- Kevin will be making an appearance on Tech TV’s “The Screensavers” this Wednesday night. He’s scheduled to discuss technology in films, as well as View Askew’s presence on the web. Hey, what a PERFECT opportunity to tell the world about the new look of News Askew, ‘eh? We shall see! The show airs Wednesday night at 7 p.m. and Thursday at 12 a.m. and 8 a.m. All times eastern. We’ll have a wrapup of the appearance for you right here as well.
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View Askew NewsBites™
- Salon.com talked to George Carlin recently, and the piece, “Dirty Old Man”, is a result of that chat. Here’s a snippet:
Bart is a guy who could have been easily played as the lovable old codger. You’ve kept some nice rough edges on him.
First of all, when Kevin told me he wrote this in my voice, I knew that this fellow inhabited me somewhere. I would have loved to have been a trained actor from, say, mid-adolescence — learn the craft, learn the traditions, work in stock, work all the classics, work with well-trained actors and really develop. Lacking that, I find that I have, in my observational life — because I am smart, and I do retain well — a lot of colors in my paint box. I know something about Eastern, blue-collar men who hang around, more or less neighborhood guys. I mean, I know from them just absorbing them. From the initial stuff about looking at the character, I write a little back story so that I know he has a history of things that has made him the way he is now.
Short one today, folks! Seems strange, doesn’t it? Gives us more time to squash some minor redesign bugs, which is a good thing. See ya again soon!
Commentary…
- Howdy, folks…Haven’t done one of these in a while, so we figured we’d just check in before the new work week begins, with an update and a few words about what’s going on lately. I’m back from a busy weekend at the Liz Phair concert in Philly (who has to be one of the few performers I’ve seen who can get a ton of applause just for stretching), and extra theatre time seeing Jersey Girl again this weekend, THEN Hellboy (an entertaining flick, though nothing overly groundbreaking). Now, it’s time to catch up on the latest happenings in the Asknewniverse and see how our new design’s holding up.
The weekend seemed to be much better concerning speeds here at the site. There’s a few speedup fixes going in tonight, and we’re hoping that they can help make things smoother for the upcoming week. It’s interesting how when folks are at work and supposed to be WORKING that site traffic goes way up, isn’t it? Very interesting indeed. Anyway, hopefully you’re reading this update and didn’t have to wait a half an hour to get it to show up. We’re continuing to monitor the site, and won’t stop tweaking things until we’re happy with the site’s ability to handle heavy traffic.
We’ve already been entered into the internet’s RSS databases, and our new RSS feed is getting a ton of use. We’ve been made aware of an excellent method to make use of News Askew’s RSS, as well. If you use My Yahoo as a homepage (or you frequently visit it), this new feature will enable you to add the “newsaskew” channel to your My Yahoo page, anywhere you want. It works amazingly well, and is simple to set up. Thanks to Jeff for the great find!
In television news, with the season wrapping up, network TV’s going to get very busy again, but a lot of the best stuff is on cable right now. The Sopranos is off to a good start for HBO, and if you’re NOT watching the new series, “Deadwood”, clear your schedule at 10 PM tonight. The show, loosely based on true events in this town, is nothing short of specutacular. Alias and 24 continue to be two of the best network shows out there — You’re missing out if you’re skipping those. Angel sadly doesn’t seem to be getting any salvation after the cancellation was announced, despite one of the biggest rescue campaigns ever undertaken, and the excellent new “Wonderfalls” has also been dumped by FOX after just 4 episodes. What a shame.
Reality TV’s kind of drying up these days. Is anyone else now bored by this all-star Survivor? Just seems like the show’s jumped the shark with that move. The Apprentice is fun from time to time, but also generally a dry hour for a lot of its running time. Audiences seem to continue to eat up reality TV though, which is a shame as it’s eating into programming time for original network shows to air. However, Big Brother will be back in a few months, along with The Amazing Race, two guilty pleasures that are a blast to take in every summer.
And then, theatrically, there’s Kill Bill 2 in a couple of weeks, which these two webmasters absolutely can’t wait for. If the rumblings we’re hearing are true, this one may even surpass the already amazing KB 1. Looking forward to it.
Alright, now that we’re caught up on general stuff, let’s get on with this today, shall we?
Weekend Jersey Girl Reviews!
- The late bloomers are still trickling in with some more Jersey Girl reviews. If you haven’t seen the film yet, or want to see it again, you’ve still got time. It’s not very often that there’s a View Askew flick on the big screen, so take advantage. Go see JG again this week or during the long holiday weekend that’s coming up!
THE BATTALION – “On the big screen: ‘Jersey Girl’”
“…While “Jersey Girl” may leave some of Smith’s core audience feeling left out, it is a great step forward for Smith’s career. While the story features an abundance of warmth and heart, don’t expect too much of a downgrading of Smith’s dialogue. While there is a notable lack of the f-Bomb, his finely-tuned dialogue features a frankness that may cause many parents to feel uncomfortable with their children watching. “Jersey Girl” is a great indicator of Smith’s potential and an excellent begnning to the next stage of his career.”
PROF J – Jersey Girl Review (A)
“…Kevin Smith is a writer I’ve enjoyed for many years. I enjoy him as a person (as much as I’ve seen in his television appearances and the Evening with Kevin Smith DVD) and I enjoy his writing. When I graduated with my Master’s degree, my graduation present to myself was an autographed copy of Mallrats. I got to see a sneak preview of Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back and can’t remember when I’ve laughed so hard. But this is, arguably, the most stirring and emotional film he’s made yet, or at least tied with Chasing Amy. It’s a radical departure from his other offerings, and I think it shows both great courage to go against the filmic grain as well as great integrity to say ‘I want to do something different, I want to try something new, I want to grow and expand my horizons.’ That’s not an easy thing to do at any point in your life, but especially in one as public and confessional as Smith’s has been. Bravo, Mr. Smith. Bravo.”
CRAZEWIRE – “Kevin Smith Finds His Beautiful Reward in ‘Jersey Girl’”
“…Kevin Smith did not make this film because he wanted to make a blockbuster. He did not cast Ben Affleck because he thought he would bring in box office bank. He made “Jersey Girl” from his inner soul because he needed to. This is what artists do. “Jersey Girl” is a love letter to his daughter, Harley, and what a love letter it is. I love each and every inch of this film. To those people who criticize it for being riddled with cliché’s, I feel sorry for them. They obviously cannot see the unique vision Smith has and maybe they are uncomfortable when someone wears their feelings on their sleeve, because it’s a risk they would never take, put their love out there for people to see. I doubt I’ll ever be able to write a love letter as personal as this one to my child or to one of my friend’s children. But that’s OK because when they’re old enough, I have something better than a love letter. I’ll sit down with them and show them “Jersey Girl”.
411 MANIA – Review (9/10)
“…Indeed, Smith’s greatest gift as a writer and a filmmaker is his ability to capture the essential truth in any situation. His earliest works did this, honestly portraying the lives of the 20-something men in the awkward man-child phase. The years most college-age men go through where they struggle to achieve manhood while avoiding turning into a grown-up. “Clerks” was practically a documentary of this phenomena as well as a message film. “Clerks” was ultimately a man stuck in a rut because it was more comfortable to lie in the gutter and than to try reach for the stars.
And if “Clerks” taught us about the need to try for something better in our lives, then “Mallrats” was about how to fight for what we have. “Chasing Amy”, in contrast, shows the dangers of questioning the good that comes your way and looking gift horses in the mouth. “Dogma” teaches the importance of general faith and how . Even “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” had a message of sorts, though the message was more about why Jay is not a role-model
What then is the message of Jersey Girl? To quote Robert Burns, “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.” Jersey Girl’s message is that in spite of things not going the way we want them to, sometimes things turn out better than we plan.”
Maryland Q&A Photos & Small Details
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- Kevin spent over 5 hours taking tons of questions in Maryland on Friday, and yet again wowed all who were in attendance. The elusive Jason Mewes himself brought the crowd to their feet when he made a brief appearance at the show. Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson also made a late arrival, so it was a star-studdent event for View Askew fans who were lucky enough to be in attendance.
If you were at the show and wanna talk about your night, feel free to toss it into the TalkBacks!
View Askew NewsBites™
- Small story, TONS of scoopers on this one. We’re not sure which sect would rule the world should the majority take over: The religious right giving their $$ to The Passion, or the wrestling fans in this country. Anyway, around 30 or 40 folks wrote us in the span of hours to tell us that this website reporting that a WWE hottie is a fan of Jason Mewes:
Each week The Finisher asks a handful of WWE personalities to finish a statement. This week’s was “My celebrity crush is…” Former WWE Women’s Champion Molly Holly answered, “… Jason Mewes, who plays Jay from “Jay & Silent Bob.” He’s just the right combination of crude, obnoxious, sweet and funny.”
If the rumors we’re heard about Jay lately are true, we bet his people will be calling her people very, very soon.
- Another article discussing Kevin’s recent Q&A appearance at Berkeley is available HERE from the Daily Californian Online.
- A new Jason Mewes fansite, the Jason Mewes Zone, has opened for business.
- The I-Skew test is now out in print in the latest Wizard, issue #150. You can also view a recreation over at the News Askew Forums.
- Liv Tyler is scheduled to be interviewed on a show tomorrow called Great Day SA, on channel KENS 5 in San Antonio, Texas, at 9 AM central. She’ll be promoting Jersey Girl, of course.
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- And finally today, Jersey Girl: Coming to a theater near you, in KOREA, soon!
Kevin In Maryland: TONIGHT!
- Don’t forget to catch Kevin at the UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND for a Q&A tonight — Word has it the big guy’s headed into town a little early to catch Jersey Girl at a theater close to the Q&A locale — So if you’re in that nearby area, you may wanna buy yourself a ticket to the show. Our apologies for the late reminder on this, with the site upgrades, it’s been a busy day. Hopefully a lot of you will make it to the show, and set up your plans a long while back.
Site Updates, Speed, Etc…
- We’d first like to say thanks for all the wonderful praise on the new site. It’s great to see that from you after all the time we put into the new design. Now, that being said, let us say this: Yes, we KNOW the site is really, really slow now, because of these updates. So slow, in fact, we can’t even get in to post our own news. If the site disappears at times, with a “we’ll be back” message, that’s just because we HAVE to take it down in order to work on it. With all the users hitting the forums and talkbacks at once, our little server just can’t seem to handle the abuse.
The problem is either being caused by the forums, the talkbacks, or just general heavy traffic. We’re looking into the issue and hope to install some code cleanup this weekend to eliminate some of this. We’re also looking into adding some memory or completely upgrading to a faster server system for News Askew, if possible. So, rest assured, the site IS slow now, but we will NOT let it stay this way. Please bear with us through the bumps as we get things adjusted. We tested all we could on our own, but the true test doesn’t happen until you open the floodgates. In this case, we got buried. But we’re working on it.
Thanks again for your support, and we’ll be in touch with more soon.
View Askew NewsBites™
- We dunno where the guy keeps pulling this stuff from, but Part TWO of Antony’s interview with Liv Tyler is now up at the ‘Shoot! Here’s a snippet:
Q: Did you like the musical aspect of JERSEY GIRL?
LT: I’ve always wanted to do a musical, or a film where I could play a singer. That would be an absolute dream come true for me. [The SWEENEY TODD sequence] was actually the first thing we all did together. We rehearsed those scenes. It was very WAITING FOR GUFFMAN. We were in this room with this guy who was [just like] Corky. We had to play it very precisely. I’m playing a boy, which is weird, and a cockney boy. I’ve never done a cockney accent in my life, so I just made that up. My husband said that it was a little bit too good for a school play…so I said, ‘Maybe because she works in a video store she watches movies all the time and she can do all kinds of accents.’ [Laughs] I’ve never seen SWEENEY TODD, so we were just kind of winging it. We recorded it in a studio. I was sitting there in headphones, and Kevin was sitting there on the floor in front of me, and we just couldn’t stop laughing.
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AT: Will you work with Kevin again?
LT: You’d have to ask Kevin, but I’d love to. I really enjoyed working with him. It was great fun for me. I feel like it’s such amazing timing that this is coming out two weeks after the whole Oscar/LOTR thing. It’s nice for me because it’s such a different character, and people just sort of feel like I’m Arwen. I’ve been looking at trailers for HIDALGO and seeing that it says, ‘Viggo Mortenson is still the king’ I’m thinking, ‘Poor, Viggo!’ [Laughs] I’m just really happy that I get to keep working. I really liked working with Kevin, and I’d be more than happy to do it again.
- Ben Affleck gives a phone interview with Tribute that you can watch/listen to HERE. It’s all about working with Kevin, and, of course, Jersey Girl. It freaks ya out though if you’ve got the stereo speakers on, as Ben’s on the left, and the interviewer’s on the right!
- Oh, alright, what the heck — How about a JERSEY GIRL review! MadBlast brings us this one:
“…It’s still a Kevin Smith film. He can’t help but drop the occasional comic book reference. The comedic banter has his rhythm, and the comedy scenes have a structure that goes back to Clerks. The awkward parental moment mentioned earlier pays off later with the daughter turning the tables. This works because the original moment was funny enough on its own. It wasn’t there only to set up a later joke. The later joke is awesome because you never expected the first moment to pay off. That’s how Clerks built to a comic finale, and it takes more of a backseat to the drama of Jersey Girl, but it’s still Smith. I mean, a character breaks down into tears in the porno room of a video store, and the emotion totally works. That is Kevin Smith. (9/10)”
Alright, sleepy time. It’s been an incredibly busy week, but we’ve DONE IT! 3 site designs, 3 days, and we’ve finally got to show you what’s been behind the curtain for these past months. See you again soon.
Welcome To The NEW News Askew!
- Welcome, one and all, to the new face of News Askew. It’s been almost 7 years since this site was created, and to celebrate that upcoming milestone, we’ve been working behind the scenes tirelessly for almost an entire year, evaluating the site, what worked, what didn’t, what we wanted to change, and the like. The result: A new face, a new community, and a brand new News Askew. We’ve tried to take the elements that were well-like with the site and work it into an even more efficient, friendly design.
Some features have been in the planning stages for quite some time, and a couple of the bigger ones involve a new sense of interactivity. We’re hoping to make News Askew not only a place to come read the news, but a place to discuss it as well. Thus, a better, faster talkback system. And a new forum. And more on the way. Let’s take a look at what’s up and running, as we speak:
- Entire news database completely converted into new, faster software.
- Brand new TalkBack system.
- New artwork designed by Matt Sullivan.
- Grand Opening of News Askew Forums, powered by phpBB.
- Flash Ad Console (no more top of site clutter!).
- Automatic RSS Headline syndication.
And here’s what’s in the works:
- Improved, high speed news archive search engine.
- Live, 24/7 chat area featuring scheduled, moderated chats with VIP guests.
- More new Sullivan artwork!
- And whatever else we can think up…
From past experience, we know that some of you will love this new design, and some of you will hate it. By nature, some of us fear change. All we can advise you is to please stick with it, and give it a chance. Of course, if there are any huge bugs preventing you from reading the site now, we’d like to know. We have tested the site in all the popular browsers at various screen resolutions, and believe that it’ll work out of the box for the majority of you. However, if there’s a problem with something, feel free to let us know.
Speed: As we work the bugs out and your browsers get all of our new graphics cached, expect slower loadtimes than you’re used to. This will speed up over the next few days. The site will also experience some heavy traffic as folks try out the new features, too. So we want you to expect some slight lag, as that’s what normally happens during a big change like this.
Alright, we’ve got a lot more to announce with the new design, so let’s get down to some details…Neeeext!