• We’re pleased to finally bring you our own look at the wonderful new “Kevin Smith Collection” on Bluray. Some shipping snafus held our review copy up quite a bit, coupled with the holidays and some issues grabbing screenshots, and there ya have it. A late review. Still, we’re got a lot of insight on this collection, and plan to cover all the stuff the fans care most about here — The NEW stuff. As for screenshots, unfortunately our PS3 used to review the flick doesn’t have the ability to grab stills (surprisingly). So, not the ideal review that we wanted to put together for you, but we still wanted to give you a nice idea of what was in the set — Especially if you’ve yet to experience it and have it on your Christmas shopping list. So, let’s take some looks at what’s included with this 3-movie collection…

• Part of of the awesome Aint It Cool News’ “Legends” interview with Kevin is now available — We think it’s one of the best printed interviews with Kevin EVER, and most likely our favorite of 2009. In other words, don’t miss it. We’ll throw some choice clips ahead for ya here, but highly recommend you not miss the entire interview at AICN:
  “… I may not always get hired by studios and shit, but I can self-generate. I mean, that was one of the reasons I found it easy to kind of go forward with A COUPLE OF DICKS, because somebody said to me…It was a brilliant piece of advice. I was just, like, “I don’t know, man, direct somebody else’s script. That seems weird.” And, they were, like, “Well, Kevin, you can always make a Kevin Smith movie. You can’t not make a Kevin Smith movie. You can do that anytime you want. Why not go try make somebody else’s flick? See how that feels.” And, I was, like, “You’re right! I could go away for a thousand years and come back and write a Kevin Smith movie in my sleep. You know why? I’m fuckin’ Kevin Smith.” [Laughs] I have no choice, dude. That’s all I can do.

  So, it’s there. It’s always going to be there. I’m not connected to the material I used to write anymore. Not in the way where I’m like Leonard Nimoy, “I am not Spock” and shit like that. It’s just I can’t do it anymore. And, if I do it, it’s disingenuous, and you’re going to smell it. And, people have been smelling it for a few years. Look, my favorite work that I’ve done of everything thus far is CLERKS II. And, that turns a lot of people off, because they’re, like, “Well, clearly, he’s an idiot, if you think that.” But, that movie meant the most to me. And, that one was the bellwether. Watch that movie, and tell me that this didn’t predict the end, you know. It was just me sittin’ there, going, like, “These guys are growin’ up, guys. They don’t have much left for the world of fuckin’ ‘Who shot first? Greedo or fuckin’ Han Solo?’ because it’s just…they’re not in their 20s anymore.” So, it was kind of a way of slowly saying good-bye to that which gave me everything I have.”

  …

  “… RED STATE is a real mind-fuck, man. RED STATE is the flick that, if executed properly, the fuckers on Ain’t It Cool News talkbacks that don’t like me, would be, like, “FINALLY, he learned how to make a film.” You know, it’s just that fuckin’ obscure and not user-friendly. It’s a garage-band movie, man. And, like, they would be embraced by people who were, like, “I like the disturbing and inane kind of thing.” Goth kids are gonna totally dig it. Or, though, they probably won’t. I don’t even know if Goth kids will. I don’t know who’ll dig it, but there’s a small audience for it. But, that’s my favorite unproduced screenplay right now, by virtue of the fact that I didn’t write HIT SOMEBODY yet.”

Congrats to interviewer Capone and of course to Kevin for this fantastic piece of press. Make it a point to read both Part One and Part Two in full. We promise you, it’s one of the best you’ll ever read.

• Diamond distribution reports that shipment dates for “Batman: Widening Gyre” issue #4 have dropped back a little bit — The book’s now listed as arriving on January 6, 2010. Just a minor delay to cover all the holiday vacations and stuff, we’re sure. The book was originally due 2 days before Christmas. So, just a slightly longer wait, folks.
• Kevin tweets this fun clip of the German dub of “Die Hard”, where it looks like his character’s been renamed to “eBay”.
• Take a peek at Kevin touring the locker room of the Oilers last week. Ya see that? Write a hockey film, start being even more vocal about your love of the game, and cool stuff happens! We’re so jealous. Kudos to the NHL and Kevin for bringing the awesomeness of ice hockey to over 1.5 million twitter followers.
• Hope everyone’s enjoying a fun thanksgiving day with family, friends, or even just relaxing yourselves. Those of you workers heading out to the stores for Black Friday to serve the crazy customers, you are some of the true heroes of the working class. Good luck, and happy holidays to all from News Askew.

• Aint It Cool News’ “Legends” series, which usually profiles some of Hollywood’s most senior actors, takes a detour to honor Kevin with an extensive new interview with Kevin. Part 1 is available now, with Part two coming sometime later this week. This one’s really, really long, so we’re going to choose a few choices passages here, but of course highly recommend that you head on over to AICN to read Capone and Kevin’s detailed conversation. Having said that (any “Curb your Enthusiasm” fans here?), some highlights:

  “…That’s what weed taught me, too. I’d sit there going, Wait a second. All these things that people write on the Internet. And, again, they’re not all bad, but I used to gravitate towards it, because it’s, like, “Oh, what can I do to change this?” That’s the sad thing about that. You don’t pay attention to the people that actually like your stuff. You pay more attention to the ones who are trying to bring you down. You’re trying to win them over and shit. That’s just backwards and stupid.

  But now, it’s just, like, they can say what they want and, honestly, they don’t take a fuckin’ dime out of my pocket, or piece of food off my table. Just because somebody fuckin’ rips me a new one cleverly online about one of my flicks, I don’t get laid one iota less. I still get laid. You sit there going, Wow, in the last 15 years, out of that 15 years, if you concentrated the time that I spent online trying to correct misconceptions about me, or when people write wrong shit. I never went after people for not liking the movies. That’s subjective, can’t do nothin’ about that, but going around correcting shit. I must have-concentrated time: two years, dude, two years of doing that online. Two years of my life–gone! I’ll never get back. As I’m fuckin’ cruisin’ toward the grave, believe me, I’m gonna be, like, “You piece of shit? I wasted so much time on you. I want those seconds back!” And, that’s a lot of seconds, dude, ’cause I used to do it a lot.”

  …

  “… I love ZACK AND MIRI. I mean, I think it turned out well, but I look at ZACK AND MIRI, and I look at CHASING AMY, and I go, Okay, two movies cut from similar cloth. What’s the difference? One is made with the passion and brio of somebody who is desperate to get their message across, desperate to communicate desperate to say, “If I don’t make this film, I’m gonna die.” And, the other one was made by a guy who was, like, “Well, that’s the movie I chose to do that year.” And, it’s just not the same thing. I mean, ZACK AND MIRI happened very easily, very quickly. Seth [Rogen] read it. He loved it. The Weinsteins are, like, “Great. We got Seth Rogen. Let’s make it.” It came together. The shooting went well, no fighting, everything was copacetic. But, there’s just not same, like…you know, for CHASING AMY, people were sleeping on couches, dude. We were stacked five men to an apartment and shit like that. That world is gone. That world produces something that I can’t bring back to this world. I can’t replicate the type of films I did.”

  …

  “A COUPLE OF DICKS-nobody’s gonna believe I directed this movie, because it looks so average. And, when I say ‘average’, I mean that in a good way, like, it looks like everybody else’s movie now. Back in the days, you’d look at my flick and you’d be, like, “Oh, that’s by the motherfucker who made CLERKS. You can tell, because it looks so terrible. His camera won’t move.” A COUPLE OF DICKS, man, it looks like 48 HOURS. It looks like BEVERLY HILLS COP, LETHAL WEAPON. And, I know some people are, like, “Great, your movie looks like an ’80s movie.” But, hey, I’m on a slow curve. What the fuck do you want from me?

  You know, my film school has been in front of everybody. I’m not ashamed of that. I mean, I’ve been given this rarefied position, dude, where it’s, like, somebody handing me the golden ticket. Yeah, I made a fuckin’ indie flick like everybody else, and I was in the right place, right time, and Harvey Weinstein gave me a fuckin’ golden ticket, and forced me to become a personality by being, like, Get out there and talk about your fuckin’ movie, it ain’t got anybody else in it, so you become the front man. So, that forces you to become the front man. You’re out front and center, and here I am talking to you, talking to everybody about the flicks. And, you become something of a personality, and suddenly, you’ve got this amazing golden-ticket life, where you’re just like, “Wow, it keeps happening, over and over again. And, people like what we’ve done. And, some people fuckin’ can’t stand it, but some people absolutely dig it.” And, because of those people, you’re inspired to go on, and keep doing it, and shit like that.”

  …

  “…Like, you know, I did interviews in the beginning of my career, where I talked about, I think I have 10 movies in me. And, guess what, [HIT SOMEBODY]’s going to be Number Ten. So, I got to honor the superstition. Look, I’m not finding any fuckin’ money on RED STATE, because it’s so fuckin’ blatantly uncommercial and very, very marginal in terms of its subject matter. That money’s not forthcoming any time soon. And, so I concentrate on something where my heart actually is, so that there’s a fuckin’ chance, dude, a hope in hell that I can make something that has that fuckin’ fire and that passion in it that CLERKS had, that CHASING AMY had. I mean, it’s not…That didn’t come from desperation or not having the means. That just came from because I was so fuckin’ in love with the material, I was, like, I just gotta share this. If only people could see the world the way I see it, through this particular picture, man, they would get it. So, that’s where I am now, but I wouldn’t have gotten there back in the day, ’cause I was always the dude who was, like, “I write and direct my own stuff. I would never direct something that somebody else wrote or conceived or something like that.”

  We had trouble finding clips to pull, the whole thing is just so good, it was tough to pick favorites above. If you’re liking what you’re seeing, be sure to do yourself a favor and head over to Aint It Cool News for the full piece. We’ll let you know as soon as Part Two is up. This is one of the best sit-downs with Kevin of the year. Don’t miss it.

• While his schedule’s been a bit unpredictable, it seems that Kevin has been more twitter-heavy around weekends and Q&A gigs. With the weekend Edmonton gig closing out the 2009 appearances, and the busy holiday season on the way, it’s uncertain what the future holds — But we’re guessing that Kevin’s twitter account will be an excellent source of the latest breaking stores. As always, we’re doing our best to keep up here with the breaking stuff, but encourge you to join the over 1.5 million followers who get Kev’s words directly to their electronic text-based device of choice (heck, I think my bedside alarm clock even does twitter now). With the gigs over, we’re guessing it’s crunch time for “A Couple of Dicks” as far as the edit, and then the whatever may happen with promotion for the February release.

  Kevin’s twitter has also become a great source for finding last minute tickets to events (Kevin’s kind enough to retweet for some folks selling tickets), and also continues to reward NHL team followers with a chance to watch hockey games with the man himself. And, of course, he’s dropping science on what’s happening in the world of View Askew Productions. Here’s a look at some of the most newsworthy tweets from the weekend, along with our editorial commentary as needed:

  • Via @TaylorBetz “DICKS Trailer please” Saw first pass & dug it, but marketing wants to work on it more. Title, too, is still up in the air.
  • Dear WB Marketing: Since we’ve gotta lose it, replacement title for A COUPLE OF DICKS can be A COUPLE OF NEW MOON (aka NEW MOON for short).
  • Via @manichols717 “is there no plan for Mallrats on blu-ray?” There was a(n) HD DVD, so BD can’t be far. But Universal hasn’t called yet…
  • Kevin retweets this clippage of he and daughter Harley at the “New Moon” premiere which aired on “The Jay Leno Show”. You out of US’ers can see it via YouTube instead of that evil, US-only Hulu.
  • Zap2It’s video of the premiere is now online in a nice HD version as well. Watch Kevin and Harley run into the USA Today reported that ALMOST reviewed Kevin before Jen took the job!
  • And hey, speaking of “Twilight”, which has been a hot twitter topic lately, here’s Kevin’s original San Diego rant that started it all.

  For lots more, including Kevin’s latest thoughts on the “New Moon” phenom, and a lot of general chit chat with the fans, hit up the official twitter feed @ThatKevinSmith.

  By the way, got a title change suggestion for “A Couple of Dicks”? Kevin is offering up a sleepover night at his place if the WB uses yours. Send your suggestions to dicks@viewaskew.com (not to the twitter feed).

• Those of you in the Detroit area are sure to be headed to Kevin’s big show on Friday night, March 26th. Wanna get your tickets before anyone else, and secure some of the best seats in the house? Check out this exclusive presale which runs through tomorrow. You’ll need to know password “silentbob” to get into the site, then, order away. Tickets on the sale range from $59 to $75, and this presale gets you the choice seats in the house. Kevin plays to crowds large and small quite well, though we speak from experience — Being up close is pretty darn cool. If you’re hitting the show, don’t miss this presale, and secure yourself tickets before the rest of the world knows about it.

  But hurry, this presale is set to shut down sometime around noon tomorrow (Friday). Buy now!

• Inevitably, when a film test screens, reviews are going to leak out, and Kevin’s latest directorial effort, “A Couple of Cops”, is no exception. Before we get anywhere, let’s talk about that title — While it’s been basically confirmed that Warner Bros. had to abandon “A Couple of Dicks” as a title, due to no advertising running on network TV prior to 9 PM, the “A Couple of Cops” title is not at all finalized. In fact, if anyone who hits a screening sees any other title suggestions on their review cards, let us know — We’d love to hear what the studio thinks, in fact we’d even put an unofficial poll up here to ask your thoughts on other titles. We’re hoping there’s some other choices.

  Title aside, here’s the great news — The film seems to be testing through the roof. Normally, internet reviewers are pretty ruthless when they get a look at a film in the test process. For this one, the exciting tone we’re seeing is telling us that Kevin hit this one outta the park — “A Couple Of…” well, whatever…Should be cracking audiences up this February. Let’s take a look, first, at some clippage from the main review, which is likely getting a lot of looks at the popular Aint it Cool News website (as always, watch for the minor plot spoilers when you read this stuff) :

  “…the movie ROCKED. The scenes with Stifler in the back of the car with Bruce and Tracy are fucking golden. I am going to keep this spoiler free but will mention a couple things which will prove to be memorable. We have Tracy dressed in a cellphone outfit while he is undercover which leads to the stock buddy-cop scene with Tracy and Bruce being shat on by their superior in his office for ruining an ongoing investigation. As they hand over their badge and gun the scene went from being a retread of EVERY Lethal Weapon and Beverly Hills Cop movie to completely kick-ass due to the outlandishness of Tracy STILL IN HIS CELL-PHONE OUTFIT during the whole scene. Oh, and he ends up on youtube stealing a kids bike in yes, you guessed, the cell-phone outfit.”

  “…Kevin Smith has shown he can direct OPM (Other People’s Material) and still infuse his own wit. And he has nailed the tone and feel of the old-school cop movies we all grew up on.”

  That last part is probably a blurb that we find accurate enough to fit any movie poster, newspaper ad, or DVD cover art to come. Much love there. Here’s a peek at something from our own News Askew inboxes of another fan who really dug the show:

  “Was lucky enough to attend the test screening on the W.B. lot. Kev has really shown his directing chops, and this should prove without a doubt, that this fucker can direct action. Scenes that were in the movie that I know will be cut were filmed fantastically. I wish he had of gone through with The Green Hornet. But I think with the response of this film, “Hit Somebody” will come through in spades, and “Red State” will go off without a hitch now that funding is available.”

  Finally, a reviewer over at Empire Movies simply reports, “It ROCKED”.

  We sell ya yet? We know we’ll be there in line this February. It sure sounds like Kevin’s taken a funny script and kicked it up quite a few notches using his own keen comedic sensibilities and timing. We can’t wait.

• In a brand new interview, Kevin tells Techland why he’ll “Never Make a Superhero Movie”. Choice clippage ahead:

  “…We just did A Couple of Dicks here in the city all summer long, and there are more action sequences in it than anything I’ve ever done before. And those action sequences were like pulling f___ing teeth with me. You spend two days shooting storyboards and nobody is talking. That’s just not why I got into it.

  The big ambition for me right now is a hockey movie. That will be a real test of visual storytelling skills. I mean, on A Couple of Dicks I think me and my DP Dave Klein definitely notched it up. I don’t think anybody’s going to believe I directed the movie, because it looks slick and good. I want to take what we learned there and bring it into the hockey flick, and that will have a lot of action. When you go to a live hockey game, it’s f___ing crazy. It’s the best sport you’ve ever seen — it’s the best thing you’ve ever seen. It goes beyond sports at some point and becomes this beautiful, poetic ballet, where dudes in costumes are skating, but it’s not the Ice Capades, and they’re hitting each other, and there’s an aim and a goal … I want to try and represent what it’s like to be there, watching the game, and so far that hasn’t really come across on film. We’re going to try it.

  I think I’m ready for it. I’ve been doing this, I started in ’93, so like 16 years. You just get better at s___ the longer you do it, even if you start off being inept at it. You look at Clerks, that is inept filmmaking. That’s a guy that watched three Hal Hartley movies and four Jim Jarmusch movies and said I think I’m ready. I learned on the job.”

  Don’t miss the entire Q&A at Techland.

• Fun clippage of the day — Watch Kevin turn the tables on interviewer Elizabeth Snead at the “New Moon” premiere, when she drops some questions on he and daughter Harley. Story and clippage courtesty Zap2It.
• Count us among the sad and stunned when Jason Lee’s sitcom, “My Name is Earl”, didn’t get a renewal this year (inferior comedies have followed). The GOOD news is that, hot off the fantastic role he played in the show, Lee is now slated to return to television for TNT — A new hourlong called “Delta Blues”, where Lee will lead as Dwight Hendricks, a Memphis police officer who lives with his mother and moonlights as an Elvis impersonator. We’re there. Yahoo’s article also confirms that he recently wrapped a small role for “A Couple of Dicks” which we’re sure will be a scene stealer.
• Zack and Miri get a quick name check in a parody advertisement that appears in audio format during the NPR show “On the Media”. Click in and listen.
• Planet Out has a brief look at the just-released Bluray box set, keying in on “Chasing Amy”.
• Brian O’Halloran stars with Corey Feldman & Bronson Pinchot Star in the new comedy “Hooking Up” , due on DVD December 8th. Check out an R-Rated trailer courtesy of YouTube and learn more about the comedy at MTI Home Video.

• Bluray is here to stay, evidenced by View Askew’s full embrace of the format, with today’s 3-disc set, taking 3 View Askew classics and putting them in one neat package. You’ll get “Clerks”, “Chasing Amy”, and “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”, packed to the gills with never-before offered extras, including the festival-only “What a Lovely Tea Party” documentary (hidden on the “Clerks” disc despite its J&SBSB pedigree), and the crown jewel, a brand new “Chasing Amy” doc from Zak and Joey of Chop Shop Entertainment. We always feel these documentaries are worth the purchase price alone. This one could be the best yet.

  Our own review’s running a little late this time, due to a shipping mix-up with Buena Vista and our screener, but we’ll be sure to have our own look at this set ASAP. Taking all the new content at once, this may very well be the most new, never-before-available content in a View Askew disc release. In the meantime, surf over to DVD Talk, a fantastic site who have done an amazing job at summing up the collection in just a couple of pages. Here’s what they said about a few of the biggest extras:

  To that, one new feature of note has been added. In one of the most uproariously candid introductions in DVD history, Smith calls the Clerks Blu-ray a “vulgar cash grab,” but notes that they’ve “gotta keep wringing pennies out of this little black and white movie.” So, for what he calls the “15th Anniversary Give Us Your Money DVD,” he says he begged Miramax to let him add something new of value, in order to “take the sting out of having to buy Clerks for the 19th time.” (Although, he notes, “do you know how many times I’ve bought T2?”) What he added was “Oh, What a Lovely Tea Party: The Making of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” (3:18 intro, 1:27:17 feature), an intimate, fly-on-the-wall documentary directed by Smith’s wife, Jennifer Schwalbach, and his friend and fellow filmmaker Malcolm Ingram. It captures Kevin and the gang joking around on-set, supplemented by on-the-fly interviews with cast and crew (Affleck and Rock’s interviews are the highlights). It’s a tad overlong, and certainly feels homemade (Affleck’s interview is noticeably out of focus), but is a nice added treat for fans, even if it is, indeed, on the wrong disc.

  Chasing Amy was originally released on laserdisc and DVD by Criterion, and unfortunately, that disc’s first-rate, uproarious commentary track is property of that label (as are the intros to the deleted scenes and a few other scattered extras) and therefore doesn’t make the leap. However, Buena Vista has done the right by the movie and worked up some excellent new bonus material. First of all, Smith and Mosier provide a new, “SModcast”-style Audio Commentary; they dub it a “technical commentary track,” and while it has some interesting technical information, it is also, in the style of their podcast, a pretty free-form ramble (my favorite detour was their way off-topic discussion of the pedophilia episode of Diff’rent Strokes). It’s a funny track, though not quite the scream that the Affleck-infused Criterion commentary was.

  The treat of the disc, however, is “Tracing Amy: The Chasing Amy Doc” (1:21:15). Produced and directed by Zak Knutson and Joey Figueroa (who directed the similarly spiffy making-of docs for Clerks II and Zack and Miri, in addition to Smith’s most recent Evening With DVD), it is a well-constructed and compelling look at the making of the film, from their mindset coming out of the failure of Mallrats to the creation of the script (influenced by Mosier’s crush on Go Fish star Guin Turner, and Smith’s real-life relationship with Joey Lauren Adams) to the casting and budget woes, as well as Smith’s intensive rehearsals and Mosier’s stressful attempts to keep the film under budget. Most of the key players are interviewed-Smith, Mosier, Adams, Affleck, Lee (on the My Name is Earl set, in full Earl garb), Jason Mewes, cinematographer David Klein, associate producer Bob Hawk, Miramax acquisitions manager Mark Tusk, film critic (and Smith booster) Amy Taubin, and more-and wonderful vintage behind-the-scenes footage supplement the genuinely warm memories of the experience (check out Affleck’s sincere and heartfelt closing interview).

  We’ll be spinning up the discs this week — In the meantime, if you’ve got a Bluray player or are planning on nabbing one for the holidays, the Stash is now taking orders for SIGNED SETS, the only place you can find them that way. It’s the perfect gift item for you or the View Askew fan in your life. Kevin also suggested grabbing a Dogma Bluray for just $7.99 to help complete the set via Twitter today. For current or future Bluray owners, this purchase is a no-brainer.

• On Friday, March 12th, Kevin takes over Milwaukee at 8:00 PM — We’ve got your exclusive shot at getting the best seats in the house, before anyone else, with this exclusive presale link which, along with password “silentbob”, gets you to the goods. The Pabst looks like a pretty big theater, so this ensures you’ll be in the prime spots for what we’re betting is going to be a SOLD OUT SHOW. Buy now, and clear your calendar.

  Prices range from $39 to $59 , making the show more affordable than most sporting events and concerts. And at 3+ hours, you’re sure to get your money’s worth. Kevin has been hitting home runs all year at theaters around the world, so don’t miss this show.