“In the movie Mallrats, Ben Affleck famously (rhetorically?) asks, ‘Who’s your favorite New Kid?’ while atop a schoolgirl. This surprisingly profound question begs the inevitable Beatles analogy.”

NEW: Jersey Girl
Arrogant Yuppie finds his way back into the simple, real life.
Charming, tragic comedy with Ben Affleck

Critics bashed this Kevin Smith movie really hard, although it is a pleasant watch until the happy end.

PICK OF THE DAY: Charmingly sympathetic

The Ben Affleck Info-Box says:

Arrogant and rude

A Producer denied Affleck the leading role in Smiths Mallrats. The director gave his friend a supporting role, and after Ben’s Oscar win for “Good Will Hunting”, even leading roles. (Chasing Amy, Dogma) In 2007, Affleck made a critically acclaimed directorial debut with “Gone Baby Gone”. Right now he is filming with Russell Crowe the Remake of the BBC Movie “State of Play”.

* 2.40:1 Widescreen Transfer (1080p)
* Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, French Dolby TrueHD 5.1
* Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
* Cast and Crew Commentary
* Technical Commentary
* Deleted Scenes
* Cast and Crew Outtakes
* Jay and Bob’s Secret Stash Commercial
* Storyboards from Three Major Scenes

“As we first reported in December, Sony announced it would bow the controversial religious satire ‘Dogma’ on March 11, though initial specs were sparce. Now the full details are in, and typical of a Smith disc release, the Blu-ray will come loaded with making-of material and deleted footage.

Porting over many (but not all) of the features from Sony’s previous two-disc DVD edition, the Blu-ray version of ‘Dogma’ will contain two audio commentaries (the first with Smith and cast members, the second a technical track), 100 minutes of deleted scenes (with intros), and a “Jay & Silent Bob’s Secret Stash” mock commercial.

Tech specs boast 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video and uncompressed PCM 5.1 Surround audio in English and French.

Suggested retail for the Blu-ray has been set at $28.99.”

“I wish I could have made his version,” Smith said. “The parameters that we had in our version of ‘Green Hornet’ - he’s not suffering from the same parameters At the time they were like ‘We want to make a big straight-forward action movie” - the wrong approach for the character, Smith insisted.

“You can’t really compete with Spiderman and Batman and stuff like that with Green Hornet,” the director contended. “So it’s best to take a different approach to it all-together.”

Which, according to Smith, is what Rogen is finally getting a real chance to do.

“He’s Seth Rogan, the man of the moment. He can do anything he wants with that project,” Smith said. “It’s not a comedy what he’s doing, but he gets to do his with a better sense of humor than we would have been allowed to. He’s in a great free place to do something fresh with that material.”

Q: With its fascist interior design, we never think of the Death Star as having restaurants, happy hours, luxury flats and recreation areas.

A: We start from the point that not everyone on board was a villain. As Kevin Smith pointed out in Clerks, someone had to be the plumber. That’s where we’re coming from. There’s got to be bars, places to eat.

The book, which focuses on the life as an everyday worker on the space station, sounds like a fun read.

Jason Reitman, the 30-year-old director of “Juno,” added that the youth brigade was something of an old story. “I feel like I am just following in the footsteps of Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez, Kevin Smith, Wes Anderson, the list goes on,” he said.

Kevin Smith’s uber-grungy Clerks captured the low-key, agreeable vibe of smartass go-nowhere buddies hanging out and talking shit. It was cinematic democracy in action, a triumph of proletariat ingenuity over technical wizards with film-school degrees and elaborate storyboards.

6. Silent Bob
Sidekick to: Jay
Even though Bob is usually overshadowed by the nonsensical shit-talking of his weed-dealing counterpart, he has the uncanny ability to dole out sage advice that Confucius would quote on his MySpace page. Plus, he has that sweet utility belt and is friends with a monkey. Snoochey boochey.

Ones again, say hallo to my stupid sense of humor.

Because of all the gay jokes, I was wondering what the Clerks guys would behave and look like if they were gay and walking in a Gay Pride Parade or something like that, and I could just see them doing, well, this

I was going to have Leonardo, Plug, Steve-Dave and Fanboy in there too, but Leonardo is gay so that wouldn’t be funny. Steve-Dave and Fanboy was supposed to be yelling at some straight people in the background, accuseing them for being homophobes, but I just couldn’t get them right. At all.

Oh, and Randal is pushing Dante.

Kevin Smith Hopes To Make Jay And Silent Bob Animated Film

Randall and Dante, the sad sack titular clerks at the heart of Kevin Smith’s breakthrough first film, may have sold their last pack of Nails cigarettes – for a little while anyway – with the long-rumored straight-to-DVD animated film “Clerks: Sell Out” deader than poor Julie Dwyer, regretted Smith.

“The Clerks cartoon movie we’re talking about doing is kinda held up by the fact that Disney owned the ‘Clerks’ cartoon,” Smith said of the series, which aired for only two episodes on ABC way back in 2000. “And I don’t think they get along with the Weinstein team very much anymore. So we would have to do it without them, and that’s really not an option. So I kinda don’t foresee that happening.”

But with one potential animated film down, Smith may turn his attention to another, he revealed. After all, Randall and Dante aren’t the only reason to visit a Quik Stop.

“I own the characters Jay and Silent Bob so, conceivably, we could do it straight-to-DVD animated Bluntman and Chronic or something like that,” he enthused. “I would write it, turn it over to guys that do animation. I wouldn’t be against that at all.”

To us, this sounds like one of those little thoughts that just came out and might be taken TOO seriously by those who read it — Still, it’s nice to hear an update on the animated View Askew world, and to know that Kevin hasn’t completely put such a project off the radar completely. We just think it’ll be a while with things focusing on the live-action realm in 2008, first.

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.