• This article, from US Magazine, gives Dogma some great words, and, though it speculates on Alanis‘s role in the film, keep in mind the mystery will NOT be revealed here or by Kevin until the film is released…So be patient!

GOOD GOD!

Pop diva Alanis Morissette plays the Big Guy in the Sky in the upcoming film ‘Dogma’

It seems that Alanis Morisette has one hand in the music business and another one waving “Hi” to Hollywood. The 24-year-old singer, whose long-awaited new album, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie, is slated to be released Nov. 3, is also appearing in a movie – the already controversial Dogma, starring Matt Damon and Ben Affleck and directed by Kevin Smith. Given the nearly miraculous sales (28 million copies worldwide) of the pop diva’s previous album, 1995’s Jagged Little Pill, Morissette’s role may be appropriate: Early reports on the film had her playing God.Through Smith, who also wrote and directed Clerks and Chasing Amy, is refusing to discuss plot details, he will divulge that Morissette’s role amounts to “an extended cameo” in the film, which reportedly features Affleck and Damon as less-than-angelic angels and Chris Rock as the 13thApostle, Rufus. In one early interview, Affleck said that the film center son a young female abortion-clinic worker (Linda Fiorentino) who is a descendant of Jesus. (Predictably, the Catholic League has been trying to have a talk with the film’s distributor, Miramax, and Miramax’s parent company, Disney.) At press time, Morissette was in the studio putting the finishing touches on her new album with Jagged Little Pill collaborator Glen Ballard and wasn’t giving interviews about the film.

Whatever Morisette’s part in Dogma, Smith, 28, says the singer has a”genius” for it and that “it’s almost typecasting.” Nonetheless, he had to persuade her to make the film. “I thought she had such a great presence in the video for ‘Head Over Feet,’ where it’s just her singing into the camera,” he says. “I just knew that she could act. I kept bugging hereabout doing something, and eventually she caved, thank God.” (Punintended?)

As for Morissette’s future as an actress, Smith says, “Sooner or later,she’s gonna do a pretty beefy part. I feel about her like I feel about Affleck: It doesn’t matter what the part is – they can fill it.” But Morissette should be careful if she’s shopping around for a vehicle. Madonna, after all, was great as a supporting actress in A League of Their Own, but when she starred in Shanghai Surprise, Who’s That Girl? and Body of Evidence, audiences found her to be a jagged little pill.

By Tom Conroy

(Click The Thumbnails For Larger Versions)

• We’re very pleased to have some more pics directly from the set of Dogma for your viewing pleasure today! These are News Askew exclusives, folks, at least until others manage to spread them around. Up above, you’ll see the thumbails: The first pic is blurred due to it being a shot of an actor (one of the Stygian Triplets, to be exact) in makeup, so clicking it may be a slight spoiler for some of you. The next two were taken outside of the church in Pittsburgh. One’s a far off shot, the other a closer one, of a body (dead, we assume) on a roadblock sign. Finally, we’ve got a pic of 2 FX fellas, Vincent Guastini, who’s handling Dogma’s FX (as well as working on the upcoming vampire flick “Friday Night” and the “NOTLD : Special Edition”), and Tom Savini.

Again, we’re proud to bring you the first shots from Dogma’s production! Sorry they don’t expand too largely, but that’s the size we received them in. Remember where you saw them first!

• This is pretty neat…What we’ve got here, courtesy of FX God Tom Savini’s website (http://www.savini.com), are what we believe to be the first pics unveiled from the set of Dogma. Nothing revealed about the flick at all, really, but apparently the guy had some snapshots taken while paying the gang a visit. The first features the gorgeous (and a deceptively tall-looking) Salma Hayek…Look close and you’ll see she’s on a crate, folks, though Tom’s a pretty short fella as well…And second, a pic of Tom’s daughter with a couple more familiar faces that need no introduction.

And remember, Kevin took a TON of digital photos of the entire production, that will surely make an amazing gallery over at the View Askew website as the film draws closer to release. We can’t wait to see ’em.

• Kevin popped onto the board after 6 AM this morning with this great tidbit of news:

Wow. 3:20! It’s a shame the sucker can’t just run the full length. From what we know, there ARE scenes that can probably be cut without hurting the story too much, but finding an entire 50 minutes’ worth of them is going to be quite a chore. Good luck, fellas!

• Just to clarify, since it seems our December 1999 release date announcement has started to make its way around the net, the date came only from the statement made that Dogma may see a “Christmas 1999 release”. Sources now point to the fact that Kevin has been speculating October 1999 as the actual date, which makes more sense, considering Miramax did the same thing with “Pulp Fiction” after it hit Cannes and took the prize. It’s a long wait, we realize, but there’s always plenty of other Askew happenings to keep us occupied and, before we know it, we’ll be sitting at the local cineplex taking in all of Dogma’s splendor. Of course, we’ll stay on top of the story and report any info we have on possible release dates, with the latest always at Dogma: Rumor Control!

(Click The Thumbnails For Larger Versions)

• Twilight Man has found these two original drawings on the Fred Perry Fan Club site. Who is Fred Perry? You already have seen his work, Fred is the creator of Gold Digger, the character featured on the T-shirt that Jason Lee wore in “Chasing Amy” when he asked Ben, “The chick?”. The sketches are from a contributer to that site “BADVIBESAROONIE”. He lives in Pittsburgh, and only a few blocks from where “Dogma” is being filmed. He also got Jason Mewes and Chris Rock to autograph one and Salma Hayek to sign the other.

(Click To See A Larger Version Of Our Paycheck!)

• Well, a pleasant surprise arrived in our mailbox today…Our “Bearclaw” checks! Yep, a whopping $52 and change (after taxes, of course) for a day’s work…If you can call it that. If you missed it, be sure to check out our Bearclaw Diary to hear all about what we went through to earn the cash. Hell, we would’ve did it for free, but an extra $52 will put some extra DVDs on the shelf or beers in the fridge. We’re not complaining!

• As promised, and courtesy of our helpful scoopers, we’ve got the Variety ad that’s been the subject of much discussion lately. On the left, you’ll find the full page ad, and on the right, just the portion relevant to ‘Dogma’. Click the thumbnails to get a better look.

• We’re proud to announce that our new (and, as far as we know, the ONLY) Dogma-dedicated site is now up and running! We call it Dogma: Rumor Control. Stop over and check out the latest cast list (with pics), a link to the script (don’t read it unless you want to ruin the movie!), a plot summary, and, of course, all the latest rumors about the flick. We plan to keep the site running with everything Dogma all the way through the filming process and, ultimately, its release. After that, the Dogma link you see in the main toolbar will be changed from the rumor site to the new Dogma drinking game, but we’ve got a ways to go before that. Until then, be among the first to visit our latest spinoff site!

• Well, it was only a matter of time before Drew’s Script-O-Rama got a hold of the Dogma Script. Folks who have read it say that it’s genuine and VERY funny, but we refuse to take a look at it until after seeing the flick and recommend that you do the same. However, we decided this IS newsworthy (not to mention you’d probably have found it without us, anyway), so here’s the link to it. Please don’t spoil anything for us, we wanna go in knowing as little as possible when the movie is released next year (we hope!).

Thanks to VioLenT BoB, Justin McGill, and Joel Spurny for making sure that we knew about the script. Truth is, we DID see it go up right away, but were just too tired to update the site with the link. Better late that never though, right?

Wanna know what Kevin thinks about the whole thing?

Makes a LOT of sense to me.