• If you haven’t written your essays yet on why YOU wanna attend Stash Bash 2…Well, you’ve only got a FEW HOURS LEFT! The deadline for entries is 12:01 AM tonight. Winners will be notified by the 17th, and the event is scheduled for the 28th. In case you missed out on this announcement, visit the Stash Bash 2 page for more information. Good luck to all who entered — We’ll see you on the inside.

• Confirmed! The New Jersey edition of “Roadside Attractions” will be airing on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno on Friday, September 26th (yep, just two days before Stash Bash 2). Kevin will be there live to introduce the segment, which features a section in which many readers will appear when Kev visits Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash. It’s possible that some clips from “Clerks” will be shown in some capacity as well. Tune it in on Friday night, the 26th!

• Chris Ryall’s “One Hand Clapping” column at the ‘Shoot has added some new shots of Kevin on stage.
• Poor Affleck and Lopez are yet again the subjects of ridicule, this time on “Page 2” over at the ESPN.COM site. But hey, at least Jersey Girl gets some plugs.

• Apparently, Kevin stated during Friday’s Mallrats Q&A that the reason the MPAA cited for giving “Jersey Girl” an R rating was the use of the word “masturbation”. This is currently under appeal for a PG-13.
• Dennis Miller Live reruns the Ben Affleck interview tonight on HBO Comedy. You may recall that Kevin calls in under disguise during the episode. Check your local listings for airtime.
• Mallrats will be shown on the big screen at GKC University Cinemas in Normal, Illinois on October 10th and 11th, as part of their “rerun”series.
• Eion Bailey from “A Better Place” was recently featured as a choice on the IMDB poll asking which young actor that readers would like to play “Batman” in the next film. Bailey was rumored a candidate on a short list of 4 or 5 possibilities.
• And finally today, in humorous news — Someone over at eBay is selling Kevin Smith’s butt. Don’t believe us? See for yourselves. Happy bidding. We’ll catch ya next time!

• Friday night’s midnight MALLRATS screening at the Nuart theater was the first-ever sellout for a midnight show at the place in the two-plus years they’ve been doing them, and the crowd was fully into it. MPS webmaster Chris Ryall reports that “folks were going ‘Rocky Horror’ and yelling out lines (mostly Brodie’s). Most of the attendees had heard about it on the web, so we’re glad that so many of you came out. A few interesting facts: They had one of the only existing prints of the movie–some fan in Texas sent it to them for this special screening.
  As for Kevin, he introduced the film — said it was his first time watching it since the premiere in 95 — and then, when it ended at 2:00 AM, he did a Q&A that lasted until 4:30 AM, and THEN signed for everyone! Now that’s dedication. Whoa. Hopefully the guy took a nap beforehand.
  The indoor pics we got are pretty dark, but click above for some shots of the crowd outside. Chris Ryall’s “One Hand Clapping” column will discuss the event over at the ‘Shoot tomorrow.
  With the great success, the chance of the Nuart holding future View Askew midnight screenings is very good. We’ll keep ya posted.

• News Askew Retro returns this week with an Empire Magazine article from back in November of 1995. Kevin had just broke into the scene turning heads with the big success of Clerks at Sundance. There’s a quick chat with Kev and a one page article, and also a nice four star review of “Clerks” there for ya. Enjoy.

• Here’s another mini-retro for ya, as we missed this when it ran in Variety last month. They’re currently running ads as part of the “Trendsetters Campaign”, and Kevin was featured in this one. Click above for a nice, clear look.
• Kevin’s featured in a strange, fictional conversation between comic creators in a peice over at 411 Mania.

• Wow. Shockingly enough, E! online’s Andy Jones responded to our editorial (“What’s Andy Jones’ Problem?” — Saturday, August 30th) with even more inaccuracies. Here’s his latest diatribe:

Alright, he admits to being wrong about the Superman casting and directing remarks. But oddly, he didn’t mention the TWO instances when he incorrectly called “Jersey Girl” an “autobiographical” film.
And since we can never tell when this “columnist” is writing sarcastically or just getting more stuff wrong (stuff that’s easily fact-checkable, mind you), let’s address the 465 fans comment: the official View Askew site, www.viewaskew.com, currently has over 70,000 registered users for the message board – a figure that doesn’t even reflect all the “lurkers” (the folks who don’t register but read the board daily). Our site, News Askew, has had over 12 million hits since we opened our doors. “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back” and “Dogma” have both grossed $30 million. The “Evening with Kevin Smith” DVD has sold over 200,000 units since its release (and as anyone who’s seen the DVD or ever been to one of Kevin’s college gigs can tell you, he always plays to sold out crowds). Kevin’s up to around ten or twelve episodes of his “Roadside Attractions” segments on The Tonight Show – which is usually watched by between five and six million people every night. Can’t imagine they’d keep having him back unless his segments were doing well in the ratings.
In short, Kev probably has more than 465 fans. Again, we’re thinking Jones was being sarcastic. But with his track record, you can’t take anything for granted. Like this next, easily check factoid he got wrong (surprise, surprise).
News Askew is our website, not Kevin’s. It’s owned, created, and maintained by us – Brad Pleyvak and Chris Alley. Kevin’s websites are www.viewaskew.com (home of the web board) and www.moviepoopshoot.com (home of far more accurate entertainment reporting than Andy Jones’ column; if you want to read a well-researched and more entertaining movie column, check out Jeff Welles’ Hollywood Elsewhere over at Movie Poop Shoot, by the way). So his assertion that Kev uses News Askew to “spread your own propaganda” is – surprise, surprise – wrong too. If anyone’s guilty of that, it’s us, the guys who own and run the site (an easily fact-checkable item as well, by the way). Give credit where it’s due.
Who knows what Jones’ beef is? Maybe he’s fueled by jealousy? Maybe he read over at the View Askew board that Kev was sitting down with Tom Cruise for a one-on-one interview for the British magazine Arena, and got pissed because, as our journalist friends have told us, the closest Andy gets to real interviews is the round table, press conference style interviews he’s relegated to at junkets. You’ve gotta wonder if entertainment “journalist” Andy Jones has ever gotten to interview someone like Cruise, one on one. I’m sure we could do a quick fact-check over at E! Online to find out, but as Andy Jones has taught us, best to be lazy about reporting and just make assumptions.
Whatever. As long as he keeps writing ‘em, we’ll keep correcting ‘em. And him.

• Former View Askew employee Bill Woods has a new company called “Kaiju” that presents a very Japanese-looking, power-rangeresuqe, Pokemon-like world of creatures, battles, and mayhem. If you’ve been to a comic book show recently, chances are you saw or ran into one of the Kaiju characters. Being that the guy’s an old friend of ours, and always considered a part of the team, we wanted to give the site and the business a plug — You can read up on the concept there, check out tons of merchandise, and more. Visit the Kaiju website HERE. And tell Bill that News Askew sent ya!

• The new book entitled “STAN LEE AND THE RISE AND FALL OF THE AMERICAN COMIC BOOK” by Jordan Raphael and Tom Spurgeon feautres at least a few mentions of Kevin from glancing at its index. The book is basically a biography of Stan from his childhood to present day and concentrates on his contributions to taking comics where they are today. The book’s published by the Chicago Review Press. ISBN is 1556525060 and list price is $24.95.
• The High Times film “Pot Luck” (which features current man of the moment Jason Mewes) is finally getting released theatrically on October 17th, but very limited. Expect a video release to be forthcoming soon. Find the theatrical cities HERE.
• Here’s yet another classic from the Dragon Con costume photo website.
• The full version of the trailer from upcoming Matt Damon/Greg Kinnear comedy “Stuck on You” is now available online at the Quicktime site.