If not all its narrative and emotional strands work perfectly, though, the movie has its charms.Kevin Smith, as Grady’s housemate Sam, proves he’s no one-note Silent Bob. Although wearing a tie-dyed shirt may be the biggest challenge he faces here, he fills his comic-relief duties easily and has time left over to show a little tenderness. While Smith gets most of the laughs, Garner does turn a dinner-table outburst into a comic highlight.

I don’t have a weight problem. There are people who can work their asses off to lose weight only to find that their genetics conspire against their best efforts. I’m not one of those people. I can lose weight – I just have a problem with getting off my fat ass. What can I say? I’m just a lazy fuck.

When I apply myself in the pursuit of better health, I get good-to-great results. But I know I’m not expressing anything new here when I write that eating right and working out aren’t nearly as interesting or fun as eating garbage food and laying around. There are two many DVD’s to watch, and too much pizza to consume while doing so. And I’ve always been able to justify my position by reframing the negative as “I busy myself professionally; the down-time is mine to do with as I please.”

…

Mistake this not as a request for your sympathy; I don’t deserve it, nor do I require it. I’m a lard-ass; I know it. I put myself in this position, and I’ll dig myself out. Just letting you know that, from here on in, Monday will be the blog day in which I write about what I’ve lost (if I’ve lost), and what I want to eat so badly that I’d be willing to step on all your necks just to get a taste… but won’t, because I’m committed to a cause.

…

So follow my triumphs and failures on the road to 230 (God, how sad is that? I’m sure most of you see 230 as abject failure, while I see it as a long, hard road to travel toward), every Monday, right here, in a blog I’ll call “Fat-Fuck Vs. Food.”

GETTING IN ON THE ACT

It’s not unusual for actors to try their hands at directing, but there aren’t many directors who have the guts to go the other way. Kevin Smith goes against the grain for Catch and Release

By Earl Dittman

Kevin Smith admits he’s never felt comfortable in front of the camera. “If you looked like me, would you want to see this face on the big screen,” asks the 36-year-old New Jersey native who’s best known as the writer, director and producer of such films as Clerks, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Dogma and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back.

But after appearing in many of his own films – particularly as the mostly mute Silent Bob – it’s a little hard to believe Smith finds appearing on camera so unpleasant.

“Acting is not one of my favourite things,” he insists. “In the beginning, I appeared in my movies more out of necessity than anything else. I didn’t have to pay anyone if I did the role. Plus, I never felt like I was that good of an actor, so I was always anxious to get back behind the camera and direct.”

When writer/director Susannah Grant (director of TV’s Party of Five, writer of Erin Brockovich) began to cast the supporting roles for Catch and Release, a romantic drama about a woman (Jennifer Garner) coming to terms with the her financ6’s death who discovers he was keeping a big secret from her, Kevin Smith was on her short list. Havingjust rented An Evening With Kevin Smith, a documentary which follows one of Smith’s college Q&-A tours, Grant was intrigued by his natural presence and thought he’d be great as Garner’s funny and supportive friend Sam. “I was flattered when I heard somebody wanted to cast me, but I was like, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,”‘ Smith recalls.

But Grant had the upper hand – Garner is married to Ben Affleck, a member of Smith’s regular acting ensemble, and his best friend.

A slimmer, trimmer Smith, decked out in a basketball jersey, jeans, tennis shoes and a baseball cap (worn in reverse, of course) admits, “Once Jennifer asked if I would be in the movie with her there was no way I could say no. Not doing the role would have been like refusing a kidney to a member of the family. So I did it. And it wasn’t as painful as I thought it was going to be,” he says with laugh. “I would have still rather given a kidney.”

What was it like acting for another director?

“It wasn’t all that difficult because Susannah knew her stuff. She knew what she was doing. It might have been a different story if she was walking around in a constant stupor, but she was a real pro the whole time. Jennifer said she would be great, and I trust Jen except for her taste in men [laughs]. I was simply an actor and I didn’t feel an overwhelming need to tell her how to do her job. But, to he honest, I really like working behind the scenes.”

o you think you did a good job?

“I must have, because no one ever talked about firing me. I think I did good. I mean, I’m not exactly a novice. I’ve done several of my own movies, so I know how the process works. Now that I think about it, it was kind of relaxing to do my lines and then let someone else deal with the nightmares of making a movie.”

Are you naturally Shy?

“Painfully so. I don’t even go out and party much. You should talk to my wife about my shyness. My wife is in bell because I’m not a ‘go-out’ type of person. She lives in a gilded cage. She’s got the diamonds, but she doesn’t get to go to parties and stuff. She used to write for USA Today, so she used to go out and cover parties in the city left and right, and then we hooked up…. She was suddenly trapped in a relationship with a guy who does not ever go out…. I mean, I can speak to 4,000 people at a college Q&A, I can sit and do press all day, but the moment I’m out there by myself I tend to clam up. When I’m around her good friends, they don’t think I speak at all.”

Speaking of good friends, Affleck is currently directing his first movie, Gone, Baby, Gone. Did you visit the set to check up on him?

“A while back I was in Boston doing press and, of course, I was interested in going to see him on the set. Then I was like, ‘You know what? It sucks when you’re visiting a movie set and you’re not a part of the movie.’ When you’ve got no job on a movie set you shouldn’t be there, because you’re just always in the way.”

So he didn’t give you a cameo?

“No cameo for me. But I made the mistake in Boston of joking about that. I think that I was talking to The Boston Herald – which one is the more tabloid, The Herald Well, the chick from The Herald was like, ‘Are you going to see Ben?’ I said, ‘You know what, I’ve got no business being there. I’ve nothing to do with the movie.’ She’s like, ‘You’re not in the movie?’ l said, ‘No! Can you believe that I cast that bum in six movies, and he didn’t have the courtesy to give me a cameo in his?’ I said it totally tongue-in-cheek. Like, what do I give a hoot about acting? I’m not an actor. But the next day in The Boston Herald was the headline ‘Smith Angry with Affleck. ‘Then that piece got picked up and tons of online pieces ran about this fake feud. You know that it’s reached ridiculous proportions when on IMDB – in that morning news thing, where you read those stories and go, ‘I know these people, none of this is true’ – that story made it and it was like, ‘Smith Slams Affleck.’ l was like, ‘Doesn’t anyone understand a joke?”‘

Of all the movies you’ve made, Chasing Amy is often considered the best. Will you ever make a sequel?

“No, I don’t think that we should. Affleck is always bugging me to make another Chasing Amy, but not as a direct sequel, right, but that’s how I got him intojay and Silent Bob. I called him up and I said, ‘You get to play Holden McNeil again,’ and he said, ‘Oh, God, I love it.’ I said, ‘The bad news is you’ve got to play yourself, too,’ and he said, ‘Crap! There’s always a price with you, dude.”‘

There’s now a street named after you in New Jersey. How does that feel?

“It’s kind of weird. I mean, it’s definitely an honour. I’m glad that it’s in New Jersey, but at the same time they’re real careful not to give me a street where anyone actually lived.”

What’s on your street?

“It’s an access road to a high school, which is appropriate, but no one lives on Kevin Smith Way. So I’ve often thought about buying a little property and building a house there so that someone can have that address.”

You don’t live in New Jersey anymore, do you?

“I live in Los Angeles now, in the Hollywood Hills, but I did live in Beverly Hills for about eight months while my house was undergoing reconstruction because they had a flood in it. Long story, but I did get to live in Beverly Hills. It ain’t all that.”

Why did you hate it?

“It’s not that I hated it, but I just thought, ‘How can they charge this much for a house based on a Zip code?’ because the house that we live in was far nicer than the house that the insurance company put us up in. I was like, ‘What’s the list price on this house?’ and someone told me and I’m like, ‘This is a hole. Are you insane, why?’ They’re like, ‘90210.’”

So Jersey will always be home?

“What do I say about Jersey? It always was, and always will be home. I went out of my way to make sure that my daughter was born in Jersey. When my wife was pregnant, real pregnant, she couldn’t get on a plane because they don’t let really pregnant women get on commercial airliners, because they won’t just land the jet if your wife goes into labour. So, we were out in Los Angeles at the time promoting Dogma, and we called Harvey Weinstein and said, ‘Dude, I’ve got to get my wife back to Jersey so that she can have the kid in a Jersey hospital.’ I wanted her to have the kid in the same hospital that I was born in and so we did. And we took a jet.”

SMALL TOWN GAY BAR

Tuesday, January 23
Screening at 7:30pm

* Q & A with Director Malcolm Ingram, moderated by Executive Producer Kevin Smith, to follow screening

The fight for equal rights is far from over, and nowhere is this more evident than in small towns in the Deep South. Homosexuals in these communities lack the social outlets of their cosmopolitan brethren. Focusing primarily on two bars in Mississippi, Rumors and Crossroads, the film introduces us to their proprietors as they struggle to stand their ground in hostile terrain. Director Malcolm Ingram deftly balances the joy and pain of this world and crafts a film that will connect with anyone who has ever felt oppressed and found strength with a little help from their friends.

“Inherently moving and excruciatingly truthful, Malcolm Ingram’s SMALL TOWN GAY BAR is the story of real people in a real place, documenting their fight to create a family of love and acceptance in a world that has offered them none.” – Film Threat

Official Selection, Sundance Film Festival 2006

Director: Malcolm Ingram
Executive Producer: Kevin Smith
Co-Presented with the UCLA Documentary Salon Series
View Trailer

I recently got the chance to sit down 1-on-1 with the talented, extremely witty and all around cool dude, Kevin Smith. He is doing the rounds promoting his latest feature CATCH AND RELEASE where he plays Jennifer Garner’s roomie in a scene stealing performance. He seems to be doing the actor gig quite a bit lately with this, a small role in TMNT (voice work in case you were wondering) and the recent pilot for MANCHILD which is the US version of the hit British series starring Mr. Giles, Anthony Stewart Head of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE fame. And don’t forget, he will be wisecracking his way through LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD, the latest DIE HARD installment with the one and only Bruce Willis.

Well, the question is, when will he get back behind the camera? The rumor was that he was working on a horror film. Yep, you heard right, “It’s all in my head, I haven’t sat down and started tapping away yet.” When I asked what type of horror he is looking to do, he asked, “Did you ever see RACE WITH THE DEVIL? It’s like that.” Many others had asked him about zombies, to that he added, “Is that what a horror movie is to people? Like, just zombies? It’s such a wide genre, its wide open… In a world where 28 DAYS LATER is a horror movie and THE SHINING is a horror movie. Those are two very disparate films… It’s a wide open genre and very tough to pin down. It’s so odd to me that people immediately assume that you are talking a zombie or a monster.”

I for one am a major fan of Mr. Smith, and after talking horror with him, I guarantee that he’s got a terrific grasp on what makes a great horror film. He understands that there is more than one kind of horror and it’s not just jumping on the bandwagon of the recent trend. I am eagerly awaiting his contribution to a genre which means a whole lot to yours truly. And if you haven’t seen RACE WITH THE DEVIL, I urge you to check it out on DVD. See what you can do with a great script, top-notch actors and a truly suspenseful premise. And thank whomever you want to thank that Mr. Smith has NO plans to just remake it. You can read more on my conversations with Kevin Smith very soon.

BEN AFFLECK

Role: George Reeves, Hollywoodland

Age: 34 Birthplace: Berkeley, California

“I think it’s vaguely flattering, but not entirely somehow,” Affleck says of folks who say this role is something of a comeback for him. “I hadn’t done a movie in two years in a conscious effort to just be away from everything, mostly paparazzi and the tabloid culture, with the idea if you just stop, maybe it will go away a little bit. I also made an effort to just kind of really examine what kind of actor I really want to be, and what kind of career I want to have. I was lucky that [Hollywoodland] was the first movie that I did after that, because I really like [it] and it would have been just as easy for it not to have worked. So in its simplest sense, I take it that that’s a sort of way of saying like, “Well, the guy’s last movie wasn’t very good, but this movie seems to be.’ So I don’t know if it’s a comeback. But I guess it’s an improvement.”