• Here’s a spiffy new fan-made desktop wallpaper that features the Mallrats DVD. It’s very simple, but colorful and a nice addition to anyone’s Windows PC. Check it out here or at Files Askew.
• Jay & Bob continue to perform very well on DVD. The Video Scan DVD consumer sales chart for the week ending March 10 has J&SBSB at #2, and the Video Store Magazine rental titles chart has J&SBSB at #4. Video Scan’s “First Alert” of the week ending March 10 has the title at #5 on the DVD sales chart.
• On the Bravo Canada website, they’re promoting next week’s lineup of 5 of the top Inside The Actor’s Studio shows, followed by a movie by each of the featured actors. On Friday, March 22, the featured Actor is Ben Affleck (8PM EST), and the movie is Dazed & Confused (9PM EST). Their site has more info.
• A music director for a small radio station has alerted us that a new country artist named Brett James from Oklahoma City put out his debut single recently, titled “Chasing Amy”. No real relation to the film itself, though.
• Another site’s running a “Vote for your favorite Kevin Smith” film HERE.
• A pretty cool Chasing Amy poster has been found online for sale. Might be something worth picking up and putting on your wall.

• We’re happy to report that Kevin’s now in Florida, filming some new material for the Tonight Show’s “Roadside Attactions”. He’ll be filming for the next few days. The material will air on The Tonight Show on April 4th, and Kevin will again be on the show to introduce the segment. We’ll keep you posted!

• Malcolm Ingram is scheduled to come into Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash to personally sign Drawing Flies DVDs this week to get out all remaining orders by the weekend. Look for those discs soon!
• Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back is featured at the IMDB’s “Truly Trivial” section with this blurb:

Of course, for us here at the site, the answer was simple! The IMDB’s site itself isn’t that accurate, though – One reader pointed out that their trivia section claims that Silent Bob has never spoken in a View Askew film. Sounds like they need some fact checkers!

• Last week, the Mallrats DVD (Region 2) was released in The Netherlands. The only extra thing on the disc is the trailer. It’s got a 5.1 English soundtrack and a 2.0 German soundtrack. Again, makes us happy to be in Region 1.

• Here’s a scan from the most current issue of Video Store Magazine with a few pics and a quick blurb from the Dave’s J&SBSB signing. Click to expand.
• A rerun of Ben Affleck on “Inside The Actor’s Studio” will air on Bravo tonight at 10 PM EST and again at 1 AM.

• A Mallrats game for the Sega Genesis? It MIGHT have happened, had the grosses been higher! Interesting stuff.
• According to Amazon, the entire Fletch series of Gregory McDonald’s books are coming back into print, with “Fletch Won” due in July.
• And finally today, we have a report from the field stating that they have officially set up the Easter Bunny stand at the Eden Prairie Mall. Hopefully the guy in the suit hasn’t seen Mallrats.

• The fourth in Kevin’s continuing series of columns from the UK’s Arena magazine (April 2002) has arrived, and this one’s even got a cliffhanger! Click the scans above to read it. In this edition, Kev waxes philosophical as he recalls a recent visit to the doctor’s office for a sore throat. This one’s another surprisingly open, honest, and entertaining piece. If you missed out on past columns, check them out in our Arena Archives, along with Word translated versions. Enjoy!

• The Jay & Silent Bob DVD is currently the #1 best seller at Tower Records nationwide, beating out the likes of A.I. and many other high profile releases. At Amazon, it’s the #1 selling comedy DVD #5 overall. Also, all other VA DVDs are in the top 25 with Clerks checking in at #6 (#16 against all DVDs) Chasing Amy at #16, Dogma at #23, and Mallrats at #25. In Yahoo DVD Comedy Sales, J&SBSB ranks at #4 in comedy, while Mallrats and Dogma are #6 and #9 respectively.
• Affleck’s got another possible franchise in the works:

Thanks to Jam! Movies at canoe.ca for the news.

• For you IM fans out there, the website badassbuddy.com has a Jay & Silent Bob icon you can use in your AOL instant messenger.
• May 27th is the date Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back hits the UK, to buy on DVD and rent on VHS. Although no features have been confirmed yet (they have to pass through their censors) it seems as though the DVD will actually be available to buy from that date, which is a bit of a shock as Beuna Vista often release DVDs as rental only for the first few months there.

• Check out a brief new interview with Kevin called “Kevin Smith Answers Back” at the Project Greenlight website HERE.
• We’re not sure of the plans for the Clerks 10th Anniversary DVD right now, but fans have started a petition online in the hopes that both the original version of the film AND the new director’s cut can be included. This will of course raise the price of the set, and, given that most of us already own the standard cut on another disc, it’s a topic of heated discussion. No decisions have been finalized on the new Clerks DVD just yet, but if you want to support the original AND extended cuts of the film both in the set, you might want to sign the petition.
• And speaking of Clerks DVDs, this one makes you happy to NOT be part of Region 4 of the world, as the Clerks R4 DVD gets a justifiably bad review. Looks like the disc has an awful transfer and not a single extra. Ouch.

• News from the HUGE SXSW film convention: The film tote bags that will be given out during the festival have Bluntman and Chronic on them. Bluntman is holding a camera on his shoulder while Chronic is holding a boom mic. It says “Film is Blunt” and then has Kev’s signature.

• In related festival news, here’s a photo snapped at Showest of Jason Lee’s “A Guy Thing” theatrical poster.

• The new Oscar campaign for MONSTERS, INC. has been featuring short testimonials from animators (Frank Thomas, Joe Grant) and animation experts (Leonard Malton, Charles Solomon). In today’s ad, there’s actually a blurb from Kevin:

You can check out scans of that ad above!

• A rare chance to catch Clerks on the big screen in the WAY northern United States: The flick is currently playing at the Beartooth theater pub in Anchorage Alaska, nightly at 11 o’clock. All shows there are only 3 bucks.
• According to the newest street date listing, Target stores WILL begin carrying the J&SBSB DVD starting Tuesday, March 12th. Just wanted to follow up on that with you folks, since we announced last month the store had rejected the disc due to content. Sounds like someone changed their mind!
• Last night on the VH-1 Sebastion Bach hosted show “Forever Wild”, he visisted Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash to review the original “Kiss” comic from Marvel. If we hear of a rerun, we’ll let ya know.
• A 10-question Kevin Smith Quiz that we don’t recall mentioning before (though it seems a bit dated) has been discovered at the JoBlo website.
• Another Troma-related Kevin spotting: On the DVD entitled “Best of Tromadance Film Festival Volume 1”, there’s a section called “Stars of Tromadance” in the Special Features section of the disc. Stills of celebs like James Woods and Charlie Sheen posing with Troma mascot The Toxic Avenger are there, along with one of Kevin and Toxie.

• That’s right, folks, eJay week 5 is here! 5 more exclusive items that you can own and cherish. Again, this stuff is WAY rare, most of it is even one of a kind. Some cool stuff this week, all brought to us by new model Jennifer Farley. You’ll find an Affleck-singed Mallrats poster, an original Clerks script (from the set), a rare Lithograph, a binder from Dogma’s boardroom scene…Heck, they’ve even got Linda Fiorentino’s SHOES! You heard us right. As always, happy bidding all, and best of luck.

• We’ve had a lot of inquiries about this one, so we went straight to the source to find out the latest, and we think those of you that pre-ordered the Jay & Bob DVD, signed by Kevin, will be pleased to hear:

There ya go, folks! If you ordered early, you should have your disc very soon, if not already. Kevin’s signing away on the west coast and having them shipped back to Jersey for packaging and shipment, hence the slight delay. We’ll keep you posted.

• The Jay & Bob DVD is doing quite well in sales and at the rental stores. This comes from The Hollywood Reporter:

• Thanks to everyone for sending in your suggestions and addtions to the DVD Easter Egg page. There’s now some new ways to access the “Drawing Flies” stuff, and we simply forgot to include the Jay & Bob egg (it’s now there).

• Here’s a few more photos from Kevin’s signing appearance at Dave’s. Check them out right above.
• The entire script to “The Flying Car” has been transcribed and posted in a View Askew WWWBoard post HERE.
• On last night’s Conan O’Brien show, there was a sketch that predicted what a “Late Shift 2” movie would be like, given the current rumors over Ted Koppel being replaced by David Letterman. Anyway, long story short, in the credits of the sketch, they credited Kevin Smith as portraying “A Michael Eisner-like ABC Executive”. A small stab at the Clerks cartoon fiasco, perhaps?
• For Canadians watching StarTV, they’ll be airing E’s Behind the Scenes of “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back” on Thursday, March 7th at 9:30AM, and re-running it on Friday, March 8th at 1:30AM.
• A new addition to Files Askew today: Replacement startup screens for Windows systems. There’s 3 themes: “Hooper X”, “Chasing Amy”, and “Jay And Silet Bob / Bluntman & Chronic”. Get them all at Files Askew, but as always, be careful messing with those screens, and don’t try it unless you know what you’re doing. Thanks to Richard Burns.

• Here’s a scan of an interview that Kevin did with one of the staff writers from the UCSD (University of California, San Diego) Guardian. It’s dated February 28, 2002, so it’s pretty recent. Click above to read it.
• Finally today, there’s a Dogma “Invisible” this week on Filmwise.com as part of their ongoing game. Surf over and see if you can spot it.

• Hey folks, it’s been a while since we checked in with one of these, so we figured, what the heck? As expected, now that the big DVD release date and the Flying Car has aired, it’s a bit quiet now. Of course, Kevin’s a busy guy, so we’ll still have almost daily updates but, like today, they may be light at times.

There’s still long and short term plans for the site, and we’re certainly going to take advantage of some of the quiet update time to work on that other stuff. Look for the new Jay & Bob drinking game, Drawing Flies DVD review, and some fixes and improvements over in our Forums in the short term. Other long term plans include catching up with other DVD reviews, an easier to use chat area (with some scheduled live celebrity chats), contests, and more. We’ve got a lot of ideas to work on, time is really the biggest factor with what does and does not get done. We’re fully dedicated to keeping the site fun and interesting though, so look for more surprises and additions in the coming months, before Jersey Girl starts to film and we get busier again.

In other news, some good flicks starting to hit theaters soon as we approach summer – “Panic Room” certainly looks intriguing, and then there’s of course “Star Wars” and “Spider-Man” this summer. By the way, in case you haven’t heard, a NEW Episode II trailer will air at 9:00 PM this Sunday on FOX TV. It’ll be here before the internet, theaters or anything. Be sure to tune in or set your VCR. And speaking of TV, there’s been some good stuff this year – New shows like Alias and 24 have been quite compelling, and if you’re not watching Angel on the WB, you’re missing a fantastic story arc this year. Old faves like The Simpsons, ER and Law & Order have also been strong, and HBO’s got a new season Six Feet Under back on the schedule, worth a look.

Finally, a very strange request I was hoping you could help me with — I recently bought some doorknobs on ebay, figuring I could get the rest I needed locally — Turns out they’re quite hard to come by (at least at a fair price). Anyway, if you’re wandering into a Home Depot or Lowes, or know someone with connections, I’m trying to locate some Kwikset Ultramax doorknobs in the WINDHAM egg-shaped satin nickel finish. You can find a pic of them HERE. If you’ve got a line on any (at a better price than 40 dollars a pop like that site has) drop me a line. The local Home Depot and Lowes have them on display, but claim they can’t get any in stock. Maybe they’re more available in other parts of the country or to contractors.

Sorry for the diversion. And now, just a few quick bits of News Askew for ya today: