• “Film Comment” magazine featured comments on Episode II from Kevin that we haven’t seen before:

• The Toronto Star recently ran an article to debunk all those crazy rumors going around about a supposed Affleck/Damon feud. We’ve got scans, but here’s what we thought you might want to read, in case you’re on a slow connection or a small screen:

The scans of the piece are above, best it could be done with the oversized paper.

• On Saturday, July 13th, there will be a Kevin Smith theme night at The Newark Cinema Center’s production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show preformed by the cast of Formal Dress Optional. Guests are encouraged to dress as a character from any of Kevin’s movies or comics. There will also be a special Kevin Smith preshow and trivia contests. The show starts at midnight on Saturday night and should let out around 2:30 AM. The Newark Cinema Center is located at 411 Newark Shopping Center in Newark, DE 1(302)737-3720. You must be 17 or older to attend and have a valid id with you. For more info, visit their site.

• This is the last we’re posting of these, as we’ve been swamped by ‘em, but above you’ll find some more View Askew counterparts that folks created using that South Park applet we posted a few days ago. See if you can match them up.

• The new issue of Request magazine, puts Jay & Silent Bob Strick Back in their “Top 5 DVDs that DON’T Deserve Special Editions” list. Those bastards! The other MUCH WORSE movies were Glitter, Newsies, Black Knight, and Rollerball. Now THOSE are some bad movies. But Jay & Bob? Come on.

• “Stan Lee’s Mutants, Monsters & Marvels” DVD is being released in the UK tomorrow this week…But check out what they did to the DVD cover! US version on the left, UK on the right. Don’t they think Kevin’s got any fans overseas?
• USA Today ran a blurb about Affleck and Daredevil late last week that we forgot to mention. Click the link to read it, they archive everything over there.

• Here’s something that a lot of you probably missed, but that every View Askew fan would certainly love to read! Since News Askew started up during the Chasing Amy days, we never had this article available in the archives, but we’re now happy to have it here and invite you all to check it out, page by page it its original form! Malcolm Ingram had a big part in this article which appeared in Film Threat to promote Mallrats. You’ll see lots of stuff with Kevin on filming the movie (including some classic stories rarely heard at the Q&As these days), the front and back covers of the issue (rarely seen), a Q&A with Shannen Doherty, and even the order form for the Mallrats trading cards. As you’ll see, they expected BIG things for the film! Be sure and check out every page and word, this is required reading. Enjoy!

• The Fourth Rail has broken a big scoop with an ADVANCED REVIEW of SPIDER-MAN/BLACK CAT: THE EVIL THAT MEN DO #1, among other upcoming Marvel releases. Catch ‘em at their site!
• Due to the intense bandwidth requirements, that Powerhouse Animation we ran with the Superhero Clerks spoof is temporarily offline at their site. However, we’re working to bring you a local copy right here very soon. So if you missed it, stay tuned.
• Add USA Today and Billboard Magazine to the list of papers that picked up the Jersey Girl story. Bigtime national exposure! Filming is scheduled to start on August 17th. UPN 9 news (WWOR New Jersey) also picked up the story on their broadcast last night.
• Another one for Ethan: Ethan Suplee has landed a role in New Line Cinema’s “The Butterfly Effect” for directors Eric Bress and J. Mackye Gruber. He’ll play Thumper, the friend and roommate to Ashton Kutcher’s character. Suplee…will segue from the project into Miramax/MGM’s “Cold Mountain.”
• The official site for Jason Lee’s new movie “A Guy Thing” is up — no trailer yet, though. Check it out HERE.

• Some folks are still having fun with that South Park applet, this guy made a Buddy Christ. Funny.
• Finally today, Cinescape confirms that Affleck is slated to appear in the next Jack Ryan flick, “Red Rabbit”:

• We’ve been 99% sure on both of these revelations, of course, but The Philadelphia Inquirer today CONFIRMS that Philly is indeed the shooting location for “Jersey Girl”, and Lopez, Affleck and Carlin are all attached to star:

For her new film, J. Lo to be in Philly
By Carrie Rickey

Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck will star in director Kevin Smith’s latest project, “Jersey Girl,” to be made here.

Here’s one reason Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez have been spotted together lately: They’re in preproduction.

Kevin Smith will film Jersey Girl, starring Affleck, Lopez and George Carlin, in Philadelphia for about 10 weeks beginning in mid-August, the director confirmed yesterday.

“I pushed to shoot in Philadelphia over Toronto because it’s in America, I liked the locations here, and because it’s a great production center,” said Smith, the Rabelais of Red Bank, N.J., by phone.

The Miramax film, budgeted at “upwards of $20 million,” will be the sixth feature from the writer-director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, and Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.

The ’90s-era dramatic comedy costars Affleck and Lopez as parents, and Carlin as Affleck’s dad. The title character of Jersey Girl – the closest thing to a family film the defiantly profane 31-year-old has made – is the couple’s preschool daughter, who has not yet been cast.

“I don’t think I could have written this except for my experience as a dad,” noted Smith, spouse of actress Jennifer Schwalbach Smith and father of Harley Quinn, 3. (Smith, a comics geek, named his daughter after the Batman archvillain.)

“Unless the MPAA gets weirdly stringent, this will be my first PG-13 film,” Smith said. “It’s not profanity-laced, it’s not even profanity-dotted, which is weird because it’s Affleck, Carlin and me – guys known for cursing their brains out.”

Affleck, whose breakout role was as the smitten cartoonist in Smith’s Chasing Amy and who now stars in The Sum of All Fears, recently wrapped Martin Brest’s comedy Gigli, costarring Lopez as a lesbian hitwoman. The project is scheduled for release next year.

“He really had a great time working with Lopez and pushed her big-time for Jersey Girl,” Smith says.

“Are they dating? Unequivocally, no,” said the director, responding to rumors that Lopez, 31, who recently separated from husband Cris Judd, may be keeping company with eligible bachelor Affleck, 29.

“We’ve been excited about the prospect of hosting Kevin Smith in Philadelphia since we heard about the project in March,” Sharon Pinkenson, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office, said yesterday.

With episodes of the CBS-TV drama Hack starring David Morse and Jersey Girl both in production here this summer, the film office is bucking the national trend of runaway productions going north where, because of the devalued Canadian dollar, budgets go further.

“We’re thrilled to be bringing millions of dollars and hundreds of jobs to the region,” she said.

Great news for us, as we’ll certainly be able to stop in to check out the set sometime during production, Philly’s a close drive from here. It’s a big story, and was also picked up (so far) by Yahoo (AP), Canoe, and the Boston Globe. Check out the full Philly Inquirer article HERE.

• In case you haven’t surfed over since our mention of the hint which appeared this past Monday, you might wanna give Movie Poop Shoot a look! You’ll notice that yes, Kevin is starting his very own Movie/TV/Comics information multimedia website. The site’s already gathering up some impressive talent, and looks to be at the forefront of the one-stop entertainment information websites. The official site will open soon, until then, check it out, and feel free to use the talkbacks to offer up your thoughts on this. We’ll of course be fully partnering with Movie Poop Shoot, however the new site doesn’t change anything about News Askew, we’ll still be located right here with all the latest.

• Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back will be part of the program on the Quart festival film program in Norway this summer, joining the ranks of such oher flicks at Men in Black 2 and British fave Ali G. It’s the largest festival in the area.
• The Unrealistic Expectations website now has “Sound Boards” (clickable audio clips) from Clerks, Mallrats, AND Chasing Amy. You can check out their sites HERE.
• You can find a new interview with Matt Damon at the Onion AV Club website. Damon’s been doing the circuit to promote The Bourne Identity.
• A funny clip from the BBC Radio One program we mentioned the other day that aired earlier this week — There was one Interview clip which had Kevin talking about what is appealing for comic book fans, i.e. not being part of the masses, he went on to say “What kind of movies are Rush Hour 2, Planet of the Apes and Legally Blonde? – They’re dogshit movies”. After this quote, they immediately cut away to an interview about Batman with none other than Tim Burton. Fun coincidence!
• IFC’s “Dinner for Five” episode featuring Joey Lauren Adams is re-airing this week. In it, she does talk a bit about Chasing Amy, being mistaken for Renee Zellweger, and more. Check your local listings, we do believe it should re-air again this Saturday at least.

• Matt Booker was kind enough to send us a few exclusive shots taken at the Comics 2002 con in the UK. Click above to check out shots of vet Askew comic artist Duncan Fegredo and the outside of the “This is Our Youth” show featuring Matt Damon & Casey Affleck. Damon’s run on the play recently ended but we’re hearing good things about it.
• Speaking of Damon, we got a report on a radio interview with him that was heard this morning, where some of his View Askew work was discussed:

• Variety reports today that Askew vet Ethan Suplee has joined the cast of COLD MOUNTAIN, which will be directed by Anthony Minghella (”The English Patient”). The film will also star Nicole Kidman, Renee Zellweger, Jude Law, Natalie Portman, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Giovanni Ribisi, Brendan Gleeson, Donald Sutherland, Jena Malone, Ray Winstone, James Gammon, and Charlie Hunnam. Quite a cast!
• Alanis Morisette has been nominated for 2 MMVAs (Much Music Video Awards) this year : Favourite Canadian Artist (Hands Clean) and the MuchMoreMusic Award (Hands Clean (version 1). The awards will be taking place (and airing) on June 16th.
• This sounds like a fun place to work — A training video for “Global Video” employees in England reportedly starts with the famous scene from Clerks with Randal and the “Ruse” woman asking questions about the two videos. After the scene is played out some annoying guy comes on, and states that employees should NOT act like that. Too bad!
• Finally, a happy birthday to Jason Mewes, who turns 28 today!

• This one takes the cake as one of the best web parodies for View Askew, let alone parodies in general, we’ve ever seen! What would happen if the Quick Stop and RST were run by the likes of Captain America and Daredevil? The hilarity ensures as this duo and a ton of your other favorite superheros appear in this flash animated tribute to Clerks the film and Clerks the cartoon. You’re gonna love this one! It’s well worth your download time. Check out the flick right now over at the Power House site!

• Original action figures from View Askew flicks are always cool — This fan’s converted a “Matilda” 12” doll, by 21st Century Toys, into “God” from Dogma. She admits that the likeness is a tad shaky, but she’s honing that skill! Hopefully we’ll see more from her soon. The clothes on the doll, by the way, were custom done as well.
• More View Askew film appearances have shown up in the last two Invisibles Games at the Filmwise website.
• A lot of you have been writing us about a country music song called “Chasing Amy”. Here’s some more info on that one:

• Clerks: The Cartoon vet Chris Bailey’s got a new series on The Disney Channel, called “Kim Possible”. Bailey’s got a great style (he of course created the perty logo you see at the top of this site) — If you’ve got the channel on your cable or satellite system, check your local listings!

• One fan took this fun little South Park shockwave application to build a South Park likeness of Jay & Silent Bob (see above). What can you create?
• At a recent concert (Y100’s FEZtival in Camden, NJ), one of the rappers from the Icelandic band “Quarashi” was wearing a Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back t-shirt during the show. Glad to hear the influence is spreading around the globe.

• Will Wilkins has finally posted his compilation of fan interviews as they waited in line at Dave’s for the recent Jay & Silent Bob DVD signing. You can check out the 24 minute piece as Will chats with fans waiting in the extremely long line at his Netheads website. Kevin even grants Will a nice interview at the end of the segment. Enjoy!
• In the new “Get Kraven” miniseries, the first few pages are about an independent filmmaker who’s working on a documentary but with a script, which they have rewritten by Kevin Smith. He has a big mention — it spans about four pages long, and we hear it’s a good one — The company’s corporate bigwig has a complete change of heart on the project when he heard that Kevin is attached. Check out the mini at your local comic shops.
• Speaking of documentaries, Radio One’s Lamacq Live has the following documentary running at 11pm in the UK tomorrow:

If you’re not in the UK, you can also listen online HERE, but don’t forget to do the time conversion!

• It seems another 6 Degrees of Kevin Smith game has popped up over at this forum. Seems you can use Affleck to link back to Kevin quite a bit.
• Mallrats started *for the first time* playing on the TQS network in Montreal. It’s the first TV debut of the French language version. Watch for some replays as the month goes on.
• IGN.com recently ran a review for the Vanilla Sky DVD, giving it a 7 out of a possible 10, but really praising Jason Lee’s performance. The reviewer must be a News Askew reader, because of this one paragraph: “The movie isn’t terrible, just a bit flawed. Performances are strong all around, and as usual Jason Lee shines in what is a pretty small role (he’d make a great Fletch). “

• Today’s big rumor: Kevin’s being courted to direct a Batman film. No word on how true this one is at all, but Cinecon and Batman-On-Film.com are both reporting that a rumor has started a rumor that Kevin himself might be courted by Warner Brothers to direct a Batman film (more than likely the “Year One” project that’s currently planned). This might have spread from the story over at AICN that claimed that the planned Batman: Year One director, Darren Aronofsky, and the Warners are in dispute over his current flick, “The Fountain”. In the past, Kevin has stated that he’s not into directing a superhero flick, but stranger things have certainly happened.

Kevin himself has responded to this and filled us in on a LOT of other stuff, we’ll save his post for a seperate story, just below. Read on…