• Kevin was the presenter of the Space Channel’s “Lifetime Achievement Award” to Stan Lee on the third annual Spaceys award show.
• Lots of wrestling fans out there who sent this one in: In last night’s WWE Monday Night RAW, during the Highlight Reel segment, Y2J Chris Jericho referred to the monstrous (and quiet) Kane as Silent Bob during a barrage of questions.
• Here’s an interesting tidbit from movie supersite Dark Horizons:

Could Kevin’s Guardian Devil storyline be resurrected after all? We’d certainly pay to see it come to life.

• For those of you who, like Jay and Bob, found Judd Nelson “harsh” back in the day, it’s being reported he’ll reunite with his Breakfast Club castmates on the June 9th MTV Movie Awards broadcast. Taping on June 4th. Worth a peep, for sure.
• And ending as always on the light side, seems that “Darth Vader” has confirmed that there were indeed civilian contractors on the Death Star! The debate rolls on…

• Ticketmaster.ca is listing that the pre-sale for Kevin’s Calary appearance will start on Tuesday. Keep in mind, however, that Kevin has said this is one of the appearances that may not pan out. No word yet confirming that date or any other elements of the Canadian tour. Once we know, you’ll know. Count on it.
• Kevin gets mentioned in an article in the May 30th issue of Sports Illustrated (Jason Giambi on the cover). The article will probably be pretty widely read and discussed, as its focus is on the online poker boom – specifically its widespread popularity on college campuses. The article is titled “Online and Obsessed” and Kevin’s name is mentioned, along with another director we all dig, on page 73, lower left-hand side.
• Looks like there’s a big fan in Maine, by the name of Brad Sullivan. Here’s his license plate…

• Two bites today on Joey Adams’ directorial debut, “Come Early Morning” today. First, from the IMDB:

Actress Ashley Judd narrowly avoided death after her luxury bus was destroyed by a fire, while she was shooting a movie scene on Monday. The Hollywood beauty spent hours in the vehicle resting, eating and rehearsing lines for independent movie Come Early Morning. But fortunately, she had left the bus to film a scene when it burst into flames, after a crew member left an unattended candle in the vehicle. Nobody was hurt, but damage to the bus – which was parked outside Los Angeles’ Hollywood Country Club – came to a staggering $500,000.

Yikes! On a better note, from the wire:

No release date has been set for the film, but we’ll keep an eye for ya.

• Some more high praise for Lee’s sitcom from Kristen at E! Online. This program’s getting some of the best ink we’ve seen of ANY new program at all coming in the Fall:

• However, in other Askewer TV news, seems Shannen Doherty’s hope to head her own sitcom has been dashed:

Actress Shannen Doherty’s plans to return to TV in the upcoming sitcom Love, Inc have been dashed, after bosses dropped her as the star. The former Charmed star had signed up to play a dating consultant who was unlucky in love in the show, which is set to debut on TV network UPN in the autumn. UPN spokesman Paul Hewitt says, “Shannen is a terrific actress, but we’re going in a different creative direction with the show.”

• And finally today, have we discovered hidden meaning in Kevin’s current film project? Joking, of course! Enjoy the rest of your holiday weekend, US’ers, or otherwise…Get to work! See ya next time.

• We originally had announce dthat the episode of “Dinner for 5” hosted by Kevin would air this past Friday, May 27th. It didn’t. According to the IFC website, the Favreau-free episode with ?Lost? creator J.J. Abrams, Kevin Smith, Jason Lee, Stan Lee and Mark Hamill won?t be cablecast until the show gets back from a three-week hiatus on June 17th. Thanks also to Aint It Cool for the alert. Now that the major series have all wrapped for the season, this is a gem to look forward to in an otherwise TV-wasteland.

And hey, not only is Kevin doing special hosting gigs for IFC, but it seems he’s been given the honor to be one of the advisers for their new cinema center. AP reports:

This certainly sounds like a neat honor, and we’re excited to see Kevin will be involved. Of course, we’ll let you know if he’s attending any public events there, and hope this leads to more east coast screenings and events in the Big Apple.

• This just in from Kevin. Seems there MIGHT be some changes to the already-announced and future shows in Canada this Fall:

We’ll keep you posted.

• This UK website recounts a bit of Kevin’s Reese Witherspon saga and doesn’t refer to him by name, but rather, as one of Hollywood’s top directors. Dig it!
• Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back will air on the Starz network in Canada tomorrow (Friday) at 9 PM. We assume, uncut.

• And finally today, as this astutue blogger mused, it seems that Hooper might have finally won that argument. We’ll see you next time, folks. Thanks for coming by!

• Media outlets today revealed the first release dates for the new Weinstein company. You can check the story out at Yahoo News or Aint It Cool. That Tarantino/Rodriguez collaboration certainly raised some eyebrows here. Overall, it’s a very, very impressive mix, heavy towards genre films which fans like us dig on.

Clerks 2 is not listed, though we assume that’s only because of the scheduling shake-up due to Kevin’s big screen acting gig happening at the moment. As soon as that’s done, or even sooner, we expect to hear the new shooting schedule, which should help with a release date. Without an inch of film shot on the project yet, though, announcing on the slate would be premature — So never fear. We’re still on.

In related news, the Project Greenlight film, “Feast”, in which Jason Mewes has a small role, has announced a release date of January 20th, 2006. With Greenlight a distant memory at that point, we hope it’ll still get some notice, as it certainly looked like a fun, kinetic flick. Let’s hope they go with an R-rating, too. So see it. Even if it’ll help get another Greenlight, well greenlit, we’re there.

The brothers don’t have a name for the new venture yet, but plan to announce one this summer. We’re sure we speak for all of us when we say congratulations and good luck, Harvey and Bob. You changed the movie industry forever, and this next phase looks to be just as promising and exciting. Thanks for continuing to make theaters a better place to be.

• Mattt Potter does it again, with a creative spin on one of the most anticipated View Askew DVD’s ever, Mallrats X! This trailer was cut together with sound from the Batman Begins spot, cleverly mixed with edited footage from Mallrats, bringing a level of drama and excitement to the film the likes of which we’ve never seen before!

Click here to check out the amusement!

Mallrats X is expected on DVD, along with An Evening with Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder, Fall 2005. We’ll have early looks for you here, as always. Start tossing some pennies in your piggy banks now. You’ll need to own both!

• As you fine folks know, Kevin’s in Vancouver right now filming a movie — His first major acting role (well, in a non-Kevin Smith movie, anyway). So, in the spirit of all things Canadian, Kevin’s going to be holding a mini-Canada tour this FALL. That’s right, we’re giving you a TON of early notice on this one. So, you can save the dates now if you’re in the area, or schedule a nice little vacation for yourself to coincide. Let’s kick it off with these two locations:

Keep in mind, these two dates are JUST THE BEGINNING. We’ve got more dates for the Great White North tour coming soon. And of course, News Askew will keep you posted on any other updates or news regarding this exciting development. After many years of waiting, Canadians, your time has come! Don’t miss a rare chance to see Kevin live and in person, when he takes Canada by storm THIS FALL!

• Howdy folks, how are ya today? Thanks for stopping in. Let’s start with the big news. We quietly moved into 17 million plus hits over the weekend, and we’d like to congratulate and thank Robert Bellair for hitting that milestone and telling us about it. If you asked us if we ever thought that hits would get into these types of numbers when we started, we’d have chuckled a bit. But here we are, over eight years later, and we’re going as strong as ever. Thanks for sticking with us. And to all your recently new readers — Welcome, and we hope you’ll hang out a while.

As part of our Spring Cleaning event, we’re adding new features and enhancing old ones. Our first poll topic, asking you if you intended to vote, was sort of an in-joke. After all, even if your answer was no, you voted. So, with that test run and funny business our of the way, it’s time to get into the more interesting questions. So, we’d like to present our first serious poll topic, which you can vote on via your left sidebar. Thanks to BOB KLEIN for the suggestion on this one. Want to see your own poll topic gracing the front page of News Askew? Send it on! We’d love to hear it.

Kevin’s revealing and detailed online blog continues at www.silentbobspeaks.com. If you’re not checking it as part of your web surfing routine, get started! Kevin’s dropping some intriguing info on his experiences in Canada as he works in a major supporting role for the film “Catch and Release” (obviously fishing plays a role in the film and Kevin’s part, from his entries). As always, required reading.

And finally, it’s an interesting week of TV as finales have arrived. Here’s hoping the Lost finale doesn’t disappoint as much as 24 did (a lackluster finale after a pretty great year). And if you missed Deadwood on HBO, despite a less intiguing second season, it remains some of the most creative writing on television. Entourage, another HBO guilty pleasure, returns in a couple weeks, too. At least the end of the major season will allow a few moments to leave the TV and PC screen and see the sun. Perhaps.

So, with some big news just ahead, and more site annnouncements to come shortly — Let’s get rolling here.

• VH-1 is re-aring “When Star Rules Ruled The World” quite a bit with Episode III now in theaters. Kevin was interviewed for the program and appears throughout. Check your local listings if you wanna catch it.
• Wanna give our new blog a boost? A technology site, sorta like Slashdot, called digg.com, allows you to rate stories which bumps them up onto the front page. There’s a small story on Kevin’s new blog site HERE that you can rate and “Digg” to the front page.