• Wizard Magazine announced its nominations for the annual Wizard Fan Awards. Kevin Smith is nominated for “Favorite Writer”, “Jay and Silent Bob’s Chasing Dogma” as “Favourite mini-series/one shot” category, while Daredevil is nominated in almost all the other categories (apart from “Favorite comic merchandise”, “Favorite Heroine”, and “Favorite Comic TV or Movie Project” catergories). Here’s a full list:

Congrats to EVERYONE nominated, there’s some really deserving folks who worked hard on those books in the past year, and we wish you all the best of luck! You need to buy the latest issue of Wizard to vote, so get out there and do it!

• ZENtertainment reports that Ethan Supplee has joined the cast of Ted Demme‘s cocaine epic, “BLOW”.
• Dogma is no stranger to controversy, and now it’s popping up in Australia! The Rev. Fred Nile (who raised hell about Marilyn Manson joining a music festival) is playing hell about Dogma now. He says, “Dogma portrays God as a woman, which is offensive to Catholic and Christian beliefs. Jesus said you have to pray to our Father, not our Mother.”
• Today’s most popular submission. The Internet Movie Database selected Chasing Amy as their movie of the day on Friday. Here’s the blurb:

• Tonight, the New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles is showing a Clerks/Dogma double feature starting at 7:00 PM. Tickets are just 6 bucks.
• Dogma’s Thailand release has been, as we’d imagined, delayed a week to February 11th.
• “Tail Lights Fade”, the followup to the rarely seen View Askew production “Drawing Flies”, is getting some festival time up north. It’s playing at a small town film festival today, called the Brandon Film Festival. You’ll find Brandon in Manitoba, Canada. The flick also hits video here in the US very soon, and has already seen release overseas.

• Well, we made it. But remind us NEVER to use a beer with close to 8% alcohol content on one of our drinking games AGAIN! Curse you, Molson XXX! At any rate, we did indeed sit down last night and take a shot at our Dogma drinking game. We feel it’s at least our duty to test the waters on these things once before anyone kills themselves trying. The verdict? Well, we each went through 6 of those Molsons, which is about the equivalent of 10-12 regular beers, so that’s what you can expect to consume in just over 2 hours playing the game. You’ll be in NO shape to do ANYTHING after this one, though, so don’t plan on driving or even walking anywhere when all is said and done.

The game featured a strong opening, with about a 2-3 beer consumption in just the first 15 minutes. Thankfully, there ARE some lulls during the flick to give ya a break, but it REALLY comes on strong towards the end when Lee appears at the bar. Be ready for that one. Man oh man. At any rate, we survived, and we’re sure you will too, just be careful! You can download the Dogma drinking game (as well as our exclusive games for Clerks, Rats, & Amy) right here at News Askew.

• We’re still awaiting further information on Kevin’s upcoming Emory University appearance in Atlanta, Georgia…Strange though, representatives from the school itself don’t seem to even know he’s coming. However, and this DOES bode well for the gang coming down, Vincent is screening “A Better Place” at nearby Agnes Scott College the next evening. The film will be shown on February 16th at 6:00 pm in the Gaines Auditorium in Pressor Hall. There will also be a Q&A session with Vincent afterwards. Best of all, this screening is FREE! Oh, and even better than that, guys, take note that Agnes Scott is an ALL GIRLS school! Vincent, you dog, you. Hey, can we come?

Also, we’ve learned that the Amherst appearance tickets are FREE for UMass students and just $3 for the general public. Don’t miss your chance to catch Kev live. It’s a lot of fun.

• We got tons of mail today from folks who caught the “Scream 3” cameo featuring Jay & Silent Bob last night. Too numerous of you to name, really. Here’s a description of when and where the duo appear, swoop the text to read it (or don’t if ya wanna be surprised):

Our thoughts? It was FUNNY…But WEIRD! The whole thing seemed very out of character for the film, we just couldn’t help but wonder whose idea it was to just throw them in there like that. Perhaps we’ll get an explanation in an upcoming Jay & Silent Bob comic? Anyway, it would have made more sense if the film was FULL of cameos, but it really wasn’t. Still though, it was great to see the guys in action up on the big screen, and definitely a testament to how far View Askew has come since Clerks. We’re hearing reports of HUGE audience reaction to Jay & Bob, so much that everything Jay says gets drowned out by laughter and applause. Cool stuff.

By the way, Scream 3 has its moments, but again, this sequel doesn’t hold a candle to the charm and originaly of the first Scream. Our verdict: The flick. 2 1/2 out of 5 stars. The Jay & Bob cameo: 4 out of 5 stars.

Roger Ebert, by the way, mentions the cameo in his review of the film, which he gave just two stars.

• Hey, we’re alive. How about that? The e-mail box is quite full today, mostly for 2 reasons: First, Chasing Amy’s appearance as movie of the day on the IMDB (when a highly-visited site mentions something Askew, e-mail always goes crazy). And then, of course, lots of you who, like us, caught the Jay & Bob cameo in “Scream 3” last night. Read on for those stories, our experiences with the Dogma drinking game, and LOTS more in this weekend edition of News Askew:

• Wow, 2 days in a row! Just like the ‘ol Dogma days. Speaking of that, we’re not sure when the next update will be after today’s, since tomorrow “Scream 3” opens, and ya know ya just GOTTA catch that on the first day before it gets ruined. Hopefully it’ll be as good as some early reviews are saying. Also, it’s been too long already, and by some miracle we’ve both actually got a free Friday night, so we’re going to sit down with the flick and play our Dogma drinking game tomorrow night. We’re even toying with the idea of playing it with the Molson XXX that was brought down for me from Canada. Could be ugly. At any rate, we’ll be back with another (probably hung over) update after that, along with the damage that the game does to ya. Pray for us!

• As Dogma continues to make its way around the world, it’s always interesting to take a look at some of the press and reactions that the film has in other countries and cultures. This week, we’ve been receiving quite a bit of Australian press and scoops. Take a look:

• Garth from Dark Horizons ran his review on Dogma. It’s definitely mixed between positive and negative. Read it HERE.
• Here’s an Australian website that’s got their own review, and some clips from the flick HERE.
• This Sydney website has posted a favorable review of the flick. You can read it HERE.
• Finally, Imovie has posted a summary & review HERE.

In addition to all the press, we’ve gotten several reports stating that the flick is being received quite well, with lots of laughter, applause, and full audiences. Glad to hear it.

By the way, Dogma is also hitting a couple more foreign markets this month — It’s been announced that the flick premieres in Spain next Friday, February 11th. Thailand’s release WAS scheduled for tomorrow, but now we hear the date may have been pushed back a couple of weeks. Press is light over there, but a source may be sending us some interesting promotional material soon. Stay tuned.

• Clerks gets mentioned as having “Decent Potential” by USA Today…ummm…today:

The article mostly lists shows with dark futures ahead, and gives props to only a few, so this is certainly positive buzz.

• MTV is planning to air a new special on Wednesday, February 16th at 10 PM, titled “True Life: I’m a Star as Sundance”. No word if this show will feature any footage of Kev’s gig at the festival.
• “Chasing Dogma” is starting to ship from the Stash and other locations. It’s also available from some comic and book websites, though we’re not sure what their supply is like. Keep in mind it’s a very limited run and when they’re gone, that’s it! We’ll have a closer look at the book for ya very soon.
• Finally today, just a short note for all the Britsih fans in the North-east of England. Newcastle’s Tyneside cinema is showing a Clerks and Chasing Amy Double Bill on Friday the 18th of February. The show begins at 11:00 PM and lasts until the ungodly hour of 3:00 AM. Tickets will run ya £6.00 / £4.50 students.

• Wow, where the heck did February come from? Well, that only means that we’re one month closer to spring and, judging from the weather around here lately, it can show up anytime it wants. The groundhog did NOT see his shadow today, signaling 6 more weeks of winter…But our friend Jeff, whose birthday is today, predicts himself every year, and usually does better than the hog. Jeff saw his shadow and says we can expect an early spring. So there ya go, take it as you will.

As you know, we’ve got a couple projects in the works behind the scenes and have been quite tight-lipped about them. You may also notice that it’s been very business-as-usual around here lately. Just some basic updates and that’s it. Again, this mostly comes from the fact that we’ve been so entrenched in the major project as well as everyday life (fun things such as snow shoveling) that make it difficult to make the site extra lively. Well, the GOOD news is that we’ve decided it’s been long enough and fast-tracked a couple smaller projects and announcements, which we hope to make sometime this week. Watch for them. It’s still not the major announcement we’ve got in the coming months, but it’s some really cool stuff all the same.

Now, on to today. We held off on the news yesterday cuz it was a VERY slow day, and there ain’t much going on today, either. We’re gonna throw them all into newsbites and leave it at that. We’ve also got a quick update on what we know about the Dogma DVD. Also, check out the late poll topic for the week – Vote fast, ‘cuz we think this one’s only gonna hang around until Sunday. Let’s roll:

• The most popular subject in e-mails to this site continues to be the flicks on DVD. Well, we know Dogma and Chasing Amy will come out sometime this year (though Amy’s original release of May seems a bit questionable now that Criterion doesn’t have it officially on the schedule). But what about the details? Well, several sites have speculated over who, what, where and when this Dogma DVD is going to surface. Here’s what we know, at least, last time we talked about it:

• The disc is going to street on May 2, 2000.
• Several websites are already taking preorders for the flick. Reel.Com has it for $14.99, which seems to be the lowest price going. If you want to wait until release, the Stash will likely sell signed copies.
• The disc will have Dolby Digital 5.1 Audio and be 16:9 enhanced (for widescreen TVs).
• The disc will contain a commentary track, though those speaking on it have yet to be announced. We’d say to expect at LEAST Kevin, Mewes, Vincent, & Scott, and more than likely a LOT more of the flick’s cast.
• Over an hour of deleted material is planned for inclusion, more than the packed Mallrats disc, even. This should include all of the famous sequences you’ve read about and heard about. The flick originally ran well over 3 hours long and was released at 2 hours and change.
• Vincent speculated that the disc MAY use branching technology to allow the Sundance version of the film to be watched in addition to the theatrical version. Sundance’s version did not have ALL the aforementioned deleted stuff, but ran about 20 minutes longer. Chances of this are slim due to the timeframe to put something like that together, but it may happen.

Other items, such as a possible documentary (wouldn’t that be sweet?), stills, and the like have yet to be announced, but we can tell you this – Dogma’s going to be a tough DVD to beat. In fact, we think it’ll be the best disc released this year, if not ever. And with just 3 months to go, you better start saving your pennies for that DVD player!