Watch Puck U vs Funployees, complete with color commentary that’s far more entertaining than the game: http://ustre.am/:vjn9 #HatTrickMing

Via @mentner “haha, fuckin’ forgeticus.” Part 2 goes live on Monday morning! See it (and others) here: http://www.smodcast.com/smodimations

Via @NakayKpaka “you was awesome in 4321. funny as hell dude!” Oy! People of the UK! Go see @4321theMovie! In cinemas TODAY! By @NoelClarke!

UK! Enter post-code to see if #4321Movie is playing near you: http://bit.ly/dugbFX Ain’t yet seen, but I believe! http://www.4321movie.com

Via @GallagherMW “Where is SMODcastle?” Second star to the right & straight on ’til morning! Well… not exactly straight: SantaMonicaBlvd.

Follow @ThatKevinSmith already — Get this stuff sent right to your client of choice!

Sometimes, the sidekick can be the devil on the hero’s shoulder, as in Kevin Smith’s game-changing 1997 comedy about comic book artist Holden (played by Ben Affleck), who falls in love with lesbian cartoonist Alyssa (Joey Lauren Adams). Lee’s Banky objects to the relationship for many reasons, most of them bigoted and shortsighted–Banky doesn’t just have issues with lesbians; he’s such a misogynist that it’s hard to imagine him approving of a relationship with any woman. But Smith makes this character hilarious even if you wind up hating much of what he has to say. (A few years later, in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, the writer-director provided a neat–and hilarious–little coda to Banky’s frothing homophobia.)

Walt Flanagan says his comic book store includes a small section of comic books geared toward the younger crowd.

Flanagan manages Jay and Silent Bob’s Secret Stash in Red Bank, N.J., the comic book store owned by film director Kevin Smith (“Clerks,” “Mallrats”). Flanagan, a noted comic book artist who has drawn such characters as Batman, works there. He’s also appeared in most of Smith’s movies and is credited with turning the director onto comics.

At the Stash, young readers can find the age-appropriate adventures of Archie, Scooby-Doo, Spider-Man and Superman along with titles such as “Marvel Adventures: The Avengers” and “Johnny DC.”

Ladies & Gentlemen, I have arrived! I’m the #GeekAWeek trading card: http://bit.ly/b0sQim Cardback: http://bit.ly/apFESn Very flattered.

ANGELENOS! I’m looking to lease a small, 50 seat venue in the H’wood/Valley area. Why? For THE SMODCAST THEATER. Any leads? (Glengary only.)

Via @samvance “UCB theater” That’s THEIR theater. I want my own for weekly live SModcasts. Shit: with a theater? DAILY morning SModcasts!

Via @BigTree33 “does it need seats?” Bean bags and comfy couches would be better, I’m thinking. Just a cool space for recording/performing.

Via @Opheliac_Lolita “Why not rent out some kind of small warehouse and outfit as you like?” Ooooo… I like the way sNrub thinks!

See, this is what I’m talking about: http://www.workingstage.com/photos_interior.html A nice, small 50-or-so seater. Leasing cheaply.

Look at THIS sexy bitch: http://findlocal.latimes.com/west-l-a/performing-arts/theater/black-box-theatre-los-angeles-theater/photos

Via @david973 “Just for SMods? Or other projects too?” I’d use it for feedback screenings when I’m still in the edit. Pick 50 Tweeps & roll.



With COP OUT, I finally realized my lifelong dream to work with every actor on the ARMAGEDDON poster. Next up: the entire DEEP IMPACT cast.

Via @dmbarnette “bringing smod to rhode island?” SModcast? Not yet. But me? Cumming soon… WITH JOHN WATERS! http://bit.ly/akGDd6 #PTownFF

For the record: the Live SMods will ALL go up. But not in any particular order, and not every week. We’ll save ’em for when we’re SMod-less.

Via @dWorstGamerEver “Kinda bummed the HOB show is sold out.” Still some Standing Room Only tix available: http://viewaskew.com/events/hob/

Chasing Amy (1997) – A scene that you’d expect to be at the end of the movie, but here it proves to be only the beginning. Holden spills his love for his allegedly lesbian friend Alyssa in the pouring rain, in a scene that would probably be cheesy if it wasn’t for Kevin Smith’s characteristically great and down-to-earth dialogue.

Also, DreadCentral is running a contest (for UK readers only) where you can win a copy of the Documentary “Tattoos: A Scarred History” in which Jason appears.

Kevin Smith’s WonderCon Q&A touches on Southwest, critics and ‘Red State’

Having covered five or six patented Kevin Smith Q&As between WonderCon and ComicCon, there are things I know about the “Clerks” director that I don’t know about my closest friends or intimates.

Spend enough time listening to Kevin Smith interact with his fans — in these Q&As, on Twitter, through his Smodcasts — and you’re going to come away with possibly unwanted knowledge about his bathroom habits, his sex life and more. It’s also hard not to come away from one of these Q&A’s with a big smile, because even if you’ve heard the stories before — and Smith isn’t immune to recycling his material — this is probably the man’s natural habitat, his ideal milieu.

As he put it on Friday (April 2) evening, “You can’t come to a Kevin Smith show and be like, ‘Too much information.’ It’s like going to Disneyland and saying ‘Too many pederasts.’ It comes with the territory.”

That was a tame quote. As Smith pointed out to the WonderCon faithful, the paper name placards waiting for talent on the dais typically include a warning on the back telling them that some members of the audience will be under 18 and to keep the commentary room-appropriate. Smith turned his name placard around and showed the crowd that the warning had been covered with a white sticker before he even arrived. Con organizers know that attempting to muzzle or mute or blunt Kevin Smith is as futile as attempting to make edible Kosher-for-Passover pasta.

[In that spirit, I’ve got some highlights from Kevin Smith’s WonderCon Q&A after the break, but things get mighty blue and you probably don’t want to click through if you’re a sensitive sort…]

When you see Kevin Smith speak at a Con, you’re seeing him amongst his people, as he soaks up 90 minutes of adoration, delivering whichever lengthy shaggy dog stories fit his fancy at any given time. Friday’s highlight, instigated by a query from an earnest twentysomething straight-edge guy, was a 20-minute celebration of marijuana, including sex while high, defecating while high, ordering food from online convenience stores while high and living in Ben Affleck’s former house while high.

The punchline of this particular story? “It’s ROPEY!” I’ll let you fill in your own blanks, but let’s just say multiple things were ropey.

The story, not even the slightest bit cautionary, just concluded with a warning that pot is fine, but should never become a gateway drug.

That’s one to grow on.

But what do you expect from a man who, when asked how he’s doing, replied, “Last night I had the best sex I’ve had in 10 years. And it’s not to say that the previous 12 years of sex with the same chick haven’t been great…” and launched into an anecdote that ended with Smith pantomiming attempting to be sexy while using a FleshLight (something he said wouldn’t even be possible for Affleck). And if you don’t know what a FleshLight is, let’s just say that the adult entertainment product received at least a half-dozen shout-outs in the talk.

There have obviously been a few recent controversies in Smith’s life lately and he wasn’t exactly eager to talk about them in detail. The first person to ask about the Southwest incident elected to rescind his question in exchange for a photo op (“Come on up. We won’t talk about that fucking airline ever again.”).

Southwest came up again a little later when Smith mentioned a phone conversation he had with Arnold Schwarzenegger shortly after the writer-director was canonized in a number of media reports. Ah-nold called to invite Smith to a conference on obesity, but by the time Smith got around to believing that he was really being called by the Governor of California, the conference had passed. But even that story was being told only as an excuse for a “Conan the Barbarian” reference — “I just wanted to be like, ‘Gov, what is best in life?'” — and to take credit for California’s potential marijuana measure.

Smith was more open about his recent Twitter-driven dismissal of film critics. Asked about which of his various gigs he likes best, Smith took a step back from viewing himself as a movie director, first and foremost.

“For me, the best part of the job is being able to talk and have people hear and comprehend,” he said, later adding that when it comes to what he enjoys most, “For me it’s always going to be the part where I get to talk to the audience.”

On his critics, Smith noted, “For years, people online have been going, ‘You’re not a f***ing director, you’re no filmmaker. And now I realize they were right. They were dicks for saying it. But they were right. I wasn’t any sort of traditional filmmaker that a lot of cineastes could get their head around. They could back in the early days of my career, because I was so f***ing emo back then, right? ‘Chasing Amy’ was a total emo movie.”

As he said on Twitter in response to savaging of “Cop Out,” he’s reached the point where the people he cares most about are the viewers who pay money to see his movies.

Smith explained, “The reviews that I cared about most were the mutherf***ers who were just like, ‘I had to drive an hour-and-a-half in f***ing snow and pay $40 to a babysitter and f***ing $60 bucks for tickets to a movie and snacks and then I watched ‘Cop Out.” And if that guy’s like ‘You piece of s***. You fat f***ing jerk. I had your back with Southwest, but not f*** you.’ If he says that, at that point I’ll take it, man. Cuz that dude like climbed a mountain to go see that picture. That’s what I’m interested in now. I just want to talk to the audience and find out what they thought. That’s kinda that this is about. I don’t need an intermediary anymore to tell me how I feel and how you guys feel.”

He later said, “Film used to be a religion for me. I still love movies every bit as much now as I did then, but film is not a religion to me anymore. Now film is kinda what it is. It’s an art form and it’s going to be approached from a zillion different ways. Nobody has approached it the right way yet. Nobody’s ever going to approach it the right way, because it’s so subjective.”

Smith confessed that critics or audiences looking for him to make another “Chasing Amy” are out of luck, noting that he just can’t replicate that movie’s authenticity given how far he is from that experience. Regarding the movies he’s making instead, Smith didn’t defend the quality of “Cop Out,” but he explained his motivations.

“‘Cop Out,’ I just want to see if I can work in the studio system,” Smith said. “If I can hold my tongue, if I have to hold my tongue. I wanted to see what the mystery was.”

A few other highlights from Smith’s WonderCon appearance:

*** Smith said that part of why he prefers these Q&As or Twitter over filmmaking is the instant response, noting that he wrote the script for his upcoming horror film “Red State” two-and-a-half years ago and he’s only just getting around to making it. Of that long-gestating project, Smith would only compare it to “Race with the Devil” claiming “I just copied that movie verbatim.

*** One thing I remember from Smith’s WonderCon talk four years ago was the appearance of a small child with a strong resemblance to Jason Mewes. At the time, Smith joked that he’d have to cast the kid as Little Jay. Well, the kid was back on Friday asking when he was going to be cast. Smith’s response, “I’m a bear and that’s my move with all the cubs. ‘I’m gonna need a Little Jay.’ I’ve f***ed so many Little Jays.”

*** Think that answer is a bit salty? Try Smith’s response to a question regarding what you have to do to become a writer for his View Askew shingle: “You have to come out of my mother’s vagina and be me. A lot of dudes get it half-right. They come into my mother’s vagina. They find out very quickly that I don’t want to help them make movies. Unless my mother’s like, ‘Well, he f***ed me right’ and then I’m like ‘OK. Ben. Matt. Here’s money. Go make a movie.’ And that’s the story of ‘Good Will Hunting.'”

*** After those two answers, I should note that in the 95-minute Q&A, Smith received exactly one question from a female fan.

*** Smith also said that after seeing “The Dark Knight” and “Watchmen,” he no longer had any desire to make a comic book movie. He also applauded Jon Favreau for his work on the “Iron Man” movies saying, “A really talented filmmaker can take sh** character and make it into something. I go the other way.”

*** As funny as his stories are, Smith is at his best in totally spontaneous moments, like his Marilyn Monroe-esque rendition of “Happy Birthday” sung to an audience member.

*** Smith says he’s looking forward to when Disney has sorted out the rights to various Miramax titles so that he can pitch an extended cut of “Jersey Girl.” That pitch? “Remember ‘Jersey Girl’? Well I have an hour more of that bulls***. Let’s stir it back in.”

*** If you’re wondering about the mysterious entry “Hiatus” on his IMDB page, Smith explained that it was a pilot for Jason Lee that was never scripted and never had a network home, but would have told the story of a male porn star who leaves the adult industry behind and moves back to his hometown accompanied by his favorite fluffer. Mewes would have played another former porn star named Lester the Molester.

DVD Talk: For big movies, like Transformers, most people really don’t care what critics have to say.

Kevin Smith: No, of course not. It’s ridiculous and it’s a waste of time to have some critic write a fucking review of Transformers or Cop Out. There’s no point. Get a twelve-year old to review it because that’s who you wanna hear from. I’ll believe a twelve-year old. If they say something sucks I’ll believe it. If a twelve-year old says something rocks, I’ll believe it. I’m not going to believe some fucking dude or chick who says, “I saw the movie for free, had a few hours to digest it, had a chance to think of my political stance on the filmmaker and the studio and had the chance to think about the people I want to push or hold back on, and now I’m going to write my fair and unbiased review.” It doesn’t work like that. I believed that forever since that was the world I was raised in. I believe to this day the New York Times review of Clerks made my career. Janet Maslin opened so many doors with that review. That review meant something. Reviews don’t matter as much anymore. Why? Because you can talk to the fucking audience. That was the only way to hear about. I don’t know, it’s weird. I’m not bitter about it, because I didn’t read many of the reviews. Even if I did, it’s just a lot of energy to spend on a movie that didn’t try to do anything besides making people laugh. That was it and that was our agenda. It has nothing to do with art except for the art of making people laugh. We had very talented artists onboard to make that happen. But for a movie like this, why even bother reviewing it? To me, it just makes a film critic look like a bully. Why bother?

Want more? Hit up DVD Talk and keep an eye right here. We’ll let ya know when more is on the way.

Director Kevin Smith, known for movies “Zack and Miri make a Porno” and “Cop Out”, is about to start work on a horror movie. The movie will be called “Red State” and will be about hate towards gays in the American Church. Smith, himself bisexual and according to some the inspiration for the character with the same name in cult-horror game “killer7”, wants to make Red State into a very serious and dark horror movie. The release is planned for next year.

Bisexual, eh? That’s a good one.

In some ways Mae Day is a sort of proto-Lost in La Mancha. Incidental footage and anything else available is used to create a film that would have at least some sort of measured success. Mae Day does a decent enough job at this, though its 10-minute length means that there isnt much depth given and, well, student films fall through all the time. That part of the story isnt particularly interesting, and it seems like the original idea wouldve been a much better way of using everyones time. In this way its a decent bailout video for the students grades, but not much more.

Now, what I really like about the short is that while half of it is about this failed documentary, half of it is Smith and Mosier making fun of their classmates, the schools faculty and documentary form in general. The pair finds what theyre putting together utterly ridiculous and theyre not afraid to say this, albeit in a highly ironic fashion. Keeping themselves in silhouette as if theyre informants is done to parody bad TV documentaries of the time, as are their overly dramatic pronouncements about what theyd done. Smith in fact wrote all of their interview dialogue beforehand in order to maximize the films ridiculousness.