sat in front of our PC’s night and day, and constantly worked on the site, we MAY be able to accomodate everyone. Of course, this isn’t possible. So, we decided the best way would be to encourage YOU to post YOUR Dogma reviews yourself — Over at the News Askew WWWBoard. We’ll soon be adding a special area called “Dogma Reviews”, where we hope you’ll post your thoughts on the film (Good OR Bad) and also have the chance to respond to other folks’ reviews as well. So, in short, please DON’T send us your review, at least, if you want it posted. If you just want us to read it, cool, but we won’t be posting fan reviews of the flick on News Askew directly ourselves.

As for critic reviews, chances are there will also be an abundance of these. We plan to post all points of view on the film, and not sugar coat everything (as we always have), but we ALSO plan to be selective with the reviews, again for the reason that there’s just not enough time in a day to do it ALL.

Rest assured, the site will be PACKED with news over the next couple of weeks, more than you’ve ever seen in the past, and we’ll be covering the flick as much as humanly possible. Thanks for your understanding and cooperation during this time, and most of all thanks a ton for visiting the site.

In the meantime, Dogma Rumor Control has a lot of new exclusive news today, regarding all the new places the flick’s been popping up in the press. We’ll be placing SOME stories here on News Askew, but will also attempt to keep Dogma RC up to date AND give it some exclusive material as well, so be sure and visit both sites to get it all.

View Askew NewsBites™

November 4th @ 12:00 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Joe Hatton, Andrew Craig, Jess, Aaron Bell & JDRavnos

In Hollywood, nothing is as it seems and good stories take precedence over authenticity. Case in point: Miramax head honcho (and Hollywood uberman) Harvey Weinstein, saw a couple of good looking guys who had written a half-baked script and decided to take them under his wing. After several rounds of rewrites (sure, you can call them coaches or advisors) a coming-of-age drama surfaced from what started as a buddy action pic. And with Good Will Hunting, Harvey reaped in the loot and got some Academy recognition, pushing Miramax to the peak of respectability with his Hollywood fairy tale. Now that’s good business.

Now comes Miramax’s The Third Wheel, with Affleck starring and Big Ben and Damon exec-producing. Seems that some problems have surfaced in the postproduction leg of this project, with one scooper revealing to Dark Horizons (after he overheard a phone conversation of producer Chris Moore) that the film isn’t looking so hot and may need a series of reshoots to get it into adequate shape. Can Harvey Weinstein work his magic again? Will The Third Wheel undergo the same big time overhaul that Good Will Hunting did? Hey, the man bought Shakespeare in Love an Oscar. I wouldn’t put anything out of his grasp.