• The venerable DVD Review website DVD Talk has GREAT things to say about the upcoming DVD for “Small Town, Gay Bar”. Some interesting tidbits from their review:
  Co-financed by Kevin Smith, “Small Town Gay Bar” arrives on DVD with a full “View Askew” assortment of extras, giving the viewer a basic understanding of how this meager indie documentary came to be.

  Shot with an accomplished visual palette (by Jonathon Cliff), using both stark and affectionate film and HD sources, “Gay Bar” induces a strong feeling of location and welcoming personality, which Ingram uses as clay to create this lovely snapshot of people gathering to celebrate themselves and an infrequent feeling of freedom. It’s an accomplished documentary, thankfully showcasing Ingram’s growth as a filmmaker, and provides a hopeful encapsulation of muted struggle inside a larger, overwhelming portrait of intolerance.

• The DVD for the hilarious “Hot Fuzz” hit stores yesterday, and is of course loaded with special features. One of them happens to be a 30 minute piece featuring the boys’ trip to America when promoting the film — In the last 2 minutes, you’ll catch a brief clip of the Q&A that Kevin hosted in New York, as well as a brief clip of him talking to the guys. “Fuzzball Rally” extra on the “Hot Fuzz” DVD. The extra is the documentary called “Fuzzball Rally”, and for the record, they refer to him as “Young Mr. Smith”.
• Matt Damon briefly mentions Kevin during this interview he did for Latino Review. Here’s the clip:
  In terms of my hetero life mate, as Kevin Smith once said in one of his movies, we’re [He And Ben Affleck] not working on a script right now, but we’re talking about a bunch of different things. And his career has gone in this new and exciting direction because I’ve seen the movie that he [Affleck] directed and it is really good. It’s fantastic. And the performances are great. Every actor is going to want to work with him [Affleck] after they see this thing.
• After Elton (the male version of “After Ellen”) has a blurb from Kevin about directing the Heroes: Origins pilot:
  Kevin Smith to handle the first episode of Heroes: Origins. Smith says that when he was offered the job, he said, “I would love to write and direct an episode about the two gay heroes…you know, the Japanese dudes. They’re gay, right?!” He also added, “If you can do an autopsy on a cheerleader, you can show a couple of heroes making out.”

• A few scoopers dropped us a line to let us know of a webcomic featured at Drunk Duck called “BLACKOUT DRUNK”. It’s filled with View Askew references, including a Clerks poster and the Quick Stop in the background, as well as a couple memorable quotes on pages 26 and 29. Viewer discretion advised, this is an adult-oriented web comic from what we’ve seen.

• Southland Tales will hit theaters on November 9th, indieWIRE reports:
  Samuel Goldwyn Films has announced that Richard Kelly’s Southland Tales will hit theaters on November 9 in partnership with Destination Films and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group.

  The film, which debuted at last year’s Cannes Film Festival and has since been completed, stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Seann William Scott, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore, Cheri Oteri, Kevin Smith and Amy Poehler among others, with original music by Moby, a music sequence by Timberlake and a soundtrack that includes The Killers, The Pixies, Muse, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Radiohead, and Jane’s Addiction.

  Southland Tales is an ensemble piece set in the futuristic landscape of Los Angeles on July 4, 2008, as it stands on the brink of social, economic and environmental disaster. Johnson will star as Boxer Santaros, an action star stricken with amnesia whose life intertwines with Krysta Now (Gellar), an adult film star developing her own reality television project, and David Clark (Scott), a Hermosa Beach police officer who holds the key to a vast conspiracy.

  A special Southland Tales panel has been set up for this weekend’s Comic-Con in San Diego, Friday the 27th from 11 AM to 1 PM. Location: AA12. Richard Kelly will be in attendance and signing posters from the film afterwards. Be there!


• Our old high school pal Eric draws up some fun new fan art and shares it with us via Deviant Art — Check out his take on Red & Stimpy dressed as Jay & Bob ! Nice work, sir. See ya’ll next time!

• Entertainment Weekly has some great things to say about Kevin’s famous “My Boring Ass Life” blog. This comes from their story “Top 20 Best and Worst Celebrity Blogs”. You can probably guess in which 20 Kevin’s site appears:
  KEVIN SMITH
  The Fairly Odd Filmmaker

  silentbobspeaks.com

  ANGLE: Diary, comedic op-ed, and plugs for his ”SModcast” podcasts and live appearances.

  HIGH POINT: It’s a tie between a happy-birthday greeting for his wife (”From a one-night-stand to my partner and soul mate. You boggle my mind, you fill my heart, you race my blood, you take my breath away”) and a series of e-mails between Smith and a writer from The Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi debating whether Alanis Morissette sang a tune called ”One of Us.” (Smith was right — she didn’t.)

  LOW POINT: After famously attacking film critic Joel Siegel for walking out of a Clerks II screening, Smith repents when he discovers that the spat is mentioned in a Siegel obituary.

  VERDICT: Smith calls his diary ”My Boring-Ass Life”; it’s apropos, given that much of it addresses subjects such as his diet and his man-crush on Bruce Willis. Nonetheless, fans will appreciate his candor.

  GRADE: A-

  The blog’s been around for quite a while now, and continues to evolve to reflect the current atmosphere at View Askew and in Kevin’s life. We expect the blog to continue for many years, and look forward to all the great “Zack & Miri” news that we’re gonna see in there in the coming months.

• Oh, boy, VH-1 dug up some dim bulbs this year for their always fun to watch “World Series of Pop Culture” — So far folks have been missing some easy quizzers, including last night’s new episode. The defending champs were given a question about “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”. It was: “What was the name of the comic book characters Jay & Bob go to stop a Hollywood movie?” Believe it or not, NEITHER team could get this one right! We won’t insult you by giving the answer here. Sigh.
  
• Kevin makes a very brief appearance in the new trailer for Jaws documentary “The Shark is Still Working”. The guys who put this together have worked their butts off to live the Jaws lifestyle and cover all aspects of this historic film. Kevin was interviewed a while back for the doc, and definitely appears in the final cut. That’s it for today, so far — We’ll have more news later as it breaks! Thanks for visiting the new News Askew, watch for more visual enhancements to the site soon (hopefully, this weekend).

• Via this board post, Kevin confirms that “Zack and Miri” has been moved to the proverbial front burner of the stove, so to speak, making it very likely the next View Askew production to be filmed and released. “Red State” will continue, just a bit further down the line (likely still the next flick after “Zack and Miri”).
• Director Richard Kelly updated the “Southland Tales” MySpace blog with an update on the flick. He says that they are about halfway through completing new visual effects for the film, and that they “have to deliver everything by the end of summer.” He goes on to mention that “a company has been hired by Sony to begin work on a trailer,” and that a release date will be announced very soon. We’re not sure what this means for Kevin’s part, though we certainly hope he’s still included in this new version.

• Stevan Mena’s BRUTAL MASSACRE (Brian O Halloran’s new horror-themed comedy) will premiere, appropriately, this Friday, July 13th, on Long Island. O’Halloran will be there in person, giving you the chance to meet him, especially if you missed him at the recent Fangoria con up there. The showing is part of the Long Island International Film Expo, at the Bellmore Movies in Bellmore, New York. Fun begins at 9:45 PM. You can get tix at the theater box office. Visit the official website for futher info. Stop by and see Brian, one of the kindest dudes you’ll ever meet. And Brian O’ Halloran WILL be there that night if fans want to meet him but couldn’t get to that Fangoria con!

• Kevin’s “Live Free or Die Hard” exchange with film critic Ty Burr made the New York Post’s famous Page Six column again this week:

• Malcolm Ingram’s award-winning documentary “Small Town, Gay Bar”, produced by View Askew, will be available on a packed DVD August 7th, 2007. You can bet that we’ll have a fantastic pre-order price on SIGNED copies of this film through the Stash, so stay tuned for those details as soon as we can get ‘em. Those of you lucky enough to see the film at a Vulgarthon or another film festival over the past year or two can attest to what a good job that Malc did to capture this walk of life. Read Kevin’s reveal over at the board.

By the way, sneak into Kev’s post and you’ll also notice that he’s made a MAJOR casting for “Zack & Miri” — Judging by the secrecy, we’re betting this may be for the “Zack” role, too — As we’re still figuring Rosario for “Miri”. We can’t wait to find out who’s coming into the family.

• Yep, it’s never a View Askew production unless something weird happens — Kevin has openly denied a couple’s claim that “Zack and Miri Make A Porno” is based on them.

• The voice of Kevin appears on a new DVD with a behind the scenes look at the new Superman animated movie. The disc, distributed by Diamond this week, came inside select comics. In it, Kevin appears in a brief voiceover at the end saying, “Like we really needed him to bust up a mechanical spider, LAME.” If anyone has a capture or an extra disc, let us know!

• According to IMDB.com, Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are going to co-write another film, their first since “Good Will Hunting”. We’ve heard this before, from time to time, so we’ll wait for concrete news before reporting further.

• And while we’re talking Affleck, Kevin has high praise for the dude’s directorial debut, “Gone Baby Gone”. You can now view the theatrical trailer exclusively over at Yahoo Movies.

• USA Today gives Kevin’s turn in “Live Free or Die Hard” the edge in this silly little story comparing elements of that film to “Transformers”.

• Jason Lee answers a few new questions for “Disney Adventures” magazine, about “Underdog”, of course, and we’ve got the scan for ya. Click and enjoy, using that snazzy new image expansion feature of ours.

• Everyone remember Afroman and that addictive tune “Because I Got High” that appeared in “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”? AP is now reporting that the artist is working on a new film titled “Waiting To Inhale”.

• Jason Lee’s the live action comic relief in the upcoming CGI’ed Alvin and the Chipmunks big screen flick. Empire Online ran a story with our first look at the creatures…Along with Lee, of course, whose presence seems to give them comfort. CGI/Live Action flicks are hit or miss, but we’re hoping Lee can bring this one home. It’s currently set for a Christmas release.

And, in other CGI Lee news, there’s a new trailer for Underdog that just recently showed up in Quicktime format. We liked the blooper teaser, so again, Lee could help elevate the idea. We’re big Lee fans and support anything the dude does, so you can bet we’ll be tracking both of these projects for ya here at the site.

• The jury’s in, folks, and “Live Free or Die Hard” is a HUGE winner with critics — Many, many positive comments about Kevin’s appearance in the film too, including a nice comment in this very positive CNN/AP review :

But hey, there’s SO MUCH more than that — Kevin’s recent blog post collects heaps of links and text from all the e-love that’s been spreading for both the film and his performance. Kevin says:

Kevin goes on to list the undeniable evidence with the review clips, all of which you can see over at the Boring-Ass Life blog.

Oh, and on a final note, this Filmstew piece reveals just how important the “Warlock scene” is to the film:

Cheers from the crowd at the press screening? YEAH!

So have we convinced you yet? Check out “Live Free or Die Hard”. Starring Kevin Smith…Oh, and Bruce Willis too — In theaters everywhere NOW!

• “Live Free or Die Hard” opens in theaters TODAY, giving it almost a full week’s jump on “Transformers” and a couple day’s head start on Pixar’s new rat-toon as well. All 3 films have merit, and should amoung for some big biz at theaters over the coming week, but it’s Die Hard that’s got us the most excited — This is arguably the biggest budgeted film in which Kevin has ever appeared, and a very high profile role (though a much smaller part than last year’s “Catch and Release”). Seeing Kevin share the screen not only with Bruce Willis, but with him in his famous McClane persona, is a true treat. The original “Die Hard” remains a Christmastime fave for these webmasters, and one of those films that you just can’t seem to turn off when you come across it during your channel surfing. Both the sequels have innovative action and are unique films in their own right. Reviews for this installment have been quite positive, especially from the big names like The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. They not only liked the film, but both had very nice things to say about Mr. Smith’s performance:

Congratulations to Kevin on the kudos regarding the role — The clips we’ve seen of the basement scene, as well as the tasty action bits, make this one a must-see and certainly one of the best roller coaster rides of the summer. We’ll see you out there — Enjoy the movie!