Dogma: Take Three (and four)

For those of you who just can’t get enough Kevin Smith, (and I know you’re out there), Lions Gate Entertainment has announced a third version of the film to hit shelves this fall.

After a fairly decent but barren initial release of the film for the casual viewer, Columbia released the film last year as an excellent special two disc special edition with enough legitimate features to keep anyone occupied. The one missing element was a controversial documentary explaining and in some ways defending the film to its detractors. In the end, the doc was deemed more controversial than the film itself and pulled last minute. The documentary has been restored for this new version and the film itself has been slightly lengthened, most likely with footage previously seen in the deleted scenes section of the existing DVD set. The new DVD will be made available both as the theatrical version or the lengthened version.

So once again, Dogma will hit shelves, this time with two releases from Lions Gate in the fall and with a suggested retail price of $24.95 each.

In search of ‘Dogma’

Speaking of lost documentaries, remember that “Judge Not: In Defense of Dogma” doc that fans never saw? Pulled at the last minute from Columbia’s otherwise-excellent two-disc Dogma special edition released last year, now fans can finally see what all the fuss is about…if they don’t mind getting a little Vulgar. Lions Gate will release the View Askew film in separate R-rated and unrated editions, the latter featuring an extra 3 minutes of footage, and both versions will include anamorphic widescreen transfers, a Dolby 5.1 surround track, audio commentary with director Bryan Johnson and producers Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier, deleted scenes, a gag reel, and… the full Judge Not: In Defense of Dogma documentary. Retail is $24.95 for either version.

Those close to the issue can only guess: the distribution network is flawed, the story lines are too muddled, the medium creaks with age, and on and on. A common idea comes from director Kevin Smith, perhaps the medium’s most visible, vocal proponent: He owns a comic shop, writes superhero stories for Marvel and DC and casts Ben Affleck in his films as an artist. He tells me that most folks think comics are kids’ stuff, bad guys vs. good guys, tights and capes.

“But there’s plenty of comics that don’t have people in costumes, no superhero,” he said last year while working on his new film, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, which tells of two drug dealers who become the subject of a comic book, which then becomes a mega-budget movie. “A lot of what people call underground comics or indie comics aren’t either underground or indie. They’re just stories that have nothing to do with traditional comic book stories.”

“View Askew, News Askew, and Movie Poop Shoot are pleased to welcome Matt, Mike and Newsarama.com to the family,” said Kevin Smith. “The Newsarama.com comics industry coverage has always been top notch, so lending whatever help we can in getting that excellent coverage to the masses is not only our duty as comics news enthusiasts, but our pleasure as comics fans.”

At the Movies: ‘Full Frontal’

By CHRISTY LEMIRE

AP Entertainment Writer

“Full Frontal” is essentially an art-house version of last year’s “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back,” in which Kevin Smith rewarded his fans for their loyalty by making a movie crammed with references to his previous movies, thereby making them feel smugly in the know.

But “Full Frontal” will be perceived as more prestigious, because Steven Soderbergh is the director, and Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt are amonghe stars.

Like Smith, Soderbergh repeatedly refers back to himself; actors pop up who’ve appeared in his previous films, including Roberts, Pitt, Nicky Katt and Terence Stamp, reprising his starring role in “The Limey.” And characters discuss taping themselves having sex, as in “sex, lies, and videotape,” Soderbergh’s 1989 breakout hit.

Both movies employ other similar tactics, including the movie within a movie, the skewering of Hollywood affectations, and the shameless ribbing of Miramax, the distributor of both films.

But so many Hollywood insider movies have come out in recent years, from “The Player” and “Celebrity” to “Hollywood Ending” and “The Kid Stays in the Picture,” that by now they have nothing new to say – and neither does this.

Soderbergh’s technical approach isn’t exactly new, either; he’s basically made a Dogma 95 film, shot in 18 days, mostly on digital video, using natural light. Under a strict set of rules, he had the stars drive themselves to the set, choose their own wardrobe and do their own hair and makeup – just like the rest of us do every day! How life-affirming.

Yet it’s hard not to appreciate Soderbergh’s decision to make a small, experimental film after winning a best-director Oscar for “Traffic,” and enjoying a string of critical and commercial hits, including “Erin Brockovich” and “Ocean’s Eleven.”

The average person (or non-Hollywood insider) may think, “Julia Roberts and Steven Soderbergh together again – I liked ‘Erin Brockovich,’ so I’ll like this.” But they won’t get a lot of the jokes, and they may be put off by the structure, which alternates between what’s supposedly reality, shot on video, and the movie within the movie, shot on film.

Sporadically, though, at its most ad-libbed and deadpan, “Full Frontal” is extremely funny – especially when Katt is on-screen, starring as a modern-day Hitler in a play called “The Sound and the Fuhrer.”

The script from Coleman Hough spans 24 hours in the lives of a group of people in Los Angeles, who have some connection to a movie being shot called “Rendezvous.” Roberts and Blair Underwood play Francesca and Calvin, actors co-starring in the movie as a journalist and the actor she’s interviewing. (Confused yet? We’re just getting started.)

David Hyde Pierce (Niles on “Frasier”) plays Carl, a writer for a magazine (on which Pitt is constantly on the cover) the screenwriter of “Rendezvous.” Catherine Keener steals every scene she’s in as Carl’s wife, Lee, a corporate vice president of human resources who slowly crumbles as the day progresses. In her funniest and most surreal scenes, she quizzes employees on the names of African nations and fires personal questions at them before firing them.

When Lee isn’t meeting Calvin for an afternoon tryst, she’s scolding her younger sister, Linda (Mary McCormack), a masseuse who’s agreed to spend the weekend in Tucson with a man she’s only talked to the Internet.

All these characters will meet up – or at least plan to meet up – at the 40th birthday party of Hollywood producer Gus (David Duchovny), a powerful man with some kinky secrets.

While “Full Frontal” is set in a tangible, detailed Los Angeles, it toys with the idea of what’s real, what’s a movie, and what’s a dream – not to the portentous extent of “Waking Life,” but enough to keep you on your toes.

That’s one of the best things Soderbergh achieves here: His movie is constantly evolving. Just when you think you’ve figured out the characters and their connection to each other, more is revealed to us. And the dialogue, much of it improvised, carries the flow along naturally.

“Full Frontal,” a Miramax Films release, is rated R for language and some sexual content. Running time: 101 minutes. Two and a half stars (out of four).

On the state of things: It seems that indie film kind of runs in a cyclical fashion. You had a whole period of the Cassavetes stuff, then it kind of quiets down to the Jim Jarmusch period, then heats up again, then kind of quiets down until the early ’90s, then heats up again. I think right now it’s just in that dormant period. But I’m sure it’ll heat up again.

Recipes for change: I don’t think anybody should do anything about it. I think right at this juncture the less attention paid to independent film the better, so it can kind of repair itself or reinvent itself. I think the problem may be that independent film went from indie to being fairly mainstream, branded and kind of corporate. Every studio put together their own arthouse division, so everybody kind of got in on indie film as a niche market that they could actually control and foster and exploit.

It feels like the best and worst thing that may have happened to indie film over the ’90s was Miramax. They brought it to the mainstream, which was great, but at the same time they brought it to the mainstream, which kind of diluted the spirit of it. I mean, in a world where they’re still calling me an independent filmmaker you know the indie film scene needs to be rejuvenated. I haven’t made a truly indie film since the first one I made, “Clerks.”

Alive and kicking: There are a lot of naysayers who will tell you that indie film is dead. I just think it’s been co-opted for a while. Once people lose interest again you’ll see something wonderful come out of that corner again. And indie film will be returned to the hands of the people, be more democratized, not just studio-mandated arthouse fare.