In addition to that newness, you’ll also find links to the “Money Shots” webisodes (more on them in a moment), both trailers, merchandise, and more. Spread the word and send the link around, help us promote the funniest flick hitting theaters this year! “Zack And Miri Make a Porno” hits screens in just 18 days.

In the archives, in case ya missed it over the weekend, is Episode Three, which features the two leads of our movie, Rogen and Banks spend a few minutes at Zack And Miri’s kitchen table.

“Money Shots” webisodes will continue running all month long, and remain free and exclusive at View Askew’s entertainment portal on the web, Quick Stop Entertainment.

Note, this site comes in addition to the now open official movie site which has been up in some form for a while. Spread the word, send it to your pals, and go get that porn ID.

As always, the latest episode can be found exclusively over on the front page of Quick Stop Entertainment, as well as a link back to the archive for anything you missed.

Quint: One thing that I also really loved about the movie was that it kind of hit me about halfway through that it was celebrating filmmaking. It really is kind of a love letter to making movies. I have to imagine that was intentional from the beginning.

Kevin Smith: Absolutely, I mean really if you take away the porn trappings and the romance, it’s kind of the story of how we made CLERKS to some degree, because it’s about a bunch of knuckleheads making their first film, but it is and it’s always dicey when you make a movie about making a movie, because they tend to be inside baseball and shit like that, but using it and setting it in the world of porn, even in this DIY world of porn, it just takes the light off of it being a movie and really it’s “Oh its just fun.”

Now, wanna hear about “Red State”? The space sci-fi comedy? Here’s the very latest, revealing that the search for funds continues, and there won’t be any movement until at least March of 2009. The way we’re reading this, “Red State” MIGHT get swapped around if the space flick gets fast-tracked, but we’re guessing a lot will depend on how “Zack And Miri” does at the box office. With this good of a buzz, we’re betting that the next project will start up really fast.

Kevin Smith: I’m still trying to find money for Red State, though, admittedly, I haven’t been looking that hard yet, since it’s not something I’m gonna get to ’til March the earliest. Early prospects, however, look dim. Problem is, the flick is bleak. Beyond bleak, even. Remember how bleak Dark Knight was? This flick makes the bleakness level in that flick seem Beverly Hills Chihuahua bleak. Sadly, while the flick’s bleaker than Dark Knight, it’s also not nearly as good as Dark Knight. Or as commercial. Or commercial at all, really. The commercial prospects for Red State are not good. The only chance it’ll have at the box office would be if it caught a water cooler-kinda buzz out of a film festival. So when you go down the checklist (overtly bleak, unlikeable characters making horrible decisions, unhappy ending in which everyone dies, a director of questionable talent who’s never worked in this genre before), you can see why folks aren’t whipping out their check books.

The question, then, would be “Why bother?” For some reason, I feel like I’ve gotta make this flick. Part of the reason is that I never really feel like a filmmaker most days; more of a writer who gets to direct his own flicks. Trying my hand at another genre that’s 180 degrees away from anything else I’ve ever done might finally answer the question (for me) of whether or not I truly am a filmmaker, or just the guy who makes the dick and fart jokes movies. I suspect it’s the latter. I guess we’ll see. Maybe.

The flick I wanna do after that is a comedy set in space. Unsurprisingly, it’s been 100% easier to find the money for that one - even with only half the script done. It’ll likely cost about double Zack and Miri’s $24million budget, so it’ll be the most expensive flick I’ve ever made. Hopefully, it’s as well-received as Zack and Miri has been so far.

We love reading about Kevin’s determination to get “Red State” made, and we know it’s gonna happen. We just have to see what he can do with that genre.

Given all this, we’re happy to report that we got word that of all the celebs at the Columbus, Ohio convention, Jason Mewes was the only major media guest to not charge a dime for an autograph. We also hear he didn’t have a limit on stuff he’d sign, was happy to take pictures, and even obliged fans while taking breaks. Our scooper calls him “the coolest person I’ve ever met”. Sounds like Jason’s a real class act, following in the very classy footsteps of Kevin himself, who treats fans similarly at his appearances. With care for the fans like this, these guys have a long successful career ahead.

By the way, Mewes did once again report that “Red State” was in the cards, and also mentioned “Ranger Danger”, though as we saw in a recent quote from Kevin, the new sci-fi comedy will not be “Ranger Danger”, but in a similar vein.

A final bit of evidence? Watch this puppet ask Mewes a question at the con. If that’s not a good sport, we dunno who is!

Get them online via their secure site at the cost of $40 each. It’s one of the better prices we’ve seen on a show in quite a while, and a very nice venue. We hear there’s some fantastic seats left as well, and you can choose them right online. Some events have only general admission, another reason that this is a great chance to catch Kevin in person.

Get those tickets today — We’re hoping to have some News Askew fans in the audience to represent.

CLERKS

Budget: $27,000 (before additional post production work)

A god amongst film geeks, beloved filmmaker and comic book writer Kevin Smith has amassed an arsenal of 6 movies to fit into his View Askewniverse, and that world begins and ends with Clerks. Though many people have an almost instinctive adverse reaction to black-and-white cinema nowadays, Clerks proves that when it comes to comedy, a strong focus on dialogue is almost always the primary route to success. And with the film taking place almost entirely within a convenience store where Kevin Smith worked at the time, the concentration staying on dialogue above anything else allowed for the young filmmaker to keep the budget as minimal as possible. That’s not to say paying for the movie was an easy task. According to Wikipedia, in order to acquire the funds for the film, Smith sold a large proportion of his extensive comic book collection, maxed out eight to ten credit cards with $2000 limits, dipped into a portion of funds set aside for his college education and spent insurance money awarded for a car he and Jason Mewes lost in a flood.

Since the film had to be shot at night when the store was closed, Smith needed to come up with a way to explain why the steel shutters were closed, and in turn led to a great scene in the film where Dante discovers somebody put gum in the locks and has to put up a big sign written in shoe polish that says, “I Assure You, We’re Open.” Situations like these just go to show how being forced to think outside the box can actually lead to much more rewarding outcomes.

The entire list is made up of what we’d call pretty much must-see movies, so we highly recommend you check it out and pick up some of the titles as your schedule allows. Our kudos to the authors of this piece for a fantastic list.

The site uses “Clerks” as an example and takes a color square to represent a characters speaking part, and symbols to indicate profane dialogue. We’re not sure we get the experiment, either, but it’s definitely the first time we’ve seen anything like it.

August 2, 1991. The day of my 21st birthday. Most folks elect to cut loose and enjoy the freedom that turning 21 affords. I, however — being a total loser — opted, instead, to take the 50-mile drive up the Jersey Turnpike with my friend Vincent Pereira so we could peep a film reviewed, quite favorably, by J. Hoberman in the Village Voice. It was unheard of in my neck of the woods to drive that far to see a movie (let alone a movie with zero movie stars in it), but the promise of a scene centered on a Madonna pap smear of questionable authenticity was bait enough to lure us from the Jersey ‘burbs into the wilds of Manhattan-after-dark.

After overpaying for both parking and popcorn, we settled into what seats we could find together in the packed theater of a midnight screening. And once the trailer for Hal Hartley’s Trust concluded, the Orion Classics logo lit up the screen and introduced me to my future. For the next 100 minutes or so, I was agog. My jaw literally hung open as this shaggy paean to those who follow the road not taken unspooled, offering me a glimpse into a free-associative world of ideas instead of plot, people instead of characters, and Nowheresville, Texas, instead of the usual California or New York settings most movies elected to feature (that “Nowheresville” was really Austin speaks volumes on how culturally bereft I was at the time). That night, director Richard Linklater and his film not only captured my imagination, he (and it) captured my heart — not to mention kick-started my ambition. On the hour-long drive home from the theater that night, I realized what I wanted to do with my life: I wanted to be a filmmaker. That’s the power of Slacker: if you let it, it’ll change your life. It certainly changed mine.

So if you hate me and my films, blame Richard Linklater’s Slacker. And if you love me and my films, thank Richard Linklater for Slacker. Either way, do yourself a favor and watch Richard Linklater’s Slacker here on Hulu. Right now.

Check it out, and then, if you’re in a Hulu-approved region, check out the movie for free, right now. Long live Hulu!

If you wanna take your mind off it, “Quarantine” may be a good bet in theaters this weekend — If the film is anywhere near as scary as the Spanish original it’s based on (“[Rec]“, which we checked out and dug a couple months ago), it’ll be a creepy time in the dark while you wait just three shorts weeks for Zack And Miri!