On behalf of News Askew & all the fans, happy birthday, Kev! Here’s to another great year of Askew, with the last bringing us Dogma, the Clerks cartoon, and some kick-ass comics, the next one’s looking to be even better, with View Askew 5, the Fletch project, Green Arrow, and more. Thanks for another fantastic year of entertainment. Here’s to many more.

Addendum — Kevin turns 30 TODAY, August 2nd (as I modify this) not on August 1st as the story may have led you to believe when it was posted late last evening. Happy B-day, Kev.

• The new Cameron Crowe flick, “Almost Famous” with Jason Lee in a starring role, now has the trailer online. The film is in FACT based on the life of the writer/director and his experiences, at a young age, being a cub reporter for Rolling Stone. Jason Lee is seen BRIEFLY in the trailer, one line, but he is credited 4th in the flick. The movie seems to follow the reporter as he bonds with a band, which he shouldn’t do, as he writes about them. You can watch the trailer online HERE (5.5 MB QUICKTIME). We’re predicting good things for this film, it looks like a good one.
• Well, it looks like Chevy Chase can’t keep his mouth shut about the whole Fletch thing. Now that Kev’s confirmed he’s doing a new film based on the character, he’s back to his complaing. This comes to us from Salon.Com:

As we mentioned the last time this happened, the whole honest Fletch/Chevy explanation from Kevin in our archives.

• There is now a Dutch Dogma website online HERE. If you speak the language or are just curious, you may wanna check it out.
• Kevin Smith as a college course? Some undergrads think so. Two fans are teaching a course entitled “The World According to Kevin Smith.” at Tufts University, just outside of Boston in Medford, MA. Tufts has a program called Explorations that allows undergraduate students to teach topics of interest to them. They designed the entire full-credit course on their own. It will meet once a week for 3 hours. It will be a discussion based class and will look into the films (obviously), some comics, some scripts, the cartoon show and some other stuff.

Their course description is as follows: “The World According to Kevin Smith. This course will use the diverse works of Kevin Smith as a foundation for discussing modern cultural and social issues. Topics such as the independent film industry, censorship, portrayal of youth in media, sexuality, and religion will be discussed.” Sounds like a fun 3 credits!

• Those of you who enjoyed the clips of Kevin at the webmasters panel in San Diego will be happy to know that the CHUD site plans to add more as time goes on. You’ll find new editions periodically right HERE. Enjoy!

• Finally today, Kev appears in a cartoon from this week’s TV Guide (with Clint Eastwood on the cover). Catch ya at the next one.

• Hey, we’re back with a long overdue update — Sorry about the delays, it’s that time of summer when the weekends get busy and it seems like there’s not enough time in a day to accomplish what you’d like. We’re back now and have stockpiled all the latest for ya, so you didn’t miss a beat. Today there’s more from the San Diego con (better late than never), and of course those wonderful NewsBites that seem to be so popular when there’s not a lot of major stuff going on. We’ve got a new poll on the way today, too. Let’s roll:

• It took a while for material to surface from Kev’s con appearance, but today we’re happy to have quite a few pieces of media from the show. First off, Aint It Cool ran a small piece that summarized a few of the goings-on at the panel. Nothing really different than we reported, though it does allude to the fact that both Brodie and Banky will appear in View Askew 5, which we’re sure will happen, but hasn’t been out and out verified yet.

IGN reveals that Kevin did mention again at the con that they’re still expecting to have that Clerks Animated Series DVD ready in January, so it seems that things are going well on that one. With commentary, storyboards, and lots more, we can’t wait.

Coolest of all, thanks to the CHUD website, we’ve got 2 clips from the webmasters panel, featuring Kevin and that famous jab he made at Ron Wells. Surf HERE to check out the clips in RealPlayer format.

Finally, we’ve got a couple shots of Kev, Jennifer, and Harley on the scene. Great looking family Kev’s got there.

• In the latest Dork Tower comic (#9, Dork Storm Press, by John Kovalic, cover by Dave Sim of “Cerebus” fame) there’s a one page comic all about fanboy envy of Kevin and his multi-faceted success. Well worth checking out.
• Daily Radar has named Clerks as one of the “Top 10 Best Work Movies”.
• The highly addictive Hollywood Stock Exchange website is now offering stock in View Askew 5 (VIEW5). Get in on the IPO on what’s sure to be a big moneymaker!
• A VA movie sees a mention in some Hoyle Movie Pocket Trivia cards — Card #49 asks, “Who played the role of the comic book artist in ‘Chasing Amy’?” They post the answer as Ben Affleck, but considering most of the main characters could be considered artists, there’s lots of correct answers.
• Joey Lauren Adams plays a horny philosophy professor in “Harvard Man”. Do we have your attention now? Find out more in this article with Ms. Adams at the Canoe website.
• The Fletch Won website is starting a petition to get the original Fletch flicks on DVD. If you’re a fan, surf on over and lend your name.
• Priscilla Barnes, everyone’s favorite three-nippled topless psychic, is appearing on the Sci-Fi Channel’s new Invisible Man series. By the way, “Hollow Man” this Friday! Be there.
• “Coyote Ugly” is listed as a choice in this survey where you can select which film you’re most looking forward to.

• You’ve heard the rumblings, and from talking to Vincent as well as others, along with the website DVD Express now moving the release date, it looks like Pereira’s “A Better Place” jam-packed special edition DVD will be out this Fall. A release date of October 31, 2000 is now being predicted, but that’s just speculation. Vincent has said that the new remix makes ABP “sound like a [David] Lynch film”, so we’re certainly looking forward to all the great stuff that’s in store. As with all View Askew productions, sit tight, it’ll be well worth the wait!

• More chances to own that way cool View Askew DVD case are up on ebay right now, and we’re even hearing rumblings that these beauties may even become MORE widespread than that! In the meantime, be among the first to own one of these babies at Ebay Auction #1 & Ebay Auction #2.
• Here’s a CLASSIC Kev quote from Inside.Com that elaborates a bit on that story we alluded to from San Diego last update:

• Got some more Green Arrow for ya right here, in a wonderfularticle courtesy of Wizard World. Mostly rehash of our last news, but still, if ya wanna keep up, check it out.
• You’ll find a small mention of Kevin’s use of the online community on the IFilmPro website:

• Upcoming Affleck film news:“Swordfish”, written by Skip Woods, and to be directed by Dominic Sena (Gone In 60 Seconds), tells the story of the “world’s most dangerous spy” hired by the CIA to to coerce a computer hacker recently released from prison to help steal $6 billion in unused government funds. Production of the film is scheduled to begin this September, and will feature Ben Affleck along with Vinnie Jones and John Travolta. Affleck’s role will likely be one of the minor ones, with Travolta (hot off that awful Battlefield Earth debacle) in the lead. We think.
• Claire Forlani‘s in the news again in a couple places, with 2 pages devoted to her in the latest issue of “Gear” magazine this month:

Also, she’s up against Liv Tyler in TV Guide’s online “You Sexy Thing” poll this week.

• Whew…That was scary. We thought the damage was a lot worse but, as you can see, we’re back in full force once again after about a day of downtime. Sorry about that. What happened, if you’re curious, was that the server that houses News Askew totally filled up with data (there are other sites here as well as ours) and boom went all of our interactive data. Unlike the old site, the new site is constantly changing due to new news posts, votes, and talkbacks, which means less control from the webmaster’s end. Still, looks like everything’s been restored except the last poll topic results were lost. We’ll revisit the poll at a later time so we’ve got it for the archives.

Anyone else been watching more TV than usual this summer? It’s a couch potato’s dream, especially if you’re a reality TV lover…Survivor and Big Brother are huge hits for CBS (By the way, the Big Brother website is pretty addictive, stay away if you’re a fan of the show, that’s a warning), not to mention MTV’s new Real World and Road Rules, new South Parks on Comedy Central (the current 2-parter makes anything in Dogma look like a G-rated flick)…And more. The fall TV season’s gonna roll around and it won’t ever seem like new TV even left. Of course, it’s still recommended that you get outside at least once in a while. Can’t let all the good weather go to waste.

On the film front, caught “What Lies Beneath” this week. It was okay, ya gotta hand it to Zemeckis for making a modern Hitchcock flick without falling back on tons of digital effects or supernatural elements to tell the story. Still, I dunno how much fun that one would be to watch again. Worth a watch, though. Not much else to look forward to theatrically until Hollow Man in 2 weeks — Ya gotta love Verhoeven‘s tenacity and the look of all his stuff, he hasn’t made a movie not worth watching since he came to the U.S. (Come on, admit it, you’re watched “Showgirls”, at least). And it’s got an R-rating now, too, which means a lot more of that over the edge stuff he does so well.

But enough about all that stuff…You’re here for View Askew news, aren’t ya? Sure ya are. Since we had some downtime yesterday, a day there’s usually an update, we’ve got quite a bit going on for ya today. Let’s take a look at the happenings from the San Diego con, Green Arrow news, and some other intersting tidbits. Here we go…

• Two new stories online at the Comic websites today for your perusal: First off, a new piece on Kevin and Green Arrow at the Comics Continuum website:

SMITH TALKS GREEN ARROW

Filmmaker Kevin Smith announced that he is officially on board as writer for a re-launch of DC Comics’ Green Arrow.

At the DC Universe slide show at the Comic-Con International in San Diego, Smith said will be joined for the book by artists Phil Hester and Ande Park. DC provided a first image of a Silver Age-looking Green Arrow.

“I know we’ve been talking about this book for six years, and we’re finally ready,” Smith said.

Smith said he is writing 12 issues of Green Arrow.

“Some people say this is a maxi-series,” Smith said, “but hopefully when I leave, the next issue will be #13 with a better writer than me.”

Smith said the first issue will include Conner Hawke, Roy Harper and Black Canary and that eight issues will center around what exactly happened to Oliver Queen. He also said that Green Arrow will be using trick arrows.

“I don’t think this arc is about re-inventing Green Arrow,” Smith said. “It’s about doing a good Green Arrow book.

“If you were a fan of Green Arrow before the (Mike) Grell revamp, during the Grell revamp or the post-Grell revamp, there’s something for everybody – including some Conner.”

Green Arrow will be edited by Bob Schreck. “Everybody’s been very supportive,” Smith said. “DC’s been very cool.”

Smith said that he has requested Green Arrow not appear in any other DC books until he’s explained what has happened to him. Asked about a possible Green Arrow/Green Lantern team-up, Smith said, “It depends – who’s your Green Lantern? There’s stuff in there.”

Smith said Green Arrow is his only super-hero project, and that includes movies.

“No movies. I tried super-hero movies. Forget about it,” he said. “I’m like Kryptonite to super-hero movies.”

Also today, a new piece that appears HERE at the Another Universe website reveals that Joe Quesada will leave his Iron Man writing duties to focus more on Daredevil. We know he and Kev get along really well, so you can assume the two will team up again sometime in the future, though with Kev busy with Green Arrow, it’ll be awhile!

• Looks like Kevin’s View Askew panel is scheduled for a 2 hour panel starting at 3:00 PM on Saturday. That’s all we’ve got so far. Check this site for schedules and more. We’ll have full coverage of the event and as much more info as we can dig up.