Music Whore T-Shirts!

The perfect companion to those wicked cool ‘Music Pimp’ shirts are these, custom made for the laaadies. This is the female version of the t-shirt that Ollie Trinke wears in the movie ‘Jersey Girl’. The Pink ‘Music Whore’ logo is screenprinted onto a 100% white cotton heavyweight baby doll sized t-shirt which is speciall cut to fit a woman’s sexy curves. Girls, buy lots. Word has it that News Askew webmasters are suckers for chicks in baby doll t-shirts. $17.00 each.

VIEW ASKEW BUMPER STICKERS!

Show all the other cars on the road out there what a huge View Askew fan you are! 8 to choose from, a mere THREE DOLLARS EACH! Buy a bunch! Classic quotes like “Affleck, you the bomb in Phantoms, yo!” and “That kid is back on the escalator again!” Yeah, you want ’em all. And hey, if you don’t wanna mar up your precious bumper, tack ’em up somewhere else.

JAY & SILENT BOB STRIKE BACK SLAM RING

These very, very rare ‘Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back’ slam rings were specially produced in limited quantities by our friends in Japan for the Japanese release of the movie and have just now arrived on our shoresare much begging and pleasing. They are created from a solid block of metal and look EXACTLY like the one which Jay sports in the ‘Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back’ poster.

It comes with a numbered Certificate of Authenticity signed by Kevin Smith.

The text from the Certificate:

Snoogans, my friends from Nippon! What you’ve just purchased is a lovingly recreated, bad-ass motherfucking slam ring that was pictured on the poster to our last movie, Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back. The genuis of this item, however, is that the ring this sweet souvenir is based on NEVER EXISTED! It was created in a computer and slapped on a poster. So the artisans behind the ring you are now holding should be given an extra blowjob or two for fashioning an item so sweet with no three dimnesional item to work from! And it’s an extremely limited piece of memorabilia, you’ll be the envy of View Askew fans from Kobe to Tokyo, as well as my spiritual twin – because I’ve got one too!

Limited to 100, $79.99 each.

DAILY COLLEGIAN – “Kevin Smith exchanges Silent Bob for ‘Jersey Girl'”

“While it would be great if Smith continues to make more films in the vein of “Amy” or even “Clerks” as he gets older (and if he wants to throw in some more like “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” that would be nice too), but if he wants to continue to flex his wings in the future (his next film is going to be an adaptation of the comic book “Green Hornet”), Smith has proven he is more then able to. With “Jersey Girl” Smith has proved he really has the goods, no matter what context he is working in.”

[FULL REVIEW]

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EMPIRE MOVIES (7/10)

…”Although Jersey Girl may be a disappointment to the legions of Kevin Smith fans that adore the vulgarity and humour of his previous works, I still found myself enjoying Smith’s latest movie. I will admit it is not a movie for everyone. It is probably the closest thing we will ever get to a chick-flick from Kevin Smith. It has some teary-eyed moments and a couple of those cute little moments that would make even the most stoned of Kevin Smith fans smile. Raquel Castro, who plays the little 7-year old girl, is absolutely adorable in almost every scene in which she appears. This girl was absolutely gold and stole the movie from Affleck, Carlin, Liv Tyler and everyone else who appeared on the screen. Not to say that anyone else was bad in the movie. In fact, Carlin, Affleck and the bunch were all quite decent. It’s just that this girl was that much better. She definitely holds her own with a few Hollywood heavyweights.”

[FULL REVIEW]

“Jersey Girl” may run against type for Mr. Smith’s film persona, but not for the simple Jersey boy.

“This is the easier material for me to write,” he explains. “At heart, I’m a melodramatic sap. … I’m not a stoner. The other stuff is more observational. This stuff comes right from the heart.”

“It’s not that I set the box office on fire but, where I’ve always been successful, personally, is that I make it for me — and then some people come and some people don’t. But I’ve been able to build a nice little audience of people who like what we do. So, generally, I get away with it.”

Unlike most American filmmakers, Smith also claims opening weekend rankings are bogus.

“The opening box office and the money that you do in initial release really doesn’t matter, ultimately. It matters to the studio, I guess, but not to me. To me, it’s about the longevity, it is about the legs something has.”

DEMOCRAT & CHRONICLE (7/10) – “Affleck takes significant steps on the long road back”

“…Still, the point about parental responsibility is worth raising — and Smith and company raise it with good humor and affection. Affleck is believable at both the callous and loving ends of his portrayal, and Tyler offers appealing comic relief as the insightful Maya. Newcomer Castro is a charming heart-tugger as Gertie.

Having Carlin play Affleck’s father is inspired casting. Though he seldom acts, the stand-up comic successfully creates an ingratiating character and gives the film some much-needed edge and spunk. ”

[FULL REVIEW]

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FANBOY PLANET (****) – Jersey Girl Review

“…The real accolades should go to Liv Tyler and George Carlin. Liv excels as Maya, a Kevin Smith dream girl who starkly resembles his own wife, Jennifer Schwalbach-Smith (who herself cameos). Liv is very free and open in the role, not stiff, rigid, or even uncomfortable, as she has appeared in previous films. Carlin in the same regard is phenomenal as Ollie’s father Bart. He is natural, curt, and surprisingly sympathetic in a role that, like Liv’s, is usually reserved for two dimensional character developments in films such as these. Instead we are treated to real developments that do not feel forced or undeserved. ”

[FULL REVIEW]

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EFILM CRITIC (****) – Jersey Girl Review

“…Jersey Girl is sweeter and warmer and more personal than anything Smith’s ever done before…and I think the very ACT of trying something new brought out something surprising. ‘Jersey Girl’ certainly may not be his funniest movie ever (though it does deliver the laughs), but at least Smith can now say he’s done something beyond his beloved Dick & Fart Jokes. Big points due for the effort; well-earned extra credit for the movie itself.”

[FULL REVIEW]

DMG: Are you excited about writing and directing the Green Hornet project?

KS: I am. I scared as all fuck, but pretty pumped at the same time. I really tried to back out of it at one point. It was one of those things where I’m like, “Yeah, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.” Then I thought about it, “I’m not up to this task at all. There’s no way I can pull a movie like this off.” Then I started writing an outline and I’d sent Harvey an e-mail and sent him the few pages of the outline that I’d done and I was gracefully bowing out going, “I don’t want to screw it up. It’s your big tent-pole movie and I appreciate the gesture, but there’s no way I can handle this. Here are some of the pages I wrote for the outline in case this helps you out at all.” And he called me back and he was like, “Grow up. It’s time for you to step up. You can make those talky pictures all you want, but sooner or later you’ve got to grow and it’s good that you’re coming from a place of fear – you should be afraid. You should be really afraid to make a movie like this cause it’s going to make you work harder.” I was like, “Alright – helluva pep talk. I’m back in.” At least there’s not “too many cooks” right now. When I wrote the “Superman” script in ’96, I was dealing with Warner Bros, the head of DC Comics, the producer, and there were just too many cooks. It was just nuts. Everybody’s got their own ideas on what should be there. At least with “Green Hornet”, I got one guy to answer to and that’s a relief. And generally he tends to stay out of our grill during production. Harvey lets you go nuts during pre and production and then comes in on post and starts telling you what to do. At least I’m only answering to Harvey Weinstein, as opposed to Harvey Weinstein and like 5 other groups of people. The other benefit is that it’s a character that people know, but they don’t know very well. Most people know Batman and they know Batman’s back-story and they know all the characters. Same thing with Spider-Man – a lot of attention is paid to shit like Peter Parker’s webshooters, whether they were organic or self-made. That kind of base is tough to work with. Green Hornet has a smaller fan base, this many hard core fans who are like, “Don’t fuck it up, man.” As long as you’ve got Kato and a Black Beauty, you’re doing good. It’s a character that’s got a lot of history that goes back to the 30s, but never had a great rogues gallery so there’s room to wriggle around without worry about a fan-base that’ll go around saying, “Smith fucked it up!” I dig that very much. I was a fan when I was a kid and it was nice to be offered to do it. I just figure I surround myself with people that know how to do their job and help me bring my shit to life. If everyone equips themselves admirably, we’ll have a pretty cool movie. I’m not gonna choreograph a fight scene. I’ll hire a great second AD because that’s apparently the thing to do. It’s a big secret. They were just like, “Kevin, you won’t direct every scene!” and I said, “What do you mean?” They go, “The director doesn’t do a lot of the big action scenes and I said, “Get the fuck out of here! Does anyone know about this? Is it legit? Bryan Singer didn’t do all that on “X-Men 2″?” And they said, “Bryan Singer barely shot that movie!”. That was a big releif to me because that means I can spend more time at home. I’m just hired as the guy who’s going to make sure that the movie is interesting when shit’s not going on, when there’s not an action sequence. Often times in these flicks you wind up with characters that are not nearly as interesting as the villains or characters that are only interesting when they’re in costume and it’ll be nice to actually give it a shot, to try to make a flick where you care more about the dude before he’s in costume than when he is in costume.

Comic book aficionado (and Jersey Girl director) Kevin Smith, who appeared in Daredevil as a lab assistant, says Typhoid Mary was one of his favorite Marvel Comics villains. “She was always a hot character,” says Smith, “someone Daredevil could sleep with and fight at the same time.”

Miramax was estimating seven million on Friday, so that’s a big plus. Nine would’ve been incredible, but 8.3 is just great.

“Scooby” is just a juggernaut, and we were never gonna beat Hanks (who hasn’t NOT opened a flick since the “Joe Vs. The Volcano” era). “The Christ” still reigns, and hiz undead pals from “Dawn of the Dead” still had legs (even after a sixty percent drop). Settling in at a cozy number five with the third best per screen in the top ten is just dandy – considering the uphill battle we’ve had on this flick.

We were certainly up against it with the whole Bennifer thing (ironically, we’ve out-grossed the entire theatrical run of “Gigli” in our first weekend), so 8.3 on 1500 screens is actually something of a minor miracle.

Hopefully, we get the bump-up of screens next weekend, and our word-of-mouth is strong enough to keep us alive in week two, when the Rock walks “Tall” and “Hellboy” punches cars.

All’s well. No complaints here.

But next weekend will REALLY tell the tale.

Thanks again, all for heading out there this weekend. Thanks for your continued support.

Off to breakfast with Mosier now, to celebrate.