• 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.