“Multiple sources have told us that there is a good chance Ben Affleck will appear briefly as Daredevil or Matt Murdock in the upcoming Elektra spin-off
staring Jennifer Garner.”

The Writers Guild Foundation is pleased to announce a special three-part series of its acclaimed Writers on Writing speaker program featuring three of the most respected and honored screenwriters in film and television. Dewar’s, who will host a cocktail reception following each event, sponsors the Spring Storytellers series.

Independent film stalwart and award-winner Kevin Smith, multi-Emmy Award winner Aaron Sorkin and multi-Academy Award nominee Lawrence Kasdan will be the featured guests in this special series held in the Writers Guild Theater, 135 S. Doheny Dr. (s. of Wilshire Blvd.) in Beverly Hills.

The Spring Series schedule is as follows. All programs start at 7:30pm.

Thursday, May 13 – Kevin Smith. Bursting onto the independent film scene with the low budget, but highly impressive Clerks (which also spawned an animated series), Smith has maintained a presence on cinema’s cutting edge with titles like Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, and most recently Jersey Girl.

Thursday, May 27 – Aaron Sorkin. With multiple writing and producing awards for TV’s The West Wing, Sorkin also created the acclaimed television series Sports Night. His award-winning feature work includes A Few Good Men (based on his play) and The American President.

Thursday, June 10 – Lawrence Kasdan. With a list of credits that begins with The Empire Strikes Back and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Kasdan has carved out an impressive career writing and directing his own award winning work. His writing credits also include Body Heat, Continental Divide, Return of the Jedi, The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist, Grand Canyon, The Bodyguard, Mumford, and Silverado.

** A Special Package Price is available for purchasing all three programs:

$45 – General admission, $35 – WGA members and full-time academic faculty, $25 – full-time students with valid I.D.

Individual Tickets: $20 – general admission, $15 – WGA members and full-time academic faculty, $10 – students with valid I.D.

Individual and Series Tickets can be purchased by credit card by calling the Writers Guild Foundation at 323.782.4692. ** IMPORTANT NOTE: An incorrect phone number for ordering tickets was listed in a previously mailed press release. Please note the correct number as 323.782.4692.

For further information on this or other Foundation events go to www.WGFoundation.org.

Produced by the Writers Guild Foundation, the monthly Writers on Writing series showcases a noteworthy motion picture or television writer or writers each month. Moderated by film critic F.X. Feeney, writers may talk about a recent work, their approach to the craft, career development, Hollywood experiences, work methods and tactics for survival in what is commonly considered a notoriously difficult industry. An audience Q & A follows each interview.

“Last night after his show in Bakersfield , Calif, he and his band unwound by checking out Kevin Smith’s latest flick Jersey Girl. A so-so dpearture from
his usual lewd-and-crude comidies. Prince was unimpressed. Not that the 45 year old happily married, devout Jehova’s Witness can’t appreciate a cleaner
act; he himself has scrubbed from his list of staples like “head” and “Jack U Off”, It’s just according to Prince, Smith didn’t replace it with anything
interesting. “We walked out after an hour” he stiffs. “Guess thats what happens when the potty mouth don’t work for you anymore”

“I’m cool with him not liking “Jersey Girl.” I fucking hated his album “Crystal Ball”, so now we’re even.”

“The band had agreed to let “Susanne” be used in the upcoming Kevin Smith film Mallrats. A consensus was reached that the track could stand a fresh try at
a mix if it was to be used in the film. The remix has come to be considered as the definitive version.”

JAY AND INDY BEN STRIKE BACK

As a thank-you present for getting sober, director Kevin Smith is going to write a new Jay and Silent Bob movie for Jason “Jay” Mewes. Mewes missed out on a role in Jersey Girl because of his problem with drugs. Smith told him if he gets clean he’ll write him another plum role. He’s snagged a nice little part in The Green Hornet and Smith hopes to have him back in front of the cameras for the new Jay and Silent Bob chapter, which Ben Affleck has agreed to appear in as well, for 2006…

Q. When you see a wide disparity between your reaction to a film and that of most other critics, especially in the case of your giving a good-to-stellar review to something that everyone thinks stunk, do you ever second-guess yourself? For example, with these recent films: “Ella Enchanted,” “The Alamo,” “Jersey Girl,” “Never Die Alone,” “Taking Lives,” “Secret Window,” “Sp artan,” “The Reckoning” and “Hidalgo.” – Sandy Cormack, Baltimore

A. I remain satisfied with all of those reviews. I try to explain the reasons why I praise or dislike a movie, and I think, for example, that my review of “Hidalgo” is a splendid description of the film I saw and the reasons I liked it. Mamet’s “Spartan” is likely to make my best 10 list. “Jersey Girl” suffered because of the Affleck/J.Lo nonsense and because Kevin Smith dared to make a sweet film.

You didn’t ask, but I was stunned that “The Girl Next Door” scored near 60 on the Tomatometer. I agree with Ken Turan of the Los Angeles Times: “What is disturbing and frankly distasteful … is how slick and shameless it is in its eagerness to blur boundaries, to squeeze as much transgressive material as it can into a nominally bland and innocent form.”

The movie’s ads are shamelessly pitched at an audience too young to qualify for the R rating.

‘Jersey’ tunnels to cablers

TBS, AMC, Lifetime among nets to claim pic’s rights

NEW YORK — Miramax Films may have set a record by selling a total of six cable networks the rights to one movie, “Jersey Girl,” in the shared network window for a combined license fee of about $3.6 million.

The nets are Turner’s TBS and TNT; Rainbow Media Holdings’ AMC, IFC and WE: Women’s Entertainment; and the standalone Lifetime.

Masterminding the deal was Rick Sands, chief operating officer of Miramax, who said he had fun satisfying all of the networks while, as he put it, “cobbling together” such a complicated series of windows within a license term of five years.

Sands declined to discuss dollar figures, but Turner will pony up $1.8 million to get the first plays of the movie for a nine-month exclusive window beginning in July 2006.

Then Lifetime, which will shell out $1 million, gets 12 months to schedule a multiple number of runs.

Turner gets “Jersey Girl” back for just three months before the movie journeys to Rainbow for two years of exclusive plays divided among AMC, WE and IFC.

For the last year of the contract, the movie winds up for its final runs at Turner.

While Turner is one of the most active buyers of recent movies, the Miramax deal signals that Lifetime and Rainbow are beginning to step up after previously steering clear of buying movies in the network window because the license fees were considered prohibitive.

But when a distributor like Miramax can engineer a risk-sharing arrangement like the one for “Jersey Girl,” all sorts of cable networks may start entering the network-window auction to get their hands on fresher movies for reasonable prices.

And the distribs will get the license fees they need to satisfy profit participants, neatly sidestepping the ongoing sluggish TV marketplace for theatrical movies.

Title: Kevin Smith Lecture

Date: Saturday, May 1, 2004

Time: 10 p.m. – 11:30 p.m.

Complete Description

Williamson Auditorium – reserved seating. Tickets at all CarrsTix outlets. UAA student tickets at Campus Center Information Desk only. $7 UAA students.
$20 General Admission. Join filmmaker Kevin Smith as he talks about his films, stories, and philosophy. Q&A follow the lecture. Presentation will be
interpreted for the Deaf. For more information contact 786-1221.

BRODIE BOLTS

By Jim McLauchlin

Brodie Bruce ends his reign as king of late night when he exclaims “F*** it” and storms off the set of NBC’s Tonight Show. Bruce was under attack from the FCC and Christian Mothers Association for the constant stream of profanity that shocked late night viewers. Jeffrey Macintyre, president of FCC said “This won’t go over well in Oxnard, What’s this kid trying to pull here, you can’t talk that way on T.V.”. Fines in the first month of Bruce’s wild card takeover out weighed his first years salary. Replacing Carson’s trademarked “golf swing” with sophmoric pelvic gyrations, Mr. Bruce won the hearts of males ages 18 to 35. However, Brodie Bruce’s radical departure from traditional Tonight Show booking procedures, the abandonment of pre-interviews, and arcane comic book references are considered too obscure for Mr. and Mrs. Middle America.

Rumors on the set were such that Brodie was constantly prevoking producers and crew members. One crew member recalls “Brodie would ‘stink palm’ network brass and A list guests”. Just two months ago, the notoriously difficult host pressed charges against his assistant and long time friend for allegedly attacking him with pepper spray.

Brodie was first chosen to host the Tonight Show when he was randomly discovered by two network executives while participating in a local game show at a New Jersey mall.

“We decided to replace him with a more personable host” explained NBC V.P. Ralph Meyer.

Mr. Bruce’s publicist could not be reached for comment.

Finally! An Arclight review you can sink your teeth into…

I know it’s been a couple of days, but I noticed that no one else posted any details, so I decided to step up. Had to register and all. I’ve been lurking here for a while and was happy to read about what went down in Berkeley and ECU. Maybe folks aren’t going into so much detail ’cause they’re making a DVD? Anyway, here are the highlights of the evening from my perspective:

Funny stuff

Primadonna: tommybruce already mentioned that he asked this question (it was regarding the fallout between Kevin and Jeff Anderson). My friends and I got a kick out of Jeff jumping up out of his seat as if to kick this guy’s ass! Quite a jokester.

New Jersey asshole: So this guy goes up to the mike and says, “New Jersey represent!” Of course they ask where he’s from, and he’s all, “I’m not from NJ.” WTF? That was strike one. Then he started to ask about the look of the picture. He said that this copy was by far the best, but it was still bad! Strike two. Then he goes on to talk about how Mallrats looked and digs himself an even deeper hole. Strike three!

Not only was this guy’s line of questioning somewhat tactless, but the way he asked the questions was also kinda rude. So he came off as, well, as an asshole! Kev sent him packing saying that he’d lost his patience with the guy…but of course he was funny about it. We all cheered.

Monotony: There were three variations of the budget question: one relating to the schedule and filming, one relating to it being shot in black and white, and one asking how they saved money. It got old, very old.

Stuff I learned: Marilyn was going to be in Chasing Amy playing Alyssa’s girlfriend, Kim. But she felt uncomfortable making out with a girl.

Walt played multiple parts by default…he was an understudy of sorts.

Because they filmed from 10pm to 6am, many of the actors who were scheduled to show up didn’t. So Walt had to get in there and play various parts.

Brian and Marilyn have theatre backgrounds. Kevin and Co. were quite impressed with Marilyn ’cause she cried during her audition.

Jeff’s next project is titled “Now You Know”…with Miramax!

My fave part of the evening: Someone asked if the cast could talk about their favorite part in filming Clerks. Kevin recounted the scene with the contractor who talks about job risk and the Death Star. The actor had to do it several times. Mewes was sitting on the floor watching and after, like, the fourth take, he insults the guy! Says something like, “Dude, you fucked up AGAIN!” Needless to say they kicked Jay out of the store so they could finish filming.

So afterwards, they’re next door at RST, Jay and Kev are talking and Jay is telling him how much pot he scored. And that he’s got it right…here. The contractor guy happened to be there too and says, “Do you know what I do? I’m a Narc!” So funny…but definitely funnier when Kev tells it…hope it makes the DVD.

After the Q & A, I hung around so I could meet Kevin. I let him know that I was his “newest” fan! I guess that’s kinda misleading…he thought it had taken me ten years to see Clerks! I did actually see it in the theatres when it came out. But I really didn’t remember it…I just knew that I laughed out loud and loved the witty dialogue. I just love the way he tells a story!

Anyway, thanks again to Kev and Co. for Clerks and the Q&A. Can’t wait for the DVD!