- According to Charlie Rose’s website, the Dogma Panel interviews will air TONIGHT!!! Don’t miss this show, folks, check your local listings — It’ll be on PBS. And we hear it’s a WONDERFUL interview, as Rose always seems to do a fantatsic job at getting the most out of the guests. Again, rumor has it this thing might be primed for the Dogma DVD, so you’ll get your first look today.
Archive for November, 1999
Commentary…
- Just when we thought we were out…They pull us back in! LOTS of news today, still with Dogma at the forefront. We’re actually happy to see that the press, the web, and even our friends in the UK continue to plug the film. Usually, movies get a little bit of press right before release, then disappear. With Dogma, there’s been loads of press well before its release, and it seems that folks just can’t stop talking about it. That’s a GOOD thing. In fact, according to Monday night’s box office take, Dogma actually was #1 if you look at the per screen averages. More on that below.
Today’s new Dogma RC articles include CBS‘s successful win over pulling the Dogma Ad, by far our most popular submission today (They didn’t like the “Touched By An Angel” tagline, guess they should have went with “Pope Fiction” afterall!), a couple new reviews and other general Dogma press. Thanks today to Ken Liang, Josh Babetski, Charles Cage, Martin, Michael Dequina, Clare, Hoser, John Couture, Skylewalker, Josh Graves, Allan, Robert Newhart, Aug, Travis Wilson, Penny, Daltrey, J Grier & Hoserfor tracking these down. Most of those scoopers sent in info on the various sources (IMDB, Associated Press, Cinescape,etc.) for the CBS/Ad Pulling story, we didn’t reprint EVERY source we found, just the main original piece.
Okey dokey, well, we’ve also got clarification (finally) on the Larry King appearance, more information on tracking Dogma’s theatrical gross, and a few other tidbits for this glorious hump day. Here we go:
View Askew NewsBites™
- What an honor! CLERKS has been nominated by the AFI as one of the 100 funniest American movies of all time. CBS will air a special in June 2000 celebrating the hundred winners. You can check out the other 499 nominees at the AFI’s official website. Let’s cheer Clerks on to victory!
- Wanna keep track of Dogma’s daily theatrical grosses? Look no further than the web. We like to use Showbiz Datafor the latest figures. Yahoo also keeps track of this sort of thing. As we mentioned above, Dogma trounced ALL the other flicks out there on Monday if you look at per-screen averages, taking in another .72 million bringing it up to 9.39 million. Take note also that this flick cost a TON less to make than the Joan of Arc movie, which is struggling at number 4 with only 6.85 million here in the U.S. Definitely something to be proud of.
- The Dogma website beat out all the other film sites with a 5 STAR RATING, according to the UK Magazine, Heat. Kudos, Ming & Co.
- Here’s a nifty one – This Dogma review, by “Thugs On Film”, is one you actually WATCH with Shockwave Flash. Neat. Check it out HERE if you have the means.
- Here’s another classic Dogma review (if you can call it that) of Dogma, courtesy of the Space Ghost website. The evil Zorak took a look at the film, and here’s what he had to say (We warn ya, though, he tends to get off on a bit of a tangent):
Here’s the equation. You kick up a fuss about something and it automatically makes ten times more money than if you had just ignored it in the first place. For instance, some members of your species made a stink over my consumption of a nephew named Raymond. That episode later went on to gross…OKAY, BAD EXAMPLE! But when something becomes controversial, a maladjusted mantis like me will phone his friends and turn out in plague-like proportions. You wanna know the truth about this flick? The real sin is that it just isn’t funny. You know what’s funny? People accidentally spewing stuff out their nostrils. That’s funny! You put a camera on Kevin Smith, give him a mouthful of strawberry milkshake and goose him in the ribs? BAM! Instant masterpiece. I once saw a guy munching on trail mix accidentally sneeze a walnut as big as the tip of your finger. You should have seen the torque on it! I laughed for three weeks. Projectile sneezing is FUNNY. End of lesson!
- Even the UK’s rock scene is plugging Dogma (and Clerks, too!). A weekly rock/metal magazine called “KERRANG!!” put Clerks was in the top ten rock n roll movies of all time & Dogma was mentioned as #4 in the top ten movies you must see:
“CLERKS” 1994
STARS : Brian O’Halloran, Jeff Anderson, Kevin Smith, Lisa Spoonauer, Jason Mewes
Plot : Director Kebin Smith’s brilliantly observed tale of a day in the life of a bone-idle convenience store clerk & his foul mouth mate. Smith himself stars as the legendary Silent Bob.
Rock N Roll Connection : The ultimate slacker movie, with a prime alt-rock soundtrack.
Best Moment : O’Halloran’s horrified realisation that his girlfriend has “sucked 37 dicks”. Or the ill-tempered roof hockey game.
If It were A Band It Would Be : Screaming Trees
4. “DOGMA”
>From the creator of “Clerks”, “Mallrats” & “Chasing Amy” comes this tale of two angels, Loki (Matt Damon) & Bartleby (Ben Affleck) , who’ve been kicked out of heaven, & their futile attempts to get back in. The only way they can return to paradise comes with one unfortunate side-efffect: the world could end. Jay & Silent Bob are the stoned prophets who try to prevent them pissing off god, who is portrayed by the equine-faced Alanis Morissette. She is unlikely to go down on anyone in a theatre here.
Release Date: December 26
- Clerks gets the quote of the day today over at the IMDB:
RANDAL
There’s nothing more exhilarating than pointing out the shortcomings of others, is there?
- Finally today, here’s some fan art that we dug. Enjoy. We’ll catch ya next time.
Kevin On Larry King THIS WEEKEND…
- We apologize for all the confusion around this, but it seems we’ve FINALLY got a clarification. Tom from Lions Gate informs us that Kevins appearance was indeed taped this past Monday, but will not air until THIS WEEKEND on the CNN program called “Larry King Weekend”. Check your local listings.
IGN On Jay, Bob, & Scream 3…
- Normally a story like this would just be a newsbite, but we just love hearing stories about Jay for some reason. If you ever see Kevin live, the highlight of the appearances always seem to be the amusing anecdotes about the wacky stuff that Jay says and does. This one’s no exception, as Kevin chats a bit about Jay’s acting career and some funny stuff surrounding their upcoming “Scream 3” cameo (thanks to the wonderful IGN Movies for the story):
Dogma’s quiet one spills the beans on why Jason Mewes does movies.
Kevin Smith wrote Dogma. He directed Dogma. And he acted in Dogma, playing Silent Bob, one-half of New Jersey’s infamous duo introduced in Kev’s first flick, Clerks. The other half — who more than makes up for Silent Bob’s quietude — is Jay, the on-the-prowl motormouth played by Jason Mewes. From what Kevin told IGN Movies in a recent interview, there’s a thin line between Mewes and Jay. If one exists at all.
IGN Movies: Mewes really does a great job in Dogma.
Kevin: He does hold his own really well in the movie, and that’s a strong testimony to his performance. There are a lot of good actors in the film, and when Jay’s on camera he commands the screen.
IGN Movies: Does he act in any other films besides yours?
Kevin: No. He should. But he doesn’t. He’s weird.
IGN Movies: Does he get many offers?
Kevin: I think after Dogma we’ll see a lot more. But, generally, no. Sometimes people call up: “We’re doing a skiing comedy, do you think he would want to do it?” And Mewes is like, “Alright, I’m going to go to the audition.” And he never winds up going.
He’s not like most actors. He’s not like Affleck and Damon. Of course, they’re career-oriented, they like to build a body of work. Mewes is always asking, “When are we doing the next movie?” Generally it’s about three things. Number one, getting paid. Number two, he gets to keep his wardrobe — it’s free clothes. And then you get breakfast burritos in the morning, and he likes that. We’ll sit around, off season, not making movies, and invariably, sooner or later, he’ll say, “Wouldn’t it be great if we had those breakfast burritos?” And we’ll go, “Yeah, it’d be kinda cool.” And he’s like, “Those are so awesome. Man, I miss that. When you making another movie?”
He’ll say weird things. He called up today, and he said, “I’m thinking about doing what you do.” I do Q&A’s at colleges, and sometimes I’ll bring him with me. He said, “I’m thinking about doing that, but I don’t really want to speak ’cause I don’t that much to say. I just want to go out there, maybe sign autographs or something. Do you think they’ll pay me for that?” He’s always trying to figure out harebrained ways to make money. And I’m like, “Dickhead, why don’t you just go be in a movie? Make $50,000 or $60,000, and then you’ll be set.” And he’ll say, “Yeah, I mean I guess we could do that, too.”
We did a day on Scream 3. When we got there, they gave us T-shirts in the trailer. And Mewes was ecstatic: “We got free shirts!” And they gave us per diem living expense money, which was two hundred dollars. “And cash! We got cash!” Never mind the check for his acting, that’s not concrete, that comes in two weeks. But the two hundred dollars and the shirt were in his hand, and he was saying stuff like, “You and me should do this all the time. We should go to all the horror movies and pop up for a scene, and we get this kind of money! And a T-shirt!” I said, “I think you should really start thinking about acting for a living, and stop thinking about popping up in horror movies for a scene.” He’s going to be like Lou Ferrigno [TV’s The Incredible Hulk]. [Laughing, shaking his head] Go to comic book shows, charge $25 for a picture with Jay.
Upcoming Talk Show Appearances…
- Thanks to reminders we’ve been getting, we thought it’d be a good idea to alert you all to the remaining Dogmatic appearances happening this week. As Tom said yesterday, Lions Gate booked an aggressive appearance schedule, continuing into this week, hoping that we’ll see another big weekend for the flick:
| DATE | SHOW | TIME | GUEST(S) |
| 11.17.99 | The Tonight Show With Jay Leno (NBC) | 11:35 PM EST | Salma Hayek |
| 11.18.99 | Late Late Show With Craig Kilborn (CBS) | 12:30 AM | Jason Lee (2nd Guest) |
| 11.22.99 | Late Night With Conan O’Brien (NBC) | 12:35 AM | Chris Rock |
| 11.25.99 | Late Show With David Letterman (CBS) | 11:30 PM | George Carlin |
Commentary…
- Hiya folks! Glad you could stop by today. Nice to see ya. E-mail is slowly getting back to a reasonable volume again, so lately, as long as we keep pace with it, it’s been do-able.
Just a few administrative type things — First of all, many of you have been noticing the counter resetting itself over and over again. Rest assured we do have a backup, so we’re not losing any figures, though it is quite annoying seeing it reset all the time. Hopefully I’ll have time later this week to replace the counter with a more stable one to end that problem. Look for a few more fixes like this down the road. With Dogma, there was little time to really create anything NEW, but rather to just maintain the news that was coming out. With things looking to slow back down again soon, you can expect some new features here at the site again. Stay tuned for some nice surprises.
Again, we’re in the dark on the Larry King deal for today. If anyone knows which of Larry’s programs Kevin is appearing on, and in what capacity, drop us a line so we can clear things up for everyone. We’d sure appreciate that.
Just a few more stragglers today with some last-minute Dogma articles and reviews that aren’t on RC. Can you believe that we’ve logged over 150 articles and 85 reviews of the film over the course of its production and release? Amazing. Thanks today to Ken Liang, J Grier & Hoser for their RC contibutions (the Premiere interview and a review from a devout Christian who walked out on the flick in about a half an hour…Does that even QUALIFY one to write a review?).
We’ve also got the latest on the talk show circuit, and a few more Dogma Quckies to round out the day. Let’s rock:
Dogma Quickies™
- We’ve been looking forward to this one. The U.S. Catholic Conference has finally released their official classification and statement on Dogma. Prepare yourself…
Dogma — Because of anti-religious buffoonery, intense violence, sexual references, substance abuse, assorted vulgarities, profanity and recurring rough language, the U.S. Catholic Conference classification is O — morally offensive. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R — restricted. Dogma is a sophomoric religious satire in which a heavenly messenger persuades the last descendant of Joseph and Mary to leave her job in an abortion clinic and set out to stop a pair of fallen angels from regaining heaven by means of a plenary indulgence. The unfunny proceedings rely on a mindless mix of irreverence and absurdity in poking fun at biblical characters and Christian stereotypes.
- Wil Wilkins has placed all of his Dogma-related footage online, including all the interviews, reports, and such, at his website for your viewing pleasure. You’ll need RealPlayer.
- One recap site notices how well Dogma did, especially considering the past grosses of View Askew flicks:
The latest comedy from director Kevin Smith, “Dogma”, brought him his biggest debut ever. The film, which cost only $10 million to make, will end up turning a huge profit for distributor Lions Gate. The film stars Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Chris Rock, Alan Rickman, Salma Hayek, Smith, Jason Mewes, Jason Lee, George Carlin and singer Alanis Morissette. “Dogma” will easily pass “Chasing Amy” ($12.0 million) as Smith’s biggest hit film.
- A magazine called Link that gets sent out to college students ran an interview with Kevin about Dogma, as well as a list of his top 5 religious-themed movies. Here ya go.
- We were just gonna run the Kevin part of this story, but the other stuff, well…interested us…So we thought that we’d run the whole darn thing. Be sure and at least read the last paragraph for the Kev reference:
JENNA CONTINUES TO CAUSE A STIR
Seth McCoy posts: “Jenna Jameson, the world’s number one Porn Star and Wicked Pictures contract star, is at it again. Jenna is featured in clothing giant Abercrombie & Fitch’s 1999 Naughty and Nice Holiday catalog and, apparently, her inclusion may be a little too much for some to handle.
“The catalog is creating a stir for its ‘pornographic’ nature. Jenna is pictured wearing a yellow tank top and little else. In the interview, Jenna discusses the business and gives tips on how to please a woman. Abercrombie & Fitch actively pursued Jenna because she is an international superstar and is considered both naughty and nice.
“Jenna is featured on page 104, as well as mentioned in the ‘Good Omen’ section. She joins stars such as Kevin Smith, Andy Dick and the cast of ‘That 70’s Show’ in the catalog that was released November 1, 1999.”
Ummm, if anyone’s got an extra catalog they’d like to send us…Just for the site, of course…Research and all…Heheh…Let us know. Pronto. 😉
- Finally today, Kev’s quoted in NewsWeek:
“I’m not saying the church is bad, just that God is better.”
Chew on that, and we’ll see ya tomorrow.
View Askew NewsBites™
- Wanna see a glimpse of the “new scenes” in A BETTER PLACE? Go HERE – Don May put up a photo gallery with a behind-the-scene shot of the dead parents in the car (click on photo gallery) to check it out. ABP is tracking for an early 2000 release, and we can’t wait.
Vincent also recently mentioned the status of the DVD as well as his new script, Autograph:
“I’ll be talking to the Skywalker folks this week re: the 5.1 remix of A BETTER PLACE, and then will have a better idea of when all the work will be done for the DVD, but it’s going to be released sometime in the 1st quarter of 2000, deinfitely.
As for AUTOGRAPH, the first LONG draft was handed off to various confidents of mine to get their notes- so far Lynch and Mosier have given me good notes, and I’m working (with a friend actually) on draft 2, which should bedone soon and all sorts of polished an’ shit. Then, I give the script to the Money Fairy and get a nice big budget and make the movie, or something like that.”
- We think we may have mentioned this place before, at least SOME of it is familiar, but just in case, Zug.Net has a ton of Kevin Smith stuff, and our pal Steve sent in the scoop, so what the heck.
- A long new interview, but one with quite a few interesting questions, appears over at Coming Attractions today, one of our favorite and most addicitive stops on the web. Alas, due to time constraints we’re not reprinting the review today, but do surf over and check it out, we highly recommend it.
- Another interview with Kevin appears on DrDrew.Com, just a few questions, though. Check it out HERE.
- Troma opened a new website today. They’ve got an article about Kevin and DOGMA, in the Movies section. Check it out HERE. Kevin talks there a bit about the movie, the Clerks TV show, and why he named his daughter Harley Quinn.
Dogma Quickies™
- Peter King (Lead Football writer for Sports Illustrated) writes a weeklycolumn called Monday Morning QB. At the end of the column each week he has a section called ‘10 Things I think I think’…8 of the 10 are usually football related. This week # 4 is:
4. I think “Dogma” sounds like a pretty good movie. I’m going.
- Hollwood.Com has quite a bit on Dogma today, including some quotes from our friend Tom from Lions Gate:
Lions Gate’s release of the controversial R-rated irreverent comedy “Dogma” opened in third place to a much better than expected estimated $8.77 million at 1,269 theaters ($6,907 per theater). Directed by Kevin Smith, it stars Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, Linda Fiorentino, Salma Hayek, Jason Lee, Jason Mewes, Alan Rickman and Chris Rock.
“We’re thrilled,” Lions Gate Co-President Tom Ortenberg said Sunday morning. “The picture was playing to sellout crowds literally across America. We had very few double prints, so to do that kind of a per-screen average I think was phenomenal. The picture seemed to play well broadly. We were getting not just a younger crowd and a college crowd, but also a decent adult crowd who were drawn by a lot of wonderful reviews on the picture, and we played so brilliantly at three very prestigious film festivals — Cannes, Toronto and New York.
“In addition to being a kind of broad-based pop culture entertainment, it’s also very clever and insightful and, I think, that was very appealing to a more adult audience, as well, that a lot of people didn’t think we would be able to attract. I was at many different theaters this weekend watching the film, and audiences were just eating it up.”
Who was on hand to see “Dogma?” “Slightly more male, but the film has a lot of things going for it,” Ortenberg said. “I don’t have the final polling numbers (as of early Sunday morning), but it was very broad-based — a good mix of males and females and more adult than some people thought we would be able to attract.”
Ortenberg said that Lions Gate has a lot scheduled on the promotion front this week: “We have a lot of good week two publicity banked. Knowing there are a couple of biggies opening this week against us, we decided to hold off on some of the publicity so that (it breaks in the second week). Today, there’s a New York Times piece on Kevin Smith. Tomorrow, Kevin is on ‘Larry King Live.’ Wednesday, Selma is on Jay Leno. Thursday, Jason Lee is on Craig Kilborn. There are features this coming week in Time, Entertainment Weekly and Rolling Stone. I think that would be considered by some to be a great week one publicity campaign. We think that will really help keep the profile of the movie high.
“We’ll probably add a few (theaters) in some metropolitan areas where the picture is playing particularly well. But I think we picked a good number (of runs to open with).”
While it’s playing strongly in big cities, Ortenberg said, it’s also doing well all over. “We’re having great weekends in Knoxville, Tenn., and Toledo, Ohio,” he said. “In Toledo, we’re going to do over $20,000 this weekend. And Knoxville is going to be doing well over $10,000. And Savannah, Ga., is going to be doing over $10,000. So it’s really playing well across the board. In some of the more metropolitan areas, it’s doing even better, where we might add a few screens. But, for the most part, I think we’ll stick around where we are.”