• This just in! Our pal Will Wilkins comes through again with another great MP3 audio capture of a recent surprise Smith appearance - Kevin called into the Opie & Anthony show to chat with the guys earlier this week. Due to a slow connection at work today, we’ve yet to listen to the audio, but will be soon - So we can’t for sure say what’s discussed and newsworthy, but we’ll be back with a full report of any breaking news from inside this audio clip. ‘Til then, listen for yourself and enjoy.
• Several View Askew references appear in Entertainment Weekly’s gallery of “Perfect Casting: 23 Stars as Themselves”. Surf through the gallery to find Stan Lee’s turn in “Mallrats” and of course, the unforgettable appearance of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck in “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”. The entire gallery’s great, and well worth your time to click through.

• While we visited the Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back Bluntcave set and had a blast, we couldn’t help but wishing we’d got to hang out for the days shooting the jewel heist by Chrissy, Sissy, Missy, and Justice. Entertainment Weekly seems to share our thoughts this week, including the lovely ladies in a new photo gallery titled Kiss Me Deadly: 25 Best Big-Screen Bad Girls:

  

  
  CHRISSY, SISSY, MISSY, AND JUSTICE

  
  Ali Larter, Eliza Dushku, Jennifer Schwalbach, Shannon Elizabeth

  
  Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)

  
  Hot jewel thieves pretending to be animal rights activists? Who may or may not be lesbians? Yes, please.

• TBS Superstation reports that “Jersey Girl” will soon come to their network. This will be the basic cable premiere of the flick, in what we assume will be a new, edited for TV format. No showtimes or dates yet, but we’ll let ya know when we hear more.
• Clerks II rightfully hits Cinematical’s list of “Deliberately Offensive (But Fun) Comedies”, with the following write-up:

  
  3. Clerks 2

  
  How could I not include a film that caused a well-known critic to storm out in mid-screening because of possible interspecies erotica? A film that includes a character trying to “take back” a certain racial slur? During a plane ride last week, I decided to forego the in-flight movie selection (Juno) in favor of this movie … for some inexplicable reason the Kevin Smith DVD was in my laptop bag. When the flight attendant interrupted me and I paused the movie, it froze on a screenshot of Randal with that slur visible on the back of his Mooby’s shirt. I realized that the image would be terrific to post as the photo at the top of this list, but unfortunately it proves my point a little too well.


• And finally today, perhaps another comic creator sneaking a “Clerks” reference in there — In the latest issue of “She-Hulk” (#28), She Hulk asks her Skrull friend Jaz how many partners she’s been with, her response, 5 simultaneously, but 37 in all. Huh. Have a weekend, folks.

• As we mentioned last update, here’s the actual scan from Empire Magazine where “Chasing Amy” is mentioned among the best “get you laid” flicks. Click and enjoy.

• Ever wonder what “Clerks” might have looked like as a horror flick? A cool contest being held over at our favorite horror genre site, “Bloody-Disgusting”, asked their users to turn movie posters from non-horror into horror. The results are great, including one reader’s take on “Clerks” (see scan above). You can view the entire crop of entries over at their site.
• The website “Monsters & Critics” reports that View Askew alum hottie Shannon Elizabeth will be one of the newest celebrities to take on the challenge of “Dancing with the Stars”. Shannon will appear as part of season six of the program, which returns to ABC on Monday, March 17th. Shannon is also an avid poker player. We wish her the very best of luck.
• Composer Ira Newborn talks briefly about working on “Mallrats” with Kevin in this new interview from “The Den of Geek”:

  
  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.

• By way of the WWWBoard, Kevin reports that the next “Evening With” DVD (which may not actually have that title, but the one that was taped on Kev’s 37th birthday) may be set for an APRIL 2008 release date. We were there live for this one, and can tell you with all certainty that the DVD will be a must-have for the collection, if even for the Bruce Willis story ALONE. We’ll keep you posted on the status on what’s sure to be View Askew’s first big DVD release of 2008.
• Kevin makes Maxim Magazine’s list of of the Top 10 Movie Sidekicks, standing in the #6 spot:

  

  
  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.

• Congrats to longtime View Askewer JASON LEE for a fantastic opening weekend for “Alvin & The Chipmunks”, 45 million dollars! Lee plays the Dave Seville to the CGI-generated chipmunks, and celebrates a much larger than expected take at the ticket windows this weekend. We’re happy for Lee, and look forward to future films stemming from his “My Name is Earl” acclaim.
• And finally today, in happy (or to some of us, sad) news — Ali Larter (”Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”) has gotten engaged — And not to either of us! Seriously, congrats to Ali on her engagement to longtime boyfriend, actor Hayes MacArthur.

• After “Die Hard” took top honors in a recent action flick list from Entertainment Weekly, they are now also naming the star, Bruce Willis (as John McClane), as the #1 action hero of all time, according to a new photo gallery at their site. Matt Damon (as Jason Bourne) comes in at 12.
• And last, but certainly not least today, you dug the Jay & Silent Bob Short F#cking Version — Now, behold the Dogma counterpart. Once again, a hearty laugh packed in 51 crazy seconds. Have a weekend, we’ll see ya back here soon.

• “Small Town, Gay Bar” hits DVD today — Malcolm Ingram directed this fascinating documentary that many of you have not yet had the pleasure of catching, lest you’ve seen it at a film festival or Vulgarthon. We first caught
  this one back in 2006’s Red Bank ‘thon and had high marks for the film. Wanna hear the background and how Kevin came to be involved? Pick up your own SIGNED copy via the Stash today. Our complete review of the set is on the way, as well.
• Jason Lee IS David Seville in the upcoming blend of live action and CGI for the “Alvin and the Chipmunks” movie, and the great Cinematical has the teaser trailer for the film with the first look at ALL the characters. Lee features prominently. That film hits theaters this Christmas, though you can hear Lee as the voice of “Underdog” at the multiplex right now.
• “Jersey Girl” gets a quick mention in the Gloucester County Times when discussing the famous Paulsboro lighthouse:
  Decked out in strands upon strands of Christmas lights and surrounded by fake snow, the Tinicum Rear Range Lighthouse was one of many backdrops filmed for Kevin Smith’s “Jersey Girl,” which premiered in 2004.

  To the disappointment of many a lighthouse enthusiast, though, it suffered the same fate as the relationship between Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez and was left on the cutting room floor.

  Despite being excluded from the film, members of the Tinicum Rear Range Lighthouse society say they have hosted upwards of 3,000 visitors per year since they opened the lighthouse to the public 10 years ago.

• Someone took that famous “Hey” video (which Kevin shot during the Train Wreck phase) and stuck it next to the original. It’s kind fun to watch them sync together, courtesy YouTube.
• Kevin’s GLAAD run-in during “Jay & Bob” is mentioned in this critic’s pan of “I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” :
  …But, to think that this compared to Kevin Smith’s Jay and Silent Bob Strikes Back, which got GLAAD in a hissy fit, despite Smith being so pro-gay and always putting the homophobic stuff in the mouths of his dumbest characters while everyone around them clearly knows better, it is just phenomenal. (In fact, some of the anti-gay stuff happened in editing, as Smith’s original girl group in the movie were supposed to include a lesbian couple, so his “anti-gay” stuff actually was a result of editing, unlike Sandler and James where it happened in the writing room).

  
  GLAAD extorted $10,000 out of Smith, by way of a donation to the Matthew Shepard Foundation, as a form of public apology. Yet this movie gets the papal dispensation? Unbelievable.

• Entertainment Weekly has some great things to say about Kevin’s famous “My Boring Ass Life” blog. This comes from their story “Top 20 Best and Worst Celebrity Blogs”. You can probably guess in which 20 Kevin’s site appears:
  KEVIN SMITH
  The Fairly Odd Filmmaker

  silentbobspeaks.com

  ANGLE: Diary, comedic op-ed, and plugs for his ”SModcast” podcasts and live appearances.

  HIGH POINT: It’s a tie between a happy-birthday greeting for his wife (”From a one-night-stand to my partner and soul mate. You boggle my mind, you fill my heart, you race my blood, you take my breath away”) and a series of e-mails between Smith and a writer from The Clarion-Ledger in Mississippi debating whether Alanis Morissette sang a tune called ”One of Us.” (Smith was right — she didn’t.)

  LOW POINT: After famously attacking film critic Joel Siegel for walking out of a Clerks II screening, Smith repents when he discovers that the spat is mentioned in a Siegel obituary.

  VERDICT: Smith calls his diary ”My Boring-Ass Life”; it’s apropos, given that much of it addresses subjects such as his diet and his man-crush on Bruce Willis. Nonetheless, fans will appreciate his candor.

  GRADE: A-

  The blog’s been around for quite a while now, and continues to evolve to reflect the current atmosphere at View Askew and in Kevin’s life. We expect the blog to continue for many years, and look forward to all the great “Zack & Miri” news that we’re gonna see in there in the coming months.

• Oh, boy, VH-1 dug up some dim bulbs this year for their always fun to watch “World Series of Pop Culture” — So far folks have been missing some easy quizzers, including last night’s new episode. The defending champs were given a question about “Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back”. It was: “What was the name of the comic book characters Jay & Bob go to stop a Hollywood movie?” Believe it or not, NEITHER team could get this one right! We won’t insult you by giving the answer here. Sigh.
  
• Kevin makes a very brief appearance in the new trailer for Jaws documentary “The Shark is Still Working”. The guys who put this together have worked their butts off to live the Jaws lifestyle and cover all aspects of this historic film. Kevin was interviewed a while back for the doc, and definitely appears in the final cut. That’s it for today, so far — We’ll have more news later as it breaks! Thanks for visiting the new News Askew, watch for more visual enhancements to the site soon (hopefully, this weekend).

• According to his latest blog, Kevin loves this “short effin version” of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, which takes the film and cuts it down, basically, to the mother of all words (mostly uttered by Jay). Ironically, our favorite portions of this edit are the little extra bits (aside from that big F) that the editor sneaks in. Kevin says:

Watch for yourself via YouTube or Break.com.

• One vigilant scooper from the North travelled down to a New York Best Buy last night and happened upon one of those limited edition Mooby Meal boxes, out EARLY! So thanks to him, we have some new high res shots of the contents of this beauty. We’ll be at our local Best Buy to pick these suckers up tomorrow, you can bet on that.

Of Canadian interest: Not as impressive as the Best Buy USA exclusive, Canadians get a free original ‘98 Clerks Comic book with the purchase of Clerks II on DVD. None of the other stores seem to have any deals of any sort.