At the time, and still to this moment, I feel like it was a good idea. I love the movie and it means something to me, but unfortunately I’m still mired in the aftermath of all the **** that surrounded the release, so I think it’ll be a while before I can kick back and appreciate it like I did when I first put it together. About a year ago, when I had the first cut together, I loved the movie and I still kind of love it, but it’s clouded by the **** we had to put up with to get it into the theatres in the first place.

So I think, like with Mallrats – that got savaged by the critics and did really badly at the box office – it took a few years for me to able to appreciate the movie again. That movie found its audience eventually though. People rented it on video and wound up digging it, and it’s the gateway film for all our movies when you talk to the fanbase, because that’s the movie they saw first, and it led them to the other movies. So I wound up falling in love with it again, and I’m sure the same will happen with this.

Could you ever see yourself doing what Ollie does in the film, and sacrificing your career to take care of family commitments?

Yeah. Absolutely. For my kid? Absolutely. And it’s weird because this is the one time where I’ve come up against journalists who get really dug in on this issue. Some people think it’s inauthentic, or disingenuous, or very Hollywood. My take on it is: most people who take issue with the idea of giving up a career for somebody, they feel like they’re being judged because they like their career. I’m always like, “Do you have a kid?” And they’re like, “No.” So I say, talk to me when you’ve got a kid because then it’s a whole different story.

You’re trying to be a role model and shape their existence, and you get a small window to that, and it becomes of paramount importance. Luckily I have this gig where I get to do both. But you’re talking to me eight months after my father died and, believe me, if I knew my old man was going to die, I would have given up working for two years just to hang out with him. I would put my family ahead of my career in a heartbeat.

The biggest pain in the arse I ever worked with… Linda Fiorentino. When we were making Dogma, the cast was working in a favoured nations type of affair where everyone was getting paid the same – scale, which is the minimum wage for the movie business. And we were all trapped out in Pittsburgh shooting this movie, which is the middle of nowhere, so whenever people had a few days off they would ask if they could go to New York, or back to Los Angeles, or elsewhere. I always said “sure”, because why would I want to make anybody sit in Pittsburgh if they’ve got something else to do?

Linda, on the other hand, had to work every day on the movie because she was in every scene, so she really never got to leave and she got irritated when cast members would go elsewhere. She got really angry about that and asked me to do something about it. And I said, “What am I supposed to do? I mean, they want to go away and they’re not working, so that’s fine.” And one day she stopped talking to me for a whole day, because she was so irritated by the fact that other people got to leave the set. That was kind of weird. The weirdest experience I had making a movie.

Do you believe in test screenings?

Only inasmuch as it’s great to watch the movie with an audience. I don’t believe in the process of filling out the cards and doing the focus group where they ask the very pointed questions about “what did you like?” and “what didn’t you like?” and “what could we change?” S*** like that. But I do like sitting there and watching with an audience, because you get a feel for what works and what doesn’t work, particularly if you’re working with a comedy – so much so that you don’t really need the cards. The cards muck up the process, and when they start breaking it down into percentages and whatnot, that’s when the movie starts to suffer.

Cracking comedy with a cute kid and a bevy of babes. There’s enough cynical squirts of lemon juice to make this thia a perfect night out for blokes as well as the birds. Unfolding at a fast and funny pace with a few tears on top. We have widowed dad Ollie (Ben Affleck) learning to cope with daughter Gertie brillianly played by Raquel Castro. And Ben’s a revelation in this: charming, funny and likeable. On paper this may look pretty predictable – a widowed dad, a cute kid, a new love- but this belter of a filmhas bitter core, courtesy of writer, director Kevin Smith. He’s the man behind mad flicks like Dogma & Clerks. So expect grown-up and at times, painful elements. And look out for comedy king George Carlin, a man whp makes Victor Meldrew look like a Prozac junkie. The good news doesn’t stop there. Even though J-Lo turns up, she’s not the female lead, nor Affleck’s love interest. Forget the horror that was Gigli, this time around Ben is with Armageddon co-star Liv Tyler and there’s a fruity fizzle to their shenanigans that outshines anything from that outa space blockbuster. So all in all, apart from the odd clunky chunk of dialogue this really works. It also makes me eager for Smith’s nex project – the Green Hornet. Bring it on…! 4/5

Shebah Ronay – “Sugary Sweet Suprise Guy”

The shock of the year for me because I was convinced I’d hate this. With dopey Ben Affleck as a single dad and old flame J-Lo as his dead wife, it didn’t bode well. But suprise suprise, I was gripped because the script is so unexpectedly funny. OK, it’s a tad sugary, bu there’s a painful edge to the writing that keeps you hooked. What’s more believe it or not Affleck proves that he really can act. And with feeling. At no point do you doubt Ben’s desperation, his heartbreaking pain, his lasting love or his timely discoveries. I’m not sure what’s happened maybe Ben thought this wouldn’t be a hit and so sat back and relaxed for onc-but he’s damn good. However, the real key to this flick is the fabulous Liv Tyler, whose natural acting ability brings out the very best in Ben. She plays a bang-up-to-date 21st century woman out to convince widower Ollie to get back in the sex saddle as soon as possible…with her help. As you’d expect, the course of new love doesn’t run smooth, with some very funny results. But on top of the laughs, there’s a farther-daughter tale that’s adorable. And Raquel Castro as Getie is as cute as they come. Sadley, the film can’t resist goping a little soppy right at the end, but at least we were spare any spontaneous rounds of applause. A real winner…who’d have thought! 4/5

“I think they’ll definitely be back,” he says to the sound of fandom cheers all round. “Jason has cleaned up considerably. It’s a year and two months of total sobriety for him. He hasn’t had a drink or done any drugs, he’s kind of turned his life around. And I always told him if he was able to get clean and stay clean I would think about doing more Jay & Silent Bob stuff. So now I might have to live up to that promise.”

Downward puppy, son of sun salute

By Jessica Hundley, Special to The Times

Read the statistics, peruse the headlines and heed the newscasters’ warnings — our kids are getting fatter. Where there once were fresh air and whole foods, there are now Xbox and Doritos Nacho Cheesier, the modern age resulting in a disturbing decline in the health and a staggering expansion of waistbands.

“Obesity,” says Hall Davidson, director of educational services for Orange County-based public television station KOCE, “is the new tobacco.”

So how to get the kids back into shape? For KOCE and PBS affiliate KRCB in the Bay Area, the answer is “Animal Yoga.”

Created by Los Angeles locals Bobbi Hamilton and Renée Humphrey, “Animal Yoga” is an animation and live-action mix that teaches a 4- to 10-year-old audience everything from “frog hops” to “power words” to the importance of good manners and hygiene.

Hosted by two cheery and brightly clad yoga gurus, Wasabi (Hamilton) and Lil’ Chi (Natalie Macias), “Animal Yoga” combines candy-colored landscapes with an impenetrably chipper attitude about physical well-being — imagine Richard Simmons landing a guest-starring gig on “Barney & Friends.”

The emphasis is on teaching the basics of yoga without the studied equilibrium of grown-ups’ classes. Instead, “Animal Yoga” is relentlessly upbeat; even the restful Savasana pose is underscored by a funky hip-hop soundtrack and framed by the simple Playskool-style animation made popular by “Blue’s Clues.”

“I think it has a lot going for it,” Davidson says, ” and I think it’s coming at just the right time.

“Using television time to improve the health of our young viewers, that’s something PBS as a whole is interested in. It brings physicality back to young people, because the program is interesting and crafted in a way kids really respond to.”

KOCE and KRCB have begun airing “Animal Yoga” as 2- and 3-minute interstitials, designed “to get the kids off the couch and up doing something active,” says Stan Marvin, director of broadcast operations at KRCB.

“We had a particular need for solid children’s fillers, and this was perfect,” Marvin says. “It’s getting great responses from viewers, which is no surprise here in California, where yoga is king. But I think it’s also in part that its style really appeals to kids.”

Hamilton and Humphrey began developing the “Animal Yoga” concept in 2001.

“I was living in Northern California at the time, doing breast cancer research and teaching yoga at various locations,” Hamilton says. “I remember wishing I had learned it when I was younger, and so I started teaching classes to kids. From there the idea just began to develop. I was interested in using methodology, in seeing how kids learned and working with their motor skills.”

For Humphrey, a film actress, producing and directing the first installment of “Animal Yoga” was a chance to explore another career.

“I had produced a short film,” she says, “and was interested in doing more of that when Bobbi and I formed the company. It just seemed the right time socially and culturally for something like this to be accepted and supported.”

In addition to their PBS spots, which air during morning children’s programming, Humphrey and Hamilton have produced a half-hour video and recently signed a national distribution deal for hotel in-room programming. Ultimately, they hope to develop “Animal Yoga” as a weekly series, bringing Wasabi and Lil’ Chi’s funky-fresh stylings to a large audience.

“We want to make it a part of as many kids’ and family’s lives as possible,” Humphrey says. “Yoga as part of my own life has been a balancing force and, these days especially, we all seem to need that balance.”