I recently got the chance to sit down 1-on-1 with the talented, extremely witty and all around cool dude, Kevin Smith. He is doing the rounds promoting his latest feature CATCH AND RELEASE where he plays Jennifer Garner’s roomie in a scene stealing performance. He seems to be doing the actor gig quite a bit lately with this, a small role in TMNT (voice work in case you were wondering) and the recent pilot for MANCHILD which is the US version of the hit British series starring Mr. Giles, Anthony Stewart Head of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE fame. And don’t forget, he will be wisecracking his way through LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, the latest DIE HARD installment with the one and only Bruce Willis.

Well, the question is, when will he get back behind the camera? The rumor was that he was working on a horror film. Yep, you heard right, “It’s all in my head, I haven’t sat down and started tapping away yet.” When I asked what type of horror he is looking to do, he asked, “Did you ever see RACE WITH THE DEVIL? It’s like that.” Many others had asked him about zombies, to that he added, “Is that what a horror movie is to people? Like, just zombies? It’s such a wide genre, its wide open… In a world where 28 DAYS LATER is a horror movie and THE SHINING is a horror movie. Those are two very disparate films… It’s a wide open genre and very tough to pin down. It’s so odd to me that people immediately assume that you are talking a zombie or a monster.”

I for one am a major fan of Mr. Smith, and after talking horror with him, I guarantee that he’s got a terrific grasp on what makes a great horror film. He understands that there is more than one kind of horror and it’s not just jumping on the bandwagon of the recent trend. I am eagerly awaiting his contribution to a genre which means a whole lot to yours truly. And if you haven’t seen RACE WITH THE DEVIL, I urge you to check it out on DVD. See what you can do with a great script, top-notch actors and a truly suspenseful premise. And thank whomever you want to thank that Mr. Smith has NO plans to just remake it. You can read more on my conversations with Kevin Smith very soon.

BEN AFFLECK

Role: George Reeves, Hollywoodland

Age: 34 Birthplace: Berkeley, California

“I think it’s vaguely flattering, but not entirely somehow,” Affleck says of folks who say this role is something of a comeback for him. “I hadn’t done a movie in two years in a conscious effort to just be away from everything, mostly paparazzi and the tabloid culture, with the idea if you just stop, maybe it will go away a little bit. I also made an effort to just kind of really examine what kind of actor I really want to be, and what kind of career I want to have. I was lucky that [Hollywoodland] was the first movie that I did after that, because I really like [it] and it would have been just as easy for it not to have worked. So in its simplest sense, I take it that that’s a sort of way of saying like, “Well, the guy’s last movie wasn’t very good, but this movie seems to be.’ So I don’t know if it’s a comeback. But I guess it’s an improvement.”

In the Future with Kevin Smith

Kevin Smith has shot a role for the upcoming Live Free or Die Hard, which also stars his Catch and Release co-star Timothy Olyphant as the villain.

“I play a character that has a lot of depository dialogue; I’m the only person in ‘Die Hard’ who talks, and doesn’t shoot somebody,” Smith said. “When I got there, I was like, ‘[director] Len [Wiseman], can I get a gun?’ He’s like, ‘No.’ But it’s fun; it’s that role in the action movie where you provide a bunch of information for them to head into act 3. And my character gets talked about throughout – and it could all change. But the time they get in the editing room, they might be like, ‘You suck, yank him out.’ But as it stands now, in the script, and as I shot it, they talk about me a lot and then they meet me; and I provide a lot of information about the villain.”

Smith talked a bit about coming up with his own lines for the fourth “Die Hard” film. “What’s nice about working on those big, awfully expensive Hollywood movies, is they have so many writers, they don’t even notice if you’re one of them. So, I got there, and I wrote myself a one page monologue, and I got to deliver it; it was hysterical, they let me do it. Bruce Willis was like, ‘Do it up, that was a good speech.’ So, you do it, and they totally went for it; so that was kind of cool, and I got to give that speech in that movie. They were kind of riff friendly. There was one motto on that movie, and they kept saying it, which was, ‘Keep it Die Hard.’ So you didn’t want to – you couldn’t get in there and do a Jay and Silent Bob type monologue, but you had to make it germane to the movie. So I don’t give a funny speech, I wind up giving a very paranoid, Joe Pesci in JFK type speech, which was fun.”

He is also voicing a character in the CG-animated TMNT. “Harvey Weinstein called me up and wanted to know if I wanted to do a voice in ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles’; ’cause Weinstein has a piece of it. And I was like, ‘Absolutely.’ The dude that lobbied, and didn’t get the part, was Jason Mewes. ‘Cause Jason Mewes was like, ‘What are you doing today?’ I’m like, ‘I’m going to do a voiceover for ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’ they’re doing the CG cartoon.’ ‘What are you talking about?’ I showed him the trailer, and he was like, ‘Oh, I want to f**kin’ be in that.’ I was like, ‘Well, dude, you’ve been in Weinstein movies; call them up, they’ll put you in the picture.’ And he called them mercilessly, especially after he found out I got paid to do it. He kept calling and they were like, ‘We don’t have anything left, dude;’ they were like, ‘I’m sorry.’ He was like, ‘Add a character;’ he was like, ‘Can’t I be the girl turtle?’ But, he just said there was something they wanted to re-voice, and they brought me in; it took maybe an hour, or something like that. But no, I want to see that movie; I lobbied to see the footage, which they finally showed me when I did a voice over.”

Ghost Rider writer/director Mark Steven Johnson has also asked Smith to direct an episode of HBO’s upcoming “Preacher” series. “Yeah, he asked me if I wanted to direct an episode of ‘Preacher’; which I thought was pretty kind of him; but, I don’t know if I’m up to that. I love that book so much, and being able to translate one of those books to the screen, I don’t think that’s me. ‘Cause you don’t want to be the guy who f**ks it up, and so I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know, we’ll see.’ But I’m certainly not committed to do it, only as much of I don’t want to drop the ball ’cause I like it so much. But if it was some show I didn’t like; I mean, I’ve never really directed TV anyway, so it’s kind of difficult getting my head around it, but since it’s an hour-long drama, presumably, I’d be more keen to directing a movie rather than TV – I don’t know, maybe, maybe. The thing that would keep me from doing that would be I’d be afraid of ruining what I like so much about ‘Preacher’ – so we’ll see if that happens.”

Smith added that he hasn’t started writing his horror movie yet. “Horror flick is all up here (points to brain); I just have to put it down here (pretends to type). I’ve just been using acting as an excuse to not sit down and not write. For me, I don’t know; it’s kind of coming down to me wanting to do this comedy and me wanting to do this horror flick. And I feel like I should do the horror flick because I’ve done seven comedies in 12 years, and I don’t feel like a filmmaker most days; I just feel like a guy who makes those movies set in that universe. So if I really want to test myself or push myself, I’d try and make something completely out of my safety zone, completely out of my genre – that said, I’ve never tested myself, so why would I start now.”

He and Mewes have a cameo in the adventure-comedy, Fanboys “I’ve watched half of it; it’s a rather sweet movie. I haven’t watched the other half of it; I watched my half up until my part, ’cause we were doing that little scene, and I wanted to throw some stuff together for it. And I was like, ‘So what’s the movie about?’ My part wasn’t in it yet, but I turned it off where my part would be. ‘Cause [producer Scott] Mosier’s like, ‘We’re still in the midst of cutting it; watch the finished version,’ and what not. But I like it, I think it’s a really sweet movie, and right up my f**kin’ alley; so I’m kind of programmed to kind of dig it. That dude, Dan Fogler in the movie’s really funny, the chick from ‘Veronica Mars,’ who I absolutely love… [Kristen Bell]… she’s in it, and she’s really good. That dude who plays Windows in the movie is the guy from ‘Million Dollar Baby’… [Jay Baruchel]… he’s in the movie and he’s really pimp, and really funny.”

Smith also revealed the opening scene of his new Showtime comedy, “Manchild.” “In the opening scene in the show, we’re on surfboards in the middle of the Pacific, and I’m wearing a wetsuit, and I look like the f**kin’ Penguin, just round, with a little head on top. So I said, ‘I really feel like my character, Paul, would probably wear a shirt over this; and they were like, ‘You don’t wear a shirt in the ocean.’ And I’m like, ‘Well, Paul would; and Paul’s gonna.’ And they were like, ‘Alright.’ So they let me wear a Kings jersey.” The show revolves around a group of fortysomething male friends (Smith, James Purefoy, John Corbett, Paul Hipp) who are knee-deep in midlife crises. Smith said that if “Manchild” gets picked up, they will start shooting again in March on 12 episodes for four months.

“I’m a sucker for the ‘monster as a hero’ concept and I wanted to take a stab at drawing essentially a super-team of monsters,” Flannigan told CBR news. However, in the beginning, Johnson took a little more convincing. “I had no aspirations of comic creation and wouldn’t have thought of it had Walter not suggested the ‘Karney ‘ adaptation,” added Johnson. “The rest is comics history. At least in my house where publishing a comic is more than the eight preceding Johnson generations accomplished.”

…

Just as their entry into comic book creation was unusually simple, Johnson and Flannigan don’t collaborate in what could be called the “traditional” way of other writer/artist teams either. ” We talk about the story, spitball ideas and figure out what we want to happen in the issue,” said Johnson. “Walt then goes off and draws whatever he wants and when he’s done I go back and fill in the narrative. From what I understand this isn’t the way it’s normally done. However, I’ve also been told it’s the way ‘Stan the Man’ used to do it. So I’m pretty much exactly like him – except for the talent, money and good looks. Other than that, we’re exactly the same.”

If you’re gonna come on all authoritative with “Here’s what was the worst out of everything”, you’d have better peeped all the flicks, I say. I hadn’t.

Sadly, I didn’t figure that all out until I sat down to write my mini-reviews. The “Ebert” folks were very gracious and understanding.

For a non-critic like me, I can get away with reviewing a few flicks on any given episode, but considering (unlike Roger and Richard), I don’t see every flick that comes out, I shouldn’t be sitting in on a year-end “Worst of” special.

The “Best of” and “Worst of” eps should really be chaired solely by critics.

“When I first heard about this sequel being made, I was scared like many of you, but I’m happy to report that this is a solid movie with laughs galore, pop-culture reference galore, vulgarity and sexual connotations galore and even a cute romance for the ladies in the audience. If you’re a fan of Kevin Smith and his previous films, I see no reason why this movie wouldn’t rock your balls off.”

I guess I’m a little biased since I’ve met Kevin Smith once or twice in my lifetime and he was even cool enough to write a foreword to my book, but that aside, this film was one of the funnier ones of the year for me, especially as a 30-something who connected with some of the film’s subtext (and yeah, by “subtext” I mean Pillowpants!!!!!). And I’m pretty sure that I can watch the scene featuring Rosario Dawson “dancing” on the rooftop for say…days on end!

‘Silent Bob’ Addresses Macworld

Filmmaker/actor Kevin Smith gives his unusual take on Apple and iPods.

By Eydie Cubarrubia

The ramifications of Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ announcements Tuesday could affect the cell phone market –worth $251 million in the third quarter of 2006—and the digital home. But screw that.

Instead of pontificating about changing the world and its technology markets, filmmaker/actor Kevin Smith regaled a packed house at Macworld Expo with his often raunchy observations about the movie industry, iPods, and word processors. Really, really raunchy.

Mr. Smith first made a splash with Clerks, a black-and-white independent flick with low production values and compellingly hilarious dialogue. Since then, he’s written well-received movies like Dogma and Chasing Amy, and even a documentary-like short to benefit post-911 charities that explored the, er, acrimonious relationship between New Yorkers and New Jersey denizens.

Whether documentary or feature, what sets apart a Smith film is the insanely blunt dialogue. Same with his live appearances—at least at Macworld, happening through Friday in San Francisco.

“Yeah, I’m just here for some free shit,” Mr. Smith said in opening remarks that even beat Mr. Jobs’. Pointing to a bald spot in the back of his head, the Jersey native added, “I would put an Apple logo there, if they would just give me a free computer!”

In between fondly recalling his days working at a convenience store or admitting the embarrassment he sometimes feels wearing tight costumes for a movie role, the filmmaker also recalled his first Apple and gave his take on what are the real repercussions of the iPhone.

On when he first used an Apple computer: My first Apple I got in late 1994. Up until that point I was writing on a Smith-Corona word processor. I didn’t even know what a computer was—I saw War Games and thought, ‘Shit, I can’t afford that.’ That’s (word processor) what I wrote Clerks on… it had a heavy-ass monitor… a heavy-ass drive… I remember lugging it down to the Quik-Stop. When you wanted to print something out it was just like typing really fast. It took four minutes per page and I was thinking, ‘This shit’s lightening fast!’ I wanted to start work on Mallrats (and a friend introduced him to Apple computers). It had a weird green-screen image… I don’t know what the model was. I worked off that a good year. (Upon news of Clerks tribute sites) I was like, ‘What’s the Internet?’ I didn’t even know how to describe it—I’d never seen a Web page before.

Ever since I’ve been into computers, I’ve been a Mac guy. I don’t want to get into PC-bashing, but PCs are just weird and stupid. ‘Right-click?!’ I’m not a branding guy, but [Apple] and Vans are the only two companies I’d buy stock in.

On digital movie distribution, as a filmmaker: I like it. It’s yet another avenue to get your movie out there. There’s always someone who hasn’t seen something before… And it looks good. And I’d said ‘f*** DVDs’ when they first came out, same when they announced the iPod.

On the new iPhone: I’m just waiting for them to drill a hole in it. The iF***. Now that you can make phone calls from your iPod, the only thing left to do is [make love to] it. Women are in big trouble! And it’ll all be Steve Jobs’ fault.

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Part 2 – 24Kb, 12.4 MB