View Askew Productions
www.viewaskew.com

The official online shrine to comics #1 fanboy, Kevin Smith. This site (named for Smith’s production company) includes all the ingredients for a “recipe of interactive inactivity,” including NEWS ASKEW (a daily-updated list of interesting tidbits about the Jersey-based director), an ultra-active WWW board (where Smith occasionally answers fans’ questions) and an extensive merchandise department (where you can pick up the latest in Jay and Silent Bob swag). You can even learn the lyrics to the “Dogma” song “Mooby the Golden Calf.” Also, play Thirty-Seven!, a trivia game based on the films of Kevin Smith. Oh, yeah. There’s also a phone number where you can book a live appearance by Silent Bob himself.

Sorry for so long an absence. As some of you have seen, I’ve been busy. There are no more pushy film-merchants than the brothers Weinstein when it comes to forcing their actors out onto every conceivable platform for the sake of promoting a movie. These fucks will have me reading crop reports in Iowa by next week.

Thanks to everyone who tuned into SNL last weekend. Evidently it was well rated and everyone at the show seemed pleased. I can honestly say I haven’t had as much fun as I had hosting that show in years! The cast is phenomenal and very open. They made me feel comfortable and welcome when they quite easily could have done just the opposite (and it would have made my work suffer enormously.) Darryl Hammond, Will Farrel and Jimmy Fallon are especially cool people who I absolutely loved getting the chance to work with. Of all the platitudes and cliches that have passed through my lips in the past few years, the “i’ts been a lifelong dream to host SNL” one is by far the truest. Luckily, I had enough perspective to really enjoy the career benchmark this time and it made the experience all the more rewarding.

As always, Jay Leno was extremely kind and supportive of me doing the show last night. It’s true what they say about him, he really is one of the all time nice guys in this business. They also have an excellent support staff, centered around a really bright woman who does the pre-interviews and sets up the order of the questions. Of all the shows I’ve done, she is definitively the best.

Thanks for the kind words as far as my “impersonations.” I realize they bombed (particularly the Pacino, which I think I choked on under the pressure) but they were self-avowed “bad impersonations” set up by the bit where I mentioned that the SNL folks politely passed on my offer to do them during the show.

Tonight is Kilbourne (he did a very funny show last night with Vince Vaughn, who is –in person–the second funniest man I know, behind my brother.) He’s a good guy (perhaps a bit more biting than Leno, but funny all the same) and I look forward to it. I have the foreign press junket on Saturday and then, mercifully, the Reindeer Games press-whore extravangaza comes to a close.

I saw an advance review of the movie from Rolling Stone which was very positive and, I feel, reviewed the movie from the prespective from which we made it: a fun movie. I.E. he critiqued the movie based upon his level of enjoyment and the craftsmanship of Frankenheimer’s work. The movie is funny and exciting and should very much be taken in the spirit of a popcorn-saturday-night-ride. I hope you all go and I hope you all enjoy it as much as I did making it (and Peter Travers did watching it.)

I did a quick stop-over at Access Hollywood before Leno which will air on friday and where I (besides coming off as slightly exhausted, which i was) slipped in a plug for this site.

We recorded the Dogma DVD commentary in NY on Sunday. kevin and Scott and both Jasons were there. I’m doing a follow-up one on one tomorrow. The guys seem to be putting a tremendous amount of work into the Dogma DVD and if you liked the Mallrats disc, I’m sure you’ll enjoy this one even more.