“Evening Harder” reunites Kevin Smith with the brilliant team behind the highly successful “Evening With Kevin Smith” DVD, which chronicled a stretch of Kevin’s recent US college tour. For that disc, editor JM Kenny clipped together all the “best of” moments and made the show appear like one long session. This time, the concept is a bit simpler, with the show going international — Disc one is comprised of the highlights from an appearance in Toronto, Canada. Disc two takes the best moments from a London, England show. With Kevin’s tendency to hold the stage for 5 hours and up, and the limitations of even a Dual-Layer DVD, these appearances had to be split over 2 discs.

While Kevin rarely tells a story the same way, it’s common knowledge that if something interesting or crowd-pleasing gets crafted during a show, it might come out again in a future show (especially since a lot of the same questions tend to get asked). With this new disc, as well as the original “Evening”, you can expect that the stories told here are now, more or less, RETIRED. Kevin will normally throw out a “get the DVD” if a question leading to one of these tales comes up at future Q&A sessions, so you’d be wise to watch both of these sets through BEFORE seeing Kevin live, as a primer of sorts.

The magic of Kevin’s appearances is that they are truly free-form. What appears on this disc certainly wasn’t planned. The audiences weren’t stacked, nor were the questions. The mic opens up at the fans have their say. Sometimes with insightful, enlightening questions. Often, though, with some of the most off-the-wall remarks you’ll ever see on a DVD. Kevin manages to not only keep control of it, but give it back to the unsuspecting quizzers twice as hard. Stepping up to the mic requires a suit of armor, though in a way Kevin’s become the Don Rickles of this day, with his creative way to nudge the fans, even sometimes at their own expense. While I love the stories that Kevin’s crafted for the disc, sometimes quite extended, my favorite moments of this show (and every show I’ve attended) are those zingers that come out of nowhere, that you know you’re going to see asked (and delivered) just once. It’s not like going to see a band where you might catch them doing the same tune again someday, sometimes you’re seeing something that you’ll never see again. Kevin might let an unsuspecting fan take the stage, or take the mic, or even just sit there and hang themselves with what they’re saying at the question station.

What’s probably the most coolest aspect of the entertainment value this program offers is that this isn’t even Kevin’s trade (though if he ever wants a break from filmmaking, it certainly seems stand-up comedy could be lucrative given his command of the stage and audience). He’s such a natural performer up there, and manages to hang out with the fans as if he’s one of them himself — Though many of the jokes and references may be considered obscure by some, Kevin has a way of keying into the audience so the jokes hit just perfectly. There’s a lot of callbacks in a show, too, so paying attention rewards you with a reference back to a joke or question that might have come up hours ago.

Most anamorphic DVDs of new releases (recent films) look great, and this disc is no exception. No artifacts, shimmering, or other distortions were evident. The 57″ Pioneer widescreen set used to review the disc makes it easy to spot problem areas, so we checked a few key scenes where things are exceptionally bright (Meeting Rufus) and dark (The Golgothan battle, the campfire scene). As a whole, though, Dogma is a generally bright film, so colors are important. We were very pleased to find that the colors were crip and the edges nicely defined, with no bleeding or oversaturation. This is a nice, clean transfer, and it looks great. Video quality, overall, is superb.

The audio mix was something I was very curious about. Having seen Dogma in the Uptown theater in Toronto last year, where the subwoofer BOOMS, I wanted to check some key scenes out to see how they matched up. In a few scenes of the flick, bodies are dropped from the sky, and the subwoofer booms outrageously. We cranked up the sound system and the room shook just like it was supposed to. Like all of Smith’s films, though, Dogma also has some scenes with heavy dialogue. These scenes are primarily focused on the center channel of the soundstage, as they should be. When opportunities arise for surround effects, however, such as music, action sequences, background noise, and the like, the channels are used accordingly and sound fantastic. Rain permeates the rear channels in the diner scene; Wind blows through the desolate scene outsite the church towards the film’s end. In fact, it’s in Dogma’s final half hour when the action kicks into high gear that the 5.1 mix has its chance to shine. The intense music, gunshots, and mayhem are a perfect match. This is one that’ll be fun to crank up.

One small complaint/concern with the audio mix was that the center channel, for some reason, seemed a bit TOO prominent. Most home sound systems have the capability to adjust channel volumes discretely, and I’d say that the center channel would need to come down a notch or two to be a bit less distracting. Could just be the system, but both of us concur that it just seemed a bit too loud. If this is an oversight or a mixing problem, hopefully it’s not too late to address it for the SE. Again, though, it’s a problem that can be overcome by making an adjustment your the home audio system.

One of the standout moments from the first “Evening With”, aside from the show itself, were the fun little menus that were put together that featured Kevin urging you to start the disc. It’s obvious a lot of planning went into this, as the two disc menus first are themed after each region (Kevin plays roller hockey on the Toronto menu, for example, and sips tea for the London disc). There’s also interaction with the lit marquee in the backdrop, which is computer generated, showing that the gang behind these menus planned ahead down to the last detail. In one gag, Kevin even sprays window cleaner ON your TV set and wipes it off from the inside — Quite effective, too. Each segment of gags runs on a loop, but you’ll wait a while before you see them all – Several minutes of entertainment appear before you start each program. Whimsical original music plays throughout as well (Kevin’s comedy here is all “silent-movie” style.

For the first time in…I think forever, the extras are actually sparse on this View Askew-themed disc. Why, do you ask? Well, frankly, there just wasn’t much more to add in or say here. In an effort to pack the 2-disc set with as much of the actual Q&A stuff, there was limited space leftover for fluff, I’m guessing. Which makes sense. That’s not to say that the gang didn’t make an effort to at least throw some fun little tidbits (and even a couple Easter Eggs) into the mix.

Disc one’s only advertised extra includes a short interview with Kevin during a limo ride through the streets of Toronto. Disc two’s extra takes Jason Mewes to the London scene, attempting his pickup lines on the unsuspecting ladies (and men?) of the U.K. This is my favorite of all the extras, and even ends in a great callback to one of my favorite moments from the London disc. Multiple cameras and angles were even used in the extras as well, giving them a very professional appearance.

As for the hidden “easter eggs”, they’re around if you’re up for some digging. One 14-minute egg on the Toronto DVD elaborates on a question regarding Kevin’s goals, specifically Degrassi. Select subtitles, from “subtitles off” option, press up 3 times to highlight the maple leaf. Also, in the “Special Features” menu, highlight ‘Main Menu’ and press Left to reveal a Maple Leaf. Press Enter to see a clip of Mewes and Kevin talking about Jason having to hit on Jen in Degrassi. On the London disc, in the “Trailers” menu, highlight ‘Special Features’ and press Up to reveal a crown on Kevin’s head. Press Enter to see a clip on the Secret Stash West opening.

It would be easy to take one or two cameras, shoot Kevin’s stage show and slap it onto a DVD. This project is obviously a labor of love for Kevin and JM. The time and care obviously taken with every aspect of this project made it well worth the wait. I couldn’t think of a slicker way to present a one-man stage show on DVD. This is a professional, elegant package that a lot of love was put into. I’m instantly on board with any View Askew DVD that’s put together by JM Kenny and NWE. He’s a fan of Kevin’s work and it shows. The work he’s done on “Evening Harder” and all of the past discs he’s come in on stand as some of the best DVDs I’ve seen produced (and not just among View Askew, but of all the discs I own). JM, please make more.