It’s over and done. I’ll never be able to walk in to a movie theatre again and see a new member to the Jersey family of films, for tonight at the United Artists theatre in Westwood, I’m proud to say that I’m one of the first to see Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.
And what can I say, it’s everything I expected, an hour and a half of dick and fart jokes, just like old times.
After lining up at 4pm, two hours before the screening, I was treated to waiting until 5:30 to get in and waiting until 7pm for the movie to start.
As the lights dimmed, the crowd went into wild cheering as the Dimension Films logo appeared on screen, and we revisit the Quick Stop one last time, back where it all started (in more ways than one, as the movie explains).
Slowly but surely each member of the ensemble cast appeared, and each time the crowd went nuts, highlighted by massive applause for Jason Lee and Affleck’s characters.
Lee and Affleck always make you crave for more, so their handful of minutes on the screen left me wanting more, but I’m grateful to have had them in the film.
The story follows our beloved Jay and Silent Bob on their cross coast mission to Hollywood, where their misadventures keep the story moving along.
Jay is his usual hilarious self, with his old bag of gestures and catch phrases, and plenty of new gay jokes, sex jokes, and enough masterbation an oral sex jokes to make even the most liberal Askew’er die with laughter.
Silent Bob is silent (as per usual), but I must say his performance is top notch, with Kevin stealing quite a few laughs.
I think the two surprises are the two new Askew’ers, Eliza Dushku and Shannon Elizabeth.
Dushku, besides being incredibly sexy onscreen, is funny in her small part.
Meanwhile, Shannon Elizabeth really captures the whole feeling and vibe of Kevin’s characters from previous movies. She fits perfectly and is very funny.
And Will Ferrell, well, he never disappoints.
In what is the final installment of all these movies, I couldn’t be happier with the way it all ends. Complaints can be made, but really, is there a need to? It seems like Kevin really got to make a movie that he want, no holding back, crossing the line, stopping, then crossing it some more. The film is very self-reflexive, taking several jabs at itself, the actors in the film, and even us, the faithful fans that stalk Kevin’s every filmmaking move.
I could say more, but I wouldn’t want to give anything away, just get ready for a good time.
And here’s a summary of the press junket…
Shannon Elizabeth: She seemed slightly aloof, but nonetheless sweet. She obviously was wearing little to no makeup, and she still looked great. For some reason an innocent question about DVD (”Would you like to take part on the DVD commentary?”) struck a nerve with the publicist, who but in and said “What a random question!” Very odd. Odder still was that Shannon appeared to have no idea what a DVD commentary was. Strange tidbit: not only has she not seen Kevin’s other films, she says she “feels no need to.”
Kevin: What is there to say? His usual self, and the time with him flew by way too quickly, especially in light of how he likes telling those long stories.
Jason Lee: Laid-back as usual. He remembered me from our hanging out at the Spirits back in March, which was cool. There were some awkward moments of dead air at this roundtable, though, since his roles in the film aren’t too large.
Mark Hamill: Man, is this guy HYPER. It was quite a shock. There were a couple of times where he got so caught up in telling his stories that he spontaneously grabbed my arm. The publicist had a hard time containing him when time was up.
Eliza Dushku/Jennifer Schwalbach-Smith: These two were paired off, which was a shame because there certainly seemed to be enough to talk about to warrant individual sessions. Eliza… first of all, *damn*. I always thought she was hot, but I had no idea. She wore this bust-enhancing tank-top with a machine gun on it. And she has such a great kick-back demeanor. She certainly seems more down with the Askew vibe than Shannon. Jennifer obviously ate up being on the other side of the interview fence. She’s insanely nice, and I realized it’s odd that only now she and I have met considering I had seen her at other functions. I suspect it won’t be the last though. She gave the best comment of the day, off the record when she and I chatted a little after the official session was over. I told her the Cough Curer story, and she said with a smile, “He’s a magical man. At least in his own mind.” How hilarious…
Mewes was actually going to take part after all, but he was sick, so he had to back out. Ali Larter apparently is only doing TV press for some reason, so we were deprived.
I had everyone sign my press notes, and I’m gonna get that scanned and posted on my site, hopefully alongside full transcripts of the sessions. We shall see what Kevin says about that–and about me running an early review.
I’ll leave you with what Kevin wrote on my press notes: “Mike, This time, 4 stars. Please.”
A new interview with Kevin over at Zap2It.com discusses this topic and more. Here’s a snippet from that:
“My name was in the flyer,” Smith said. “Just, like: ‘It’s rumored that Kevin Smith made this.’ I was like, me? I don’t how I got attached to it. I guess people assume I’m a big “Star Wars” fan. But I don’t have that much free time. Of all the movies that I was going to re-edit, believe me, that would not be the first one.”
(As it turns out, “Dogma” is the first film that Smith would like the opportunity to re-edit.)
But Smith was curious and gave the film a chance. For the most part, he liked what he saw.
“You know, it looks like an edited version of that movie,” said Smith. “Some of the edits kind of make the movie flow a lot better. Smart editing to say the least.”
When asked if he would be offended if a fan decided to re-edit one of his films – say, “Clerks” for example – Smith said he wouldn’t be particularly bothered.
“I wouldn’t feel bad at all,” he said. “I would just be like, ‘God you’ve got a lot of free time. Would you like to do my laundry while you’re at it? If you really want to help me out, come over to the house, watch the kids so I can go out with my wife.’”
You can read it all HERE.
So Don May over Synapse got the A BETTER PLACE check discs today, and- YOU GUESSED IT!- they are all fucked up! YAY! ANOTHER DELAY! Oh, Joy!
The fault here lies SQUARELY with the authoring facility that Synapse used for this title out in Los Angeles. Excerted below is Don’s e-mail to said company this afternoon after he started checking the discs- since the authoring facility in question still has to fix the DVD, I’ve omitted the name of said DVD authoring facility from this post, but when the DVD is release they will be credited for the authoring/compression so you’ll all know who it is who fucked up this time.
Anyway, here’s the jist of the very odd error that turned up on the DVD as per Don’s e-mail (my check disc will be arriving tomorrow, so I can share in the goodness of incorrectly mastered DVD myself!)-
“The most INEXCUSABLE problem, is that after the introductions, the deleted scenes and the mono scenes during the Dolby Comparison section, there are noticeable audible “beeps” when the scenes are over. Now, when I was at *BLEEP*, with *IMPORTANT PERSON WHO WORKS IN HIGH PLACES AT BLEEP* in attendance, we questioned *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* about these beeps and told her our concern. She TOLD us that the beeps would NOT be present on our final discs. This was obviously not true and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why your employees would tell me (and *IMPORTANT PERSON WHO WORKS IN HIGH PLACES AT BLEEP*, an employee of *BLEEP’S FATHER COMPANY*) to not worry about them because they were only an emulator issue. Well, this is NOT an emulator problem, it is very apparent on my final check discs. Keep in mind that I have not personally gone through the whole disc, so there may be other problems apparent that I have not seen yet. The “beep” issue is something I cannot BELIEVE is present on my check discs when your employees told me they wouldn’t be. This is an issue that is going to cost both our companies more time and more money to fix. Unfortunately, our disc will now not make our street date of July 24th and this has me very upset. Distributors, fans of View Askew and long-time Synapse customers are now not going to get their discs on time. I trusted that what your employees told me was correct and obviously it wasn’t.”
So there you have it. Making the actions of *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* even more inexcusable is that Don May was talking to a friend of his who works at another MAJOR DVD company that recently did a project at *BLEEP* as well, and when Don started to go into the weird “beeping” error that was on A BETTER PLACE, his friend told him that he had the exact same problem with the title he mastered at *BLEEP*! Not only that, but he had done his project A FEW MONTHS BEFORE DON TOOK “A BETTER PLACE” THERE AND ALSO WORKED WITH *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* ON HIS PROJECT! What this means is, *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* KNEW that the “beeps” Don was hearing when he checked the emulation would be on the pressed DVD because she had run into the EXACT SAME PROBLEM mere months before, and yet she LIED to Don and told him that the “beeps” were an emulator issue only and wouldn’t be on the final discs! Fucked up, no?
Suffice to say, I’m not happy, Don May is not happy, and I’m sure all of you who ordered A BETTER PLACE will not be happy, either. On the plus side, Don said the DVD video and audio quality are outstanding, but we simply can’t approve the disc to be pressed if there are al of these errant “beeps” popping up when they shouldn’t be there. *BLEEP* has to REDO the authoring and navigation to correct the errors, which will take till the end of next week, then send the (hopefully) corrected tapes to Taiwan which will then take another 10 working days to get us new check discs which we then have to check with a fine-toothed comb for any errors before we can give them the go-ahead to press the final DVDs. So what does that mean as far as release date? IF *BLEEP* corrects the errors WITHOUT CREATING NEW ERRORS (with these people it doesn’t seem to be entirely unlikely), that’s gonna be at least a month delay- remember, that’s IF the next batch of check discs are okay. The way things are going, I’m not announcing a date this time. Who the hell knows what can happen when the company mastering your DVD flat-out lies to you and fucks it up? All I (we) can do is hope and pray that they get their shit together this time and do the fucking thing right so I don’t ever have to write another post like this again.
Very saddened and quite annoyed,
Vincent
We’ll keep you posted on this story as it unfolds, and of course report a new projected release date as soon as Vincent gets it all sorted out.
We welcome your reviews of the film, and will be posting some viewpoints on the film, likely over at the Scooping The Monkey website. We’ve also got a HUGE cast list update from Joe above, which has been posted over at STM. TONS of character names can now be revealed, though if you want to avoid spoilers, you may want to skip it. It’s up to you. If you want to know details about characters played by the likes of Shannen Doherty, Judd Nelson, and others, this is the place to go. Even Harley Quinn’s role is revealed (though it IS a spoiler in itself). Also, it’s again been confirmed that Alanis Morissette and Adam Corolla are not in the film anywhere (though did anyone get a chance to see if we could be spotted shopping around in the background of the Quick Stop? Anyone anyone?).
Even MORE reviews (2 new POSITIVE ones, one with spoilers, one without) appear at the excellent Dark Horizons today (as part of the Thursday update). Check those out as well. One of the most interesting things there is the fact that there were no introductions or scorecards to fill out. It seems these screenings were mainly for the purposes of the press but the public is also getting in to fill the seats. It may also be possible that Dimension is judging how much promotion to do, and how to work a release strategy. Guess we’ll know soon enough.
Anyway, surf over to Scooping The Money for the latest updates on J&SBSB. It’s already HUGE in size and information and the movie is still two months off. Wow. Certainly not a dull moment around here these days.
There’s also a pic about next month’s Kevin Special Edition, finally showing the fabled “Kevin Smith Bumper Sticker” that we’ve been hearing about (it comes free in the issue). Finally, two scans of the “Berseker” shirt that Jay wears in Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, soon available for sale everywhere! For those of you that mocked my spelling in the talkbacks yesterday, take note of the spelling on the shirt (which I consider to be correct) and the mistaken spelling in the ad itself! A-ha! Anyway, these scans give you a nice look at all the way cool stuff that Wizard, Previews, and the Stash have arriving this summer. It’s a Jay & Bob media blitz, folks! Gonna be a busy summer…
Finally, from their Wizard #141 preview:
Sounds like that one’s not to be missed! Surf HERE for the full preview and look at the Spiderman/Daredevil cover art or click above.
Another hidden feature can be found on the second disc of the set. Insert the disc and go to the ‘Deleted Scenes.’ Once again, go through all the pages, all the way to the last selection page of these scenes and then press ‘2′ and ‘4′ on your remote control. You will now be treated to a clip called ‘How Kevin Directs.’ The clip features Kevin Smith playing himself with the Silent Bob action figure and Jason Mewes playing himself with the Jay action figure.
Those are definitely confirmed as the only two easter eggs on the disc…Most everything else (including the “Don’t Play Movie” stuff and the Stash Spot) are intended as available features. Thanks also to DVD Review for running the story today.
A great two-page spread from what may be the hottest comic of the year, Green Arrow #1, written by Kevin Smith. This issue sold out before it even shipped, and is now on its third printing. Kevin Smith owns every page of this issue, except for this spread… so do not expect to ever see other published pages for sale. This is a truly unique item.
As you can see below, the pages depict Green arrow laid out at his own gravesite. This spread differs from what actually saw print. After this artwork was produced, an editorial change was made, and the image was reduced a single page spread by DC’s production department using stat. While the single page stat was used to print the book, THIS IS THE ORIGINAL ARTWORK. It is being offered here with NO RESERVE!
The pages are in excellent condition. They are taped together on the back. Together, they measure about 16×20.
We usually don’t mention ebay auctions, but this one’s a special one, AND the artists are donating ten percent of the proceeds of this sale to The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund. Good luck, and happy bidding.
BLUNTMAN & CHRONIC LTD. ED. HARDCOVER BOOK
By Kevin Smith, Michael Avon Oeming & Mike Allred
Jay & Silent Bob hit the big time with both a movie and the new Bluntman & Chronic Limited Edition Hardcover Book. Written by Kevin Smith with art by Michael Avon Oeming with Pat Garrahy, this 96 page book features a new sixty-six page adventure of the Somnobulic Duo. Also included for the first time ever in color, is the 16 page dynamic adventure by Mike Allred from Oni Double Feature #12. All in color and perfect for the discriminating library. Limited to an edition size of 2500, each book will feature a sequentially numbered signature page signed by Oeming and Allred. Features a full color dustjacket, smyth-sewn hardcover binding with debossed cover, special endpages and lots of heroic hijinks. It’s no wonder Hollywood signed these boys up for a long-term deal. Quantities are limited with orders subject to allocations based upon orders received. $59.95
The second item is yet another shirt worn in the flick, as has become customary with View Askew:
BERZERKER TOUR T-SHIRT
The tour that shook the world is revisited on the new Berzerker Tour Shirts. As worn by Jay in the new movie and based on themes originally seen in Clerks, Berzerker features a two-color screenprinted design on both the front & back of a black 100% cotton shirt. Check it out and become part of the event of the summer!!
L-XL $25.95 (long sleeve)
XXL $28.95
S-XL $20.95 (short sleeve)
XXL $23.95
The image features the front of the shirt with a picture of Olaf, and underneath his picture it says Berzerker in red lettering. On the back is says “F*CK YOUR YANKEE BLUE JEANS WORLD TOUR and give tour dates!, then there’s a pic of Jay in the movie wearing the shirt. I’ll scan these when I get home from work and send them to you.
Also, there’s a small blurb for the next issue of Wizard (with a Joe Quesada drawn pic of Daredevil & Green Arrow for the cover) that says “Kevin Smith’s Next Books” over a pic of SPIDERMAN! Look for a scan soon!
