“In the movie Mallrats, Ben Affleck famously (rhetorically?) asks, ‘Who’s your favorite New Kid?’ while atop a schoolgirl. This surprisingly profound question begs the inevitable Beatles analogy.”

NEW: Jersey Girl
Arrogant Yuppie finds his way back into the simple, real life.
Charming, tragic comedy with Ben Affleck

Critics bashed this Kevin Smith movie really hard, although it is a pleasant watch until the happy end.

PICK OF THE DAY: Charmingly sympathetic

The Ben Affleck Info-Box says:

Arrogant and rude

A Producer denied Affleck the leading role in Smiths Mallrats. The director gave his friend a supporting role, and after Ben’s Oscar win for “Good Will Hunting”, even leading roles. (Chasing Amy, Dogma) In 2007, Affleck made a critically acclaimed directorial debut with “Gone Baby Gone”. Right now he is filming with Russell Crowe the Remake of the BBC Movie “State of Play”.

“Mikey gets in the game and heads up OCC’s latest creation — a Wolverine bike for the University of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital. The cast from NBC’s “My Name is Earl” bursts onto the scene and gets the OCC team to build a My Name is Earl bike.”

My fellow New Jerseyan Kevin Smith appears to see the comic surrealism as well. In Smith’s facetious 1999 film “Dogma,” a misguided effort to modernize the Catholic Church’s image unfolds through a campaign entitled, “Catholicism Wow!” Complete with a revamped, “less depressing” and utterly absurd Jesus figure bearing the name “Buddy Christ,” the attempt at Catholic modernization is portrayed by Smith as both silly and hopeless.

“It’s very strange because I normally don’t direct television,” Kevin tells Cw.com. “Nobody ever asked me to do it before. I’ve had offers to come in on sitcoms which have already been up and running. But this was interesting because my agent called and said there’s a pilot of this show and they want you to direct it. I was like, why would anyone, based on my body of work, want me to direct a TV pilot?

“Generally my stuff seems to be very chatty, frank and obscene. I was so puzzled, I said I would like to read it and see who’s stupid enough to want to hire me. I read the script and I just dug it so much.”

Kevin was attracted to the Reaper pilot script as it reminded him of hit Simon Pegg film Shaun Of The Dead.

“I’m a big Shaun Of The Dead fan,” he says. “The sensibilities of the characters in Reaper are similar to my characters. The only difference between the characters I write and the characters in Reaper is none of these characters use four letter words because we’re on TV.”

“Reaper” returns Stateside to the CW with a new episode on March 4th.

BEST ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE – Casey Affleck for “The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford” (brother of Ben Affleck, appeared in “Good Will Hunting”)
BEST ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE – Amy Ryan for “Gone Baby Gone” (directed by Ben Affleck, of course)
3 Nominations for Matt Damon’s “Bourne Ultimatum”, for score, editing, and mixing.

Dogma: In Kevin Smith’s religious comedy, the Golgothan is the excrement monster that Jason Lee sends after Jay and Silent Bob. He’s made up of all the evil shit from all over the world, and even has his own action figure that farts when you squeeze it. Unlike the Charmin.

Reaper, E4, 9pm

Imagine a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost-style couple of buddies dropped into a comedy episode of Heroes, and you have Reaper. Tonight’s pilot, in which our champion Sam (Bret Harrison) finds out that his parents sold his soul to the Devil (Ray Wise), also benefits from the direction of the Clerks legend Kevin Smith – it’s great fun, but it’ll be interesting to see how it develops next week without Smith at the helm.

TV Scoop also gives the show a nice little review.

“Zack and Miri Make a Porno” (Fall): Written and directed by Kevin Smith. That’s enough for us.

We couldn’t have typed it better ourselves. Be sure to visit our production page for a complete list of the latest multimedia and press from the film. We’ve just added a few today. See ya next time!

Adam notes: “No, I’m not wearing his pants. That would just be weird. Shirts and coats, on the other hand, are perfectly normal. I own some movie props and memorabilia, but nothing quite as cool as this. Big thanks to Kevin for letting his fans own a piece of his great movies. And your readers should just be happy I got outbid on Rosario Dawson’s camisole.”

Enjoy, Adam, and thanks for giving the stuff a good home.