- “Jersey Girl’s” Raquel Castro, now 16 years old (makes you feel a little old, doesn’t it?) has been pursuing music and dance, and has now debuted her first music video on YouTube which has been getting some nice feedback. JG was her breakout role, but she also recently appeared in a small role in “Brooklyn’s Finest”.
- The absolutely awesome (it just seems to get funnier every time you rewatch it) Clerks Animated Series gets much-deserved props in this Film 411 article on short-lived, but brilliant, animated classics. Here’s a snippet:
If you didn’t already know, this series is tremendous. Clerks: The Animated Series tackles a lot of the same topics as in the movies but thanks to the additional freedom that animation grants, the series shines like a freaking diamond. The humor found here is not fully like in the movie, where vulgarity and cruelness plays a big part. In the series, the jokes are expanded into unique ideas that were absolutely made for television. Jokes, references, and pop culture hysteria are quickly rattled off one after another in a hilarious string of continuance. Not to mention the fantastic jabs they take against popular sitcom devices: fake sitcom introductions (“this show was drawn in front of a live studio audience”), narrative recap devices (“previously on Clerks – beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep”), infamous television staples (such as the clip show episode being only the second episode of the series) movie spoofs (Schindler’s List + Flintstones = Flintstone’s List), and other popular culture figures. - Kevin fan Crystal sends us these pinup style photos she had taken where she chose some wise reading materials. Well done, Crystal!
You are at the archive for the Clerks category &rarr
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- Got your team set up for the Brantford Gretzky ball hockey tournament yet? Getting excited? This awesome new item from the Stash, the Kevin Smith “Puck U” goalie poster, celebrates that great event last year, and features a great shot of Kev between the pipes. The poster was originally created for a promotional event, but the Stash loved it so much they brought it on board. Items like this tend to be limited, so we recommend you order soon before they disappear. A bargain at just $9.99 per poster.
- Major congrats to Johnson, Flanagan, and Ingram, whose triumphant entry in the SMod network has them celebrating top honors amongst the top comedic podcast downloads in the world, according to iTunes. In other SMod news, you can now follow Walt & Bry on Twitter at this location. You will soon be able to catch and make comments about SModcast via a Twitter offshoot account by Kevin @smodentary. Visit the official SModcast website for the latest episodes of all 3 shows, now running strong on a weekly basis. Crossover city last week, so be sure to grab ‘em all. Coolest SMod news of the week – StarkToons have been hired to produce a monthly “For The Love of Smod” animated series. We can’t wait.
- The creators of the classic game “Bejeweled” mention watching “Clerks” during the game’s infancy in this recent interview:
“Brian Fiete, who co-founded the company along with Jason Kapalka and me, was our primary coder in those days (he’s still our chief tech guru). Right after we made the decision to offer a ‘deluxe’ version of Bejeweled for $19.95, Brian devised a little ‘applet’ that would cause a “cha-ching!” old school cash register sound every time someone actually ponied up $20 for the game. At first it was great fun to hear it go off… on one occasion the three of us were sitting around watching the film “Clerks” and one of the characters said something like “dude, you’ll never get rich sitting around on your ass all day” – and the “cha-ching” sounded and we just fell over laughing… after a couple of days that damned “cha-ching” was going off every minute or two and it was driving us nuts… but that was when we realized we might actually have a hit on our hands.” - Empire Online seems to have borrowed the famous “Clerks II” poster tagline for their t-shirts.
Mr. Smith Talks to “Wired”…
“Oh, I’m online all the time now. I’m not an outdoorsy type. Everything I do that’s not related to filmmaking or child-rearing or trying to fuck my wife is online. The medium of Twitter is built for me. I recently did a 24-hour tweetathon, and people asked me how I did it. I said, “The only difference between this and my normal regimen is that I let you know I was doing it.” I have 1.6 million followers—this army of people who think like me. There aren’t enough of us to invade a whole country, but we could probably take Quebec.”
This smaller piece is followed up with a much larger interview with Wired that again takes a tech slant, but covers the span of his career. It uses some of the same material from the previous interview but is a lot more detailed. That’s the one we’d recommend if you’re choosing:
“…If nobody gave me another dollar to make I movie, I’d probably finance it myself if I were passionate. But I’ve done it enough. So long, and thanks for all the fish. Zack and Miri really took box office away from me. If A Couple Of Dicks came out and made $30 million I wouldn’t care. I can’t tell you how miserable it was to be the guy who made Mallrats. But now there are kids who come up to me that are 15 who tell me how much they loved Mallrats. He was some bastard’s dirty urge when the film came out, and now he’s watching my flicks and relating to them.
My entire career I owe to the Internet. I owe Harvey Weinstein for the money to make Clerks and Universal for Mallrats. After that, I had to rebuild everything that I had. The rest I owe to the good fucking people of the Internet.”
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- The German premiere of “Cop Out” happens in April, and the official trailer in the German language is now available. It’s a fun watch. We hear that the Willis voiceover is the same dude who always provides his voice in German language versions, though Tracy Morgan’s voice seems a little…well, it’s an odd choice, anyway. Definitely worth a click over to see what the Germans will hear in April — The voice dubbing never gets old to us.
- If only parents would have taught this kid to fear and respect that escalator . Sad story, though — The kid wanted to be a hockey player. Bummer. Keep your kids safe on those escalators, folks. Listen to Brodie.
- If anyone’s got audio from Kevin’s call-in to Friday’s Opie & Anthony radio show, drop us a line — The call caught us off guard and we didn’t get to hear it. He was calling in to promote “Cop Out”.
- We enjoyed scooper Kat’s defacing of the dollar bill and wanted to share her work with you. Nice job, Kat.
- Update’s over, time for you to go out and see “Cop Out”! Go go go…
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- Via @mingchen37 on Twitter: “Tell’Em Steve-Dave! is on iTunes – subscribe now!“. This special new SModcast spinoff features Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson on the mic, and sohuld not be missed. New episodes are expected to go live every Friday.
- “Clerks” had the distinction of being the February 22nd movie in the “Leonard Maltin Movie-a-Day” desk calendar yesterday. Here’s a look at what facts they shared.
- Scooper E. Christopher noticed something funny over the weekend – There’s a domain name called southwestsucks.com which was registered in December 1999 by…SOUTHWEST AIRLINES!! Perhaps a lot of companies do this as a preventative measure, but it’s still a funny bit of business there. We also heard that SWA got some time on Bill Maher’s HBO program last week, if anyone’s got clippage…Mostly a supportive panel from what we’d heard though we heard Maher himself was very close-minded about the issue like some of the other ignorant press Check Kev’s recent tweets for photo evidence of actually how LEAN the guy is getting these days. Really crazy the more you think about it, this Southwest issue. Later!
The “Twitter” Report…
- A mystery Red Bank event in August. Ticket leftovers in Toronto. Anderson-signed script pages for charity. All that and more in today’s edition of the “Twitter” report, actual tweets from @ThatKevinSmith:
Via @BrandonConsoli “what kind of feel is hit somebody gonna have?” I’m going for FORREST GUMP of sports films. Big valentine to the Game.Via @LeakingPan “Just got tickets to a prescreening for tomorrow” Score me up, Homey: I wanna make A BIGGER COP OUT after HIT SOMEBODY.
Via @dibbs34 “LOVED The Smomcast. does she return for next weeks as well?” For two solid hours. One of ‘em completely baked. S’awesome.
Re: Toronto’s Roy Thomson Show, Feb 6th – 23 tix freed up on TicketMaster. 63 full view. 48 partial view. http://tinyurl.com/tdotkev
Via @rosecity1980 “ticketmaster is turning me down, sir. says they got nothing…again” Call Roy Thomson box office. They’ve got some there.
DailyDevils: @NHLDevils want to get to 10k followers, and they’re giving out 100 pairs of tickets to do so! http://bit.ly/7bW2hK #devs10k
A request from Jeff Anderson (and a rare chance to get a signed page from his CLERKS II script): http://tinyurl.com/arequestfromjeffanderson
Via @themuckshow “is it worth the 9+hr drive from Ont 2 NJ just to see a store?” It’s gonna be, the weekend of August 2nd…
Yes, all we can confirm right now is that early August weekend will bring something big to Red Bank. But for now…No further deets. When we know, so will you.
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- A recent e-issue of pop culture mag GeekChicDaily lists “Cop Out” among their “Top 10 for the First Half of 2010″:
Cop Out (Feb. 26) Kevin Smith directs Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as the po-po, in what we’re hoping will be the funniest cop film since Bad Boys (the original, not Bad Boys 2). Our prediction: When it comes to buddy cops, Tracy Morgan is the next Eddie Murphy and/or Will Smith! - The two major Australian theatre chains are advertising March 18th as the release date for “Cop Out”. Curiously, though, one of them is also advertising another movie called “A Couple Of Dicks”, supposedly opening on February 25th — Obviously an error, of course. Still, March 18th means Aussies are getting the film just a few weeks after North America, and a full month before the U.K.
- Empire Online cites the protests surrounding Dogma in their article titled “Cinema Can Be Hazardous To Your Health!”.
- Kevin’s got a spot on Total Film’s feature on the “18 Youngest Film Directors”:
The Director: Kevin Smith
Age: 22
How Did They Get Their Break
Smith?s first film, Mae Day: The Crumbling of a Documentary, was shot with co-director Scott Mosier while the pair were at the Vancouver Film School.The latter dubbed it ?the greatest documentary that never was?. It followed the duo?s failed attempt to made a documentary about the titular Mae Day, who was going through a sex change.
Just two years later, Smith made Clerks.
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- Howdy folks, just a few newsbites for the middle of a fairly quiet week — We do hope you’ve scoured the awesome new SModcast site from top to bottom. Ming’s design is amazing, the site’s a work of art and yes, it’s got every single episode there at your fingertips. A great time to get on board or pass on to a friend. Share the love of the greatest podcast in all the land! Hit up www.smodcast.com today , and don’t forget to check out the freshly minted episode #101.
- While this tweet’s getting near a day old now, twitter user @spoilertvmovies sent out the following message:
If you are in the LOS ANGELES area on Thursday and would like to see a Sneak Screening of the new Bruce Wilis movie Cop Out – Contact usIt might be worth hitting them up with a tweet or message to see if you can still get into the show tomorrow. Seeing Kev’s flick almost 2 months early? Priceless.
- Scooper Pat sends us the following deets on Kevin’s involvement in the Hughes doc, “Don’t You Forget About Me”:
“…He basically explained his take on Hughes and his work. (As far as his films go, the doc focused mostly on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Breakfast Club, Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, and Weird Science.) Kevin also mentioned that as much as the movies touched him, what he felt was missing for himself personally, he made into Clerks.”Pretty cool stuff, can’t say we recall Kevin ever referring to “Clerks” as missing material from the other Hughes movies brought to life in Kevin’s own world, but we like it.
- We ran the scan last update, now here’s a bit more detail from Entertainment Weekly on that “Cop Out” image they ran in this week’s ish:
After an undercover stolen cell-phone bust goes bad in the cop comedy Cop Out, out Feb. 26, the detectives on the case Tracy Morgan and Bruce Willis are hauled in for what director Kevin Smith calls the classic You guys are f ups! scene. Clearly, Willis isnt too happy about it. Later on, youll see three different forms of Bruce Willis action grimace, says Smith. But this is the getting-dressed-down-by-a-superior grimace, and that, mercifully, happens very little in the movie, because as we all know, Bruce Willis has no superior.
As for Morgans cellular attire, Smith jokes that the suit was definitely a controversial choice. While Morgan was always supposed to wear the suit in the previous scene, Smith explains, I remember in the script, it didnt say that Tracy was still wearing the suit. [I thought], lets spin it a little bit by leaving him in that ridiculous outfit it just plays into what happened, and we get a few more [comedy] beats out of it. The first time we see Tracy [in the scene], its Bruce and Tracy in profile. So you see Bruce and you see this giant cell phone suit, and then Tracy pops his head out of the suit altogether and says, Thank you captain!
The film also wasnt always called Cop Out, either. You can click here for Smiths ode to the films original risqu title, A Couple of Dicks, but the director says he stood firm about worries over the films salty R-rated language. Im sorry, in the world of cops, if people are firing guns at you, nobody says freakin, says the director. Except on TV, where they say mother falcon all the time.
- And finally to finish off the ‘Bites today, there’s nothing really new in this article, but we like how Empire brings up the tune of “Hit Somebody” and promotes their love of the idea — There’s even a direct link where you can listen to the song that’s inspiring Kev to write the film. Worth a listen.
Furthermore, Obsessed With Film logs a nice summary of the project so far, piecing together a lot of the news we’ve logged over the past few months in a tidy little package. Sort of a “Cliff’s Notes” of “Hit Somebody” in its early stages.
The “Twitter” Report…
- With close to 200 tweets on the 25th and 26th, Kevin gifted his followers with a lot more holiday chatter, which mostly consisted of answering tweets that came his way via the fans. Here’s a choice selection of what came across the wire over this long holiday weekend:
Me & @smosier sitting down to record SModcast 101 in six hours. No new ep tonight, though. Next week. P.S.-Everything changes with SMod 101.Via @Choccster “Everything changes with SMod 101? will you start charging?” As long as I can pay for server space, SMod will always be free.
@conantbrian “isn’t there at least the view askew tag?” No – because it’s not a View Askew Production. Peep the billing block and you’ll see I actually have only one less credit than I normally do: writer. Still my flick.
Via @Capn_Midnight “check the tree for wrap-up to BULLSEYE series!” You’ll find an IOU that reads “This year, if Marvel’s still into it.”
Via @FooRay “did you cut the trailer together yourself?” Nah. They have a whole department for that kinda thing.
Via @rtward “You don’t get to edit your own trailer?” Most directors don’t. I’ve cut some online trailers, but filmmakers are not marketers.
Via @jdr822 “proudest moment in your film career?” 8 minute standing ovation for CLERKS II at Cannes: http://clerks2.com/trainwreck/?p=79
Via @Modesix “Why is there only 1 show for Toronto? You know it’s almost sold out already?” Chill: if it sells out, we can just add another.
John Hughes said my name!!! “I saw Clerks, and it made me a little jealous. I wanted to do something similar. I like how he stays in New Jersey and retains that regional flavor. I admire what he’s doing.” Fuck. Thanks Mr. Hughes; the feeling was very mutual.
The full Hughes interview is, one of (if not THE) last he gave.
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- Take a look a funny “Clerks”/”Revenge of the Sith” mash-up, courtesy of Sci-Fi Wire . It’s worth sticking to the very last second, for sure. Fun stuff. We had to scroll a bit down on the page to find the right video.
- Talk about a stacked room! During a recent “Director’s Roundtable” session, featuring such legends as James Cameron, Peter Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, Katheryn Bigelow, Lee Daniels, and Jason Reitman, Reitman tells a unique story about making the Sundance rounds and bumping into Kevin Smith (who makes a funny comment regarding Reitman’s entrance into the filmmaking community). Just to the 4-minute mark of the first video if you wanna get right to it. We recommend you watch the entire set though — Some fantastic talent in one room here. You can bet you’ll see some or ALL of these faces on Oscar day early next year.
- The IMDB is reporting that the lovely “Parks and Recreation” actress Rashida Jones, whose last tie to the Askewniverse was waaay back in Jeff Anderson’s “Now You Know”, is a cast member of “Cop Out”. We don’t believe we’ve mentioned her name in these circles before though it sounds familiar…Chalk it up as a pretty good rumor (and better if you’ve seen Kevin or other cast mention her involvement). No details on her character at this time.
- Congrats go out to “A Couple of Dicks” / “Cop Out” crew members Jessie Catherine Fuller and Peyton Brodnax DeWitt Rodgers, who were marred in Manhattan on Saturday.