Author Archive

Big “Boring-Ass” Updates!

March 28th @ 10:23 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

  • Kevin returns to the original blog with big new stories, and now seems to be doing some cross-posting with the MySpace blog. You should always check both locations in case he’s doing special news for one or the other, though the most recent update, “Me & My Shadow, Part 1”, dated March 28th, can only be read in full at the Boring-Ass site. Here’s a few snippets:
It was in this fashion that I sort of reluctantly inherited Mewes. And while I had volumes in common with Bry and Walt, on the surface, Mewes and I were about as different as could possibly be. Without Bry and Walt around, I bristled at his what-if scenarios. I’d spend double or triple time in a conversation with the kid, as I’d have to define over 50% of the words I used for him. And all the while, I remained resistant to his charms.

Until that day at the Rec Center.

Walt and I had just come back from our weekly new comics run, and were quietly sitting in the Rec library, bagging and boarding our books. The kids hadn’t gotten out of school yet, so it was deaf-child silent in the building, save the metal rantings of King Diamond emanating on low volume from a nearby boom-box. Then, suddenly, the stillness was shattered, as a sent-home-from-school-early Mewes kicked the Rec door open, marched into the building Groucho Marx style, and proceeded to fellate everything somewhat phallic in the room.

Walt and I watched with wonder as Mewes grabbed a pool cue and pretended to suck it off. Losing interest, he ran up to the phone on the front desk, grabbed the receiver from the cradle, and pretended to suck that off. He grabbed the flag pole and did the same. He grabbed a whiffle ball bat and did the same. This went on for twenty minutes, with seemingly no regard for our presence whatsoever. He never looked at us as if to say “Are you seeing this shit?” He never looked at us at all. He didn’t seem to care that we were even there. This wasn’t a show for our benefit. It was as if he’d been walking around Highlands moments earlier, took a gander at his watch, and was like “Wow – it’s two o’clock. I’d better get down to the Rec and suck everything off.” The kid had an agenda, and he was actively fulfilling it.

It was when he finally reached the Rec’s only video game – a standard “Asteroids” kiosk that time had forgotten – that he finally paused. Studying it momentarily and finding nothing dick-like to pretend to suck off, he seemed stymied. There was no joystick to give him purchase; just a roller ball and a fire button. Walt and I watched with great curiosity, waiting to see how he’d overcome this unforeseen obstacle.

After what felt like five minutes, Mewes shrugged, bent down to the game controls, and started working the roller ball like it was a clit – his tongue darting in and out of his mouth, lapping at the orb as he spun it with his finger.

That’s when I finally caved and fell completely in love with Jason Mewes. I thought “This kid’s a comic genius. And if nothing else, he knows how to suck a dick. So if I ever get really bored hanging out with him, at least there’s always that to fall back on.”

Read the full post, and more new news, at Kevin’s “My Boring-Ass Life” blog. Written and blogged online by the man himself, in words and pictures.

View Askew NewsBites™

March 28th @ 10:22 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Alonso Duralde, Robert Rigdon, Buck C

  • The generous Ben Affleck has kindly donated a custom-made motorcycle to an online charity auction to benefit a planned memorial in Washington for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
  • Poker champ Phil Hellmuth details a tourny he entered that also sat our own Kevin Smith and Askew vet Shannon Elizabeth. Perhaps one day we’ll see more details of Kevin’s poker experiences over in the “Boring-Ass Life” blog? We’re still waiting for that special “View Askew” edition of Celebrity Poker Showdown!
  • The documentary on that most famous of four-letter words has gotten distribution from a company called THINKFilm. Kevin appears in the feature:
THINKFilm has acquired worldwide rights to Steve Anderson’s “FUCK,” the doc about the four-letter expletive that debuted last year at the AFI FEST and screened last week at SXSW. The film features interviews with Pat Boone, Drew Carey, Billy Connolly, Sam Donaldson, Janeane Garofolo, Ice-T, Ron Jeremy, Bill Maher, Michael Medved, Alanis Morrisette, Kevin Smith and the late Hunter S. Thompson, all talking about the word. ThinkFilm will release the movie later this year, and TV partner Showtime will air the movie in 2007.

Thanks to indieWIRE.

  • In 1991, Jason Lee along with director Spike Jonze and the rest of the Blind Skateboards team came together to make on of the most legendary skate videos of all time: Video Days. Only recently has that classic film been rereleased to the puplic in the form of a two-DVD set, which is out now.

The Latest From Kevin…

March 26th @ 7:15 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

  • Many of you wrote us in regards to an article that appeared on gossip website “The Superficial” regarding a story Kevin told at one of last week’s Q&As. As you know, Kevin lets loose at Q&As with honesty and revealing stories, but stories that are most appreciated as a whole, not as a 3 sentence press newsbite. Kevin responded to the story at the Myspace blog, so we’ll let him take it from here:
Mewes, Nicole Richie, and me and my big mouth

At the UPenn gig the other night, I told a fifteen minute story that detailed Jason Mewes’ amazing journey from severe heroin abuse to sobriety, giving the man props for coming up on his third anniversary of being completely clean (April 6th) – a stellar accomplishment that should serve as inspiration for anyone looking to kick any monkey of their back. It’s an anecdote filled with tons of love and pride for my boy, which culminates with a convesation Mewes and I had two and a half years ago about what he noticed the big differences were between life on drugs and now off.

And in the age of internet gossip, that heroic tale of a guy who was able to beat his demons has been reduced to this…

Kevin Smith tells really filthy secrets

It’s not like I haven’t told this story at other college gigs over the last few years, but for some reason, it’s now news. I got an email from someone at the NY Daily News regarding not just this bit, but another story that came from a question that night regarding my enmity for Reese Witherspoon (which is pretty well-covered in the book “Silent Bob Speaks”) that they want to run on Monday. This was my response…

“It’s one thing to tell that tale out of school at a college Q&A (in the context of a far larger, longer story about Mewes’ hard journey from heroin abuse to three-years of total sobriety), and a completely different thing to just pull the stuff about bathroom sex and run it in a gossip column. So unless you’re gonna run the whole, unedited transcript of me talking about how amazing it was for Mewes to get clean (a fifteen minute oral story), I’d rather you not include just that bathroom sex snippet, which makes it all seem like unsavory locker-room chit-chat.”

Naturally, I’m not expecting they’ll keep the context. Sadly, it’s not news that Jay – with nearly both feet in the grave at the lowest point in his life – was able single-handedly pull himself out of the self-made Hell of drug addiction and work his way back to the land of the living, clean and sober; what’s news is that he had sex in a bathroom stall with one half of the “Simple Life” dorks.

*sigh*

There’s lots more good stuff from Kevin in his recent blog posts — Visit the page for details on the Clerks 2 trailer (changed to a more official-looking trailer, and running before every print of Scary Movie 4 in April), new pics of Harley, Jen, and friends, and his thoughts on last week’s Q&As. Don’t miss it.

Clerks 2 Trailers: An Update!

March 26th @ 7:15 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

  • Seems we’ll see a very polished trailer attached to Scary Movie 4 prints next month, but Kevin promises some more down-home style trailers for us internet folk. Here’s the update:
The “Clerks II” teaser I showed at WizardWorld L.A.? That version’s no longer going at the head of “Scary Movie 4”. Weinstein Co. tested another teaser that test much higher, so that’s the one you’ll see on April 14th. I’m torn, because it’s a little too “trailer-y” for my tastes, but since it’s going at the head of a mainstream flick, I guess that makes the most sense. Meanwhile, we’ll keep doing teaser and trailers that’re more my speed over at the “Clerks II” website.

I watched the final version of the “Clerks II” trailer last night – the one that’s going up in front of “Scary Movie 4”. And while it’s a little main-streamy for my tastes, it’s makes sense for the placement: “SM4” will have a killer opening weekend, so that’s a lot of eyes on April 14th, the lion’s share of whom have never heard of our flick yet. Weinstein Co.’s theory is give the mainstream audience a mainstream version of the trailer. Meanwhile, over at the “Clerks II” website, I’ll throw up a trailer that’s more in line with the way I’d personally sell the flick (i.e. – under-sell) to run April 14th. This way Harvey and Bob are happy and I’m happy.

View Askew NewsBites™

March 26th @ 7:15 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Chuck Gould, Rich Drees, Kevin, Alonso Duralde, Just McGill

  • Two documentaries that feature Kevin Smith interviews will be screening at the Philadelphia Film Festival which starts on March 30. There first film is THIS FILM IS NOT RATED, which takes a look at the screwed system that’s used to rate movies in this country and screens March 31 at 7:30pm, April 3 at 5 pm and April 6 at 7:15.

The second doc is called simply FUCK and is about America’s relationship with the mother of all curse words. DOGMA veterans Alanis Morissette and Janeane Garofalo are also interviewed along with the likes of Drew Carey and Pat Boone. It screens on April 4 at 9:45 pm and April 7 at 10 pm.

More info can be found at the Philadelphia Film Festival website

  • Kevin attended a New Jersey Devils hockey game over the weekend, where a video was shown, filmed by Kevin, congratulating Ken Daneyko on the retiring of his #3 jersey. If anyone’s got a copy we can post, drop us a line. We hear it was funny but hard to hear over the crowd.
  • Kevin is briefly cited in this Australian Age piece on “25 Must-See Films”:
This raised in my tiny mind the spectre of something director Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, etc) once said. It was OK that he hadn’t seen the films of the great European masters, he believed, because the directors he admired had, and that was close enough.
  • According to Davis DVD, “Making a repeat appearance on The Opie & Anthony Show (XM Satellite Radio 202), comedian/actor actor Judah Friedlander gave an update on the status of Feast, the horror movie whose production was notoriously documented on the “Project Greenlight 3” series. The film will finally see release this October in limited midnight screenings, followed by a DVD release by The Weinstein Co. and Genius Products. “Feast” — directed by John Gulager and starring Navi Rawat, Krista Allen, Balthazar Getty and Jason Mewes — was one of a handful of films that Harvey and Bob Weinstein took with them to their new company after their split from The Walt Disney Company in early 2005.” In the bloodfest a group of strangers gather in a bar where they’re attacked and systematically killed by monsters.

We’re looking forward to seeing this one. You may recall, Kevin screened an early version of the film on the series.

  • The View Askew Pixel Pound, the #1 spot on the web to store pics from your View Askew events, has expanded with a new Forum, a WikiPedia page, and a MySpace site. Be sure and check them out!
  • In case you haven’t checked it out yet — Here’s that clip of the spanish Jay & Silent Bob. Fun stuff.
  • And while you’re watching videos over there, you just gotta love this one. With all the “Jaws” references that Kevin’s made in his films, we’re sure that he, and the rest of you, will appreciate “Must Love Jaws”. See ya next time!

A “Wonderful” Clerks 2 Slideshow!

March 23rd @ 9:40 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Mike Klimek


“The Wonderful World Of Clerks II”
  • Zak and Joey have assembled another brilliant slideshow of Clerks 2 images, to another brilliant, classic tune. Dare we say this is the best batch of shots from the film YET? No credit’s given for the stills, though we wouldn’t be surprised if some of them come from the skillful camera of Scott Mosier. Watch all the cast and crew (including some of those cameos) in brilliantly captured moments expressing just what a “Wonderful World” the set of Clerks 2 really was. Enjoy this batch, courtesy of the Clerks 2 website.

Who “Knowles” What Kevin’s New Role Is?

March 23rd @ 7:51 am | No Comments » | Scooped by ElDiabloSuizo, Nathan Aichinger, ChrisM, Patrick Weber, PeaJay18, Pete McNally, Stephen Humphrey, Rich Drees

  • There’s a feature film called “Fanboys” being made, in which a character will play Harry Knowles, the famous internet movie scooper who breaks BIG movie news on a daily basis over at his famous website, “Aint It Cool News”, one of the first of its kind.

As far as we knew, that role was going to LOST’s Jorge Garcia. “>now report that he’s had to back out of the role due to some bad weather in Hawaii, so our own KEVIN SMITH will be stepping into the part! Here’s the full story from Harry:


Artist’s Rendition
God Keeps Jorge Garcia From Playing Harry Knowles in FANBOYS! Only Alanis Knows Who Will Play Harry Next!

Hey folks, Harry here with further coverage of the casting of the century! Throughout the decades people have often wondered who on earth could play Harry Knowles. Fatty Arbuckle, Oliver Hardy, Lou Costello, Lionel Barrymore, Charles Laughton, Sidney Greenstreet, Ned Beatty, Marlon Brando, John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy, Michelin Man, Pop-n-Fresh Dough Boy, etc…

This was always just a hypothetical. When I’ve been asked, I’ve always said, Eric Stoltz in a fat suit. If only due to my eerie resemblance to that kid from MASK. You know, Cher’s kid. Anyways, when a feature film called FANBOYS featuring a character named Harry Knowles (based on me) was being made, this question became a harsh reality. For a while, they considered employing WETA and the folks behind the creation of Cave Trolls… to just put like long red hair and a beard on em… with a Hawaiian shirt. But this was a small production, they couldn’t afford that sort of fx… and frankly WETA’s animators went on strike saying they’d rather be unemployed than bring me to life.

After that, they cast Jorge Garcia… Hurley from LOST. He was cast. He was signed. But unfortunately for the production – GOD decided to hurl (giggle) the biggest set of storms to hit Hawaii in quite some while, has made it to where Jorge has had to pull out at the last minute. The producers of FANBOYS were in a panic… when suddenly… a hero came from out of nowhere. A man with the mass and tiny prick to pull it off. KEVIN SMITH.

That’s right, KEVIN SMITH has agreed to become HARRY KNOWLES in FANBOYS. LOL. I’m now officially scared to death and giddy as hell. Word has it that the producers, writers and director have given Kevin complete free reign to create “Harry Knowles” – Can you imagine Kevin in the red hair and beard… the prosthetics… fuck casting THE BLOB, the fat character of the century has found its actor. I am dying to see this.

And wait till you see who plays my spy.

More news on this breaking story as we can dig it up!

East Coast Mini-Tour Commences!

March 22nd @ 8:25 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

  • Kevin’s back in the motherland area this week, for a couple appearances followed by a stop in the Red Bank Secret Stash on Friday (not an official appearance there, so we’re guessing it will be a catch-as-you-can affair).

Tonight, he’s wowing the students at the University of Pennsylvania. This was a student-only lottery event, so we’re hoping some lucky readers were able to make it in. If you were there, let us know!

Tomorrow, there’s The College of New Jersey, in Packer Hall at 8 PM. Tickets are $10 and remain on sale at the Student Center Box Office. Two tickets per TCNJ ID, only (so not open to the public, unless you make some friends fast!).

Don’t forget to catch Kevin LIVE when you can for your chance to hear the latest and greatest stories, jokes, and, perhaps coolest of all, possibly sneak a peek at Clerks II footage before the rest of the world! Speaking of which, might we remind you that Vulgarthon Day TWO tickets…just a handful…are left? BUY NOW BEFORE THEY ARE HISTORY!

MySpace Invasion Continues…

March 22nd @ 8:24 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris

  • Kevin’s discovered the joy of the MySpace community, and is continuing to reward the members of his ever-growing friends list with fun, EXCLUSIVE blog entries. He’s got a hilarious clip out there that we’ve never seen before featuring a SPANISH JAY & SILENT BOB as well as a promise to post an EXCLUSIVE clip for MySpace members only if the Clerks II friendship Army reaches 10,000. So if you haven’t joined yet, what’s stopping ya?

You can find a slew of Clerks 2 accounts out there too, most of which you’ll see on Kev’s friends homepage. Add and read them for some never before seen details on the characters in the film, perhaps even a plot clue or two!

We’d also like to give a big thanks to Karla for pointing out the following other Askewish celebs who have accounts out there: Jason Mewes, Amy Noble, Andy Milonakis, and Brian Lynch. And don’t forget, News Askew is represented, too!

The Red Bank Film Festival Returns!

March 22nd @ 8:24 pm | No Comments » | Scooped by Marc Leckstein

  • Red Bank continues to encourage new filmmakers to present their work in their Annual Red Bank International Film Festival — The festival itself takes place this October, but they’re now soliciting for entries, at a very reasonable price. Got a short or a flick you want to break out and show in the town where View Askew began? Get filming (or submit what you’ve already got), as the deadline is May 15th! Here’s full details and some linkage:
The Freedom Film Society presents:

The Sixth Annual Red Bank International Film Festival
Red Bank, New Jersey
October 13-15, 2006

CALL FOR ENTRIES: FILM/ VIDEO/ DIGITAL – NARRATIVE/DOCUMENTARY/ANIMATION/ EXPERIMENTAL

$25 Shorts / $45 Features

Go to http://www.rbiff.org/submit.php for submission form and guidelines

Early deadline: May 15, Late deadline: June 1

Good luck!