New York Times: “A Tent Without Tent-Poles”

“…During the proceedings, Kevin Smith recalled that he had a first date with his wife on the night he was a Spirit winner and that she responded enthusiastically in ways we won’t go into. He went on to suggest that the night’s winners might have the drawn the same response from her.

Standing outside after the show, Mr. Smith was asked whether this year’s Oscars seemed almost redundant, being centered on just the kind of small films that the Spirit awards are. (”Brokeback Mountain” won best picture and Ang Lee best director — Imagine that.)

“Do any awards show matter, really?” he said, not in a cranky way, but just asking the question. “I’m no expert, I guess. I am not the awards kind of director. I’m the director that you call when you want to give out awards to other directors.” Terrence Howard, who chose a crystal encrusted Bluetooth earpiece while selecting goodies, said there was no danger that he would join Three 6 Mafia in their performance of “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp.” “Nah, I think my rapping days are over,” he told the Bagger outside one of the press tents.”

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LA Times: “An Oscar Prequel?”

“…Comedian/actress Sarah Silverman served as this year’s master of ceremonies, but her salty and sexual banter was easily upstaged by director Kevin Smith, who presented the best director honor with a wind-up laced with expletives — many involving his own wife — that drew groans and catcalls from the audience.”

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E! Online: “Spirit Awards Go for ‘Broke’”

“…While show producers might have feared that the notoriously potty-mouthed host may have kept the censors busy, the raunchiest moment of the night actually came from Best Director presenter Kevin Smith, who turned his remembrance of his first Spirit Awards experience into an over-sharing anecdote about him and his wife’s first lovemaking escapade.”

Today, I’ll be presenting at the Independent Spirit Awards (broadcast live on IFC at 2pm PST). The last time I was at the Spirit Awards, I not only won Best Screenplay for “Chasing Amy”, but also, the heart (and vag) of a one Jennifer Schwalbach. Yes, that Spirit Awards ceremony eight years ago represented my first date with Jen. And what a date it was…

I mean, Jesus – she gave up the pussy later that night.

But, mind you, this wasn’t just any ol’ pussy. This was the pussy that changed my life: the pussy that turned me into a married man and Father (and not necessarily in that chronological order, either). This was the pussy that aided and abetted in me falling in love with Jen (although, I could argue that I’d kinda done that when I interviewed with her a month prior).

Shockingly, this’ll be the first time we’ve attended the Spirit Awards since that fateful afternoon. You’d imagine that, based on sentimentality alone, Schwalbach and I would’ve made Spirit Awards attendance an annual thing. And yet, oddly, neither of us have stepped foot in that tent on the beach in Santa Monica in eight years. So today’s being treated as something of an anniversary date (even though, technically, the date of that Spirit Awards/First Fuck in ‘98 was March 21st). M’lady and I are getting gussied up (which, for me, means putting on a jacket instead of a shooter), and we’re gonna trip the lights fantastic, waltzing down memory lane, this time hand-in-hand.

And then, post ceremony, we’re gonna bone our brains out – just like we did eight years ago.

Today marks another anniversary in the Askewniverse as well. Peep this…

Ladies and gentlemen, in that document, emailed ten years ago today, lay the origins of www.viewaskew.com. A few months later, Ming and I took the site live, and it changed both of our lives forever (and, happily, I would stop using terms like “tres’, tres’”).

Ming Chen is, oftentimes, the unsung hero of the Askewniverse. Had I never been directed to his “Clerks” shrine site a decade back, you probably wouldn’t be reading this now. www.viewaskew.com became the stage from which we grew our audience and met so many of the folks who’ve kept me employed for the last ten years. Without Ming, I wouldn’t have been as in-touch with the folks that watch our flicks as I am; and keeping in touch with those folks has made all the difference in not just my career, but my life as well. www.viewaskew.com has shaped and defined my life and career in such a way, that Ming has become about as indispensable to me at this point as Scott Mosier or Jason Mewes is; meaning he’s not just a guy I work with, but also a great sounding board and friend.

The websites in the Askewniverse family number many at this point (www.viewaskew.com, www.clerks2.com, www.silentbobspeaks.com, www.moviepoopshoot.com, www.moviesaskew.com, www.jayandsilentbob.com, www.newsaskew.com, etc., etc); none of them would’ve existed at all, were it not for Ming Chen.

Take a bow, Asian Design Major.

An Evening With Kevin Smith 2

Fans of the View Askew universe may want to decide to circle the week of August 18th, 2006 on their calendars, for that is the theatrical release date for Clerks II — which, by all accounts, is shaping up to be the most profane and wildly funny film in the Jay & Silent Bob series. But also look for the long-talked-about An Evening With Kevin Smith 2: Evening Harder DVD (and possibly Blu-Ray) to be released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment conveniently timed to coincide with the sequel. Naga nootch!

Silent Bob to speak — at Penn
Director of ‘Dogma,’ ‘Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back’ named as spring Connaissance speaker

Silent Bob will finally speak up as the SPEC Connaissance Spring Speaker.

Better known as his mute on-screen persona, Kevin Smith has both directed and acted in films including Dogma, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Clerks and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. He will speak at Irvine Auditorium March 22.

Organizers say the speech will likely have wide appeal.

“Kevin Smith has such a following among people who are in college now,” Social Planning and Events Committee Connaissance Director and College senior Caitlin McElroy said. With “the kind of movies we’ve grown up on, we thought he would be a good candidate for our crowd.”

SPEC Connaissance decided on Smith after conducting a survey last spring to gauge student preference for speakers.

“Students wanted to hear someone from Hollywood,” McElroy said.

Last year’s event featured West Wing actor Martin Sheen, who discussed his commitment to community service.

Any student can use their PennCard to enter an online lottery. If selected, they can buy $5 tickets to the event. The lottery opens tomorrow.

Students have said that Smith will be more than welcome on campus.

“I think it’s good that they’re bringing in someone who is more trendy and mainstream,” College senior Vanessa White said. “I think he might appeal to a wider audience and people who might not necessarily have heard of him.”

Smith’s appearance will also be a huge event for Penn’s film-making community.

“I think that would be interesting because there are a lot of people at Penn interested in filmmaking, and there aren’t a lot of people associated with the film industry who come,” said College junior Rachel Pearlman, who is studying film.

Smith rose to fame through his 1994 film Clerks, which many credit with launching his career.

He is also known as a comic-book writer, creating Clerks (the Comic) in 1998 and collaborating on Marvel Comic’s Daredevil.

Smith’s films are usually filled with pop culture references, especially allusions to Star Wars and New Jersey.

His films are also known for for sexual references and graphic displays of bodily functions.

Smith is currently working on Clerks II, a follow-up to his first film, and will be appearing in Catch and Release, a comedic romance featuring Jennifer Garner.

“We hope he handles any would-be hecklers as well as he did a few years back at a local screening of “Jersey Girl,” when he outsassed and cursed at a teen who gave him guff during a question-and-answer session.”

HOUSE PARTY with Kevin Smith!
MONDAY March 6th – MIDNIGHT
Theater: Alamo Downtown – 409 Colorado St.
http://www.originalalamo.com

HOUSE PARTY
(Dir. Reginald Hudlin, 1990 100min. R)
hosted by esteemed director, actor, comic aficionado KEVIN SMITH!
straight off the heels of his MASTER CLASS at UT!

MIDNIGHT SCREENING – FREE ADMISSION!

It’s party time, but Kid (Christopher Reid) has been grounded by his strict but loving dad (Robin Harris). His best friend, Play (Christopher Martin), however, cooks up a scheme to sneak him out of the house so he can hook up with his honey at a buddy’s house, where it’s all going on. Rappers Kid ‘N Play are engaging and funny–and entertaining rappers when they get the chance. The real find was comic Robin Harris, hilarious in his own right and solid in this role–but he died a short time later. Look for Martin Lawrence in one of his first film roles as well. (Marshall Fine)

SPECIAL THANKS TO JOHN PIERSON.

Kevin Smith Supports ‘Brokeback Mutant’ But Not Bennifer

Writer/director addresses comic book fans at New York Comic-Con

NEW YORK — There may be no bigger comics fan in Hollywood than “Clerks” director Kevin Smith — after all, he’s the only director known for actually writing comic books.

So when not-so-Silent Bob showed up to speak for two hours at the inaugural New York Comic-Con this past weekend at the Jacob K. Javits Center, he was treated more like a god than a geek, and he rewarded the audience with candid insight into his creative process, as well as a lot of dirty jokes.

For instance, the reason Smith doesn’t want to direct a comic book movie, as he was once in line to do with “Green Hornet”? He thinks shooting action is boring, and it’s better suited to those who love it. “Sam Raimi does more cool sh– in two minutes in ‘Spider-Man’ than I’ve done in seven movies,” he conceded.

Smith’s version of a superhero movie would feature something “simple and straightforward” like this: Green Hornet and his sidekick, Kato, are leaning against the Black Beauty in a two-shot, standing around asking each other about what they did the night before and going off on tangents such as, “The funny thing about ‘Star Wars’ and sex is …” Then Kato would hear some trouble and they’d walk out of the frame, while the shot would hold on the car. Then, after some sound effects, they’d walk back in the frame, wipe themselves off, and go back to leaning and say something like, “So, yes, I did get some [action] last night.”

“Nobody wants to give you $70 million to make that,” Smith said.

Plus, Smith would want to dispense with the metaphors of some superheroes and their sidekicks, most notably the gay subtext of “Batman” and “X-Men,” and just bring it out full-force, something that mainstream America might not be ready to accept, he pointed out. “The whole movie is an allegory of what it’s like to be gay,” he said. “You take the word ‘mutant’ out and stick ‘gay’ in there and the movie still works. I dig that, it’s taking a mainstream movie and putting a positive message in it, a message of tolerance. It’s ‘Brokeback Mutant.’ I just want to go up to kids and say, ‘You like Wolverine? That means you’re gay.’ ”

And since Bryan Singer, the man behind “X-Men,” is directing the new “Superman,” Smith said, it’ll be more of the same. “Never mind Lois Lane and Clark Kent,” he said. “I’m looking at the relationship between Clark Kent and Jimmy Olsen. Lois says, ‘I love you,’ and Clark says, ‘That’s great. So, Jimmy …’ ”

There’s another kind of film Smith doesn’t plan on making anytime soon — one about religion. Smith said he’d love to do a “Dogma 2,” but you can’t do that without talking about Islam these days, “and after watching what happened with the cartoons, I want to say nothing about Muhammad except that’s he’s really cool guy. … And I don’t have a picture or drawing of him.”

So, Smith said, he’s going to keep telling the same kinds of stories he always does, “and put Jay and Bob in them” (see “Kevin Smith Vows ‘Clerks 2′ Language, Content Ups The Ante Of The Original ‘A Hundredfold’ “).

“I’ve learned absolutely nothing, except not to make any more movies with Bennifer,” he said. “I think I’ve learned to tell a better visual story, but I haven’t really walked away with that much insight over the past 12 years. But I’ve stayed true to telling the kinds of stories me and my friends would get. And I’m lucky to be getting away with it.”

“Clerks 2” is also not going to reference Smith’s previous films that heavily. “It’s not rife with references to everything that’s come before in the View Askew-verse,” Smith said. “Dante’s not walking around saying, ‘I’m still not even supposed to be here today,’ or anything like that.”

Meanwhile, Smith has detached himself from another project, a “Brave and the Bold” film for DC Comics. “I’ve decided, based on my inability to produce a script on time, that I should never go near a comic book again,” he joked.

As for the convention, Smith did have one complaint: Too many guys and not enough girls attend comic book gatherings, making it difficult to exploit his celebrity status. “Ben Affleck tells me stories about girls who come up to him in restaurants, ‘Take me home with you.’ That never happens to me. It’s always a bunch of guys going, ‘Are you doing “Green Hornet” or not?’ or ‘Where’s “Spider-Man/Black Cat”? You got to issue three and you stopped because you were doing “Jersey Girl,” and then that came out and it bombed and you stopped! That’s irresponsible to take a job and not finish it! How hard is it to write a comic book? Give it to me and I’ll write it. I’ll draw it too. Where’s “Spider-Man/Black Cat”?’ ”

“I had to finish the series just to walk out on a Comic-Con floor,” Smith said. “I was proud of myself. I thought I was safe to walk around, but now it’s all, ‘Where’s “Daredevil: Target”?’ It’ll never end.”

“You know what, Kevin? I’d [go home with] you,” one female fan said in response during the marathon Q&A session. “But I just finished ‘Spider-Man/Black Cat,’ and that’s the best ‘Spider-Man’ ever, and I’m just wondering … where is ‘Daredevil: Target’?”

“Isn’t that just like a girl?” Smith laughed.

During the Q&A with Kevin Smith, someone asked what he’s learned since making Clerks. Smith’s reply: “I certainly learned to not make any more movies with Bennifer, but other than that, not much.”

As the endearing but dimwitted Randy on NBC’s “My Name Is Earl,” Ethan Suplee enjoys being Jason Lee’s partner-in-good-crime. “I’m definitely not a leading-man type, so it’s good to get the next most chunky role after that,” Suplee said.

“When Earl was leading a life of crime, Randy was 100 percent with him, even helping to instigate,” he said. But now that Earl is trying to make amends, “Randy is right with him 100 percent, even helping to instigate the good things. It’s just that brotherly thing.”