• Though there are no listings for the film on their official movies page , some readers caught “Jersey Girl” late on TBS this week. If anyone watches the new edit, and notices any fun or interesting omissions or changes, we’d love to hear about it. If we hear of a definite upcoming airing, we’ll let you know.
• Brian Lynch’s “Everybody’s Dead”, which at one point was set as a possible follow-up to the View Askew rarity “Big Helium Dog”, has come to life in comic book form. Issue #2 has now arrived in stores and is celebrating very good reviews. If you’re a fan of comics, zombies, and of course, many laughs, this is a book worth looking into. Details at the Myspace page. Don’t see it? Ask your local comic shop where it’s at!

• Another good reason to visit the Secret Stash inside Laser Blazer in Los Angeles! On May 7th, they’re hosting a live signing with comic legend Jim Krueger. Stop in, get your book signed, and then shop all the fantasic deals on DVDs and View Askew swag. Oh, and of course, take a look at the coolest View Askew prop museum on the west coast!
• With a new “Harold & Kumar” flick in theaters, stoner flicks come up on the web this week, with Jay & Silent Bob appearing on Bullz-Eye’s list of 13 Cinematic Stoners in addition to the guys who went to White Castle.

• DirecTV’s channel 238, called “Reelzchannel”, will air a special titled “The Films of Kevin Smith” on Monday, April 28th at 2:00 PM EST. Since we haven’t heard of any new interviews being conducted for this special, we’re going to assume it’s a rundown of his filmography, maybe with some stockinterview footage tossed in. If we learn more particulars before it airs, we’ll let ya know.
• The IMDB ran a good “Clerks” trivia question this week:

  
  The cost of obtaining soundtrack rights outweighed the entire production costs for this 1994 film.

  
  Pretty cool, no? We’re wondering if there will ever be another successful flick made as cheaply. While “Red State” will certainly easily exceed the “Clerks” and “Chasing Amy” indie budgets, we’re curious to see what happens with that project, especially if Kev and Scott decide to independently fund it.

• A final bit of trivia/interesting news for the day - One of our readers tells us today that Guardian Angels Regional School in Paulsboro, NJ will hold a talent show tomorrow night where her daughter will participate. Why is this news? Well, ya see, this is the very same stage/auditorium that hosted the famous talent show from the end of “Jersey Girl” (including the great “Sweeney Todd” number). We’re told that “Kevin Smith Way”, the street dedicated to the man during filming there, is still taking on traffic. See ya next time!

• HEADS-UP: Kevin’s Bergan County Q&A date is going to be changing. We don’t have a new date to announce at this point, but we DO want to let you know it’s coming soon, this week. The appearance is not being cancelled, just moved.
• It’s a small mention, so we’re not running a scan, but writer Diablo Cody (”Juno”) makes reference to a hilarious Affleck line from the great “Mallrats” in her back page column for the mid-month issue of “Entertainment Weekly”, while discussing a rumored “New Kids on the Block” reunion:

  
  “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.”

• More love from the folks at Film-411 today: Jay & Silent Bob show up as #32 in their list of all-time greatest movie characters, along with a detailed write-up and a clip.
• As promised, here’s a German-to-English translation of that Jersey Girl scan from the last edition of NewsBites, for the curious:

  
  
  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”.


• Seems that Netflix is recommending the recent film “F*ck” to folks who love Kevin Smith movies, according to this scan from their site. Check it out.

• And finally today, we can’t go by this update without mentioning our sadness on the passing of actor Roy Scheider, best known for his work in “Jaws”, a favorite film of Kevin’s where his character’s name (Chief Brody) was inspiration for our favorite dude in “Mallrats”. Our condolences to all his friends and family.

• We love Wikipedia, in fact, we’re jealous of not having this extensive of a Kevin bio page (yet, anyway). They’ve just updated Kevin’s page with some great stuff, including a graph we love that indicates his frequent casting choices. If you’ve never seen this page, now is a fantastic time to check it out. Well done to all who contributed (perhaps YOU were one of them?).
• Could the critical tide finally be turning for “Jersey Girl”? The film gets a deserved kudo in this story on on and off-screen romances, where the author cites the excellent original cut )with the early Ben & Jen stuff, in our opinion, some of the strongest stuff in the movie):

  
  Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, “Gigli”

  “…Ironically, the failure of “Gigli” led writer-director Kevin Smith to radically pare down Lopez’s role opposite Affleck in “Jersey Girl,” but the couple play off each other brilliantly in the rarely screened original cut of that film, which Smith plans to one day release on DVD.”

• And finally today, we appreciated the creativity behind this tribute to Blutman to the familiar theme of “Shaft”. Enjoy the flick over at YouTube. We’ll see ya next time.

• More “Boring Ass Life” press rolls onto the web today, with a Canadian webcast titled “Webnation”. Episode 15 features the new webcam-based sit-down with Kevin and host Amber MacArthur. The video should stream automatically in your browser, skip towards the end if you just want to watch the Kevin stuff. Watch him talk about blogging, Degrassi, and do some silly flirting with the cute host. The chat runs around 5 minutes or so.

• Mewes on the Marquee! Our scooper Brian took this shot and sent it to us — It’s from the Eerie Horror Film Fest set in Erie, Pennsylvania, where Mewes is in town pimping his latest film “Netherbeast Incorporated”.
• Look for a small reference to Jersey Girl in this Will Smith mention from a movies.com piece naming “25 Star Making Roles”.

• We’d like to give Sami, aka DanteChick20, mad props for transcribing what she recalls from the Jersey Girl extended Q&A session at Vulgarthon. Here’s her excellent summary of what took place. Oh, and a bonus tidbit we just remembered from the Clerks II Q&A session – Kevin actually wrote the role of Becky for his wife Jen, but after it was determined a major star needed to be in that role, he changed her voice for Rosario and fit Jen into the role of Emma. Good stuff. Here’s the Q&A:

• Carlin jumped at the chance to be in the flick, although was upset that he didn’t get to strangle the little girl (he told Kevin to write a movie in which he would be a minister that strangled children).
• He held onto the scene of Jennifer Lopez and Gertie dancing at the end for as long as he could. He really wanted to keep it, but because of the Bennifer press he knew he couldn’t. But, he held onto it until the last cut stage
• They had to pay through their teeth for “Landslide”. He showed the movie to Stevie Nicks and she sold them the song for 200,000.00. He said it was the most expensive song he purchased for a movie.
• The little girl that played Gertie got better at acting as the movie went on. When they were doing the initial days of shooting she really didn’t get into it. Even Ben and Jen (wow, 2 separate people) went to Kevin and said “I don’t think she can do this”, but after some creative editing on Kevin’s part it turned out great. Then by the end of the movie she got better.
• The role of Arthur Brickman, played in the movie by Jason Biggs, was supposed to go to Mewes, but because of his drug habit at the time, it was suggested to Kevin that he pick someone else.
• He always knew there was going to be a pageant in Gertie’s school, and he always knew it was going to be a song from Sweeney Todd because he loves the musical.

  That’s all I can remember. After he answered the initial question, there was always a story to go with it as well which is cool. But, I remember mostly the answers. Hope this helps :).

• Jersey Girl’s Raquel Castro is in the spotlight this week, as she’s got some big appearances that you might wanna catch her in. First up, she’ll guest star on Law & Order: SVU TOMORROW (Tuesday) night. The show airs on NBC. We haven’t heard many details on her role, but believe it’s fairly central to the plot. Worth looking into.

She’ll also be doing a Childrens benefit this Sunday for DKNY in Manhattan, and is currently in negotiations to appear in a thriller/horror flick filming in Los Angeles this summer.

One fan even spotted Raquel in a Pillsbury “Grands” biscuits commercial recently (we’ve yet to catch it to verify). The IMDB still lists “Little Fugitive” as her next big screen appearance. As always, we wish Raquel the best as her career continues to grow post-Jersey Girl.

• We imagine somewhere we’ve got readers (either IN Germany or that speak German), so here’s some scans of that “Prinz” magazine from Germany which, in their
  recent issue, features a story on Liv Tyler and a highly positive Jersey Girl review (from what we hear, anyway). If you’d like to take a look at what
  German press looks like, or hey, even take a shot at reading it, click the scans for a closer look.

• A new Buena Vista promotion site for the Jersey Girl DVD has popped up under the radar…It’s got some never
  before seen footage of Kevin & Ben, and a nice look at all the contents of the Jersey Girl DVD, arriving everywhere on September 7th. While you’re counting the days
  until you can own your own copy, it’s a way to kill a few minutes and take a nice test drive of all the new content.

• After our huge Clerks X review last week, we figured we’d give you a break and take a few days before posting our second of the September
  reviews, the first release of Jersey Girl on DVD! The disc was a very pleasant surprise, being a single disc, non-special edition, it’s packed with TWO
  brand new commentaries, Kevin’s Roadside Attractions bits, and even a hilarious and informative half hour interview with Kevin and Ben. We’ve got a ton
  of screenshots, inside information on the commentaries, and lots more, so click on in and have your first look at the JERSEY GIRL DVD!

The disc is due on September 7th, same day as Clerks X, so be sure and order both from the Stash today, to ensure your Kevin-signed copies arrive right away.