The nineties were crazy time when Jon Peters (uber producer) and Kevin Smith (‘Clerks’ director and fan boy) would butt heads about their new Superman script. Much of these dealings and meetings have been well documented and discussed by a disgruntled Kevin Smith. Any fans of the genre or of Smith have either read about ‘Superman Lives’ (Peters/ Smith title) or heard Smith discuss it in his lecture tours.

CHASING AMY - Written by: Kevin Smith

Arguably one of Kevin Smith’s best movies (though maybe not his wittiest, which would go to Clerks), Chasing Amy is a story about a lesbian and the man in love with her. Whether you are straight, gay, or bi, you can’t deny that Chasing Amy has heart. And its script is really well done, at that. My personal favorite scene would be when Jason Lee is trying to explain to Ben Affleck why the relationship can’t work, using examples with Santa Clause, the Easter Bunny, and the Man-Hating Dyke. It’s just classic Smith dialogue.

Character: Silent Bob
Films: Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, Clerks II
Years Released: 1994, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2001, 2006
Chief traits: Silent, Not Silent
Trademark line: ” “
Additional comments: Probably not since the days of silent films has one man said so much by saying so little. Pairing with his hopped-up sidekick Jay (or is Bob the sidekick?), Silent Bob went from a quirky minor character in Kevin Smith’s debut Clerks to the co-star of his own film, along the way spawning a franchise for Smith and Bob alike, including comic books, cartoons, and guest spots on crappy TV shows (Yes, Dear).

Moving more recently, how was working with Kevin Smith? He seems to be a very big fan of your work?

Working with Kevin was very nice. He did seem to appreciate my previous work and he did seem to like what I wrote for him for Mallrats.

I’ve read an interview when you seemed to really appreciate that level of detail Kevin went in to regarding your work. Do you find that most directors don’t have that level of respect or understanding for the scoring process?

Most directors don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground about music. If they’re regular guys and somewhat modest people who are interested in having a fruitful relationship with the composer, they don’t puff themselves up and they speak frankly with their composer, who is almost always ready to bend over backwards to help them get what they want and need… just like an intelligent homeowner who wants to get a great paint job and listens to the expert painter that he hires.

Last week, Silverman surprised her boyfriend, Jimmy Kimmel, on his show with a music video called “I’m [Bleep]ing Matt Damon,” featuring Silverman and the “Bourne Identity” star singing together about their faux affair. Now Kimmel is striking back with a song called “I’m [bleep]ing Ben Affleck.” Our source told us the video for this song, set to the theme of “We Are the World,” will star Affleck, Robin Williams, Don Cheadle, Harrison Ford, Ashlee Simpson and Pete Wentz.

With Affleck involved, it should be a riot — we can’t wait to see what he gets the guy to do. We’ll be watching for it. Kimmel’s show airs nightly on ABC.

Will’s always good enough to do these captures, and never even asks us for a plug, but we’re giving him one anyway, darn it — RadioAskew is now back with some new programming, so be sure to take a listen to his professional podcast at the official site - All the latest pop culture stuff with an Askew slant to it.

CHASING AMY - Kevin Smith. Funny, real, pitch perfect, and you actually root for Ben Affleck. Now that’s good writing!

• NBC has been kind enough to post beautifully shot video of their “Heroes” panel from the con. About 4 minutes into part three, Kevin’s introduction begins. This is the first moment that the world learned that Kevin will direct the first episode of “Heroes: Origins”. This is the new show from the “Heroes” creators which will run next season, introducing NEW Heroes, one of which we’ll be able to vote into the regular cast. We’re hopeful that Kevin might be given the opportunity to write some or all of his installment, too, though we’ll have to wait and see what comes of that. The show will start airing in April, following “Heroes” season two. For still photos of the cast, check out Superhero Hype.
• Kevin mentioned a planned start date for January 2008 for “Zack and Miri Make A Porno”. This would allow him to film around the coldest time of the year to suit the film’s winter theme. A shooting locale has not yet been confirmed.
• Instead of forcing folks to re-buy “Chasing Amy” on DVD, Criterion will release a new supplemental disc containing the new Q&A and some other goodies. We thought this one was pretty major so we’ve got a full story for it just below this one.
• Nisha Gopalan from EW has been doing a post on each of her days at Comic Con; Kevin made his appearance in Friday’s recap :

  The day ended with what is now a Comic-Con ritual, the panel hosted by geek god Kevin Smith. In the main conference hall, Smith screened the full pilot episode he directed of the upcoming TV series Reaper (airing this fall Tuesdays at 9pm on The CW), and then brought a few cast members and the show’s creators onto the stage — to watch Kevin Smith answer questions that had nothing to do with the (quite well-received) show. Practically all of it was absolutely hysterical — and completely unprintable on a family blog. Suffice it to say, the audience learned far, far more about the sexual escapades of Smith’s new daschunds than they ever could’ve expected.

• Phasekitty wrote an excellent blog post on Kevin’s Comic Con Q&A for the Team Sugar blog (they have the Pop Sugar, Geek Sugar, etc. sites). There’s a full review of the Reaper re-shoot along with a re-cap of the talk. She also has some nicely snapped pics from the show.
• How about a look at some other press from around the web that discussed Kevin’s appearances…Shall we?
  BuddyTV: 2007 Comicon: ‘Reaper’ Screening and Panel with Director Kevin Smith

  
  Zap2It: Kevin Smith to Direct ‘Origins’ Episode

  TV Squad: Comic-Con: Heroes panel - BREAKING NEWS

Finally, don’t miss Kevin’s own post/wrapup that he just released today where he runs down more major press outlets who had great things to say about his appearance as well as the hilarious “Reaper” pilot. Wow, we gotta make it to this next year, as Kevin urges. If anyone’s got more to say, something we missed, photos, or stories, we’d love to hear them — Or, share them via our comment system for the world to see.

During his panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, Kevin Smith confirmed that a supplementary DVD will be released next year for his 1997 Spirit Award winning Chasing Amy. To keep the style of special edition versions of his movie going, Smith’s opus will get a special edition treatment, but rather than being packaged into a new “collectors edition” DVD set, a single disc will be released that is set to include a slew of extras to act as a counterpart to the Criterion Collection DVD released in 2000.

Set to be included with the new disc is a Chasing Amy documentary found on the web, a post-screening Q and A from a film festival as well as interviews and reflections from the cast and crew of the film.

Smith said to expect this new disc to be available sometime next summer.

So, there’s your answer. We’re sorry to say you’ll need to wait another year to see this stuff, but we’re sure it will be worth it — Criterion doesn’t mess around when it comes to their DVD work, and neither do Kevin and View Askew. It’ll be here before ya know it. As for a dual-disc set, at this point nothing’s been announced, so it looks like you’ll need to buy them seperately (if for some crazy reason you don’t already own it). We’ll let you know as we hear more.