• Happy Belated birthday wishes to the lovely and charming Jennifer Smith, from News Askew and via this touching post from Kevin.
• For those viewers who have yet to see Lexicon of Love (I & II), The-N.com is offering Degrassi On Demand, allowing you to watch the episodes online. Simply use the free On Demand player and enjoy!
• The new episode of HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” features Ben Affleck, and it’s been a while since we’ve seen the guy. They mention he starts his behind the camera duties next month for “Gone, Baby Gone”. The shows airs almost nightly between HBO and HBO2. Check your listings.
• From one of those “movie a day” desk calendars, their “Sunday List” featured the category “Shopping Frenzy” and this flatterng Mallrats write-up:

• Tickets for the Newport Beach Film Festival showing of “Drop Dead Sexy” (starring Jason Lee) are now on sale. The film will show at 5 PM on April 22. Here’s a capsule description:

An in an interesting “coincidence”, Jason’s “Almost Famous” co-star, appears in the movie Amateurs which is showing after Drop Dead Sexy. 7pm and 7:30pm shows.

• 411mania is a pulp-culture news site that regularly hosts a weekly ‘Fact or Fiction’ article which provides statements and its writers have to explain their position as to why the statement is ‘fact’ or ‘fiction’. This week, a Clerks II statement was brought up:

You can read the full article HERE.

• MGM recently listed Clerks II in a March press release regarding their upcoming releases, sparking quite a bit of debate considering the fact that we’d assumed it’s have The Weinstein Company banner in front — Especially given the fact that we’re wondering if MGM would even be willing to fly with the unrated release. We were WAITING to see what the controversy would be with this one! Could this be it!?!?! Kevin’s got more:

Clerks II – Distributed By MGM???

• Kevin’s continuing to pump out what has to be one of the most compelling online blogs EVER, the story of his relationship with Jason Mewes, FREE of charge via his Myspace blog and “Boring-Ass Life” site. If you’re not reading, get started, as all parts are available, and each section grows more compelling, heartbreaking, and enlightening than the last. A true tale of additiction, redemption, and true friendship, this is some fantastic storytelling from one of the best writers in the business today. Do NOT miss “Me and My Shadow”, now playing at Kevin Smith’s blogs. ONLY online.

• We’d like to congratulate John (The Kiwi) and his pals over at the View Askew Board on doing the legwork to determine exactly which fast food chain letters made up that distinctive new “Clerks II” logo. It took around 24 hours, but here’s the final list:

C from Carls Jr, L from McDonalds Large Fries, E from Burger King’s Whopper, R from Burger King, K from KFC and S from Popeyes.

The logo you see above was made by John himself, from the letters from the actual company logos (not a copy!). Nice detective work, all.

• Kevin chats with “Atlantic City Weekly” for a new interview promoting his upcoming April 10th Q&A at Stockton. Here’s a highlight:

• There’s a nice grade and writeup for Kevin and Jay’s upcoming Degrassi conclusion, “Lexicon of Love I/II”, in Entertainment Weekly from this week (Howard Stern’s on the cover). Those of us in the U.S. get the episodes first tonight at 8 PM EST on “The N”.
• Those of you intrigued by the concept since the Dante & Randal short might find “The History of the Flying Car” at AOL Autos a fun read.
• Here’s an interesting one from the UK: The flick “Southland Tales” (in which Kevin appears in a small role) has been given a release date of September 15, 2006. No UK date for Clerks II has yet been announced. As for a US release of “Tales”, same deal — No date, though it likely will be September 15th or before, given this news.

• Everyone’s favorite “Buddy” appears in the new Wizard (#175). See that scan? There ya go.
• Congrats to former MoviePoopShoot.com editor Chris Ryall on being nominated for a 2006 Eisner Award (Best Short Story).
• Finally today, a reminder that there’s a big party happening to kick off the Red Bank Vulgarthon next month. If they get 100 paid attendees by April 15th, one board member will donate $100 directly to RAINN and another will donate $50 directly to RAINN. Learn about the new challenge to fill up registrations HERE. If you want more info on the party itself, check it HERE. We remind you this is not a View Askew-run event, but sounds like a fine time all the same, and a great way to meet some fans before you hafta pick your seats the next day!

• If things seem to be loading a bit slow here, we’re suffering just some slight lag from all of you enjoying the Clerks 2 Trailer, now available everywhere! We can’t even stop playing and replaying this one, and it’s truly amazing how many scenes of the film that get touched on here. Remember, this one’s been edited together special for you, the fans on the internet, and will play much differently than the more mainstream version that appears later this month with Scary Movie 4. Consider it a bonus trailer! Kevin also checked in with a brief post to share more kudos:

Haven’t seen the trailer yet? Get moving to the Clerks 2 site! Or hey, go watch it again, and SPREAD THE WORD!

• Respected UK publication Empire Magazine recently named their top 50 Independent Films of all time. “Clerks” had the distinction of being high up in the list among great company, and took the #4 spot! You can view the write-up HERE or start with the bottom of the list at THIS page. Here’s what they had to say about the film:

Congratulations to the View Askew gang for the kudos among some very nice competition!

• Our favorite photo-guy Albert Ortega again hooks us up with his beautiful, detailed, high resolution shots, this time, from Kevin’s recent WizardWorld appearance in Los Angeles. Check out this batch above by clicking the thumbnails, where you’ll find new, exclusive shots of Kevin’s Q&A, the View Askew booth, Jason Mewes, and more. As always, we thank Albert and his wife Maya for sharing this stuff with us, allowing us to pass them on to you. You can find Maya’s photos from the event online as well.

• Unfortunately, it seems Kevin has had to unexpectedly drop out of playing the Harry Knowles role in “Fanboys”, due to a last minute scheduling conflict.
• A new, editorial-style article on “My Name Is Earl” appears over at Philly.com today. Here’s a new quote from Lee:

Amen sir. And may the show run another 10 years!

• More info on the kudos to Kevin in indie flick “For Catherine” – Kevin’s also mentioned twice in the commentary track, with the director at one point saying, “I think I was channeling Kevin Smith when I wrote this.”

• Here it is, in all its glory! Plenty of mirror sites so things are working nice and fast. Click any of the stills above to watch the full trailer!

Some great gags here, but the beauty is that the way it’s cut together, none of the gags are ruined for you, and there’s NO plot giveaways here, either. Truly an excellent trailer, and one you can watch safely without ruining anything about this excellent flick. Get watching!