- Don’t forget to catch Kevin at the UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND for a Q&A tonight — Word has it the big guy’s headed into town a little early to catch Jersey Girl at a theater close to the Q&A locale — So if you’re in that nearby area, you may wanna buy yourself a ticket to the show. Our apologies for the late reminder on this, with the site upgrades, it’s been a busy day. Hopefully a lot of you will make it to the show, and set up your plans a long while back.
Archive for April 2nd, 2004
Site Updates, Speed, Etc…
- We’d first like to say thanks for all the wonderful praise on the new site. It’s great to see that from you after all the time we put into the new design. Now, that being said, let us say this: Yes, we KNOW the site is really, really slow now, because of these updates. So slow, in fact, we can’t even get in to post our own news. If the site disappears at times, with a “we’ll be back” message, that’s just because we HAVE to take it down in order to work on it. With all the users hitting the forums and talkbacks at once, our little server just can’t seem to handle the abuse.
The problem is either being caused by the forums, the talkbacks, or just general heavy traffic. We’re looking into the issue and hope to install some code cleanup this weekend to eliminate some of this. We’re also looking into adding some memory or completely upgrading to a faster server system for News Askew, if possible. So, rest assured, the site IS slow now, but we will NOT let it stay this way. Please bear with us through the bumps as we get things adjusted. We tested all we could on our own, but the true test doesn’t happen until you open the floodgates. In this case, we got buried. But we’re working on it.
Thanks again for your support, and we’ll be in touch with more soon.
View Askew NewsBites™
- We dunno where the guy keeps pulling this stuff from, but Part TWO of Antony’s interview with Liv Tyler is now up at the ‘Shoot! Here’s a snippet:
Q: Did you like the musical aspect of JERSEY GIRL?
LT: I’ve always wanted to do a musical, or a film where I could play a singer. That would be an absolute dream come true for me. [The SWEENEY TODD sequence] was actually the first thing we all did together. We rehearsed those scenes. It was very WAITING FOR GUFFMAN. We were in this room with this guy who was [just like] Corky. We had to play it very precisely. I’m playing a boy, which is weird, and a cockney boy. I’ve never done a cockney accent in my life, so I just made that up. My husband said that it was a little bit too good for a school play…so I said, ‘Maybe because she works in a video store she watches movies all the time and she can do all kinds of accents.’ [Laughs] I’ve never seen SWEENEY TODD, so we were just kind of winging it. We recorded it in a studio. I was sitting there in headphones, and Kevin was sitting there on the floor in front of me, and we just couldn’t stop laughing.
…
AT: Will you work with Kevin again?
LT: You’d have to ask Kevin, but I’d love to. I really enjoyed working with him. It was great fun for me. I feel like it’s such amazing timing that this is coming out two weeks after the whole Oscar/LOTR thing. It’s nice for me because it’s such a different character, and people just sort of feel like I’m Arwen. I’ve been looking at trailers for HIDALGO and seeing that it says, ‘Viggo Mortenson is still the king’ I’m thinking, ‘Poor, Viggo!’ [Laughs] I’m just really happy that I get to keep working. I really liked working with Kevin, and I’d be more than happy to do it again.
- Ben Affleck gives a phone interview with Tribute that you can watch/listen to HERE. It’s all about working with Kevin, and, of course, Jersey Girl. It freaks ya out though if you’ve got the stereo speakers on, as Ben’s on the left, and the interviewer’s on the right!
- Oh, alright, what the heck — How about a JERSEY GIRL review! MadBlast brings us this one:
“…It’s still a Kevin Smith film. He can’t help but drop the occasional comic book reference. The comedic banter has his rhythm, and the comedy scenes have a structure that goes back to Clerks. The awkward parental moment mentioned earlier pays off later with the daughter turning the tables. This works because the original moment was funny enough on its own. It wasn’t there only to set up a later joke. The later joke is awesome because you never expected the first moment to pay off. That’s how Clerks built to a comic finale, and it takes more of a backseat to the drama of Jersey Girl, but it’s still Smith. I mean, a character breaks down into tears in the porno room of a video store, and the emotion totally works. That is Kevin Smith. (9/10)”
Alright, sleepy time. It’s been an incredibly busy week, but we’ve DONE IT! 3 site designs, 3 days, and we’ve finally got to show you what’s been behind the curtain for these past months. See you again soon.
Berkeley Q&A Reports!
- Kevin did his thang at Berkeley last night, and yet again the raves have been loud and true. What we’re saying, folks, is that you MUST catch Kevin at a Q&A, anytime you’ve got a chance. You just gotta go. What was Berkeley like? Here’s a few reports from our loyal News Askew readership:
Mario Reports…
Well, as promised here are some highlights from the Q&A session last night. The show went on for a little over five hours, and Kevin looked exhausted by the end of the night: (feel free to use as you like)
– Affleck may need dead hooker clean up again now that the whole Bennifer thing is over.
– Kevin went in detail on his take for improving the Lord of the Rings Trilogy by including a Sam and Frodo “Suck off” session at the end of Return of the King. He also detailed his thoughts for making Passion of the Christ more interesting to him. Let’s just say that the third act was completely re-written to include a JC rescue by a pair of unexplained ninjas who deliver JC from the cross and allow him to live a normal life, in which he decides to become an accountant. Either that or have Christ rise again as a zombie.
– Kevin has been immersing himself in “chop-socky” films to prep for Hornet. He went into a few things he liked, and how he detests the dialogue in those films. He dropped a couple hints, confirming the rumor that Jet Li is being saught for Kato, but surprisingly went off on loving, excuse me, fucking loving Zhang Ziyi. Someone in the crowd yelled “Zhang Ziyi as Kato” and Kevin got a big grin and “zipped” his lip…hmmm, interesting, no?
– Apparantly Mewes is sober, and horny as all hell. He accomplished the “Chamberlainian” feat of bedding twenty seven women in thirty days.
– Someone questioned the Clerks Stage Production that was shut down by ViewAskew, to which Kevin responded that bottom line was the people putting it on were using the material without asking, which is theft. Someone yelled out “what did you lose from (the show being put on)?” and he said nothing, but it’s still theft. The person asked him what was on his iPod and Kevin responded with “everything I bought from the Apple Store.”
– Kevin spoke about a children’s book he hopes to write soon based on a “thing” that his dog use to do a lot.
– After Daredevil: Target and finishing up Spider-man/Black Cat Kevin will take a break from comics until he catches up on all of his scripts.
– Kevin learned a lot last night. Here are a few things:
1) Berkeley students don’t wear red because of their rivalry with Stanford. To this Kevin told them to “Grow Up.”
2) Nor Cal folks hold a grudge against LA because “they steal our water.” Kevin was fascinated by this and vowed to return all unused water bottles after the show. Someone pointed out that this was a huge part of Chinatown, and Kevin said “it’s all coming together.”
3) There was a 15 year old Catholic School Girl who was there for her birthday. She told Kevin she was Jewish and this blew his mind. It turns out that 10% of her school is Jewish because of the poor schooling and high crime rate in Oakland. They both swapped stories and Kevin came to the conclusion that she was his exact opposite, making her his nemisis. Then she told him her last name is Smith and he said “you’re freaking me out here!” It was pretty funny.
All in all it was a great show and I encourage anyone who gets a chance to go check the guy out when he speaks.
ASKEWVIEW Reports…
Ok, ladies and gentleman, Kevin divulged some information last night that may take the edge off of all those sleepless nights…yes…Ben did get the ring back. There, now isn’t that so much better, can we all sleep again? Personally I wasn’t losing any sleep over it but Kevin was kind enough to open with that and satisfy the drooling masses early on. It was clearly an attempt to avoid any Bennifer probing (yes I said probing what’s the big deal, get your mind out of the fucking gutter).
Kevin was in top form last night and had everyone laughing within the first five minutes. Someone of course had to ask about The Passion of The Christ controversy and parallel it to Dogma. Kevin responded with some background on his Catholic upbringing and how he was raised to care more about the message Jesus brought and the things he said as opposed to the beating and crucifying, etc., etc., that is found in Mel’s gory and redundant flick which spends virtually no time on the message and a whole lot of time on the beating the shit out of and nailing to the cross. Kevin also said that he didn’t make Dogma to offend but rather that it was his way of being irreverent about being reverent. When asked if he himself had and or would go see it Kevin’s response was that he had no intention, in fact he didn’t want to see it but had to some time soon because he was asked to review it. He said he would have gladly gone to see it had they spun the “third act,” and say ninjas swooped down and rescued Jesus who went on to become..an accountant.
It was an educational night for all, Kevin learned a bit about the cradle of free speech, and the rivalry of northern vs southern California ( after all they do steal our fucking water). He also learned about the athletics rivalry between Stanford and Berkeley to which he replied, “grow up”. A fan came up on stage and in a red shirt and the Berkeley kids practically booed him off (man keep wearing red, FUCK the bears, damn the man, fight the power, go fuckin’ Stanford!)
Many people asked for autographs and Kevin left it up to the masses to decide who got and who didn’t and the masses are evil and mean and pretty much only let girls get autographs (we cry better I guess).
Everyone was in for a treat, none so much as Kevin himself when his very own nemesis made an appearance. JoAnn, a 15 yr old girl from Oakland, CA who goes to catholic school and is Jewish had Kevin fascinated and suddenly Kevin’s Q & A turned into JoAnn’s third degree (with Kev asking the questions). Apparently with not a lot of options for school in Oakland and few private schools this poor girl had to go to catholic school and Kevin was all interested in how they tried to save her soul and convert her and what not.
Here are some interesting tidbits; for all those playstation fans out there Kevin says the only game worth playing is Ape Escape, and he doesn’t steal his music for his ipod off the net but pays apple 99 cents a pop for songs and those fools in Bakersfield were wrong to steal Kev’s Clerks concept for a play without going through the appropriate channels. Kevin says his wife doesn’t like it when he divulges ultra-personal information about their sex life and hopes she doesn’t read his playboy interview where he tells all about their dirty talk and how he fantasizes about her with another man (Kev, what about your wife and another chick? You and my fiancee can both watch us..I’ll bring the popcorn..is that atkins approved?).
Thanks to AskewView for the photos!
Jersey Girl Breaks 10 Mil, Expands…
- We’re happy to announce that Jersey Girl word of mouth seems to be doing well, as the film crossed the 10 million mark in box office
this week, AND it’s just been announced that the film will EXPAND to a total of 1,821 screens this weekend (up 301 from last weekend). We know a lot of
you wanna see Hellboy…Hell, so do we…But before (or after) ya do, go see JERSEY GIRL again! And keep telling folks what a good flick it is. It’s
definitely a better movie to bring a chick to than Hellboy, fellas. Or hey, you didn’t hear this from us…But maybe you wanna buy a Jersey Girl ticket
then just go sneak into Hellboy anyway? We won’t tell. And we’re sure the big shaved horn dude doesn’t need your $10 as much as we do.
Thanks again to everyone who went and saw the film, and for those of you that continue to recommend it. You’re all a part of that 10 million!
RSS Headline Feed Now Available!
- Alright, so right now, you’re either going “YES, FINALLY!” or “What the hell is an RSS feed?”. Well, let’s answer that question for ya.
RSS (or Really Simple Syndication) feeds are free content feeds from Web sites, like this one, that contain article headlines, summaries and links back to
full-text articles on the site. So, with the use of an RSS reader on your system, you can receive News Askew headlines as soon as they are posted. Up to
our last TEN! Then, ya click the headline, and BOOM, you’ve got the story. Pretty dang cool, eh?
To start using RSS, you need a special news reader or aggregator that displays RSS content feeds from Web sites you select. There are many different news readers available, many of which are free of charge. Most are available as desktop software that you download and install on your computer. Several Web-based news readers are available as well. Yahoo and Google both have lists of tons of ‘em. They’re pretty much all free, too. Once you have set up your news reader, you simply subscribe to the RSS content feeds you want.
To get the feed, point your RSS reader to THIS ADDRESS: http://www.newsaskew.com/rss/news.xml. We’ll set up a formal link in the sidebar to this soon.
This is convenient for you, and great for us as a whole, as it allows a ton of other sites that syndicate RSS to pick up News Askew. Spreading the word even
further across the galaxy. So, if you know of such a site, be sure and recommend News Askew to them. Let’s get the word out there!
Alright, now KEEP READING, cuz there’s an update of news just ahead, and there were ALSO newsbites posted before the April Fools joke. Read back and make
sure you didn’t miss nuthin!
TalkBacks: Re-Register Now!
- The News Askew talkbacks are once again open for registration, and better than ever. Please note: As a result of this being a newly
written system, ALL users have been removed. So you’ll need to re-register. Sorry, we could not import your old user accounts. Other than that, you’re
good to go and welcome to comment on all of the latest stories posted here at News Askew. The new system eliminates the issues with the old one such as
double posting, and especially that horrible delay that occurred when waiting for a message to post. We think you’ll be very pleased with TalkBacks now,
and urge everyone to give them a try. Let’s get you talking!
NOTE: The talkbacks are in a very early stage of development. So, we don’t have a “forgot my password” feature implemented at this time. So we URGE you,
please, WRITE DOWN YOUR PASSWORD. Save it somewhere near your computer. Do it NOW!
Please also note that the News Askew Forums and TalkBacks are two different areas. We recommend that you create a username identical to your Forum
username (if you have one) just to keep it simple. This is not mandatory, though. The systems are not connected by a database, so you can have a
different name in the talkbacks if you’d prefer. Having one does NOT automatically give you the other, though. You gotta register both places.
You’ll find a registration button at the top and bottom of any talkback page. Just click that, supply your info, WRITE DOWN THE PASSWORD YOU CHOOSE, and
you’re good to go. Best of all, logging in once should keep you logged in on that computer via a cookie, so you won’t even need to enter your username and
password with every post you make.
We worked hard to implement this system as part of the new design, so we hope you enjoy it. If you have any issues, let us know. Of course, if you LIKE
it, we’d love to hear that, too. Enjoy.
News Askew Forums: Now Open For Posting!
- The News Askew Forums have registered over 900 users in under 3 days! Now that the new site’s here, we’re
ready to take the keys and unlock the doors. Before you go hog wild and start with the posting, PLEASE read the Rules &
Regulations, which will always reside in the top post of the top forum. We don’t ask for much, and hope to run a very
loose, fun place where you can feel comfortable to hang, speak your mind, ask questions, and become a part of the News
Askew community.
The forums will also be used as gathering areas for special events, such as Stash Bashes, Vulgarthons, and the like. They’re
the perfect place to get in touch with other fans and then connect in person when you’re preparing to attend. We’ll let
you know when those special features become available. Special areas will open and close as needed for View Askew functions.
Over 900 of you have ID’s, so now it’s YOUR turn! Let’s see what you have to say. Click over to the News Askew Forums and get typing…
INTRODUCING: The Art of Matt Sullivan!
- We’re proud to announce the newest member of our team here at News Askew, our resident artist, Matt Sullivan. Matt’s a young comic artist looking to break into the comic book biz, and we’re very happy to have him on baord. His concept for the characters you’ll see around the site takes the best elements of fantasy and reality, to create a look for the characters of the Askewniverse unlike any we’ve seen before. But don’t read about it. Let’s show you!
By now, you’ve probably noticed our spiffy new logo in the upper left corner, which we love. Here’s more. First up, a fun new piece of Jay & Bob on the News Askew Archives page. If you’ve never been there before, that’s your gateway to all of the news dating back to the dawn of this site. It’s fun to look back and read that stuff.
And, best of all, given that this site basically started with just a few Drinking Games and nothing more, we thought this would be the perfect opportunity to do something special with Drinks Askew. So, we chatted with Matt and came up with an idea for a new splash page to enter the games that we think you’ll all really dig. So be sure to take a look at that one today.
We’re hoping that this gig is just a stop on the road to huge success for the guy. Look forward to more of Matt’s artwork all over the place as we continue to expand and enhance the site. We’ll try to let you know as it’s added, so you don’t miss any of the new creations.
To see more of Matt’s work, visit FlyOnFire.com. If you like Matt’s stuff, or want to chat with him about doing some work on a book for you, drop him a line! Get a hold of him while you still can, as we’re expecting he’ll be a very popular guy soon.
Welcome To The NEW News Askew!
- Welcome, one and all, to the new face of News Askew. It’s been almost 7 years since this site was created, and to celebrate that upcoming milestone, we’ve been working behind the scenes tirelessly for almost an entire year, evaluating the site, what worked, what didn’t, what we wanted to change, and the like. The result: A new face, a new community, and a brand new News Askew. We’ve tried to take the elements that were well-like with the site and work it into an even more efficient, friendly design.
Some features have been in the planning stages for quite some time, and a couple of the bigger ones involve a new sense of interactivity. We’re hoping to make News Askew not only a place to come read the news, but a place to discuss it as well. Thus, a better, faster talkback system. And a new forum. And more on the way. Let’s take a look at what’s up and running, as we speak:
- Entire news database completely converted into new, faster software.
- Brand new TalkBack system.
- New artwork designed by Matt Sullivan.
- Grand Opening of News Askew Forums, powered by phpBB.
- Flash Ad Console (no more top of site clutter!).
- Automatic RSS Headline syndication.
And here’s what’s in the works:
- Improved, high speed news archive search engine.
- Live, 24/7 chat area featuring scheduled, moderated chats with VIP guests.
- More new Sullivan artwork!
- And whatever else we can think up…
From past experience, we know that some of you will love this new design, and some of you will hate it. By nature, some of us fear change. All we can advise you is to please stick with it, and give it a chance. Of course, if there are any huge bugs preventing you from reading the site now, we’d like to know. We have tested the site in all the popular browsers at various screen resolutions, and believe that it’ll work out of the box for the majority of you. However, if there’s a problem with something, feel free to let us know.
Speed: As we work the bugs out and your browsers get all of our new graphics cached, expect slower loadtimes than you’re used to. This will speed up over the next few days. The site will also experience some heavy traffic as folks try out the new features, too. So we want you to expect some slight lag, as that’s what normally happens during a big change like this.
Alright, we’ve got a lot more to announce with the new design, so let’s get down to some details…Neeeext!