Well, I saw a sneak preview of “Scary Movie 2” this Monday (July 2nd) and the only trailer they showed was for none other than “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”. First off, there were HUGE cheers from the cool people (ie, View Askew fans) when familiar faces showed up, but there were also a LOT of clips that aren’t in Kev’s internet trailers. And I guess the voice-over helps. Though the one thing that annoyed me was the fact that the voice-over says something about “The real Jay & Silent Bob”……I mean, I know that in the context of the movie, these guys are having a movie made based on characters that are based on them, and I know its being anal, but did the voice-over HAVE to say “real”…LoL. Anyways, they also showed clips from the Carrie Fisher cameo…and I can’t wait to see Jay “go by the book” on Carrie’s nun. Anyways, the trailer got some big laughs.

Comic Crusaders: TV and film writers returning with a passion to their first love

by John C. Davenport of The Dallas Morning News

…

In other examples of the screen/comics crossover, Kevin Smith, writer-director of the films Chasing Amy, Dogma and Clerks, has revived the Green Arrow series for DC. Three years ago, he wrote the Daredevil series for Marvel….

“You get to play with characters you don’t normally see,” says Mr. Smith. “It’s a chance to play in somebody else’s sandbox … to go to another medium and stretch those writing muscles.”

Mr. Smith has probably done more than any of his contemporaries to raise the cinematic profile of his comic books. The main characters in Chasing Amy write and draw them, and comics are a major topic of Mallrats (which include a cameo by comics legend Stan Lee). Mr. Smith says the Superman references in Mallrats tagged him in the film community as “the comics movie guy” and led to his being hired to write the script for a new Superman movie, a project that has since died.

But that’s only one of the ways in which Mr. Smith’s film and comic-book careers are intertwined. The title character of his latest film, “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” (opening Aug. 24.), have been in all five of his movies. The characters Jay and Silent Bob – Mr. Smith plays Bob – are the basis for comic books in Chasing Amy as well as in the new film. They also are the inspiration for a real comic-book series.

Comic-book fans are usually though of as being divided into distinct camps – Marvel mavens vs. DC disciples, for example – with strong allegiances. But Mr. Smith, who has worked for both companies, says “it’s not an angry competition” between DC and Marvel. “The comics are such a dead marketplace,” he says, that’s what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Or, as the case may be, Supergoose and the X-Gander.

“Anything that can bring more traffic into stores is all right by me,” says Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, whose view of the marketplace is quite a bit rosier than Mr. Smith’s.

What Mr. Smith has done for comics in his films is “invaluable” for the industry, Mr. Quesada says. Filmmakers in the comic-book field have a “wonderful exuberance” for the medium, he adds, and offer a “fresh perspective. They also come in with basic skills, such as formatting stories and pacing.”

“There’s a bias against comic-book writers,” Mr. Smith says. “They’ve been ghettoized and that’s insane. There are far more brilliant comic-book writers writing comic books that there are film writers writing films.”

…

His [Mr. Straczynki] Spider-Man series and Mr. Smith’s Green Arrow have been selling well, according to Zeus Comics’ Mr. Neal.

“Everything they touch is gold,” he says referring to these big-name comic-book creators, “because everything they do is good work.”

Which brings me to my first film this week (finally). “Chasing Kevin”. This is a fun little short Mockumentary about an independent filmmaker obsessed with Kevin Smith, so obsessed in fact that he raises money and shoots his own feature entitled “Employees” about the trials and tribulations of Foot Locker clerks. Then he stalks Kevin Smith. This film sports appearances by Kev-bo himself as well as Jason Mewes. And its just damned funny.

The great thing about “Chasing Kevin” though, is that its not just a parody of Kevin Smith and Clerks; it also makes a great statement about indie filmmakers and their want to emulate those who have come before them. Rather than emulating them, however, sometimes they end up merely imitating them. Remember the glut of indie Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction clones that came out in the mid 90’s? All those gritty, noir Hitman movies that now line the video store shelves of the action section. Well, this mocks that whole phenomenon as the lead ends up in an asylum, placed in a special filmmaker ward for those indie filmmakers who have gone too far. Alongside Quentin, Spike and P.T. Anderson wannabes, the protagonist finds what it really means to be independent.

This film showed at Vulgarthon 2000 (Kevin Smiths Film fest) and really deserves screentime at almost every film fest out there. It has a great deal to say about indie film and does so in a fall down funny manner that shorts programs often need. It’s never preachy, just funny and inventive.

Check out the production company’s website and see a five minute clip of “Chasing Kevin” HERE .

“Part of me wants as many people as possible to see my film,” said “Vulgar” director Bryan Johnson. “But I didn’t think it worth compromising the integrity of the film. It’s not like this is something that could open on 2,500 screens.”

Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back – Non Spoiler Review (Press Screening)

It’s over and done. I’ll never be able to walk in to a movie theatre again and see a new member to the Jersey family of films, for tonight at the United Artists theatre in Westwood, I’m proud to say that I’m one of the first to see Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back.

And what can I say, it’s everything I expected, an hour and a half of dick and fart jokes, just like old times.

After lining up at 4pm, two hours before the screening, I was treated to waiting until 5:30 to get in and waiting until 7pm for the movie to start.

As the lights dimmed, the crowd went into wild cheering as the Dimension Films logo appeared on screen, and we revisit the Quick Stop one last time, back where it all started (in more ways than one, as the movie explains).

Slowly but surely each member of the ensemble cast appeared, and each time the crowd went nuts, highlighted by massive applause for Jason Lee and Affleck’s characters.

Lee and Affleck always make you crave for more, so their handful of minutes on the screen left me wanting more, but I’m grateful to have had them in the film.

The story follows our beloved Jay and Silent Bob on their cross coast mission to Hollywood, where their misadventures keep the story moving along.

Jay is his usual hilarious self, with his old bag of gestures and catch phrases, and plenty of new gay jokes, sex jokes, and enough masterbation an oral sex jokes to make even the most liberal Askew’er die with laughter.

Silent Bob is silent (as per usual), but I must say his performance is top notch, with Kevin stealing quite a few laughs.

I think the two surprises are the two new Askew’ers, Eliza Dushku and Shannon Elizabeth.

Dushku, besides being incredibly sexy onscreen, is funny in her small part.

Meanwhile, Shannon Elizabeth really captures the whole feeling and vibe of Kevin’s characters from previous movies. She fits perfectly and is very funny.

And Will Ferrell, well, he never disappoints.

In what is the final installment of all these movies, I couldn’t be happier with the way it all ends. Complaints can be made, but really, is there a need to? It seems like Kevin really got to make a movie that he want, no holding back, crossing the line, stopping, then crossing it some more. The film is very self-reflexive, taking several jabs at itself, the actors in the film, and even us, the faithful fans that stalk Kevin’s every filmmaking move.

I could say more, but I wouldn’t want to give anything away, just get ready for a good time.

This was definitely one of the better junkets I’ve covered. A much livelier atmosphere than normal. The rundown:

Shannon Elizabeth: She seemed slightly aloof, but nonetheless sweet. She obviously was wearing little to no makeup, and she still looked great. For some reason an innocent question about DVD (”Would you like to take part on the DVD commentary?”) struck a nerve with the publicist, who but in and said “What a random question!” Very odd. Odder still was that Shannon appeared to have no idea what a DVD commentary was. Strange tidbit: not only has she not seen Kevin’s other films, she says she “feels no need to.”

Kevin: What is there to say? His usual self, and the time with him flew by way too quickly, especially in light of how he likes telling those long stories.

Jason Lee: Laid-back as usual. He remembered me from our hanging out at the Spirits back in March, which was cool. There were some awkward moments of dead air at this roundtable, though, since his roles in the film aren’t too large.

Mark Hamill: Man, is this guy HYPER. It was quite a shock. There were a couple of times where he got so caught up in telling his stories that he spontaneously grabbed my arm. The publicist had a hard time containing him when time was up.

Eliza Dushku/Jennifer Schwalbach-Smith: These two were paired off, which was a shame because there certainly seemed to be enough to talk about to warrant individual sessions. Eliza… first of all, *damn*. I always thought she was hot, but I had no idea. She wore this bust-enhancing tank-top with a machine gun on it. And she has such a great kick-back demeanor. She certainly seems more down with the Askew vibe than Shannon. Jennifer obviously ate up being on the other side of the interview fence. She’s insanely nice, and I realized it’s odd that only now she and I have met considering I had seen her at other functions. I suspect it won’t be the last though. She gave the best comment of the day, off the record when she and I chatted a little after the official session was over. I told her the Cough Curer story, and she said with a smile, “He’s a magical man. At least in his own mind.” How hilarious…

Mewes was actually going to take part after all, but he was sick, so he had to back out. Ali Larter apparently is only doing TV press for some reason, so we were deprived.

I had everyone sign my press notes, and I’m gonna get that scanned and posted on my site, hopefully alongside full transcripts of the sessions. We shall see what Kevin says about that–and about me running an early review.

I’ll leave you with what Kevin wrote on my press notes: “Mike, This time, 4 stars. Please.”

The writer-director-actor first learned about the re-edited version when someone sent him a copy with a flyer that explained the tape’s supposed origins.

“My name was in the flyer,” Smith said. “Just, like: ‘It’s rumored that Kevin Smith made this.’ I was like, me? I don’t how I got attached to it. I guess people assume I’m a big “Star Wars” fan. But I don’t have that much free time. Of all the movies that I was going to re-edit, believe me, that would not be the first one.”

(As it turns out, “Dogma” is the first film that Smith would like the opportunity to re-edit.)

But Smith was curious and gave the film a chance. For the most part, he liked what he saw.

“You know, it looks like an edited version of that movie,” said Smith. “Some of the edits kind of make the movie flow a lot better. Smart editing to say the least.”

When asked if he would be offended if a fan decided to re-edit one of his films – say, “Clerks” for example – Smith said he wouldn’t be particularly bothered.

“I wouldn’t feel bad at all,” he said. “I would just be like, ‘God you’ve got a lot of free time. Would you like to do my laundry while you’re at it? If you really want to help me out, come over to the house, watch the kids so I can go out with my wife.’”

It’s official- God REALLY DOES hate me!

So Don May over Synapse got the A BETTER PLACE check discs today, and- YOU GUESSED IT!- they are all fucked up! YAY! ANOTHER DELAY! Oh, Joy!

The fault here lies SQUARELY with the authoring facility that Synapse used for this title out in Los Angeles. Excerted below is Don’s e-mail to said company this afternoon after he started checking the discs- since the authoring facility in question still has to fix the DVD, I’ve omitted the name of said DVD authoring facility from this post, but when the DVD is release they will be credited for the authoring/compression so you’ll all know who it is who fucked up this time.

Anyway, here’s the jist of the very odd error that turned up on the DVD as per Don’s e-mail (my check disc will be arriving tomorrow, so I can share in the goodness of incorrectly mastered DVD myself!)-

“The most INEXCUSABLE problem, is that after the introductions, the deleted scenes and the mono scenes during the Dolby Comparison section, there are noticeable audible “beeps” when the scenes are over. Now, when I was at *BLEEP*, with *IMPORTANT PERSON WHO WORKS IN HIGH PLACES AT BLEEP* in attendance, we questioned *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* about these beeps and told her our concern. She TOLD us that the beeps would NOT be present on our final discs. This was obviously not true and I cannot, for the life of me, understand why your employees would tell me (and *IMPORTANT PERSON WHO WORKS IN HIGH PLACES AT BLEEP*, an employee of *BLEEP’S FATHER COMPANY*) to not worry about them because they were only an emulator issue. Well, this is NOT an emulator problem, it is very apparent on my final check discs. Keep in mind that I have not personally gone through the whole disc, so there may be other problems apparent that I have not seen yet. The “beep” issue is something I cannot BELIEVE is present on my check discs when your employees told me they wouldn’t be. This is an issue that is going to cost both our companies more time and more money to fix. Unfortunately, our disc will now not make our street date of July 24th and this has me very upset. Distributors, fans of View Askew and long-time Synapse customers are now not going to get their discs on time. I trusted that what your employees told me was correct and obviously it wasn’t.”

So there you have it. Making the actions of *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* even more inexcusable is that Don May was talking to a friend of his who works at another MAJOR DVD company that recently did a project at *BLEEP* as well, and when Don started to go into the weird “beeping” error that was on A BETTER PLACE, his friend told him that he had the exact same problem with the title he mastered at *BLEEP*! Not only that, but he had done his project A FEW MONTHS BEFORE DON TOOK “A BETTER PLACE” THERE AND ALSO WORKED WITH *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* ON HIS PROJECT! What this means is, *PERSON AT BLEEP IN CHARGE OF THE “A BETTER PLACE” PROJECT* KNEW that the “beeps” Don was hearing when he checked the emulation would be on the pressed DVD because she had run into the EXACT SAME PROBLEM mere months before, and yet she LIED to Don and told him that the “beeps” were an emulator issue only and wouldn’t be on the final discs! Fucked up, no?

Suffice to say, I’m not happy, Don May is not happy, and I’m sure all of you who ordered A BETTER PLACE will not be happy, either. On the plus side, Don said the DVD video and audio quality are outstanding, but we simply can’t approve the disc to be pressed if there are al of these errant “beeps” popping up when they shouldn’t be there. *BLEEP* has to REDO the authoring and navigation to correct the errors, which will take till the end of next week, then send the (hopefully) corrected tapes to Taiwan which will then take another 10 working days to get us new check discs which we then have to check with a fine-toothed comb for any errors before we can give them the go-ahead to press the final DVDs. So what does that mean as far as release date? IF *BLEEP* corrects the errors WITHOUT CREATING NEW ERRORS (with these people it doesn’t seem to be entirely unlikely), that’s gonna be at least a month delay- remember, that’s IF the next batch of check discs are okay. The way things are going, I’m not announcing a date this time. Who the hell knows what can happen when the company mastering your DVD flat-out lies to you and fucks it up? All I (we) can do is hope and pray that they get their shit together this time and do the fucking thing right so I don’t ever have to write another post like this again.

Very saddened and quite annoyed,

Vincent