We are excited to announce a special screening of Kevin Smith’s JERSEY GIRL, starring Ben Affleck and Liv Tyler. We are presenting this screening with SXSW Film and offering discounted tickets and an advance ticket purchase window to AFS members.

JERSEY GIRL

8:30 p.m.

Paramount Theatre

Followed by Q&A with Kevin Smith. Ticket prices: $30 ($25 for AFS members) for orchestra seats, which include a post-party at the Coppertank Brewing Company, 504 Trinity Street. $20 ($15 for AFS members) for mezzanine seats and $15 ($10 for AFS members) for balcony seats.

Tickets will go on sale to AFS members on Thursday, March 4, 2004.

Tickets can only be purchased via the Paramount Box Office, in person, showing your membership card. Each member can buy up to 4 tickets. Standard box office hours are noon-5:30 p.m. As of March 8, any remaining tickets will go on sale to the public. (AFS members will still receive a discount after March 8.)

A note about the logistics on the night of the event. SXSW badgeholders will have access to the event on a first-come, first served basis. To gain entry to the event, you will be waiting in line with them. There is no need to show up early, since your ticket, which you purchased in advance, guarantees your seat. Doors will open at 8 p.m.

JERSEY GIRL is about newlywed and young father Ollie’s perfect life being upended by tragedy, landing him in the new role of single father. Forced to move back in with his father he struggles to find his legs in this new life that has sprung up around him. With the help of a beautiful young woman and his daughter he begins to realize that sometimes you have to forget about what you thought you were and just accept who you are.

Additional and updated information can be found online at http://www.austinfilm.org/premieres/jerseygirl.asp

Proceeds benefit the artistic and educational programs of the Austin Film Society.

BEN Affleck can sing? Playing a dad widowed after the death of Jennifer Lopez’s character, the actor reveals surprising vocal talent in “Jersey Girl,” Post movie critic Lou Lumenick reports. Affleck warbles a number in a grade-school production of “Sweeney Todd,” along with Liv Tyler as his new girlfriend. “That’s really them singing,” insists director Kevin Smith, whose flick opens March 26. “Considering her lineage, it wasn’t surprising that Liv [daughter of rocker Steven Tyler] has great pipes. But Affleck’s the shocker. If they ever revive ‘Starlight Express,’ he should strap on some skates and take to the stage.”

Joey Lauren Adams, right, talks about “Lovin’ Up A Storm,” a new movie she wrote about growing up in Arkansas, as her sister, Kelly Adams, looks on Sunday, Feb 29, 2004, in Little Rock, Ark. Adams, who can be seen in the films “Chasing Amy” and “Dazed and Confused,” plans on filming the movie in her hometown of North Little Rock. (AP Photo/Neemah Aaron)

AT: How do you feel about JERSEY GIRL as a project thus far?

LT: I’m very excited, and was very flattered that Kevin wanted me to be a part of it. I’ve been enjoying working with Kevin, particularly because he’s such a great writer. You keep discovering things, and it continues to be fresh and interesting as you perform. He’s very natural, and he writes things in a way people actually speak, so it’s great to be able to speak those words.

AT: Can you tell me a little bit about the rehearsal process? I’ve heard Kevin’s a stickler when it comes to rehearsal…

LT: [Smiles] I had to skip out of the rehearsal process. I was in London doing post-production work on LOTR. I just had to come and work right away on my first day.

AT: You’re crossing from THE LORD OF THE RINGS, which has a huge fan base that borders sometimes on near-religious fanaticism…

LT: Not unlike Kevin’s world…[Laughs]

AT: That’s sort of what I was getting at. What’s it like to be at the center of that kind of a loyal, or some would say rabid, community of fans? Is it intimidating? Do you ever regret being part of something that’s such a juggernaut, like LOTR?

LT: There was lots of weird stuff on the internet before the movie came out. I went and looked at one of the websites, and I was so bummed out because they were saying things that were really mean about me.

AT: Like what?

LT: Well, they weren’t anything to do with the movie, they were like personal attacks, like I was the spoiled daughter of a rock star, that I was too Hollywood to play Arwen. Anyone who knows me well can tell you that I’m far from a spoiled daughter of a rock star…I didn’t actually know who my dad was until I was an older kid. I didn’t have a very easy upbringing…but then when the movie came out the criticism sort of died down. Then I realized that the fans are quite picky about everything…there wasn’t really a time where they picked on me any more than anyone else.

Many making a date with this ‘Girl’

PAULSBORO — Gary Stevenson, fire chief of the Paulsboro Fire Company, visited the Hill Studio Box Office Saturday afternoon to buy his tickets to the special sneak preview of the movie Jersey Girl on March 10 at Paulsboro High School.

When asked who would accompany him to the highly anticipated occasion, Stevenson replied coolly, “Well, Jennifer.”

As in Lopez.

But while stars of the movie J-Lo and Ben Affleck may not make it to the premiere –and surely Stevenson will bring his wife –the Paulsboro red carpet is expected to be rolled out for Director/Producer Kevin Smith.

Paulsboro residents lined up Saturday morning to purchase tickets at the Hill Studio Box Office window, which hasn’t been open for ticket sales since 1973, according to owner and borough Mayor John Burzichelli.

“We decided to open ticket sales up to Paulsboro residents, only, to start,” Burzichelli said, adding that about 400 tickets had been sold by noon Saturday. “If there is anything left after today we’ll open the box office Monday for everyone.”

Paulsboro Printers designed official tickets that were sold Saturday, complete with the movie title and raised borough seal.

Tom Richardson, a 28-year-old IT Specialist and volunteer coach at Paulsboro High School, bought his two tickets and is excited to bring his girlfriend to Paulsboro for the special night.

“She’s from Voorhees, so she always hears everything about Paulsboro,” Richardson said. “It will be neat to try to see my cousin’s house on Thompson Street, where they filmed.”

While the movie was being filmed throughout Paulsboro, the cast signed a white leather fire helmet for the Paulsboro Fire Department.

Chief Stevenson said the helmet, with special messages inked by the stars, will be on display the night of the screening and soon after will be auctioned on eBay to raise money for lifesaving equipment for the firefighters.

“I had aspirations to go to Hollywood or New York for movies,” said Judy MacKenzie, chair of the event. “I ended up staying here for my family and couldn’t go to the movies, but the movies came to me. This is all very surreal.”

MacKenzie also said there is talk of a press tour with celebrities and national media personalities making its way through the borough before the premiere, which is March 9 in New York City, but nothing has been confirmed.

After nearly ten years of telling stories about surly register jockeys, youthful mall denizens, flip-flopping lesbians and the sexually insecure men who love them, fallen angels and other contemporaries of “The Christ” (as we’ve come to know Him, courtesy of Mad Max Riggs), and amiable stoners who run afoul of the internet, I felt like it was time to really let my hair down. Hence Jersey Girl.

I’ve never fallen for a gay woman, I’ve never faced down a rubber Poop Monster, and while I have worked in convenience stores, if I ever dreamed of lipping off to the customers, I would have spent an inordinate amount of time at the mall, as an ex-convenience store employee. But while fiction is always far more entertaining than real life, you need a seed of truth to kick off any good story. For Jersey Girl, it was the reverse: I needed a small point of fiction to tell a much more personal story. Which is why, to this day, my wife still won’t believe I wrote the film as a valentine for her – because I kill her proxy off in the first fifteen minutes. Regardless, she is my muse on the flick.

I was working on the ill-fated, ABC-shit-canned Clerks cartoon back in 2000. Needless to say, while it was a gas to write as I exercised my funny bone, that most important of muscles – the heart – was feeling flabby. Granted, it could’ve been all the Twinkies I was putting away at that pre-Atkins stage of my life; but I like to think I was just eager to write something a little more emotional. So one night, when I got home from a long day of gag-writing, I watched my wife put our then-two-month-old to bed. The pair of them were incredible: Jen, who so naturally took to motherhood, and Harley, who was so pure and perfect. And what was I? The guy who came home at the end of the day. A tourist. I always thought it was a miracle that I had a career in film at all. But the real miracle was playing out in front of my eyes. And from that moment forward, I decided my professional life would have to take a backseat, while I became more present in my personal life.

As my wife turned out the lights in the baby’s room, I was struck by this grim thought: that choice wouldn’t be mine to make if Harley had made it through delivery but Jen hadn’t. How would I deal with the loss of one love of my life while raising the other alone? That night, after Jen went to sleep, I sat down and wrote for two hours. The result was the first fifty pages of what would two years later become the movie you’re about to see.

This isn’t my funniest or most original film to date. It’s not the most controversial or clever either (indeed, some would have me believe I’ve never made any film that can be described by any of those terms). But it is my most personal. It’s not only spun from a six year love affair with my wife and child, but also the thirty three year long love affair I was lucky to share with my own, recently-deceased Dad. It’s a movie about fathers, made by one dad who’s still learning the ropes as a tribute to his Dad, who made fatherhood an art form. It’s about how the only way I could ever fully appreciate what a great Father I had was by becoming one myself.

But most of all, it’s about… 103 minutes long.