• According to this weekend’s episode, Kevin is slated to host “At The Movies” this weekend, for their “Worst of the Year” episode. Should be a lot of fun. Check your local listings for stations and airtime, as the show syndicates.
• What we believe is the first DVD review of the HD Clerks II DVD has appeared online at High Def Digest. Big surprise: THEY LOVED IT!!! They don’t give it the highest marks for transfer, since the movie after all has an appearance all its own, and looks the way Kevin wanted. The review ALSO reveals that the disc has a hidden TrueHD sound soundtrack!!! Even better, the review confirms that not a single of the awesome extras from the original Clerks II disc are sacrificed. Even better, they’ve ALL been transferred to 1080p HiDef. WOW. So, HD-DVD owners (yes, we’re talking to YOU, Xbox 360 DVD addon folks) — This should be a fixture in your newly growing HD-DVD library!
• Check the “films” tab on this filmmaker’s website and look for a short called “Pretzels”. It features the Leonardo Quick Stop (inside and out) and even switches to Black and white for the inside shots. Perty nifty.
• And it seems Leonardo/Red Bank trips are become more popular these days! Here’s more photos from a fan who was kind enough to share his story in words and pics. He says:

Hi my name is Zach Cravens. I’m 20 years old and a huge fan of the Kevin and the site. I seen that on Sunday, January 7th you posted two pictures of fans taken in Leonardo. its been a dream of mine for years to visit the Quick Stop, RST Video, Jacks Music Shop, and Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. Well that dream finally came true when I convinced my mother(I don’t have my license) to drive me all the way from Muncie, Indiana to Red Bank and Leonardo, New Jersey. She said yes and we left on August 15th, 2006. It was the 1st time either of us have ever been remotely close to the east coast and it took a little over 16 hours because we got lost in Jersey City. Any way I took quite a bit of pictures and after seeing the two pictures of the guys in front of the Quick Stop I figured i’d send them to you. thank you for your time.

If you’re a fan, make sure you make a trip of your own to the east coast mecca (and of course, the Stash) — All that stuff really is still there, and truly is neat to see. We still remember the cool factor of pulling up to the block of stores for the first time almost 10 years ago. Hey, thanks for stopping in, and we’ll see you back here again!

• Here’s a new promotional site for the Clerks II DVD — This time for its Australian release. On this site, you’ll find burger recipes, free e-cards, the trailer, DVD clips, a Rosario photo gallery, and, yes…a Flash-based Kinky Kelly pin the tail on the sexy stud game. We’re not kidding.
• Ah, the beauty of YouTube — Here’s an aspiring actress taking one of Veronica’s monologues from Clerks.

• And finally today, on this relatively quiet news weekend, here’s a couple recent shots from Leonardo where fan Albee Tellone took his sons during the holidays. — We’ll be back with more soon, and also have some site news on the way this week as well. Stay tuned.

• A few folks with ties to the Askewniverse were honored with nominations from their peers this morning: The Screen Actors Guild.

We’ll start with the obvious one: Jason Lee was nominated in the Best Actor in a Comedy Series category for “My Name is Earl” (along with his co-star Jaime Pressly in the best actress category). Sadly, the show itself was wrongfully overlooked for Best Comedy.

Will Smith, who cameoed in Jersey Girl, was nominated as Best Actor for “The Pursuit of Happyness”.

Matt Damon got nominated in the Best Ensemble Cast category for his work in “The Departed”.

And finally, Alec Baldwin (the voice of Leonardo Leonardo in the Clerks Animated Series) also got nominated in that same category for the Martin Scorsese drama and as well as in the Best Actor in a Comedy Series category for “30 Rock”.

Congralutions to all the nominees, and best of luck at the awards! We’ll be cheerin’ for you all.

• Much like our little Year In Askew review that we posted just before 2006 ended (check lower in our news or in the December 2006 archive, depending on when you’re reading this)…Kevin himself has posted a personal year in review of his own via his Myspace blog. Where this differs from what you read here is that Kevin gives his own personal account of his life for the year, which does involve some crossover, but also elabortes on stuff we missed or just didn’t even know about. Coolest of all, Kevin includes a vast array of photos taken from his own collection and around the web (including many from our own News Askew archives) to tell the story in a very visual, colorful way. And he’s right — It truly is amazing how much happens in the course of a year in his world.

Required reading for all of you, this one’s split into two parts. Check them both out at the following locations. Enjoy Kevin’s commentary, links, and all those oh-so-pretty pictures.

• If you’re like us, and just can’t get enough of all of that brilliant footage Zak and Joey shot for the Clerks II production, even AFTER the DVD documentary, fear not — There’s MORE! That’s right, the guys are releasing some “Lost Tales of the View Askewniverse” videos online, NEVER BEFORE SEEN ANYWHERE. It’s like NEW TRAIN WRECK! YEAH! You can get them exclusively at View Askew’s own Quick Stop Entertainment site:

Keep up the great work, guys — Here’s hoping you’ll share more of that lost footage with us as time goes on!

• An official release date has been set for the UK (Region 2) Clerks II DVD: February 19th. Our friends overseas will also see the awesome “Evening Harder” region 2 on January 15th. We assume you die-hard fans there already have All Region players and ordered US copies from the Stash. But for you Region 2′ers, there ya go.
• The HollywoodBitchSlap website has “awarded” Joel Siegel with a negative honor for his Clerks II walkout and comments. Read it as part of their feature titled “Criticwatch: The Whores of the Year”. An excerpt of their comments:

• Now You Know has a MySpace page up to promote the flick’s DVD release. You can get to it and become its friend HERE. See? Now you know. Sorry, couldn’t resist. Too easy.
• A few mentions/references pop up in JoBlo’s “Best Of DVD 2006” column. Here’s the important stuff:

• Just a very small nod to Alanis as God in this unrelated blurb over at MSNBC. Always nice to see the folks remember “Dogma”, though.
• See ya next time, and thanks for keeping us a part of your daily web diet here in 2007!

• Keivn popped by the always entertaining View Askew WWWBoard with some great news — Five diverse lists who cited Clerks II among the best flicks of the year. Here’s his post and some links:

Of course, these are just a few of the voices of praise that was heard for Clerks II throughout the year — It’s one of the best reviewed movies in View Askew history (possibly the BEST reviewed) and scored incredibly well with audiences everywhere. The DVD sales records for the flick speak for themselves — Clerks II was a winner for 2006, and we’re proud that the gang not only got to make the movie they wanted, but celebrated great success with it as well. We can’t wait to see what’s next on the list.

• Movie City News ranks the Clerks II DVD among the Best of 2006 with this blurb:

• Here’s a few more shots of Kevin’s character in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie , courtesy Ecranlarge.com. Click the thumbnails for a larger version. Their page has a TON of stills from the movie if you’re thristing for more.
• Catch Matt Damon on an excellent new edition of Bravo’s “Inside the Actor’s Studio” this week (check your local listings).